Natural Morality For Survival
Because of the instinctive nature of sympathy and its general recurrence among many socigal animals, Darwin deduces this emotional character must be inherited through natural selection. From a naturalist point of view, it is probable that instinctive sympathy was first developed for animals to thrive by living in society just as the pleasure of eating was first acquired to induce animals to eat. In this sense, morality is a crucial instinct for survival in social animals. As Darwin notes in The Descent of Man,:
| “ | No tribe could hold together if murder, robbery, treacher, etc, were common. | ” |
Instinctive altruism effectively enables individuals to guarantee survival of the group, which in turn will aid survival of the individual. In The Descent of Man, Darwin notes:
| “ | Actions regarded by savages, and were probably so regarded by primeval man, are good or bad, solely as they obviously affect the welfare of the tribe - not that of the species, nor that of an individual member of the tribe. This conclusion agrees well with the belief that the so-called moral sense is aboriginally derived from the social instincts, for both relate at first exclusively to the community. | ” |
Read more about this topic: Natural Morality, Darwinian Morality
Famous quotes containing the words natural, morality and/or survival:
“Parents fear lest the natural love of their children may fade away. What kind of nature is that which is subject to decay? Custom is a second nature which destroys the former. But what is nature? For is custom not natural? I am much afraid that nature is itself only a first custom, as custom is a second nature.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“The most successful career must show a waste of strength that might have removed mountains, and the most unsuccessful is not that of the man who is taken unprepared, but of him who has prepared and is never taken. On a tragedy of that kind our national morality is duly silent.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“It is almost as if you were frantically constructing another world while the world that you live in dissolves beneath your feet, and that your survival depends on completing this construction at least one second before the old habitation collapses.”
—Tennessee Williams (1914–1983)