Survival of the Nicest

I read an Atlas Society interview with Michael Shermer, the author of The Science of Good and Evil. Dr. Shermer made some comments that really clarified for me my own beliefs in rational ethics. I believe that ethics and morality can be explained through the basic mechanics of evolution.

For example, let’s postulate a lone hunter-gatherer – a caveman. (Creationists, you can play along, too – I don’t see a lot of difference between the lifestyle of my lone caveman and that of Adam’s son Abel. Or assume a less-famous person from 100 years after Abel’s death, if you prefer.) This one person is solely responsible for feeding himself. He has no one else to take care of, and is free to consider anyone else he meets as a victim to be robbed, or even as prey to kill. Survival of the fittest, right?

Wrong. Let’s further assume that his two nearest neighbors have banded together. If they’re hunting, they can watch one another’s back, or one can flush game while the other lies in wait. They can guard each other while sleeping. Most especially, they can come at our lone hunter from two directions if combat becomes necessary. A pair of partners is “more fit” for that environment, and is more likely to survive.

The same logic applies to larger groups – a small band can hunt larger animals, more easily defend against other individuals or groups, and may even be able to produce enough excess food to support a non-productive person. That person may be the old chief, too old to hunt, but still able to pass on his years of experience. Or a dreamer – who, in his spare time, comes up with fire, or the wheel, or the bow. The band can even continue to support the children of a hunter who dies…which means that his DNA lives on. Again, this more cooperative hunter is more fit to survive and reproduce.

And so on up to villages, cities, nations. A person who can function in and provide benefit to a society is more fit to survive and to pass his genes on to the next generation. Functioning within a society requires the ability to get along with people, and to obey the laws of that society – and in general, those laws are rooted in ethical and moral behavior.

This sort of reasoning applies to more than just grouping people, of course. A society that is rooted in ethical behavior provides more benefits to itself and to the individuals within it – making it superior in any competition between societies. A slave society cannot compete with a free society, because slaves are not as productive as freemen – and yet they still have to be fed and cared for. Admittedly, the slaves don’t cost as much to feed or maintain as their masters, but the extra cost of guarding them, chasing down or killing runaways or rebellious slaves, and so on, eats up extra resources – enough extra to make a free society more productive on a per capita basis. In other words, behavior that benefits a subgroup, but hurts the society as a whole, is NOT as competitive.

Communism would seem to be the endpoint of such societal evolution – after all, “to each according to need, from each according to ability” would be the ultimate in cooperative society. However, unlike the other advances I mentioned, Communism provides benefits to the society ONLY – it does not directly provide benefits to the individuals that comprise it. That “need and ability” equation means the individual gets the same reward for working hard or slacking off, for inventiveness and creativity or for mindless drudgery – and of course, working hard or creatively is tougher. To generalize again, behavior that benefits society, but hurts the individual, is also not as competitive. This is why the Soviet Union fell apart, and why China is still second in the world for Gross Domestic Product, despite having four and a half times the population of the U.S.

So once again, ethics and morality in general make just as much sense to a rational atheist as they do to a theist – albeit with some disagreement on what issues should be included. It isn’t much…but for the good of our society and ourselves, maybe that could provide some common ground.

Legal Victims

It amazes me how many laws seem to be designed to hurt the victims. Let’s take a look at three examples.

Medically assisted suicide – Clearly the victim of a suicide is the person who wants to die. Most laws that specifically cover assisted suicide, though, provide punishment to those who assist, in an attempt to keep them from doing so. This takes away the last option from a terminally ill patient. A patient who has no chance for long-term survival and who is in constant pain is told that he must continue to suffer indefinitely. A person who can see his own mind slipping away day by day is told he must continue to the end, so his loved ones can experience the pain of his lack of recognition, so they can see him lose all that makes him a person. We don’t do such things to our pets – when they are beyond hope, when they can no longer live without pain, we end their lives. But we are not allowed to ask for such service for ourselves.

Prostitution – The only reasonable candidate I can find for a victim of prostitution is the prostitute herself. After all, most prostitutes give up all or most of their money to a pimp or madam. They are often the victims of violence from their customers, and cannot pursue legal remedies against them. They risk disease and unwanted pregnancy. Many of them are virtual slaves, kept in line through drug addiction, fear of deportation or abandonment in a foreign country, or simply the threat of violence, a threat that is often carried out. It seems to me, though, that all of these problems are the result of making the act illegal. If prostitution was legal, it could be licensed, inspected, controlled. The prostitute would keep the money she earned. They could receive medical care, and be legally protected from violence. There would be less financial benefit to enslaving women, so it would happen less. I don’t see prostitution becoming a respected profession anytime soon, but if it were legal, they would no longer have to be victims.

