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.
- 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
- Multiple studies have concluded animals have morality (in many cases much more morality than humans) – and animals don’t worship rocks
- 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
- 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