Philosophy Now Forum

Posted: **Tue Sep 21, 2021 8:59 pm**

Vitruvius wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 8:35 am I don't know why there isn't a mental health counsellor in every school.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 3:52 pmMoney. They cost a lot. Children with serious mental problems also take a lot of counselling, resources and time. That means hiring a lot of people. And skilled, qualified and interested professionals in the area of child mental health are in short supply already.

A post grad isn't a qualified counsellor, but surely has enough wherewithal to negotiate teenage angst, and head off serious issues at the pass! If it's really serious - then the child can be referred to a doctor, and in this way, it might lighten the load, and free up doctors to treat the really serious cases.

...I've been thinking about the far more complex environment children face today; than the one I was raised in. Political correctness was in its infancy when I was at school, and back then - they only went so far as 'don't discriminate on the basis of arbitrary characteristics.' And that was fine. Live and let live. Good rule of thumb. But now, it's gone way beyond that - because the left have inverted identity politics, and now actively propagandise on behalf of minority interests - in an attack on the so called white male patriarchy; they've made whiteness, maleness and straightness problematic - while celebrating diversity!

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 3:52 pmYes, that's a huge irony. In order to celebrate "diversity" we're going to hate whites, traditionalists, nationalists, the West, capitalists, conservatives of all colours and cultures, Christians, the rich (but not the Lefitist rich, obviously), industrialists and scientists (if we're environmentalists), all authorities (police, the military), women (if we're pro-trans), and all men. It seems like, under one category or another, "diversity" has come to mean nothing but "hate most of the human race." And just how that serves "diversity" and "world peace" is really a great question.

I love it when their own "intersectionality" bites them in the politically correct ass; like in Birmingham with Muslim parents protesting against gay sex ed in primary schools - the Labour Party apparatchik was leaping from one foot to the other trying to decide who's feet to kiss. (I already used ass.) It's much the same with feminist and trans strands of PC dogma.

DYK, there are around 1000 arrest related deaths in the US per year, from over 10 million arrests. 32% of those are black people. 42% white people. That's a failure rate of around 0.01% - in a country where people carry guns. That demonstrates incredible professionalism on the part of police - but in order to spike an election (IMO) the left made out like there's some kind of racist genocide being committed by the police. BLM is blatant leftist manipulation; forcing people to demonstrations of political correctness at election time.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 3:52 pmBLM is a crock. It's always been that. Three Marxists started it, with the goal of fomenting the expected Marxists overthrow of the existing order, which is then supposed to result automatically in Marxist paradise. It's done nothing for people of colour. And it won't.

I hear Portland's lovely this time of year. I'm thinking of selling up, buying a house there, starting a business. Send my kids to the local school! It wasn't burnt to the ground, was it?

The left is in trouble though; in the US and the UK. They've been abandoned by the white working class people they were set up to represent; and cannot counter, disagree with, or therefore control the marriage of an inverted identity politics with moral righteousness.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 3:52 pm There's another irony. The whole guilt-thing they are depending on depends on people having a conscience. And it has to be a particular kind of conscience, and a rather sensitive one, too. They appeal to the sense of guilt of a post-Judeo-Christian West. Their song has no appeal where that is not available, as in Asia or Africa. It only works at all in the post-JC West.

Ironically, it is Judaism and Christianity that it seeks to eliminate. Along with that goes the conscience that that worldview informs. Why should a person from an authoritarian, tribal, world-denying or collectivist tradition "feel guilty" if some people are worse off than others? If you're from one of those traditions, then so long as the autoritarians can rule, the tribe triumphs, the world is forsaken, or the collective goes merrily along, who has reason to feel bad for the suffering individual? Nobody. So the Social Justice movement is eating its own flesh. If it succeeds in killing the traditional Judeo-Christian values in the West, there is nobody who will have reason to listen to it anymore. It will die of its own stupidity.

