About Your Moral Instinct

The moral struggle is not a war to be won. It is the moral battles fought every day by all good men and women.

My long-term project is to lay out how humans can survive and develop long term by describing how we can adapt genetically and strategically to the new ecology we have created after leaving the hunter-gatherer, tribal way of life that we left when we created the farms and cities of civilization. My book “Genetics For A New Human Ecology” answers the first question, about genetics. This essay is some of the core from “Strategy For A New Human Ecology”. I think we need it now rather than whenever I can put the entire book together.

I sometimes ask people if they feel that we are in a moral crisis. I usually get a very strong reply of “yes”. That is their moral instincts responding.

Because of what I study, the recent topic of population decline in developed nations seemed like a natural problem for me to look at. There are common answers such as the high cost of raising a family and insecurity about the future, but that has always been the story of human existence. The real obvious difference is that birth control now gives a choice. That still does not explain why people do not make the choice to have families. In terms of biology, you would think that they would. The problem ultimately is that our moral instincts, the drives that make us choose to have a family, are not being developed. This has consequences reaching far beyond just having families. May I explain.

Humans have powerful instincts, particularly our survival and moral instincts. Morality is the combination of our moral instincts, and our moral training or moral system. Our morality is how we decide right from wrong. Our survival instinct is why we choose. (Our survival instinct is incredibly interesting if you can solve that riddle.) Morality is our survival strategy. It can be hard to go against our instincts, but at the same time, the topic of moral instinct often draws a blank. Why is that? It is for a couple reasons. The first reason is cultural. The Catholic Church dominated Western thinking for over a millennia. They taught that humans do not have instincts, because that would mean that they were animals instead of divine. That bias is still common, if not commonly recognized. The second reason is that instincts are complicated, and our normal methods of understanding do not apply well to instincts. Our main tools of thinking are looking for patterns based on reason and logic but instincts, as products of evolution, really have been developed by trial and error. It makes them very hard to understand and is why philosophers trying to make models of morality always recognize that they just do not work in the real world. Reason is just not always the tool to use, especially under the stress of threats to one’s survival. We may not be aware of our instincts, but they are “aware of us” and quite powerfully in control at times.

To have a family is part of our moral instincts. It was not as important before though. It used to come down to that while we do not have strong instincts to have families, we have very strong instincts to have sex. That naturally led to pregnancy and that naturally led to nurturing instincts. Family instincts followed. With the connection between sex and children broken, one could ask if we even still have instincts to have families. We do and the strength of those instincts are different in different people, but it must be developed or “released” as Conrad Lorenz described. His description of how “nature and nurture” interact was that innate behaviors, nature or instincts, were released when there was something in the environment, nurture, that triggered them. It is easy to understand that “fight or flight” instinct is released by threats. Without a threat, that instinctive reaction makes no sense and is unlikely to happen. It is largely the same for all instincts. If there is no place for them, they do not appear. (That is not completely true if you think about hormones and some other issues, but it will do for here.) So, a few questions arise. Why are moral instincts, including instincts to have families, not being developed? What are the consequences? What can be done to develop or “release” those instincts? The problem is that we no longer teach philosophy, which even more than teaching a great deal of wisdom, has the effect of releasing our moral instincts. Because of the importance of moral instincts, this has consequences far beyond the development of families. Note that in some people, babies and even dolls can stimulate family instincts.

Philosophy was once called the King of Knowledge, but now is commonly thought to be obsolete. How could that possibly have happened? Philosophy was once known as science and if a person claimed to be educated, it included a knowledge of philosophy. There are so many social ills today. Has anyone asked if philosophy could help with them? Can a society, a civilization, built upon philosophy persist if the philosophy is lost? Just what does philosophy offer? Sure, it offers reason and logic. It offers wisdom. Does it offer more? It offers understandings that science cannot provide, but is there even more? There is. Only your heart can tell you some important truths such as “why”, but philosophy is a way, perhaps the best way, to waken your heart (release your moral instincts). Then you will feel the “why” about many things that are in the realm of instincts.

