Darwinian altruism and morality: a 101 for brock.

"Red in tooth and claw" this phrase fits well with life in the non-human animal world, if we compare it to our own existence. But the animal kingdom is bursting with examples of altruism too, which can be trivially explained in terms of natural selection.

Also: this vid sketches a plausible account of the emergence of morality.

I quoted from 'The myth of Morality' by Richard Joyce, a superb book:
http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Morality-Cambridge-Studies-Philosophy/dp/0521808065

@brock, I hope you learned something, but please don't worry about addressing this video. I'd much prefer you follow through on your promise to address my previous video to you, entitled What is it about God's commands that makes them categorical imperatives?' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66MFLzf1N_8

Category:

Education

Tags:

• richard joyce
• brock
• morality
• altruism
• the selfish gene
• dawkins
• fictionalism
• myth

[notreason]

i think you need to look up the term "just so story" because you are telling a lot of them. you can make up any STORY for any behavior.

evolutionary psychology has no scientific rigor.

You find that people cooperate, you say, Yeah, that contributes to their genes' perpetuating. You find that they fight, you say, Sure, thats obvious, because it means that their genes perpetuate and not somebody else's. In fact, just about anything you find, you can make up some story for it.

[bitbutter]

The purpose of this video is to sketch a couple of evolutionary accounts for morality and altruism because brock seemed unaware that such accounts exist. Since I made no claim that these accounts had been rigorously tested your complaint is out of place.

[Danmill23]

Morality = (or equate to) instinct?

Could animal instincts (the thing that makes animals do things) be what we call morality?

Do we posses more free will than animals and thus we experience our instincts in a "watered down" form as morals?

Just responding off the cuff.

[bitbutter]

Hi Danmill. I think that the idea of free will is incoherent (see my vid "free will be glad you don't have it", I think it's called).

I think that behavioural instincts (behavioural 'programs' like feeding chicks etc) are distinct from what i'm calling morality. It seems likely to me that morality is something that emerges later on, evolutionarily speaking, in social animals with some capacity for concept formation and abstract thought.

[Neilsama]

Brock Lawley is simply hunting for anomalies. He looks for something that he assumes that evolution can't explain and then asks stupid, insulting rhetorical questions without an expectation of ever receiving an answer.

I'm sure in his warped little mind, he thinks that this is all it takes to undermine a powerful theory, but yet again, he fails to understand that even if we didn't understand the origin of morality, evolution stands firm, regardless.

The guy is an idiot.

[notreason]

prove to me that humans are even altrusitic.

kin selection predicts that humans will be altruistic toward relatives in proportion to their relatedness, while reciprocal altruism predicts that we will be altruistic toward people from whom we can expect altruism in the future (but not strangers). A story of any complexity can be constructed to fit any behaviour, but, nothing distinguishes one story from another experimentally.

[C0nc0rdance]

Even bacteria are known to cooperate in a way that is a bit like altruism. Look up bacterial quorum sensing.

[TheBlackwaterDemon]

"Must-be-done-ness" - I'm going to hang onto that one, haha, that's a great way of describing moral obligations, and nicely sets them apart from more compassionate actions.

Nicely argued, as usual.

[tooltime9901]

glad to see you back making videos again.

[Subfightr]

Right on, I was gonna subscribe to you but when I clicked the button... I find I am already subscribed :)

EVOLUTION RULES. Keep educating the world on it bro. It totally changed my life for the better... I hope... regardless of the fact that I lost a lot of friends and have offended family members, still the theory is so beautiful I would not trade it for the world.

[Chrisnoscrub047]

5 star.

[dewonthegrass]

Excellent and exhaustive answer. You explained this not very easy subject very clearly. TheAtheistAntidote doesn't have an excuse any more to make the erroneous pronouncements he has been making lately on his videos about "absolute truth", does he?