That's insightful; not my line at all, but it strikes a chord. My philosophy is evolution, leading to the formation of religion as the central coordinating mechanism that united hunter gather tribes in multi tribal society; but after Galileo - I break with the religious thing, and follow the science. My argument is that the Church made a mistake not embracing science, and folding science as truth into the religious and political architecture of Europe - as, in effect, the word of God. Science as (the means to establish) valid knowledge of Creation. Instead, while Galileo was on trial, Descartes wrote the founding document of subjectivism, in fear for his life; philosophy that underpins post modernism and political correctness.

They've created a ratchet effect; a holier than thou ideology - where the noose can only tighten for fear of being called racist, sexist, homophobic etc, twitter mobbed, de-platformed and threatened, no matter how mad an idea - like gender self identification, they can only agree.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 3:52 pmRight. They have to raise the stakes continually. And it has to be by appealing to this Judeo-Christian kind of morality, that tells us that being "racist" or "unjust" or "hateful" is bad. At the same time, they are themselves ardently racist, unjust and hateful. So they settle for the labelling -- it's all they've got. They make people fearful of being called names. But the reality is that they are the leaders in the very things they claim to deplore.

Haters gonna hate!

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 3:52 pmWhat I think has lent them power at this particular juncture in history is the ubiquity of the media. When you are "called names" nowadays, it's in public...your infamy spreads widely and without checks. You can be character-assassinated at a moment's notice. So avoiding being pilloried by the public becomes a nervous concern. It's no longer enough not to BE racist, or hateful, or unjust -- it's crucial not to be name-called them, because public opinion will make you pay savagely for any such slander even getting out there.

Absolutely. It's why there's no peer review on the flood of academic insanity coming out of left wing sociology departments. I bet it was an undergrad who came up with the idea of gender self identification, and no-one has checked that idea between undergrad and Keir Starmer's unequivocal endorsement on Newsnight, right before he was elected leader. They can't - for the reasons you state.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 3:52 pmThe Social Justice wokies are depending on that. But such irrational games do not continue forever. What happens is that when they win, they lose. And, of course, if they lose, they also lose. So Social Justice is inevitably a loser's game. But it might just take a whole lot of people down with it. In fact, it already has.

It's difficult to predict the course of madness; but it doesn't often end well. You'd think, threats aimed at female Labour politicians ahead of trans debate would be some kind of watershed moment, because women are 50% of the population, and Labour need the votes. But likely, they'll deploy their intersectionality strategy again; and leap from one foot to another and back again, making everyone unhappy!

Posted: **Tue Sep 21, 2021 11:27 pm**

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 8:10 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 4:08 pm
Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 3:22 pm Vegetarian Taxidermy wrote:

Many people feel 'sex' is slightly impolite or embarrassing....
What are we in the Victorian Era? No, we are in the era of Lady Gaga. There's no shame. I doubt very much that doctor-squeamishness has much to do with it.

The purpose of being asked is obvious: some women would prefer to "select." What this means is that they want the option to "terminate" a baby of the wrong sex. And in the vast majority of cases, that means to select a male baby and kill a female one.

Didn't you know? The vast majority of abortions are on female fetuses. That holds staggeringly true in India and China, of course; but it even holds true in the West. Many people, for one reason or another, don't want female babies.
Your message is even more captious than normal.

You regard the preference for the aborting of female fetuses a "captious" matter?

That's a little cold, I would say.

Posted: **Tue Sep 21, 2021 11:52 pm**

Vitruvius wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 8:59 pm A post grad isn't a qualified counsellor, but surely has enough wherewithal to negotiate teenage angst, and head off serious issues at the pass! If it's really serious - then the child can be referred to a doctor, and in this way, it might lighten the load, and free up doctors to treat the really serious cases.

That's true. But post grads who want to do that are also in short supply, I fear. And they still won't come cheap. Moreover, I think that a lot of parents would object to the person who was involved with their child not being a fully-qualified and experienced psychologist. But it's better than nothing, and nothing is pretty much the way things are now.

