MathemEthics

It was not the usual day at the Brookfield Zoo. A three-year boy had fallen into a gorilla enclosure. As the parents watched terrified, their shrieked intensified when they saw one of the gorillas approaching the boy. The gorilla however lifted the boy in her hands and turned to the other gorillas trying to attack him. Even as she shouted to keep other gorillas at bay, she called out to humans for help. In some time, the child safely returned to parents, who might be among a rare few but certainly not the only ones grateful to an animal for such an ‘ethical’ act.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in a television studio, a ‘believer’ argued that the world would be a terrible place without religion since it is the source of morality. Of course, the gorilla was later observed to begin its day with a verse of mahabharat, ending it with some psalms from the bible along with namaaz prayers five times a day. There’s never too much religiosity, is there?

Shallow rationality and narrow mindedness aside, let’s try to understand morality better.

Religion and the notion of right & wrong

Religion is the most commonly perceived source of morality. It indeed took charge of morality way back in human history, and still holds the majority shares at Morality Inc. At the crux of religion is moral philosophy - way of the good life – what must be done and what not. And why would the choice of a person on what should be done and what shouldn’t matter? Of course, for the ‘greater good’.

“Dharma is conducive to the highest good and which lies in the fulfilment of Vedic Injunctions - the divine command which stimulates one to act or refrain from acting in a particular way”

– Jaimini, Purva-Mimamsa-sutras

Now how do you ensure people commit to the greater good? You make the moral principles as immutable and non-negotiable as a block-chain.

“In such matters religious word or verbal testimony is the only means of knowledge. In matters religious, it is the infallible guide. The word is authoritative and has a binding force.”

The last line sounds familiar? It should. It is as firm as the law, though way less questionable. Religion was meant to be the law, the forcing hand, to push people to the greater good. Pardon my digression, but its high time humanity grows up and accepts that the publicly accepted hysterical hallucination of religion serves no purpose in today’s society. Like an inflamed appendix, it's only painful to have, and must be gotten rid of. We should shelve the holy book and pick up the Constitution.

Anyhow, religion was meant to simplify the tenets of moral philosophy at times where legal operating procedures were absent and the commons herded goats. But what becomes clear applying even basic thought is that although religion tries to own morality, it’s not the source (ta-da!). All major religions, and I stress on all, quite frequently keep reminding us that there is nothing moral about them.

1. It’s often suggested we focus on the good bits of the religious scriptures, and ignore the atrocious ones. That overall, the scripture is good. But if people are cherry-picking the good verses, they are doing so based on inherent morality. The morality is thus not derived from the scriptures, but despite it – quite thankfully so
2. Multiple studies have concluded animals have morality (in many cases much more morality than humans) – and animals don’t worship rocks
3. If religion is the source of morality, atheists should be immoral. But we are yet of hear much of atheists becoming communal pundits, pedophile popes and misogynistic maulvis
4. If morality is only guided by the perception of a big brother watching, or by the the sheer fear of judgment, that’s no morality at all

The core principles of morality, I believe, lie in the way we came about – how we evolved. Not as a society as of much late, but throughout evolutionary history.

Evolved Morality

Evolution and game theory come together in an intensely fascinating way to bring to light why certain behaviors and virtues stick around, more at a macro level (evolutionary psychology, at an individual level is yet another immensely intriguing topic). A common study done in this regard is the hawk vs dove evolution analysis, which for easy understanding treats a hypothetical society as comprising of two kinds of members – the good and the bad – as the names doves and hawks might suggest.

It studies how various populations with a different mix of doves (good members) and hawks (evil members) interact, and if they reach any stable state. For example, if the population is all doves and a genetic mutation occurs (as happens in nature) that makes a dove hawkish. Does this hawkishness spread until the population is all hawks?

The pay-offs (result of each interaction) for the members for all interactions are almost as realistically loaded as would happen in a real society. A dove interacting with a dove will result in the highest total good (“greater good”), but a hawk will get more for itself when interacting with a dove. So evil members take advantage of the good souls, when two evils collide, the result is not good for either, and so on. One might expect that with this setting, the population in the above example will over time become all hawks since they do better against any dove. In essence, ‘evil’ will spread throughout.

This expectation is reflected to some extent in most religious scriptures, popular fiction and general social understanding. It is suggested that evil keeps spreading and increasing over time. Christianity mentions evil spread so much that the whole world was drowned and only one family (Noah’s) was saved from the apocalypse since they hadn’t sinned. Only one family of doves left, eh?

Hinduism holds a similar view, reflected in the eras. The eras are Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dwapar Yuga and finally Kali Yuga, each Yuga progressively more evil than the previous.

"Yada yada hi dharmasya glanirbhavati bharata, Abhythanamadharmasya tadatmanam srijamyaham; Paritranaya sadhunang vinashay cha dushkritam, Dharmasangsthapanarthay sambhabami yuge yuge"

Loosely translates to 'when there is a rise in irreligion, when inequity increases, then I’ll come to protect the gentlemen [doves] and destroy the wicked [hawks], to establish religion, I will ascend'. 

