Engineering Ethics October 2019

Pr. Peter Scharle Boualam Othmane

Topic: comparison between two ethical schools:

Human Evolution & Intellectual Growth.
The 20th century existentialist philosopher Albert Camus stated that:
“A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.”

In this article we are going to provide an introduction to ethics. We will discuss two Ethical schools:
Human Evolution and Intellectual Growth. And look at the difference between them.

Introduction:

Every day, you probably make dozens or even hundreds of decisions about what could be considered
‘ethical’ issues. We usually weigh up the rights and wrongs of these small decisions fairly quickly and
easily. But it isn’t always easy to know what the right or wrong action is.
As a philosophical discipline ethics originated in Ancient Greece over 2000 years ago. Socrates and a
group of teachers from Ancient Athens known as the Sophists are said to be the first moral philosophers
in Western Civilization.

Ethics is often defined as the study of morality but a more detailed and revealing definition is provided
by John Deigh in his book Introduction to Ethics:

“[Ethics] is a study of what are good and bad ends to pursue in life and what it is right and wrong to do
in the conduct of life. It is therefore, above all, a practical discipline. Its primary aim is to determine
how one ought to live and what actions one ought to do in the conduct of one’s life.”
(Introduction to Ethics, John Deigh)

I. Human Evolution and Ethics.

Ethics is a human universal. People have moral values: that is, they accept standards according to which
their conduct is judged either right or wrong, good or evil. The particular norms by which moral actions
are judged vary to some extent from individual to individual, and from culture to culture, but value
judgments concerning human behavior are passed on in all cultures. This universality raises the question
of whether moral sense is part of human nature or one more dimension of our biological makeup, and
whether ethical values may be the product of biological evolution (The evolution of ethics), rather than
the prescriptions of religious and cultural traditions. morality could be understood as a phenomenon that
arises automatically during the evolution of sociable, intelligent beings and not, as theologians might
argue, as the result of divine revelation.

1|Page
Engineering Ethics October 2019
Pr. Peter Scharle Boualam Othmane

The biologization of ethics started with the publication of The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin (1809-
1882) in 1871. In this follow-up to On the Origin of Species,
Darwin applied his ideas about evolutionary development to human
beings. He argued that humans must have descended from a less
highly organized form--in fact, from a "hairy, tailed quadruped ...
inhabitant of the Old World" (Darwin, 1930: 231). The main
difficulty Darwin saw with this explanation is the high standard of
moral qualities apparent in humans. Faced with this puzzle, Darwin
devoted a large chapter of the book to evolutionary explanations of
the moral sense, which he argued must have evolved in two main
steps.
First, the root for human morality lies in the social instincts (ibid.
232). Building on this claim by Darwin, today's biologists would
explain this as follows. Sociability is a trait whose phylogenetic
origins can be traced back to the time when birds "invented" brooding, Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
hatching, and caring for young offspring. To render beings able to
fulfill parental responsibilities required social mechanisms unnecessary at earlier stages of evolutionary
history. For example, neither amoebae (which reproduce by division) nor frogs (which leave their
tadpole-offspring to fend for themselves) need the social instincts present in birds. At the same time as
facilitating the raising of offspring, social instincts counterbalanced innate aggression. It became
possible to distinguish between "them" and "us" and aim aggression towards individuals that did not
belong to one's group. This behavior is clearly adaptive in the sense of ensuring the survival of one's
family.
Second, with the development of intellectual faculties, human beings were able to reflect on past actions
and their motives and thus approve or disapprove of others as well as themselves. This led to the
development of a conscience which became "the supreme judge and monitor" of all actions (ibid. 235).
Being influenced by utilitarianism, Darwin believed that the greatest-happiness principle will inevitably
come to be regarded as a standard for right and wrong (ibid. 134) by social beings with highly evolved
intellectual capacities and a conscience.
Based on these claims, can Darwin answer the two essential questions in ethics? First, how can we
distinguish between good and evil? And second, why should we be good? If all his claims were true,
they would indeed support answers to the above questions. Darwin's distinction between good and evil
is identical with the distinction made by hedonistic utilitarians. Darwin accepts the greatest-happiness
principle as a standard of right and wrong. Hence, an action can be judged as good if it improves the
greatest happiness of the greatest number, by either increasing pleasure or decreasing pain. And the
second question--why we should be good--does not pose itself for Darwin with the same urgency as it
did, for instance, for Plato (Thrasymachus famously asked Socrates in the Republic why the strong, who
are not in need of aid, should accept the Golden Rule as a directive for action). Darwin would say that
humans are biologically inclined to be sympathetic, altruistic, and moral as this proved to be an
advantage in the struggle for existence (ibid. 141).
-Humans are Homo moralist because they are Homo rationalist-
The next important contribution to evolutionary ethics was by Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), the most
fervent defender of that theory and the creator of the theory of Social Darwinism. As did Darwin,
Spencer believed in the theory of hedonistic utilitarianism as proposed by Jeremy Bentham and John
Stuart Mill. In his view, gaining pleasure and avoiding pain directs all human actions. Hence, moral
good can be equated with facilitating human pleasure.

