How moral beliefs are justified in evolutionary ethics

 

WHY DO WE HAVE MORAL BELIEFS?

 

What are moral beliefs?

These are arguably made up largely of moral principles: "you should do X", "you should not do Y", and responsibilities and duties connected to these.

 

How moral beliefs came about

With respect to the goal of evolutionary fitness, this is a summary of the evolution of morality:

 

 

Risky foraging niche and self-domestication

Compared with other great apes, ancient human species lived in a harsh and risky foraging niche. Great ape societies are organised through dominance relations. Dominants can't share with subordinates; instead they always take what they like. Organised collaboration is impossible under these circumstances, since it can lead to no reward.

There had to have been a process of "self-domestication" when dominance relations were largely removed, for morality to be able to evolve. From the archaeological evidence of relative male-female canine sizes, it seems that this happened 4-6 million years ago with the species Ardipithecus ramidus. A theory is that the environment became so harsh that sharing resources was personally necessary for all individuals. But males who were trying to dominate and compete with each other could not share. So females sexually selected for males who would share and not compete, and male-male competition appears to have all-but disappeared overnight (Perry, 2025).

 

Why morality as cooperation?

The experiments of Michael Tomasello and others, comparing chimpanzees and human children, have found that, regarding fairness, altruism, and commitment, chimpanzees show limited altruism and no other-directed fairness and commitment. Human children do these things mainly in the context of collaboration, and not outside it (Tomasello, 2019).

It can be demonstrated, how morality is derived from collaboration (Perry, 2024).

 

Mutual benefit, moral principles, and moral beliefs

Benefit is normative - we (instrumentally) should achieve it. This is because organisms that seek to achieve their goals are favoured by natural selection. Hence, all organisms strain their utmost to achieve fitness goals.

In a risky foraging niche, mutual benefit is personally normative - what's good for you is good for me.  A moral principle is simply a behavioural formula for achieving mutual benefit.  Those moral principles form the repertoire of our moral beliefs.  

Altruism, although the helping is one-way, can be thought of as mutualistic for two reasons: 1) the altruist is restoring mutual benefit between them and the beneficiary; 2) altruism has mutualistic evolutionary roots.

 

WHAT SHOULD WE DO?

The ultimate goals of life are to achieve evolutionary fitness. There are at least three kinds of fitness that can be achieved: proximate, reproductive, and family. According to the five evolved moral domains (and the incest taboo), we should:

 

  1. achieve mutual proximate benefit
  2. respect the sexual pair bond
  3. take care of our children
  4. oppress women for men's benefit (patriarchy); women are to be submissive and docile *
  5. care for our genetic relatives
  6. not commit incest.

 

* Each one involves mutual benefit, even (4), because both parties reproduce. Now, of course, (4) is unethical and goes against the mutual proximate benefit of (1). However, it's still a functioning moral domain - it regulates women and men.

A moral principle carries normative pressure: according to itself, I morally ought to carry it out. However, if I do not accept that principle as legitimate, its force is useless and wasted on me. It remains a moral demand, but not legitimate, let alone obligatory.

 

HOW MORAL BELIEFS ARE JUSTIFIED IN MORAL REALISM

In moral realism, a moral belief is factually justified (that is, it is factually legitimate to act upon it) if it is true. A moral belief is like an epistemological belief: a belief is justified if it is true. The justification for this theory is that it is philosophically required: if moral beliefs are not "true" then no moral beliefs are justified. However, moral beliefs are justified, therefore moral realism is true (?).

 

HOW MORAL BELIEFS ARE JUSTIFIED IN EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS

In evolutionary ethics, we describe why the moral agent feels that a moral demand is legitimate (justified). Legitimacy comes from making a contract or agreement to cooperate and therefore to be regulated. The point is, "I agree" to be regulated, therefore, the regulation is legitimate. Regulation is done according to moral principles, beliefs, responsibilities, duties, etc.

Agreements can be interpersonal/contractual, or they can take the form of the collective social contract. Group members are born into the social contract and so assume co-authorship of it, and through this the regulation by and on behalf of the group achieves legitimacy for the individual.

Legitimacy is therefore in the mind of the moral agent, whether that is the group or individual. We take the example of patriarchy. Some groups or individuals believe that patriarchy is a legitimate moral domain, and subscribe to patriarchal moral principles (sexism). Other groups or individuals do not see patriarchy as legitimate, so the moral demands of patriarchy carry no force for them.

 

REFERENCES

Perry, Simon (2024) - "How collaboration gives rise to morality"; https://orangebud.co.uk/genealogy.html

Perry, Simon (2025) - "Self-domestication of the human race" in "Understanding morality and ethics"; https://orangebud.co.uk/web_book_2.html

Tomasello, Michael (2019) – "The moral psychology of obligation"; Behavioral and Brain Sciences 43, e56: 1-58