Anyways, away from the opiate of the masses, studies have corroborated with the theory, confirming that evil does not spread completely throughout the population. The entire population doesn’t become hawks. Based on the pay-off loading, sooner or later the population reaches what is known as the Evolutionary Stable State or ESS.

It would mean if various gods are concerned only when evil has almost completely taken over, then there’s no need for them to descend from their heavenly bean bags on to the dirt of earth, because such stage will not be reached.

But what if all the ‘doves’ die (say, if Trump is re-elected)? Well, even those scenarios have been simulated where the entire starting population is hawks and a dove happens upon via mutation. It’s more of a struggle and takes longer this time, but the ESS is still achieved with a mix of doves and hawks. Again, if gods slept through the time world got dark, evil and gloomy, the sun will rise again.

“Well, once there was only dark. You ask me, the light’s winning.”

- Rust, ‘True Detective’

Why be moral

We humans have always tried to paint ourselves as vastly superior to ‘lowly’ animals and hence counted us apart from typical animal behavior. From the point of view of what we have achieved over just the past few centuries seems to more than justify the claim. We have been able to triple life expectancy, cure diseases (well, not COVID yet), and probes to space, established a complex global economic system, and so on. This seemingly puts us very much ‘ahead’ of other species. But to think we are socially, behaviourally, and hence morally much different from animals is as egocentric as a hedge fund manager before the crisis.

“…the great leap that humanity has made when it comes to many forms of cognition… the "massive difference” …is limited to introspection, advanced reasoning, and so forth, neural activities that are centred mostly in the pre-frontal cortex of the cerebrum. Nearly the entire rest of the human brain is built almost exactly as that of other apes”

- Nathan H. Lents, professor of molecular biology, University of New York

Mammals have been around on Earth for 200 Million years. Humanoid forms, for 2.5 Million years and modern humans or homo sapiens for 0.2 Million years. It would be unwise to think that over the last 0.2 million years, we have wiped clean any impact that hundreds of million years of evolution might have on us, and hence our behavior is completely different than that of animals. Abstract experience of the daily world shows, and multitude of studies have proven, otherwise. I draw similarities in human and non-human animals here to drive the point that much of morality originated from decisions on survival and prosperity as a group, individual, or as Richard Dawkins would correctly argue, the genes.

Imagine you are an early man living in a community. You would need to cooperate with your neighbor not just for food, but also for survival. You would need his help to fight off predators. You need that person to look for your best interest too, as you would for him. In essence, you need to love thy neighbor. You also need trust if you are to cooperate and hunt. Given the hostile environment, misinformation can result in getting trampled by a wildebeest you are hunting, or walking miles in the wrong direction and returning home without food for the night. Trust is based on repeated instances of honesty, making honesty the best policy. You would want others to trust you too. The simplest way to achieve this is to act the same way you would have them act for you. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

The basic premise of the survival and thriving of genes results in principles of honesty, sympathy, not harming others, trust, and so on, which then further lead to advanced values of justice, freedom, fairness, and equality, among others. The origin of morality itself is a result of evolutionary hit and trial focussing on which attributes allow more copies of its gene to be passed to the next generation. Morality didn’t wait for a divine intervention or a holy sermon to find its roots, it was a well-grown tree by the time humans evolved millions of years ago.

Although evolution has also left us with quite many ‘immoral’ behaviors or the ‘hawk’ genes as well – for e.g. it's beneficial to cheat when you can without getting noticed – it is good to note that we used social and later legal structures to reduce the instances of such immorality. We now have complex systems of checks and balances to ensure we have trust and cooperation. This has enabled a large number of barely acquainted people to work together to achieve singular objectives in massive enterprises. We have judiciary and socials norms that protect the advanced values like justice, rights, and liberties. Similar nature of trust in the state has freed people from bothering to fact check everything the government says. People can assume the tax dollars are doing an efficient job, and then instead focus on their contribution to the state. Again, some governments cannot be trusted, defeating the entire purpose.

Anyhow, despite the humble origins of morality in genetic mutations over centuries and millenniums, we should be proud of what we have made of it. Instead of ‘thou shalt not kill’ of a goat herder, we have courts of laws upholding the right to live. Instead of robbing the weak, we have tax and subsidies to ensure the welfare of the poor. Instead of foraging and plundering rival clans, we have co-operated globally to put an international space station into Earth’s orbit.

Just as we evolved from a mix of genes drifting in the ocean, to beings pushing the frontier of science every day, understanding our own origins (despite delirious religious delusions of grandeur), understanding the universe, colonizing other planets, and of course, inventing the selfie stick, we should – nay – we must understand the origins of morality, appreciate it and preserve it at all costs. 

"I think I found what is needed for happiness … the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbour – such is my idea of happiness. What more can the heart desire?”

- Leo Tolstoy