I love it when their own "intersectionality" bites them in the politically correct ass; like in Birmingham with Muslim parents protesting against gay sex ed in primary schools - the Labour Party apparatchik was leaping from one foot to the other trying to decide who's feet to kiss. (I already used ass.) It's much the same with feminist and trans strands of PC dogma.

Yeah, it makes anyone can reason or who have any sort of moral consistency marvel. But I notice that the Lefties don't seem even to notice when they believe two irrreconcilable things at the same time. They just seem to ignore their own irrationality, and keep going.

Part of that stems from the PoMo disdain for reason and logic. They neither expect their beliefs to make sense rationally, nor do they hold themselves to any sort of rational consistency. And they actually regard it as a virtue, because they tell us that reason, logic and consistency are "colonial," "Western," "white," "male" and "hegemonic." So they regard irrationality as a badge of liberation of sorts.

I hear Portland's lovely this time of year.

That's insightful; not my line at all, but it strikes a chord. My philosophy is evolution, leading to the formation of religion as the central coordinating mechanism that united hunter gather tribes in multi tribal society; but after Galileo - I break with the religious thing, and follow the science.

Well, if you ask my thoughts on that, I think the science-versus-faith nonsense ought to have been dispelled long ago. And the Galileo story isn't what they tell you it is, when you go to check the historical facts. But my real problem with that woldview, in the moral realm, at least, is that one cannot rationalize any morality at all based on it.

Think of it this way: the premise is that the universe happened by accident, and we're here through an indifferent process called "evolution." For creatures who came from nowhere and arrived where they are by survival of the fittest, what is "morality"? It can only be what Nietzsche said, namely, an illusion, something to be "gotten past," as soon as whatever practical utility it might have had is over. So I think that leaves us in a difficult place ethically.

My argument is that the Church made a mistake not embracing science,

That's part of the myth. "The Church" usually means "The Catholic Church" in such stories. And there's something to it, though not as much as the myth would like you to believe. There have been times when the Catholic Church has been intransigent and anti-intellectual, though we'd have to admit there are also times when Catholicism has been a preserve of learning...and even of science. Their relationship to free thought has been largely bad; but even I have to admit that they've occasionally done science a service.

I'm not of that party, nor would I support what the Papacy has done historically. They actually persecuted and killed people like me, so I'm not exactly enamoured of their history, as you can imagine.

The secular myth, though, is that an unrelenting hostility existed between all Christians, who loved only tradition, and the free-thinkers and scientists, who sought only truth. But any depth of knowledge of the history of science kills that myth instantly. What turns out to be the case is that theology and science grew up together, in dialogue with each other. And science was definitely the "little brother," the late-comer on the world scene, not arriving until the invention of the Scientific Method, with Francis Bacon -- who was also a devout Christian and wrote as much theology as science.

Absolutely. It's why there's no peer review on the flood of academic insanity coming out of left wing sociology departments.

That's proven to be quite true. Have you heard about the first and second "Sokal" incidents?

You'd think, threats aimed at female Labour politicians ahead of trans debate would be some kind of watershed moment, because women are 50% of the population, and Labour need the votes.

Yes, it's surprising. But it speaks to just how ideologically-possessed these people are. They have lost their minds to it.

Posted: **Wed Sep 22, 2021 7:12 am**

uwot wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:48 pm
Vitruvius wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 11:10 amThere are people who are simply incapable of recognising intelligence. They are not intelligent enough to be able to envision the heights of intellect towering over them - and talking with these people, they will pick at spelling and grammar, and any little argumentative point they might win - because they think that's going to win them the argument.
I'm sure we have all met our share of those.

Here's one:

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 11:25 pm
Sculptor wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 5:31 pm I'm not going to take refelctions from a moron who thinks a sky daddy is the answer to everything.
Well, take your "refelctions" from somebody who's educated enough to know how to spell, maybe.

