Thread: Morality and its source

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Absolutely part of the question. Which came first, the cultural influences or the intuitive ? Maybe it is a chicken and egg question.

I lean towards an evolutionary explanation. There is a bunch of literature on the "altruistic instinct" -- and I see "altruism" as a fancy word for the golden rule.

I have not explored this very deeply and am only aware of the mentioned literature from a Google search I just did looking (unsuccessfully) for a book I read many years ago that did discuss this.

The book discussed computerized experiments involving the "Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma" that showed an evolutionary advantage to altruism. This depended on the "iterated" aspect -- expecting to deal with the same "player" again in the future. This may even hint at a partial answer to why different cultures tend to be less altruistic towards each other than they are internally.

EDIT: As to "chicken and egg". Perhaps it's like tool use. We have the built in ability to both use and invent tools but culture gives each generation a leg up on technique. Maybe we are just not as good at this with morality as we are with tools.

UPDATE: Found the book I was looking for: The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod, Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-02122-2 (1984).

I see an updated version is available on Amazon: Amazon.com: The Evolution of Cooperation: Revised Edition (9780465005642): Robert Axelrod: Books (along with a few other Axelrod books).

There is a Wikipedia article: The Evolution of Cooperation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia