What is Morality?

Simple questions are not always simple to answer. If you ask most people what morality is, they would probably say it's about determining right from wrong or good from evil. But that's not really an answer at all because what do we even mean by the words "right" and "wrong" and "good" and "evil"? In one sense, we all know what they mean, but too often they are used lazily in place of critical thinking. For instance, let's say, "Murder is wrong." I, and almost every human being, agree with this statement. But let's ask the question, "Why is murder wrong?"

That murder is wrong seems so obvious, and it's drilled into our heads by our parents and religious leaders and the law from such a young age that a lot of people have probably never never given it much thought. But for a skeptic like me, that's not really good enough. I'm not going to take someone else's word for it. I want to figure it out for myself.

At this point some people might turn to philosophy or religion, but that doesn't really work for me. I need to find my answers in the empiric, observable world. Luckily that isn't very hard to do. For me, the answer lies in evolution and self-interest.

This might make some people uncomfortable, understandably so. It brings to mind things like Social Darwinism. This sort of reasoning has been used to justify all sorts of shitty things in the past. However, I think most people make a mistake when thinking about human beings and evolution. We tend to focus on individuals instead of society as a whole and on the short-term instead of the long-term.

So why is murder wrong? It harms the chances of a society's survival. A society's strength relies on its numbers and the willingness of individuals to cooperate with one another. That cooperation is much easier to attain if people aren't killing each other. We don't kill each other so that others will not kill us, and also because we are stronger when we act together. It is in our self-interest to act this way. 

Behaviors that encourage cooperation are therefore in our self-interest. Competition between members of a social species may not always be beneficial. Two people can accomplish more than one person, even if that person is somehow more "fit" than the others. Therefore, acting "selfishly" is not in your self-interest. You might derive some short-term benefit but you'll lose in the long run if your behavior prevents people from cooperating with you in the future. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, being unselfish is acting in your own self-interest.

This has led me to conclude that morality is simply acting in your self-interest. It is not an accident that we feel good about ourselves when we help other people. Evolution has provided a feedback mechanism to encourage cooperative behavior because it helps our individual and collective survival. As difficult as that may be to accept, once you realize how reliant we are on one another for happiness and survival, it's easier to see how our interests align, and that what is good for you is good for me.

Unfortunately our interests do not always align, and that is where we run into conflict. As to how me might resolve these conflicts, I'll reflect on that in the future.