Illegal drug use – The victim here is the general public. Drug dealers have made inner-city streets into low-grade war zones. People die because they happened to be walking down the wrong street, or were standing near a window at the wrong time. People are robbed by addicts who need money to support their thousand-dollar-a-day habit – and sometimes killed by the addicted robber. As long as there is a demand for intoxicating drugs, though, there will be someone willing to supply them. Making it illegal makes it much riskier to provide that supply, but that merely causes the price to rise until someone is willing to take the risk. These days, the various criminal organizations have worked out ways to protect themselves – the only people really at risk of prosecution are the low-level distributors. Above that level, the criminals make incredible fortunes, with virtually no risk. I have heard it said, in fact, that these criminal groups provide financial support to candidates who promise to be “tough on drugs”; they keep the prices, and profits, high. If drugs become legal, then legitimate suppliers will enter the market. Production prices are comparatively low, and distribution networks are already in place – every corner drug store can be a supplier, or perhaps we could use liquor stores or tobacco shops. And the Mafia and other criminal groups instantly lose their greatest source of income, cutting back their ability to buy weapons, hire crooked lawyers, bribe police officers and judges, and even to pay their huge bands of low-level criminals. Obviously, there would be problems – but performing dangerous activities (like driving) while intoxicated is ALREADY illegal, so amending the laws to cover new intoxicants should not be difficult. Just as with alcohol, children should not be allowed to use drugs – but right now it is easier for a child to get marijuana than wine. Making marijuana legal allows us to use the same enforcement system already in place for alcohol. And so on…

There is, of course, one common thread among these laws. All of them are the result of translating religious restrictions into law. They were not enacted to protect the public from criminals; they were enacted to “protect” people from their own base urges – to protect people from themselves. As long as we keep legislating morality, we will continue to pay the price.

Ethical Atheism

I read another article on Space.com, about the new attack on evolution, Intelligent Design. In it, they quoted Sen. Santorum (R, PA) as saying "If we are the result of chance, if we're simply a mistake of nature, then that puts a different moral demand on us. In fact, it doesn't put a moral demand on us."

This, to me, is the result of sloppy thinking. People who believe in God seem to believe that without God, we would all be useless hedonistic criminals. We'd rob, rape, kill at will to satisfy whatever transient urge happened to pass through our maddened Godless brains. That turns out not to be the case. (I've been told that's a more polite way to express myself when I really want to say "Bulls**t!")

Atheism puts a GREATER moral burden on us, even from the most selfish of viewpoints. Without a promise of Heaven, we have only this life to make the best of it. Without a threat of Hell, we can only depend on our own intelligence to decide how best to do that. And a dog-eat-dog world where the strongest bully wins is not my idea of an Earthly Paradise.

Let's take a closer look. If everyone is out solely for themselves, and there is no societal framework, only the biggest or most ruthless will prosper - everyone else will serve the few rulers in basically a slave society. An intelligent Atheist can see that the odds of him being the biggest or most ruthless are slim, and it is far more likely to end up as one of the downtrodden masses. With that in mind, that's not the society I'd choose.

Even if you ARE the biggest and most ruthless...let's say you are the absolute ruler of your society. You've built more than 50 castles, you've got hot and cold running servants (not much in the way of technological comfort, but enough servants keeps that from being YOUR problem). Your picture is everywhere, thousands of people cheer your name everywhere you go. You don't have the power of life, but you do have the power of death - you can point to any individual that crosses your path, speak a few words...and that person will be dead within the hour. You have it all, and no one can challenge you! But...how do you sleep? Who can you turn your back on? If you remember, Saddam Hussein had all that. How's he doing now? Is that really a good life to strive for? And even if you avoid all the hazards...what are you leaving for your children? With no immortality, your children are REALLY the only way to live on past your death!

No, in my opinion, the best we can do to make Heaven on Earth is a rational society, with a strong legal framework and respect for individual rights. You know, kind of like the U.S.A. We're still not perfect, but we're better than 'most anywhere else. An ethical Atheist participates in his society to make it better for everyone, as the best way to benefit himself and his loved ones. That's a moral demand far beyond the "carrot and stick" method of most religions. And as for the next person who tells me I have no morals because I don't believe in his god...well, I won't do anything to him, because I support his right to believe differently - I'm even sworn to defend it with my life, if necessary. I just hope he recognizes that right for me.