I'm going to post a few thoughts on this one as a thread.
'Moral behaviour' is interesting, but an empirical domain. We can have normative discourse about the correct moral beliefs (which track moral truths) without reference to observed behaviour. I am not sure how 'moral behaviour' is different from action, broadly construed, nor why an evolutionary story about the source of our action would have implications for moral philosophy.
Utilitarians tend to be maximizers, identifying good action as the best course available (in expectation) at the time of action. Nevertheless, utilitarians are not crazy. They don't (practically) expect anyone's behaviour to actually maximize utility--their claim is that the more one has their action do so, the more good it is. Good argument can make behaviour more good in this sense, someone like Peter Singer has in fact changed a lot of lives, but it's not a primary aim of normative theory.
This means your main target has to be our moral beliefs. These are a tougher target than our intuitions. The latter seem true to us for whatever reason, and that reason could plausibly be Darwinian. So let's grant that evolution selected some substantial portion of our intuition. The problem is that it selected for adaptation to promote one's genes, rather than resemblance to the moral truth.
We don't have a challenge here to there being a moral truth. Rather, the point is about biology's efforts to keep us away from it. It's not clear the moral realist should agree that biology's done a very good job.
Consider, for instance, that evolution moves on very slow timelines. Our moral intuitions, if passed down to us by biology, should roughly match those handed down to the Mesopotamians several thousand years ago. They don't. What we find in Gilgamesh or the Iliad are entirely different ways of thinking about moral matters. You may contest that we have made moral progress, but there is no denying moral change.
Still, you want to argue that some share of our intuitions from prehistory have survived the various cultural shifts of our time. Kin bias (nevermind that our normative theories are mostly universalist), reciprocity, and empathy--these are still kicking and are obviously adaptive. Thus, moral beliefs which draw upon them are based upon Darwinian pressures, not resemblance to the moral truth.
I agree that these have survived and are the basis for some of our morally-relevant intuitions. Is it an incredible coincidence that these would track moral truth?
Attempting to abstract away all facts about ourselves (beyond being entities that do things) and asking what morality is, what are we left with? The domain of right and wrong. Good and bad things to do. This could relate to self-regarding action or other-regarding action. Speaking about the latter, we're talking about a relational concept. Is it really all that shocking that empathy (the ability to situate oneself within other standpoints in a relationship) would help us grasp truths about it, if they exist? If moral truths are facts about how interacting agents should treat one another, it is entirely expected that the social intuitions that allow us to think about these interactions would be relevant to figuring out the truths.
Through the process of moral reasoning, we turn this relevant but flawed intuitional material into the normative theories we have today. Notably, some of the material is less useful than others. Keep in mind, we toss plenty of our intuitions into the trash upon reflection in other areas. Look at all the counter-intuitive things we've figured out in probability theory, for instance.
I'm going to post a few thoughts on this one as a thread.
'Moral behaviour' is interesting, but an empirical domain. We can have normative discourse about the correct moral beliefs (which track moral truths) without reference to observed behaviour. I am not sure how 'moral behaviour' is different from action, broadly construed, nor why an evolutionary story about the source of our action would have implications for moral philosophy.
Utilitarians tend to be maximizers, identifying good action as the best course available (in expectation) at the time of action. Nevertheless, utilitarians are not crazy. They don't (practically) expect anyone's behaviour to actually maximize utility--their claim is that the more one has their action do so, the more good it is. Good argument can make behaviour more good in this sense, someone like Peter Singer has in fact changed a lot of lives, but it's not a primary aim of normative theory.
This means your main target has to be our moral beliefs. These are a tougher target than our intuitions. The latter seem true to us for whatever reason, and that reason could plausibly be Darwinian. So let's grant that evolution selected some substantial portion of our intuition. The problem is that it selected for adaptation to promote one's genes, rather than resemblance to the moral truth.
We don't have a challenge here to there being a moral truth. Rather, the point is about biology's efforts to keep us away from it. It's not clear the moral realist should agree that biology's done a very good job.
Consider, for instance, that evolution moves on very slow timelines. Our moral intuitions, if passed down to us by biology, should roughly match those handed down to the Mesopotamians several thousand years ago. They don't. What we find in Gilgamesh or the Iliad are entirely different ways of thinking about moral matters. You may contest that we have made moral progress, but there is no denying moral change.
Still, you want to argue that some share of our intuitions from prehistory have survived the various cultural shifts of our time. Kin bias (nevermind that our normative theories are mostly universalist), reciprocity, and empathy--these are still kicking and are obviously adaptive. Thus, moral beliefs which draw upon them are based upon Darwinian pressures, not resemblance to the moral truth.
I agree that these have survived and are the basis for some of our morally-relevant intuitions. Is it an incredible coincidence that these would track moral truth?
Attempting to abstract away all facts about ourselves (beyond being entities that do things) and asking what morality is, what are we left with? The domain of right and wrong. Good and bad things to do. This could relate to self-regarding action or other-regarding action. Speaking about the latter, we're talking about a relational concept. Is it really all that shocking that empathy (the ability to situate oneself within other standpoints in a relationship) would help us grasp truths about it, if they exist? If moral truths are facts about how interacting agents should treat one another, it is entirely expected that the social intuitions that allow us to think about these interactions would be relevant to figuring out the truths.
Through the process of moral reasoning, we turn this relevant but flawed intuitional material into the normative theories we have today. Notably, some of the material is less useful than others. Keep in mind, we toss plenty of our intuitions into the trash upon reflection in other areas. Look at all the counter-intuitive things we've figured out in probability theory, for instance.