[atrifix]

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There's been a lot of talk on here about morality, what is moral, and so on. I'm curious what role people think morality played in the evolutionary development of human beings?

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Personally I think the interesting question is not whether morality is inconsistent with evolution, but rather whether evolution can explain morality (or rather, our perceptions thereof) as developing naturally and being beneficial to a species.

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Let's face it... Nature is cruel and merciless. Witness a pride of lions attacking a single over size prey. Or a black widow spider that eats its mate. How about that insect which paralyzes a catipillar and lays its eggs inside the body so the larvae will eat their way out devouring the catipillar alive for nourishment.

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Humans do some pretty cruel and merciless things, too. Consider that millions of cows are held on industrial farms and essentially converted directly into food. Extinctions have gone up exponentially since the speciation of humans. But we don't usually seem to consider these things to be amoral--only when they get to a point where they begin to threaten the ecosystem as a whole or our own survival do we consider something to be wrong.

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Morality seems to have no place for any other species but man. Why is that?

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I'm not sure how you determined that. Did you interview other species for their thoughts on morality?

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My personal belief is that man is best suited for survival in large numbers. The most intelligent man will struggle if left alone. So man is a serious pack animal and must have morals so as not to alienate too large a part of the pack at any one time.

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This seems to me the most plausible explanation, but I am not terribly knowledgeable about the subject either. Suppose, though, that we have three people, one strong and two weak, and the weaker two can collectively overtake the stronger, at cost to themselves. It would seem from an evolutionary game-theoretic point of view that the optimal thing to do is for everyone to cooperate, although this would be pretty difficult to show.