Posthuman Blues

Sam Harris: The Language of Ignorance

How badly must human beings behave to put this "sense of universal rightness" in doubt? And just how widespread must "glimmerings" of morality be among other animals before Collins -- who, after all, knows a thing or two about genes -- begins to wonder whether our moral sense has evolutionary precursors in the natural world? What if mice showed greater distress at the suffering of familiar mice than unfamiliar ones? (They do.) What if monkeys will starve themselves to prevent their cage-mates from receiving painful shocks? (They will.) What if chimps have a demonstrable sense of fairness when receiving food rewards? (They have.) Wouldn't these be precisely the sorts of findings one would expect if our morality were the product of evolution?

(Via Reality Carnival.)