Dual explanations
Em February 26th, 2009
I have been audiobooking a book about evolutionary psychology called Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters (2007). While it is very interesting, it sometimes feels as though the authors are describing an alien race entirely void of beauty and ugliness, joy and sorrow, where every one of our passionate emotions has a rational explanation. Anyway, they got to this quote in the first chapter:
People – social scientists ans laypersons alike – often speak of culture in the plural (“cultures”) because they believe that there are many different cultures in the world. At one level, this is of course true…[h]owever, all the cultural differences are on the surface; deep down, at the most fundamental level, all human cultures are essentially the same.
They go on to explain that, according to evolutionary psychology, our human culture (singular) is a product of evolution in the same way as our hands, hearts and brains. As I listened, I had the nagging feeling that I had heard that same thing somewhere before. And I had; C. S. Lewis makes a similar point in Mere Christianity (1943):
I know that some people say the idea of a Law of Nature [a universal moral code] or decent behaviour known to all men is unsound, because different civilisations and different ages have had quite different moralities.
But this is not true. There have been differences between their moralities, but these have never amounted to anything like a total difference… Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might just as well imagine a country where two and two made five.
He goes on to explain that, according to Christianity, this is evidence of a universal moral code that transcends the norms of any society.
So which is it? Can it be both? And why does it seem that so many arguments for the existence or dominance of God have an alternate argument which, while not necessarily contradictory, seem to strip the former of its power and mystery?
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Off the top of my head (and with a little wikipedia’s head…) I can think of a few cultural traits that don’t fit into CS’ box. Things like child sacrifice, human sacrifice, cannibalism etc. Things that circumvent societal self-preservation. I think (in my limited view of CS’ writing here) he may have a slightly rosier view. Of course who am I to talk as I have not yet read Mere Christianity cover to cover – from lack of time.
It seems to me that if you reduce us to the biological (in the first quote), well, yeah, we have the same culture of eating and pooping. As a one off opinion… well, I extrapolate that they are claiming there is a baseline morality that is provable through scientific method – which is true if you regard morality to be limited to self-interest (I won’t kill you or steal your stuff, if you won’t kill me and steal my stuff). But morality is far more complex than that. And really I think it’s somewhat dangerous to disregard what the author might call the ‘surface’ of apparent ‘cultures’ and write them off… So without reading(listening) the rest of what might be a very interesting (audio)book, and in the absolute limited context of that quote – seems like a weak idea to me.
Maybe I need to read(listen) to it. Hehe.
I don’t know – I think perhaps, perhaps, while the actions of humanity have obviously not been all up-and-up, that the baseline of morality, in general, has remained quite constant.
Your examples of child sacrifice, human sacrifice, and cannibalism speak to a time of atrocities and cultural depravity, as do blood sports, genocide, etc. etc. But I have my nagging doubts that people felt “proud” while carrying out these actions. Perhaps they felt like they were ‘doing their duty’ or that they had to carry out what they were doing, but when it really came down to it, did they really WANT to be in that position? I would hazard a guess that their consciences were turned to “off” at that point, that if they were following their ‘hearts’ and going with their moral consciences, they wouldn’t have been carrying out those actions.
Maybe I’m simplifying it, and obviously the study of morality and ethics is extremely complex. I’m going to bring up a Biblical reference, from Romans 1:20, the “invisible qualities” of God can be seen through that which is created… “For from the first making of the world, those things of God which the eye is unable to see, that is, his eternal power and existence, are fully made clear, he having given the knowledge of them through the things which he has made, so that men have no reason for wrongdoing.”
Okay, stretching this a bit here, for those of us who don’t completely subscribe to the creation story, or even to the existence of God. Taking it out of the box here – can we not infer that there is an underlying “good” which can be seen/felt through nature? Is it that far of a stretch to believe that there has been an underlying “morality” woven through history, whether or not mankind chose to live by that or not? I mean if that person, sacrificing their child, would have stopped for a minute, taken a walk through the forest and did a little meditation (okay, insert eye rolling here), do you think they would have come to the conclusion that killing their child was really the right thing to do? I don’t know.