Occasionally at our most 'philosophical' moments we would discover that we hold some grossly inconsistent and irreconcilable beliefs in our minds. In response, we may choose to ignore the inconsistency by assuring ourselves that there isn't actually one, and that with the passage of time the knot will untie itself. Alternatively, and ideally what philosophers tend to do, is to reflect upon our reasoning habits and find a way to metaphorically untie the knot. Naturally (and very likely) this is going to be time-consuming, but philosophers are disposed to think that the consequences of untying the knot is itself worth the time spent on untying.
One of these 'knots', I'd like to think, is the issue of morality; more specifically, it is the task of explaining the origins of morality, and related to that, the question of why we should be moral at all.
Where does 'good' and 'bad' come from?
Why should we be 'good'?
Philosophy textbooks, or introductory books to ethics, are abound with attempts from the history of philosophy to address these two problems; but in my opinion few have been satisfactory in offering a view that is at least not blatantly inconsistent with what we feel or (we think) we know. One such inconsistency is that between God and morality: if we don't believe in the existence of God (as referred to in the Bible), why should we be moral? Since afterlife and judgment is not likely to occur, why should we be good? If we think there is a good reason to be moral, why does the thesis that God exists faces so many difficulties in explaining why so much evil exists (The Problem of Evil), in justifying omnipotence and omniscience, and in explaining significant scientific evidence (e.g. evidence for evolution)?
Do we act morally because we fear punishment from karma or God?
My personal sympathies are with the view that the personal, all-powerful and metaphysically independent-from-nature 'God' in the sense described by the Bible and classical theism fails to provide an apt description of reality. Some may label this view as atheism, but that is not the issue of debate here; my concerns are that if I am to hold the view that the Biblical God does not exist, how should I make sense of morality? Why should we be moral?
A common-sense response to this problem is what I would call the conscience (a good Chinese equivalent is 良心) reply. The reply runs as follows: since we feel 'bad' for doing immoral things, such as stealing money from an elderly woman's purse, the 'bad feeling' alone suggests that we ought to act in ways which are consistent with our conscience. Through this perspective, sympathy can perhaps be understood as one of the feelings that we get when our conscience is at work, and another example of these 'conscience-feelings' is guilt.
Does having guilt or sympathy necessarily mean that we should act according to these feelings?
What about evil psychopaths who seem to completely lack a conscience?
Before we dismiss this reply by saying that it offers no proper reason to act morally and that many people have a 'twisted conscience' that prevents them from seeing what actions are moral and what aren't, I must remark on the significance of the conscience reply. First, it offers us evidence (by introspection) that humans have an intuitive capability to distinguish between moral and immoral actions. This, I would argue, provides a basis in resisting the typical moral theories (like textbook Kantian ethics) which attempt to justify morality upon universal and objective reason. In other words, it seems that whether an action is moral or not should be judged using our feelings, and not reason. Similar arguments have been made by David Hume.
Second, the conscience reply is itself evidence that we don't always act morally because of a certain fear of punishment, judgment, and going to Hell. We may act morally according to feelings, but these feelings are not necessarily fear. Alternatively one may suggest that, consistent with the 'conscience' reply, that we sometimes act morally (sometimes, if not always) out of instinct.
Now entertain this (perhaps to some repulsive) idea for a moment: suppose the moral conscience is an evolutionary survival function that homo sapiens have developed in evolution. Just like the ability to feel pain and fear, or even the ability to use language, our moral conscience has helped us humans to live peacefully and survive effectively in social groups when we evolved. Our conscience inclines us to protect and defend the weak, and to act in ways which benefit our social group most as a whole. Our conscience motivates us to sacrifice ourselves for the greater good, to give ourselves up if we judge that it would save the lives of others we care about. Another way of seeing this is that the sense of duty that we may feel towards our parents, a friend, or a spouse forms part of this conscience.
A common sense of duty may have been important for survival: when the individuals in a social group A all act according to their conscience, group A has a higher chance of survival compared to a group B which is more 'immoral' and less keen on duties on the whole.
Does this best explain where morality comes from?
Does that mean it's not always desirable to be moral?
In Thoughts About Morality Part II, I shall examine the significance and implications of such an evolutionary theory of morality.
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