First off, what happened to philosophy? You see many references to it by the Founders of America. You see it frequently referenced in letters written during the American Civil War. It even appears as part of a grammar school curriculum in 1910. What happened to it? Well, science happened to it. Science pretty much decisively won the ancient war between science and religion around the 1920’s, after the wealth and power of science was demonstrated by WWI. The 1925 Scopes trial largely finished it off. Science is a jealous mistress that claims all authority over knowledge, even claiming that philosophy, the foundation of civilization, was obsolete. There are many things that science cannot well explain, such as much about human purpose. Now, almost nothing is taught but science and math. So many important subjects such as home economics, relationships, values, civics, and so many other important topics are simply not taught. Even the classes that lead to the important skills and good jobs of the building trades are no longer taught. Science is a powerful meme.

So what about religion? It does not seem like it can help much now. Religions often absorb philosophy, as Aristotle’s philosophy was absorbed into the Catholic beliefs in the West. Generally that was a good thing because that very widely spread that philosophical knowledge, but it was through a religious lens, which is a problem. The history described in the Bible is very condensed and the moral stories are not very accessable to children. Much of the authority of religions, comes from its teaching and husbandry of morality, a critical function to a society. As for children though, religion is like an advanced philosphy that is mostly too complicated for them. As an institution, religon had to focus on loyalty and expansion. Its focus was on a God, and we really do not know the implications of that yet. Also, many of its lessons, the Old Testament, are largely for another time and tribal, pre-civilization way of life. They very often do not apply, though some moral lessons are timeless. The power of religion that came from its moral functions, attracted the corrupt that wanted that power, as well as attracting the caring and wise, but its core remained about morality and people struggling to survive. That is the constant through time. Currently though, with science the decisive victor, religion as it is, is not going to be a large factor. Its authority has been too badly damaged, and it has too many foundations that cannot be defended. Historically, moral systems and their teachings coming from religion have been based on authority and precedence, but they can no longer be defended or consistently transmitted. In the future, moral systems will have to be based on reason and logic or they will not be defendable and will not be used. That just brings us back to philosophy. Religion is a meme though, and morality is just a strategy, so do not count it out as a solution too soon.

Do not get me wrong. Science is great and I have spent my life pursuing knowledge and understanding by using the tools of biology and other sciences, but I found the limits of it. It led me here. Philosophy provides more useful personal understanding than science. Science can never satisfactorily explain “why”, because most fundamentally we think in moral terms. Philosophy is about how to live a good life and that means in moral terms. It is the science of human survival. It is about how to find purpose, fulfillment and even happiness. It tells how to solve problems and deal with adversity. That is important but frankly, in ways, it might tell too much. Advanced philosophy can get baffling and even irrelevant to life, like advanced physics. The knowledge taught by basic philosophy though is very useful and important. Much of philosophy, what is most important to survival, has stood the test of time over thousands of years. What is even more important is that thinking about basic philosophy develops and releases moral instincts including the instincts to have families. Moral instincts naturally interact with moral systems. There is more to survival than the individual and morality is about much more than just that. Development of moral instincts (as well as philosophy) should greatly help with many other problems of society such as drug addiction, gangs, mental health problems, bullying, nihilism, and basic moral breakdown of the society. It will help us make decisions about how to direct our lives and how to proceed in the moment. Morality is for solving problems.

The ironic thing is that the replacement or perhaps even suppression of philosophy by science, has in some ways crippled science. The great scientists of history always recognized the moral aspect of their work and considered it critically important. It provided their drive. As philosophy is forgotten, the foundations of science and its value are being forgotten. Our moral instincts are what drive us to seek truth and understanding. Science is a tool for that. Looking for a solution to a problem in human biology, I used science to reveal the value of philosophy that this essay is about.