2|Page
Engineering Ethics October 2019
Pr. Peter Scharle Boualam Othmane

Pleasure can be achieved in two ways, first by satisfying self-regarding impulses and second by
satisfying other-regarding impulses. This means that eating one's favorite food and giving food to others
are both pleasurable experiences for humans. Third, mutual cooperation between humans is required to
coordinate self- and other-regarding impulses, which is why humans develop principles of equity to
bring altruistic and egoistic traits into balance (Fieser, 2001, 214).
Which answers could he give to the two essential questions in ethics? How can we distinguish between
good and evil and why should we be good? Spencer's answer to question one is identical to Darwin’s
(see above) as they both supported hedonistic utilitarianism. However, his answer to question two is
interesting, if untenable. Spencer alleged that evolution equaled progress for the better (in the moral
sense of the word) and that anything which supported evolutionary forces would, therefore, be good
(Maxwell, 1984: 231).
The reasoning behind this was that nature shows us what is good by moving towards it; and hence,
"evolution is a process which, in itself, generates value" (Ruse, 1995: 231). If evolution advances the
moral good, we ought to support it out of self-interest. Moral good was previously identified with
universal human pleasure and happiness by Spencer. If the evolutionary process directs us towards this
universal pleasure, we have an egoistic reason for being moral, namely that we want universal happiness.
-For me, I think that Evolutionary ethics is, on a philosopher's time-scale, a very new approach to ethics.
Though interdisciplinary approaches between scientists and philosophers have the potential to generate
important new ideas, evolutionary ethics still has a long way to go.

II. Intellectual growth and Ethics.

intellectual growth refers here to the changes that occur, as a result of growth and experience, in a
person’s capacities for thinking, reasoning, relating, judging, conceptualizing and ethics. In particular it
concerns such changes in children.

When we talk about intellectual growth and ethics, we actually talk

about Moral intellectualism or ethical intellectualism, which is a
view in meta-ethics according to which genuine moral knowledge
must take the form of arriving at discursive moral judgments about
what one should do. One way of understanding this is that if we
know what is right, we will do what is right. However, it can also
be interpreted as the understanding that a rationally consistent
worldview and theoretical way of life, as exemplified by Socrates,
is superior to the life devoted to a moral (but merely practical) life.

Moral Intellectualism is the idea that everyone desires the good,

so that if people have full and genuine knowledge about what is Cropped image of a Socrates bust. Bust
good, they will do it. Consequently, if they do what is wrong, it is carved by Victor Wager from a model by
the result of not knowing what is good. The idea is sometimes Paul Montford, University of Western
attributed to Socrates or Plato. Australia, Crawley, Western Australia

Most people think the idea is naïve and clearly wrong, because it is obvious that we sometimes desire
what is not best and frequently do things that we know are not best; we break diets, succumb to
temptations, ignore those in need, procrastinate, etc.

But if we want to understand an idea, we should try to figure out how it might make sense before
rejecting it.

When we desire something, in that moment, we experience the desired object as desirable, which is to
say we experience it as valuable. Thus, if we understand goodness as being the valuableness of valuable
things, then we are always desiring that which we perceive to be valuable and good.

