From: cdminter@icaen.uiowa.edu (Corey D Minter)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Atheism and Morals was Re: ...and dating
Date: 17 Nov 92 23:15:06 GMT
Organization: University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

svanegmo@mobius09.math.uwaterloo.ca (Stephen Van Egmond) writes:

>Not all people determine their morals by the trends of the day.

>Others prefer to start with a basic, simple set of axioms, such as:
>  1. A person has the right to control his/her own life and the products of that life.
>  2. No person may act in such a way that prevents another from enjoying their
>life or the products therefrom.

>From here, one logically deduces one's code of behaviour, ethics, and morality.  This 
>is called objective morality, rather than subjective ("mooshy") morality, which changes
>as times change.

Using the argument often posed of subjective morality, try looking a little deeper.
If you look at most cultures where say murder is justified it usually comes down to what
the culture deemed is considered a person or equal (I don't know what the best word would
be).  Some tribes would think of other tribe members at not people, some whites think that
somehow blacks are not people like themselves.  In addition, it is not always a conscious 
attitude.  I beleive that racists would somehow become enlightened if they would just take
a moment and consider how absurd/inconsistent their values are.  When societies broadened
their idea of what a person is (there are always outliers in the society), it is percieved
as a change in morality but on some other level it is still the same morality.

Am I being clear?

>From objective morality comes such things as it is wrong to murder, rape, or steal from
>someone.  That if you want something in your life, you must work for it rather than ride
>on the backs of the people who do work.

>It is a highly effective and (compared to morality by decree from a god) much more 
>comfortable to live by.

I think everyone would benefit from reading the FAQ in talk.origin especially with 
respect to why we can have apparent cooperation with individuals that are indirectly only
pursuing their survival.  Many people might not like to think of their altruism as a means
of selfish survival.

Here is the important part written by Chris Colby...
The individual organism is what reproduces or fails to reproduce. It 
competes primarily with others of it own species for its reproductive 
success. For this reason organisms do not perform any behaviors that are 
for the good of their species. Natural selection favors selfish behavior 
because any truly altruistic act increases the recipient's reproductive 
success while lowering the donors. Altruists would quickly disappear 
from a population as the non-altruists would reap the benefits, but not 
pay the cost, of any altruistic act.

Of course, many observable behaviors appear, at first glance, to be 
altruistic in nature. Biologists, however, can demonstrate (in the cases 
they have studied) that these behaviors are only apparently altruistic. 
Cooperating with or helping other organisms is often the most selfish 
strategy for an animal. Often this is called "reciprocal altruism", an 
oxymoron if there ever was one. A good example of this is blood sharing 
in vampire bats. In these bats, those lucky enough to find a meal will 
often share part of it with an unsuccessful bat by regurgitating some 
blood into the others mouth. Biologists have found that these bats form 
bonds with partners and help each other out when the other is needy. If 
a bat is found to be a "cheater", (i.e. he accepts blood when starving, but 
does not donate when his partner is) his partner will abandon him. 
Helping closely related organisms can appear altruistic; but this is also a 
selfish behavior. An organisms reproductive success (or fitness) has two 
components; direct fitness and indirect fitness. An organisms direct 
fitness is a measure of how many alleles it contributes to the subsequent 
generation's gene pool by reproducing. An organisms indirect fitness is a 
measure of how many alleles that are identical it's own it helps enter the 
gene pool. An organism's direct fitness plus its indirect fitness is called 
its inclusive fitness. Natural selection favors behaviors increase an 
organism's inclusive fitness. Closely related organisms share many of the 
same alleles. For example, in diploid species, siblings share at least 50% 
of their alleles -- the percent is higher if the parents are related. So, 
helping close relatives to reproduce gets an organisms own alleles better 
represented in the gene pool. The benefit of helping relatives increases 
dramatically in highly inbred species. In some cases, organisms will 
completely forgo reproducing and only help their relatives reproduce. 
Ants, for example, have sterile castes that only serve the queen and 
allow her to reproduce. The sterile workers are reproducing by proxy. 

Keep in mind that the words "selfish" and "altruistic" have connotations in 
everyday use that biologists do not intend. "Selfish" simply means 
behaving in an attempt to maximize ones' own inclusive fitness; 
"altruistic" means behaving in an attempt to increase anothers fitness 
without regard to ones' own. This is not meant to imply that organisms 
consciously understand their motives. 
-- 
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