Morality is sometimes about making extremely difficult survival decisions. If trained, human moral instincts are great at problem solving. We tend to think that intelligence comes from our recently evolved big brain, which is true, but we had great problem-solving capability before that in our moral instincts that existed long before the neo-cortex developed much. Just as the speech center and the visual cortex are relatively discrete brain regions, the moral instinct is a discrete functional part of the brain as well. An older, very powerful part. Also, as is characteristic of the brain, that capability shows great trainability and potential for development. I have noticed that a person with extensive moral training from a religion can provide an answer they do not fully understand to a question they do not fully understand. It is just a matter of pattern recognition by the neural net. Your instincts are too old to be able to talk in language and so you usually must feel them. If they are developed and you train yourself to listen, it can be amazing what they may softly say to you. Your rational conscious mind, “you”, can talk to them though and they do listen. That can be important when your instincts and rational mind are not in agreement.

Do note that moral instincts often do develop naturally in the course of living even without moral education, but it can be too late. In the case of the instinct to have families, the instinct does seem to develop eventually, but it develops later than is good for human biology. My genetics book discusses the problem of older parents and possible solutions. The same is true for many other behaviors. Many people just mentally grow up too late after they are biologically and socially mature. Philosophy teaches about life what people otherwise have to try to figure out.

There are objective reasons and abstract reasons to have a family such as the challenge, accomplishment and newness that children bring. For the many difficulties of a family, it provides great joy and love. We are evolved to exist in a family, and it is where we are comfortable. It offers mutual support and teaching of culture that includes skills, knowledge, wisdom, culture, philosophy, morality and so much more.

There are abstract reasons to have a family such as the to reach into the future, to perpetuate the family, tribe, society and civilization. The ancient Greeks could see “man in nature” outside their city gates and it was not pretty. They wanted to be more than animals. They expressed their aspirations in philosophy and in their Gods. Modern science fiction often does that, peering into the future to try to glimpse what humans can become. I have looked there too, including based on the genetic work I have done. I see the potential for a very bright future for humanity and amazing potentials… and great dangers.

The most basic philosophy needs to be taught again. Lessons like Benjamin Franklin’s 14 rules of life or the Boy Scout Pledge, the Maxims of Ptah-Hotep, or the 147 Maxims of Delphi. Teach the 40 virtues. Teach what was taught from the start of civilization until science crowded it out. Science must still be taught. We need science as much as philosophy, but we do need philosophy, both to teach incredibly valuable knowledge and to develop of moral instinct. The contemplation of these type of most basic ancient philosophical principles are more important to survival than the more advanced philosophies in Stoicism, Buddhism or Aristotle’s Ethics. We must hope so because much of both Stoicism and Buddhism was developed largely to cope with war. There is even a well-known philosophy for avoiding wars all together, and that will always be important because of the importance of civilization and its vulnerability to war.

Now, briefly, back to biology. It’s not just about knowledge, though philosophy carries a wealth of very current wisdom to help with thriving in our very complicated world. What is just as important is that training in these basic philosophical principles trains moral instincts. That is what is critical now. Not only is that how we decide right from wrong, but those instincts are the source of our drive to have families and to have a future. Without moral drives, population decline is inevitable, because science cannot tell anyone why to go to the trouble of having children. It is far more than that. Moral instincts give support for our values, our goals and even for our very sanity. It gives us the zest of living and personal accomplishments. Luckily, our instincts also give us our most important abilities, our abilities to cooperate and communicate. That is what our intelligence is most developed for. If we had only the instinct for the blind “red of tooth and claw” strategy that is most common in nature, we would not be able to become more than what we have come from. Luckily, the big brains of humans evolved because to survive we needed to be good at communication and cooperation. In our instincts we have both drives, for the mindless competition most common in nature, but also for cooperation. You can feel them both within yourself. Luckily, it seems that our instinct to cooperate is dominant, partly shown by the culture and philosophy humanity produces, but also shown by what we can feel of our moral instincts, and we prefer peace and creativity. Also, it takes training to make a human a killer. The human future will depend on which of our two main instinctive drives, cooperation or competition, that we choose to follow in our moral strategy.

For our nation to survive, for our civilization to survive, we must start teaching basic philosophy at a very young age as we used to, partly for its wisdom, but perhaps even more to release and develop moral instincts, such as those that instinctively value families. Simplicity is the key to teaching philosophy at the young age that it needs to be taught. I admit that in the long run, looking for viable human survival strategies, this all came as a bit of a surprise to me. For the rest of the problems, see my book on genetics.