I don't believe evolutionary biologists agree that morality is a
strictly human trait. I think that it is an adaptive trait of certain
social animals and humans are just on one end of a continuum of a set of
behaviors considered "moral." That makes a lot more sense than humans
having a unique trait that has never evolved in any other social animal,
like chimpanzees for example. That said, I would not count ducks among
animals that have "morals." I would expect that our local killer whale
pods do, considering the complexity of their social interactions.

>From wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morals

"Biologists contend that all social animals, from ants to elephants,
have modified their behaviors, by restraining selfishness in order to
make group living worthwhile. Human morality, though sophisticated and
complex relative to other animals, is essentially a natural phenomenon
that evolved to restrict excessive individualism and foster human
cooperation.

On this view, moral codes are ultimately founded on emotional instincts
and intuitions that were selected for in the past because they aided
survival and reproduction (inclusive fitness). Examples: the maternal
bond is selected for because it improves the survival of offspring...

The phenomenon of 'reciprocity' in nature is seen by evolutionary
biologists as one way to begin to understand human morality. Its
function is typically to ensure a reliable supply of essential
resources, especially for animals living in a habitat where food
quantity or quality fluctuates unpredictably. For example, some vampire
bats fail to feed on prey some nights while others manage to consume a
surplus. Bats that did eat will then regurgitate part of their blood
meal to save a conspecific from starvation. Since these animals live in
close-knit groups over many years, an individual can count on other
group members to return the favor on nights when it goes hungry
(Wilkinson, 1984)

Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce (2009) have argued that morality is a
suite of behavioral capacities likely shared by all mammals living in
complex social groups (e.g., wolves, coyotes, elephants, dolphins, rats,
chimpanzees). They define morality as "a suite of interrelated
other-regarding behaviors that cultivate and regulate complex
interactions within social groups." This suite of behaviors includes
empathy, reciprocity, altruism, cooperation, and a sense of fairness.[9]
In related work, it has been convincingly demonstrated that chimpanzees
show empathy for each other in a wide variety of contexts.[10] They also
possess the ability to engage in deception, and a level of social
'politics'[11] prototypical of our own tendencies for gossip and
reputation management.

Christopher Boehm (1982) has hypothesized that the incremental
development of moral complexity throughout hominid evolution was due to
the increasing need to avoid disputes and injuries in moving to open
savanna and developing stone weapons. Other theories are that increasing
complexity was simply a correlate of increasing group size and brain
size, and in particular the development of theory of mind abilities.
Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion suggested that our morality is a
result of our biological evolutionary history and that the Moral
Zeitgeist helps describe how morality evolves from biological and
cultural origins and evolves with time within a culture."


Angela Percival
Olympia, WA
Angela at stillwater sci dot com


Message: 19
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2010 05:48:06 -0700
From: "Eric Kowalczyk" <aceros at mindspring.com>
Subject: FW: Re: [Tweeters] a question
To: "tweeters" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Message-ID: <380-22010622912486461 at mindspring.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Hi Connie,

Perhaps this is not an issue for this list serve and we can take it off
line and you contact me off line.

Dennis (who has a much better way with words than I) summed it up
nicely, with regards morality in the "wild".

one of the main principles of morality issues is: "the end does not
justify the means used".

We can talk about abortion, euthanasia, "Jihad" (elimination of
infidels), the right to bear arms, no smoking policies, the loss of
living organisms and human livelihood in the Gulf with the oil spill,
etc....and there are differences of opinions by many.....depending on
who one is talking to. Thus there are MANY grey areas regarding moral
issues. These issues are created by humans, as rules of co-operative
living in a civilization.

In nature, it is all natural selection for survival of the species. That
is evolution. It does not have to be civilized. It is what it is!

eric

----- Original Message -----
From: Connie Sidles
To: aceros at mindspring.com
Sent: 6/28/2010 12:47:39 PM
Subject: Re: [Tweeters] a question


Dear Eric, I'd be interested if you would expound further on a related
question: is nature all black-and-white or are there contradictions?
Gray areas, perhaps, or are there just exceptions (or aberrant
behavior)?

By contradictions, I guess I mean exceptions to the laws of nature?

Also, if you've got the time, I'm very interested in when human traits
of kindness, morality, and good vs evil evolved. If we are to take a
sociobiological view of human evolution (as I do), then somewhere
between a bug and us, these traits evolved. Exactly where on the
evolutionary scale did they appear?

And another interesting one: Must you have civilization to have
morality? - Connie