What society loses when it discards Judeo-Christian faith and belief in God is something far more difficult to replace: the value system most likely to promote ethical behavior and sustain a decent society. That is because without God, the difference between good and evil becomes purely subjective. What makes murder inherently wrong is not that it feels wrong,but that a transcendent Creator to whom we are answerable commands: "Thou shalt not murder." What makes kindness to others inherently right is not that human reason says so, but that God does: "Love thy neighbor as thyself; I am the Lord."

--from Jeff Jacoby, Townhall.com December 14, 2006

God cannot be the basis of morality. But if that is so, then what IS the basis for morality? Or, as my protagonist asked me in the title of one of his responses, “If not from God, then where?”

The surprising answer is evolution. Ironically, it is the very thing that fundamentalist theists rail against as promoting a might-makes-right, dog-eat-dog, kill-or-be-killed world that is responsible for our most tender feelings of love and respect, mercy, and forgiveness.

But how can this be so? Isn’t evolution survival of the fittest? To answer that is going to require a bit of explaining.

The phrase, “survival of the fittest” was first used by Herbert Spencer BEFORE Darwin published his first edition of On the Origin of Species in 1859. Darwin adopted the phrase in a later edition of his book as a simple but vivid description of his proposed mechanism of evolution, NATURAL SELECTION. Perhaps that was a mistake BECAUSE of the vividness of the phrase. It DOES cause people to envision a might-makes-right, dog-eat-dog, kill-or-be-killed world. But it doesn’t have to. Let’s take a close look and see how it REALLY works in nature.

Survival of the fittest. The first question to ask is what determines fitness? It is here that most people immediately think of might, aggressiveness, skill in combat, etc. But to find correct answer we need to go back to Darwin’s original term … natural selection.

Natural selection …  nature selects! In other words, it is NATURE that determines fitness. It is not necessarily might, aggressiveness, skill in combat, etc. that determines fitness, it is the ENVIRONMENT that the organisms lives in that determines fitness. Characteristics like might, aggressiveness, skill in combat will only be selected for in environments that such characteristics help the organism survive and reproduce. In environments that such characteristics are not helpful, these characteristics will not be selected for and may be selected against.

So to determine what characteristics are actually beneficial requires a close look at the organism’s environment. What is the most important component of our environment that determines our reproductive success? I suppose that if you asked different evolutionary biologists that question you would get several different answers. Here is my answer … other people.

We are STRONGLY social animals. We live with other people about us all the time. We depend on other people all the time. Our ability to survive depends on us getting along with other people. And it has been this way over evolutionary time. Our early ancestors lived in social groups going back millions of years. They too counted on each other to survive. Cooperation was a necessity or they wouldn’t survive. This environment sets the stage such that any inheritable trait that promotes cooperation is a prime candidate for positive selection.

So contrary to the fundamentalist doctrine of “original sin”, we are not born with a predisposition to be selfish and do bad things, we are born with a genetic predisposition to cooperate and do good! If that is the case, then why do we ever do bad?

The reason we do bad is because our behaviors are not fully controlled by genetic factors. Our behaviors are also learned. Learning is a very adaptive trait. It allows us to discover things about novel situations. Overall it is BIG PLUS for us. So it too is selected for. We have genes that affect our ability to learn, but I do not think we have genes that affect our ability as to WHAT we learn. Without some type of inheritable trait, natural selection will have nothing to work on. In that case we will always be able to learn bad things as well as good things.

Some people are bound to learn that taking unfair advantage of others gives them a short term reward. So then, why doesn’t THIS behavior dominate our society? Because our society IS our environment. It can’t exist that way and without society those behaviors do not produce those rewards.

To see this, let’s look at a hypothetical society. I’m going to use my protagonist’s question, “Is it OK to murder people?”, as an inspiration here. Let’s suppose in our hypothetical society is perfectly fine to do just that. If you have something I want it is perfectly expected and acceptable to everyone for me to try and kill you to take it. What kind of society would that be?

Well, the first thing I would have to note is that if it is OK for me to do that to you, it must also be OK for you to do that to me. I don’t think either of us would trust the other. In fact, NOBODY could trust anyone else. Why would I do anything for anyone else? At best, I might get something in return from them that would motivate someone else to kill me to get it. In that case, there would be no goods and services in that society.

So what could I do? The best I could do in such a society is to carve out as much land that might have enough resources on it to keep me alive and if lucky attract a mate. I would try my best to protect this territory from others. It would turn out that killing them probably would require more of my resources than running them off, so in most cases there wouldn’t necessarily be killing.

Are there any “societies” like this? Well, sort of. Grizzly Bears. But we normally call them “solitary” animals.

It turns out that the only society in which a person is likely to be rewarded for killing someone else is a society in which such behavior is rare. It also turns out that the only societies that are stable are societies in which such behaviors are rare.

So, our societies and behaviors have a feedback relationship to them. The structure of societies affects behaviors and behaviors affect the structure of societies. Stable societies tend to be societies in which the vast majority of people practice acceptable behaviors. That is … good morals.

So where does that leave us? We evolved as social animals. That required us to cooperate. Genes predisposing us to cooperate were selected for. Thus, we have a genetic predisposition for such cooperative behaviors allowing a strengthening and stabilization of society. Societies and behavior reinforce each other ensuring a majority of people practice good morals. Or at least that is my view on the subject.

From Darwin's Beagle