Posted: **Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:54 am**

Vitruvius wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 8:59 pm A post grad isn't a qualified counsellor, but surely has enough wherewithal to negotiate teenage angst, and head off serious issues at the pass! If it's really serious - then the child can be referred to a doctor, and in this way, it might lighten the load, and free up doctors to treat the really serious cases.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 11:52 pmThat's true. But post grads who want to do that are also in short supply, I fear. And they still won't come cheap. Moreover, I think that a lot of parents would object to the person who was involved with their child not being a fully-qualified and experienced psychologist. But it's better than nothing, and nothing is pretty much the way things are now.

Maybe you're right; it's just - I imagine there's a gap for psychology graduates between passing their degree, and being credibly able to counsel adults. If I walked into a therapy session and there was a fresh faced 23 year old telling me to lie down on the couch, I'd walk right out again.

I love it when their own "intersectionality" bites them in the politically correct ass; like in Birmingham with Muslim parents protesting against gay sex ed in primary schools - the Labour Party apparatchik was leaping from one foot to the other trying to decide who's feet to kiss. (I already used ass.) It's much the same with feminist and trans strands of PC dogma.

Yeah, it makes anyone can reason or who have any sort of moral consistency marvel. But I notice that the Lefties don't seem even to notice when they believe two irrreconcilable things at the same time. They just seem to ignore their own irrationality, and keep going. Part of that stems from the PoMo disdain for reason and logic. They neither expect their beliefs to make sense rationally, nor do they hold themselves to any sort of rational consistency. And they actually regard it as a virtue, because they tell us that reason, logic and consistency are "colonial," "Western," "white," "male" and "hegemonic." So they regard irrationality as a badge of liberation of sorts.

I've often posted this short passage when discussing pomo; not least because - I still can't believe it myself: "Common targets of postmodern criticism include universalist ideas of objective reality, morality, truth, human nature, reason, science, language, and social progress."

That's insightful; not my line at all, but it strikes a chord. My philosophy is evolution, leading to the formation of religion as the central coordinating mechanism that united hunter gather tribes in multi tribal society; but after Galileo - I break with the religious thing, and follow the science.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 11:52 pm Well, if you ask my thoughts on that, I think the science-versus-faith nonsense ought to have been dispelled long ago. And the Galileo story isn't what they tell you it is, when you go to check the historical facts. But my real problem with that woldview, in the moral realm, at least, is that one cannot rationalize any morality at all based on it.

Think of it this way: the premise is that the universe happened by accident, and we're here through an indifferent process called "evolution." For creatures who came from nowhere and arrived where they are by survival of the fittest, what is "morality"? It can only be what Nietzsche said, namely, an illusion, something to be "gotten past," as soon as whatever practical utility it might have had is over. So I think that leaves us in a difficult place ethically.

Obvious objections if you don't quite grasp the significance of a scientific understanding of reality. The science in your story, you assume is whole and healthy - but to my mind, the science we have today is a deliberately hobbled and horribly abused shadow of its true self. It's science used as a tool, in service to religious, political and economic ideological ends - but ignored as an understanding of reality. In short, the arrest and trial of Galileo; coupled with Descartes panic driven development of subjectivism, divorced science as a tool, from science as an understanding of reality. We used the tools - but very deliberately obscured, undermined and scandalised science as truth.

In reality, the earth is a single planetary environment, and humankind is a single species, who all evolved on the same planet - and presumably, have a common interest in survival. Yet, during the Cold War, for example, we used science to build 70,000 nuclear weapons! Why? Because one ideologically defined group of homo sapiens disagree with another about how best to organise an economy. Even now, facing the threat of climate change, we cannot all agree science is true and act accordingly - because science is inimical to the ideological architectures of societies. Two true things cannot exist in contradiction, and science lost out to the desperation to maintain religion as authoritative truth.

My argument is that the Church made a mistake not embracing science,

That's part of the myth. "The Church" usually means "The Catholic Church" in such stories. And there's something to it, though not as much as the myth would like you to believe. There have been times when the Catholic Church has been intransigent and anti-intellectual, though we'd have to admit there are also times when Catholicism has been a preserve of learning...and even of science. Their relationship to free thought has been largely bad; but even I have to admit that they've occasionally done science a service.

