Evolution: The Theory’s Implication to Ethics and Human Life

In non-theist standpoint like evolutionist-Darwinist, mankind is essentially nothing but just like a cosmic rock lost somewhere in a purposeless universe doomed to perish soon. In this worldview, it’s inexplicable how objective value or goodness can be accounted for.

– Jens Micah De Guzman (author of Ethics textbook)

Today’s most famous Darwinist-evolutionist Richard Dawkins believes that one can be an atheist and be, among others, “moral” (2006, p. 1). In his The God Delusion (2009), he even suggests that moral values— along with minds, beauty, emotions—compose “the full gamut of phenomena that gives richness to human life” (2006, pp. 13-14). But while subscribing to Darwinist worldview, can anyone truly acknowledge morality?

Evolution and Ethics

In Ethics, Darwin’s findings are said to have provided documentary support for the theory proposed by sociologist Herbert Spencer, sometimes called evolutionary ethics. It holds that morality is merely the product of some habits acquired by human race in the course of evolution.

Proponents of sociobiology—a ‘new science’ that attempts to extend the principle of natural selection to social behavior of animals, including humans—even aver that altruism, moral actions, and everything in morality are rightfully explained by evolution (Hevly, 2008). In his book The God Delusion (2009), today’s most active evolutionist Richard Dawkins proposes his theory on “(Darwinian) roots of morality” and militantly advocates that our morals should not be based on God and Scriptures (Dawkins, 2006).

Darwinism: Can it account for morality?

Darwinists generally consider ethics to be nothing more than a human invention. Particularly, it views morality as a biological adaptation that is conducive to our survival and reproduction. As famous Darwinists Michael Ruse and E.O. Wilson confess, “Ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes in order to get us to cooperate” (Ruse & Wilson, 1989, p. 51).

In his The Darwinian Paradigm, Ruse further avers that morality—along with our hands, feet, and teeth—is the “ephemeral product” of evolution and simply “an aid to survival and reproduction, and has no being beyond this” (Ruse, 1989, p. 268).

Michael Shermer correspondingly explains that to ask why we should be moral is like asking why we should itch or be hungry (Shermer, 2004, p. 57). Clearly, morality in Darwinist worldview only has biological worth—an adaptive feature which aids survival and reproduction.

Critique of evolution-based ethics

We have at least two basic comments:

(1) This evolutionary ethical worldview commits the ‘is-ought problem’; and connectedly,

(2) it cannot really account for moral obligations and genuine moral values.

Philosopher Paul Copan, explaining Darwinism’s guilt of ‘is-ought’ fallacy, states:

“… how do we move from the ‘is’ of nature and science to the ‘ought’ of moral obligation and value. If our morality is simply evolved, all we can do is describe how human beings actually function; we can’t prescribe how humans ought to behave. There’s no difference between whether I ought to be moral and whether I ought to be hungry since both are functions of evolutionary hardwiring. These states just are.” (Copan, 2007, p. 88)

Concerning our second comment, philosopher Deane-Peter Baker pertinently comments, “Once one recognizes that, in evolutionary terms, morality is simply a kind of shortcut way of ensuring evolutionary fit, it’s hard to see why one should care much about morality at all.” (Baker, 2007. p. 10)

In fact, some find it ironic that Dawkins and other evolutionists can feel comfortable using and recognizing such notions as “moral or immoral”. As P.M. Doyle comments, “Within Dawkins’ framework, terms such as “good” and “bad” aren’t just different or a tad shallower than otherwise; they are rendered completely unrecognizable. In fact, it is downright weird to read Dawkins’ beliefs about such concepts.” (Doyle, 2009)

Finally, our biggest ‘witness’ to our point that evolutionary worldview cannot account for ethical concepts is none other than Richard Dawkins himself. In a debate against Dawkins, well respected scientist Francis Collins points out:

“For you to argue that our noblest acts are a misfiring of Darwinian behavior does not do justice to the sense we all have about the absolutes that are involved here of good and evil. Evolution may explain some features of the moral law, but it can’t explain why it should have any real significance. If it is solely an evolutionary convenience, there is really no such thing as good or evil. …. What you’ve said implies that outside of the human mind, tuned by evolutionary processes, good and evil have no meaning.”(Biema, 2007, p. 38)

Collins is suggesting that in evolutionary worldview, good and evil have no meaning. When he afterwards asks Dawkins, “Do you agree with that?” the evolutionist was forced to bluntly answer, “Even the question you’re asking has no meaning to me. Good and evil—I don’t believe that there is hanging out there, anywhere, something called good and something called evil.” (Biema, 2007, pp. 39)

So ‘Darwin’s apostle’ bravely admits that Darwinism is simply incapable to account for morality. To his answer, Collins just simply retorts, “I think that is a fundamental difference between us. I’m glad we identified it” (Biema, 2007, pp. 40).

Finally, we may ask the evolutionists, “If nature is all there is, how do we move from the way things are (the descriptive) to the way things ought to be (the prescriptive)?”

In the absence of God, it is so hard to think that human beings have non-material properties such as consciousness, reasoning power, personhood, and especially moral sense and values. No physical science textbook explains moral value as one of matter’s properties. So we ask, how could morally valuable and responsible beings emerge from valueless matter? … continue reading

Read: Is Evolution true and scientific?

© 2014-present by Jensen DG. Mañebog

Also Check Out: Why I Am Not an Evolutionist 

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