Genesis of Morality - Morality explained in terms of how we would create it

Actually written DECEMBER 12, 2010 -

This writing is an experiment in understanding morality. The idea is to pretend the following: 1, that initially, morality does not exist and 2, that we are superpotent beings who can bring morality into existence and 3, that bringing morality into existence is precisely what we shall do. We are going to build morality step by step. And by following this step-by-step process, we will gain a deep understanding of what morality is.

Before we begin to design and build morality, let’s pause to observe humans without morality. What causes their behavior without morality? Their behavior is caused by their motivations, desire and aversion. Loosely put, humans without morality simply do what they most want to do.

Motivation as a cause of behavior is actually quite complex, for humans are filled with many of them which conflict with one another or that exist merely for the sake of some other, ultimate motivations. But regardless of this complexity, the whole scheme is deterministic. Physiology, chemistry, and emotional responses to the world cause certain brain and mind states. These brain and mind states determine some basic motivations, and motivations do a complex dance of causal relating to one another and to knowledge of the world to determine action. The resulting action is deterministic and automatic.

So let us design a new cause for behavior in addition to motivation, but one that is not deterministic. Let us make the human animal the locus of an original cause, a cause for behavior that has absolutely no prior cause. Physiology, chemistry and emotional responses to the world may still cause brain and mind states, but these brain and mind states shall not cause this new behavior cause. This new behavior cause shall be independent of all antecedent facts. And we will call it volition. Once endowed with volition, humans can choose their behavior independently of any physiological or environmental or mental factor playing out in their constitutions.

Now, however, we face a problem. How shall humans choose their behavior? What’s to stop these choices from being completely and chaotically random? Nothing. Without prior cause, these behavior choices may as well be chaotically random. And random behavior makes survival impossible. And we superpotent beings find this unacceptable. So now that we have escaped determinism we face the problem of indeterminism.

Given that we superpotent beings want humans to survive, we need to direct human choice toward a unifying goal compatible with survival. Humans must still have absolute volition, but there must be some way to sway these choices toward survival. But how? If choices become swayed, they are no longer volitional choices. What shall we do?

We could let motivation lure humans to the survival-promoting choices. Supposing evolution has already selected motivations that promote survival, this would fix the problem. But not really, because that would just make motivation the real cause of human choice. Besides, there are other choices we superpotent beings want humans to choose, other than just those that support survival. And many of these other choices we want humans to choose have no corresponding motivation. In many cases we want humans to choose against their motivations. For example, we want them to choose against their desires to hurt one another. So we need a lure other than motivation. So here’s what we’ll do.

We will create a pseudo-cause for behavior, one that informs volition of what to choose, but without determining what volition will in fact choose. This means that when a human considers all the choices available, one of those choices shall somehow stand out in a way that lures the human to that choice, but does not compromise the human’s capacity to choose any of the other behaviors. We will call this lure “a sense of obligation” and the study of it “morality”.

Now when the human looks out at reality, she will experience two kinds of things toward which to direct action, two kinds of goals. One type of goal are those to which motivation directs. The other type of goal are those to which morality directs. Sometimes the two goals converge on the same object, such that satisfying one goal also satisfies the other, but sometimes not. In the cases where the two types of goal do not converge, the moral goal shall appear to override the motivational goal. In fact, even in the convergent case, the moral goal shall appear stronger than the motivational goal. For consistency, moral goals shall be stronger than motivational goals.

But again, whatever strength either of these goals may be, neither are “strong enough” to determine human behavior. Volition remains the ultimate cause of behavior.

The goals of morality we will call “the good” and all contrary goals we will call “the bad”. The pursuit of morality’s goals we will call “obligation” or “duty” and the pursuit of all contrary goals we will call “vice”.

The tendency to pursue the goals of morality we will call “virtue” and the tendency to pursue all others we will also call “vice”.

This concludes the experiment.

I believe the experiment successfully shows the nature and structure of morality. Most importantly, it shows how morality can be regarded as a solution to the problem of indeterminism. This is shown clearly when we pretend to build morality step by step. And this step-by-step understanding of morality is what I call the “genesis model of morality”.

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