It's not a myth, there's just more to this than you realise. The Church was heavily involved in the development of the university system across Europe, and required religious observance of academics. For example, Newton had to get a dispensation from the King, from taking Holy Orders - before ascending to the Lucasian Chair at Cambridge, in 1669. In 1859, Darwin was attacked mercilessly for publishing Origin of Species. Still today, scientists are attacked as playing God. Does that scream academic freedom? If it does not, what was the effect? None? Our relationship to science is as it should be?

I'm not of that party, nor would I support what the Papacy has done historically. They actually persecuted and killed people like me, so I'm not exactly enamoured of their history, as you can imagine.

The Church was burning people alive for heresy and apostacy right through to 1792; and this is the context in which science developed, hobbled and abused, used as a tool, but denied the natural authority of truth relative to the ideological architecture.

The secular myth, though, is that an unrelenting hostility existed between all Christians, who loved only tradition, and the free-thinkers and scientists, who sought only truth. But any depth of knowledge of the history of science kills that myth instantly. What turns out to be the case is that theology and science grew up together, in dialogue with each other. And science was definitely the "little brother," the late-comer on the world scene, not arriving until the invention of the Scientific Method, with Francis Bacon -- who was also a devout Christian and wrote as much theology as science.

It's not unrelenting hostility, it's more subtle than that. It's Cartesian subjectivism through to Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, casting science as heretical, even as it was used to drive the industrial revolution. Even today, every movie you see, it's always a mad scientist trying to destroy the world, defeated by some flag waving, God loving hero. When you see what I'm talking about, you'll see anti-science propaganda everywhere. Indeed, that explains about two thirds of western philosophy - not least, post modernism.

I'd really like to get into the Nietzsche/morality question, because again - your immediate impressions are incorrect. Nietzsche was wrong, but it takes a bit of explaining why science and morality are not inconsistent. In short, the well spring of morality is a sense ingrained into the individual by evolution in a tribal context. A sensitivity to moral implication was an advantage to the individual within the tribe, and to a tribe composed of such individuals, in the struggle to survive and breed. Religion (politics, law, economics, etc) are expressions of this innate moral sense. Thus, it does not follow that "God is dead!" The Ubermensch never existed. Man was never an amoral brute. He raised offspring generation after generation - shared food, fought for his tribe at risk to himself, etc. We are moral creatures.

Posted: **Wed Sep 22, 2021 9:16 am**

uwot wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:48 pm
Vitruvius wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 11:10 amThere are people who are simply incapable of recognising intelligence. They are not intelligent enough to be able to envision the heights of intellect towering over them - and talking with these people, they will pick at spelling and grammar, and any little argumentative point they might win - because they think that's going to win them the argument.

uwot wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 7:12 amI'm sure we have all met our share of those.
Here's one:

Sculptor wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 5:31 pm I'm not going to take refelctions from a moron who thinks a sky daddy is the answer to everything.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 11:25 pmWell, take your "refelctions" from somebody who's educated enough to know how to spell, maybe.

"I'll stoop a yard beneath your schemes and shoot them at the moon!"

Posted: **Wed Sep 22, 2021 10:25 am**

Vitruvius wrote:

It's not unrelenting hostility, it's more subtle than that. It's Cartesian subjectivism through to Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, casting science as heretical, even as it was used to drive the industrial revolution. Even today, every movie you see, it's always a mad scientist trying to destroy the world, defeated by some flag waving, God loving hero. When you see what I'm talking about, you'll see anti-science propaganda everywhere. Indeed, that explains about two thirds of western philosophy - not least, post modernism.

Your interpretation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is that of sensationalist horror films that miss the most interesting thing about the scientist who created the monster and who was inconsiderate of the poor monster's feelings and made no provision for them.
Cartesian dualism claims a man is a mind plus a body. Frankenstein the scientist made a monster who was precisely not a body that lacked a mind but was a complete man, a body/mind. The story illustrates how industrialisation with its concomitant urbanisation had alienated minds from bodies. Science and technology are given facts in a developing society ;where the human is relegated to machine is where a developing society falls off the arse end of the horse.