3|Page
 Engineering Ethics October 2019
Pr. Peter Scharle Boualam Othmane

This is a consistent pattern which describes us: we desire what we perceive as good (valuable).

This kind of perception of desirableness or value is different than the perception that something is the
sort of thing about which one ought to say or believe, "this is good." This second kind of perception
might move us to say that something is not good even though we desire it, thereby experiencing it as
desirable (and hence, valuable although we might not think it correct to say so). Since the knowledge
of what we should say is good is often not adequate to motivate us, that kind of knowledge is lacking a
characteristic that full and genuine knowledge would have. To have full and genuine knowledge of the
goodness of a thing, would be to experience its desirableness in the way we experience desirableness
when we desire something. An experience of something good in which the desirableness of the good
thing is not fully experienced, is not a full experience of the goodness of the thing, and therefore that
experience is lacking. It lacks a very important element that is needed to qualify the experience as full
and--complete--knowledge.

Consider this example. John understands that it would be best for his son to receive a bicycle for his
birthday because his son strongly desires the bicycle and there are no overriding reasons why his son
should not get the bicycle. Nevertheless, John does not feel his son's desire of the bicycle like his son
does, so he is not motivated to go buy it. If he had empathetic knowledge that included the experience
of his son's desire, he would go buy it, but it is precisely because he lacks that kind of knowledge, that
he does not. Consequently, it is a kind of ignorance that causes him to not do what he "understands"
would--be--best.

On this account, full and complete knowledge of the Good exist if one were to experience everyone's
past, present, and future desires at once, as if they were one's own desires, together with complete
knowledge about how the desires could be satisfied, and which desires are incompatible with each other,
so that one could experience what rises to the top as being the most desirable future reality. Then one
would have the sort of full and genuine knowledge that would move one to do what is best.

-For me, I think that It is our lack of that kind of full and complete knowledge that explains why we do
not always desire what is best and often act contrary to what we "know" is best. The kind of "knowing"
what is best that does not move us to do what is best is not genuine knowing. Genuine knowing involves
a degree of empathy that we just do not possess.

The best we humans can do is try to figure out what we would do if we did have such knowledge, and
then try to train ourselves to do what we would do if we had genuine knowledge. That is a struggle. We
often fail. Presumably, Socrates and Plato would agree that we often fail.

In general:

Ethics:

Human Evolution: Intellectual Growth:

-the root of human morality lies in the social instincts. -if people have full and genuine knowledge about what is
good, they will do it. Consequently, if they do what is
-the greatest-happiness principle will inevitably come to be
wrong, it is the result of not knowing what is good.
regarded as a standard for right and wrong by social beings
with highly evolved intellectual capacities and a conscience. -full and complete knowledge of the Good exist if one were
to experience everyone's past, present, and future desires at
-gaining pleasure and avoiding pain directs all human
once.
actions. Hence, moral good can be equated with facilitating
human pleasure.
-nature shows us what is good by moving towards it; and
hence, "evolution is a process which, in itself, generates
value".
4|Page
Engineering Ethics October 2019
Pr. Peter Scharle Boualam Othmane

Conclusion:
Independent of whether or not humans have a biologically determined moral sense, it remains to be
ascertained whether particular moral prescriptions are in fact determined by the biological nature of
humans, or whether they are products of cultural evolution, be these chosen by society or established by
religious beliefs, or even selected according to individual preferences. Even if we conclude that people
cannot avoid having moral standards of conduct, the choice of the particular standards used for judgment
might be arbitrary or a product of cultural evolution. The need for moral values does not necessarily
determine the moral values, just as the capacity for language does not determine which language we
shall speak.

5|Page
Engineering Ethics October 2019
Pr. Peter Scharle Boualam Othmane

References and further reading.

- Books:

• Darwin, Charles (1871, 1930) The Descent of Man, Watts & Co., London
• Spencer, Herbert (1874) The Study of Sociology, Williams & Norgate, London.

- Websites:

https://www.iep.utm.edu/evol-eth/

https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/intellectual-
development

6|Page