Conservatives have it backwards. The universal condemnation of things like stealing and murder are not a sign that religion shapes our morality, but that our morality shapes our religions. We don't need God to know why this or that act is wrong. We sense it at a deeper level as do our closest relatives.
Of course, as humans with a somewhat higher logical capacity (i.e., not the conservatives) we are capable of making inferences and deriving laws.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/03/21/174830095/frans-de-waals-bottom-up-morality-were-not-good-because-of-god
In a book coming out next week called The Bonobo and the Atheist, primatologist Frans de Waal argues that morality is built into our species. Rather than coming to us top-down from God, or any other external source, morality for de Waal springs bottom-up from our emotions and our day-to-day social interactions, which themselves evolved from foundations in animal societies.
For 30 years, de Waal has authored books about apes and monkey that open our eyes to the bottom-up origins of our human behaviors, ranging from politics to empathy. In this, his 10th volume, he extends that perspective by writing, "It wasn't God who introduced us to morality; rather, it was the other way around. God was put into place to help us live the way we felt we ought to."
"The way we felt we ought to" has a long evolutionary history, so that de Waal's thesis depends crucially on numerous and convincing examples from our closest living relatives.
Azalea, a trisomic rhesus macaque (trisomic = born with three copies of a certain chromosome), had abnormal motor and social skills, in ways somewhat akin to humans with Down syndrome. Instead of punishing her "incomprehensible blunders," such as threatening the alpha male, the other macaques were accepting and forgiving of her until Azalea's death at age three. Female chimpanzees may confront and shut down an overly aggressive male, sometimes even pulling two adversaries close together for reconciliation, or prying rocks from an aroused males' hands.
In cases like these, animals are feeling empathy, then acting on that feeling with displays of kindness or help, behavior that de Waal calls sympathy. The empathy is purely embodied — literally felt in the body — and part of our evolved biology. "Our brains have been designed to blur the line between self and other," he writes. "It is an ancient neural circuitry that marks every mammal, from mouse to elephant."
Of course, as humans with a somewhat higher logical capacity (i.e., not the conservatives) we are capable of making inferences and deriving laws.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/03/21/174830095/frans-de-waals-bottom-up-morality-were-not-good-because-of-god
In a book coming out next week called The Bonobo and the Atheist, primatologist Frans de Waal argues that morality is built into our species. Rather than coming to us top-down from God, or any other external source, morality for de Waal springs bottom-up from our emotions and our day-to-day social interactions, which themselves evolved from foundations in animal societies.
For 30 years, de Waal has authored books about apes and monkey that open our eyes to the bottom-up origins of our human behaviors, ranging from politics to empathy. In this, his 10th volume, he extends that perspective by writing, "It wasn't God who introduced us to morality; rather, it was the other way around. God was put into place to help us live the way we felt we ought to."
"The way we felt we ought to" has a long evolutionary history, so that de Waal's thesis depends crucially on numerous and convincing examples from our closest living relatives.
Azalea, a trisomic rhesus macaque (trisomic = born with three copies of a certain chromosome), had abnormal motor and social skills, in ways somewhat akin to humans with Down syndrome. Instead of punishing her "incomprehensible blunders," such as threatening the alpha male, the other macaques were accepting and forgiving of her until Azalea's death at age three. Female chimpanzees may confront and shut down an overly aggressive male, sometimes even pulling two adversaries close together for reconciliation, or prying rocks from an aroused males' hands.
In cases like these, animals are feeling empathy, then acting on that feeling with displays of kindness or help, behavior that de Waal calls sympathy. The empathy is purely embodied — literally felt in the body — and part of our evolved biology. "Our brains have been designed to blur the line between self and other," he writes. "It is an ancient neural circuitry that marks every mammal, from mouse to elephant."