British society is post-industrial. The former working class which still trails sad remnants of deprivation, notably in the north-west of England, Tyneside, south Wales and the Scottish central lowlands , suffers from anomie . The Conservatives who naturally want to safeguard their money make promises to the former working class, well they would wouldn't they?

Schools and teachers in deprived areas find it hard to teach children who have no quiet space to do homework, no books in the house, bad diet, insufficient sleep , insufficient play space, and lack safeguarding against poisonous media.

Posted: **Wed Sep 22, 2021 11:48 am**

Belinda wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 10:25 am Vitruvius wrote:

It's not unrelenting hostility, it's more subtle than that. It's Cartesian subjectivism through to Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, casting science as heretical, even as it was used to drive the industrial revolution. Even today, every movie you see, it's always a mad scientist trying to destroy the world, defeated by some flag waving, God loving hero. When you see what I'm talking about, you'll see anti-science propaganda everywhere. Indeed, that explains about two thirds of western philosophy - not least, post modernism.
Your interpretation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is that of sensationalist horror films that miss the most interesting thing about the scientist who created the monster and who was inconsiderate of the poor monster's feelings and made no provision for them. Cartesian dualism claims a man is a mind plus a body. Frankenstein the scientist made a monster who was precisely not a body that lacked a mind but was a complete man, a body/mind. The story illustrates how industrialisation with its concomitant urbanisation had alienated minds from bodies. Science and technology are given facts in a developing society ;where the human is relegated to machine is where a developing society falls off the arse end of the horse.

British society is post-industrial. The former working class which still trails sad remnants of deprivation, notably in the north-west of England, Tyneside, south Wales and the Scottish central lowlands , suffers from anomie . The Conservatives who naturally want to safeguard their money make promises to the former working class, well they would wouldn't they?

Schools and teachers in deprived areas find it hard to teach children who have no quiet space to do homework, no books in the house, bad diet, insufficient sleep , insufficient play space, and lack safeguarding against poisonous media.

If you're suggesting that my philosophy is intellectually equivalent to pop culture, then may I suggest you go flog yourself. I've read the book, and read a lot more books than most people. I'm not getting inside the narrative here - I'm pointing to Frankenstein as an example of religious and philosophical themes prevalent at the time, that are still relevant today. Frankenstein is an example of anti-science propaganda that follows from the Church's mistake re: Galileo. Shelley created the mad scientist archetype that's endlessly repeated in film - even today!

If you want to discuss the themes and meanings of the text - that's a different discussion altogether.

Problem is, you have no conception of what science should be. You've taken in the anti-science propaganda without even noticing, and nothing you say is posed next to the ideal of science as truth. You, and Shelly both speak to science as an amoral tool; which is what the Church's mistake left us with; and that is a horror story. But it's a mistake. Science is so much more than that.

Posted: **Wed Sep 22, 2021 2:16 pm**

Vitruvius wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:54 am I've often posted this short passage when discussing pomo; not least because - I still can't believe it myself: "Common targets of postmodern criticism include universalist ideas of objective reality, morality, truth, human nature, reason, science, language, and social progress."

It's all true, though. And it's been masterfully explained by a comedian named Evan Sayet. Here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xkyn3JaLrcw

That's insightful; not my line at all, but it strikes a chord. My philosophy is evolution, leading to the formation of religion as the central coordinating mechanism that united hunter gather tribes in multi tribal society; but after Galileo - I break with the religious thing, and follow the science.

...to my mind, the science we have today is a deliberately hobbled and horribly abused shadow of its true self.

I think that in many ways, that's true. The term "science" is used to justify all kinds of things that real science is not actually inclined to deal with, nor even equipped to do. It has, in some quarters, become little more than a label to slap on anything a person doesn't want to be questioned, whether that thing actually has anything actually scientific behind it or not.

In reality, the earth is a single planetary environment, and humankind is a single species, who all evolved on the same planet - and presumably, have a common interest in survival.

But not necessarily in each other's survival. They might have interest in the survival of their own family, tribe or even nation, arguably; but they also have strong interests in the defeat of those who compete with them. That's survival-of-the-fittest: it doesn't mean "everbody survives." It means a great many don't.

The Cold War's a good example.

science lost out to the desperation to maintain religion as authoritative truth.

No, I don't think science today has anything to do with "maintaining religion." It hasn't for over a century now, I would say. I'm pretty sure it never really did, at least not since the name of science was "natural theology": and that's been a long time.

My argument is that the Church made a mistake not embracing science,

Well, I know enough about that history to know it wasn't at all like that. Even the Catholic Church was very supportive of certain kinds of science or certain scientific conclusions: but I agree they did badly on others.

It's good to shake off the old myths about a war between science and religion. The historical facts simply show that it's not how things went at all. It's really a convenient way for modern Atheists to view the past, but it's not accurate. This has been ably spelled out by a variety of historians, both secular and religious. Might I recommend, P. Samson's book, Six Modern Myths?

Nietzsche was wrong, but it takes a bit of explaining why science and morality are not inconsistent.

I've been looking for a rationale that can allow a purely secular perspective to warrant morality for a few decades now. So have a whole lot of people. In fact, if somebody could achieve such a thing, then in terms of moral philosophy, I suggest he would deserve the Nobel Prize. But so far, that prize goes unclaimed.

In short, the well spring of morality is a sense ingrained into the individual by evolution in a tribal context. A sensitivity to moral implication was an advantage to the individual within the tribe, and to a tribe composed of such individuals, in the struggle to survive and breed.

Oh. Well, that's a bit disappointing as an explanation. I was hopeful of something new; but I've seen it before, many times.

It doesn't work. It falls afoul of the fact-value distinction immediately. I'll explain, if I may.

If it were true that "morality is a sense ingrained...by evolution..." then it would not go even a step in terms of proving that morality was legitimate. It would merely show that, like the vestigial tail, morality was something evolution threw up in its indifferent course, something that maybe was evolutionarily functional for a time, but which never had any objective or actual authority. Like the vestigial tail, it might well be something simply to be "gotten over" at a later stage of evolution: and how would we know?

We need a morality that works all the time, not simply an illusion or an evolutionary accident of temporary utility. Nietzsche very much understood that fact, even though he thought that no such morality could ever be had. So appealing to evolution gets us absolutely nowhere in regards to proving that morality is legitimate, even if it we take it to show that morality existed. Those two are quite different.

We are moral creatures.

Personally, I don't doubt this is true. But it's not the sort of fact that is easy to explain in Evolutionary terms.

Why should it be the case that, for a brief period of its development, some species should come to depart from reality and start to believe in a totally arbitrary value structure? How is being deluded really survival-adaptive? And if, somehow, it were, would we not all be wise to keep being deluded in that way? Are we now arguing that the best thing for the human race is to remain deluded? But if not, if at some point people are supposed to evolve beyond such delusions, beyond morality, how long are they supposed to hang onto them?

Which, of all the human moralities that have existed, is the genuinely "adaptive" one? Is it Judeo-Christian? Is it tribal? Is it Eastern? Is it Islamic or is it aboriginal? Is it the morality of the modern secular Humanist, or the morality of the Borneo headhunter? The problem is that all these moralities wildly contradict each other on many particular points. As current anthropologists and ethicists are inclined to put it, they are "incommensurable." (That means that a "win" for one is a "loss" in another -- and examples of that are many). So where is the meta-moral system that helps us locate the one that is the "adaptive" version, so we aren't misled by the maladaptive ones?

More importantly, we have this: what authority, rationale or explanation prevents anybody from throwing it all over, and going (to use Nietzsche's own phrase) "beyond good and evil" by simply realizing both are delusions and ignoring both? Nietzsche said that's precisely what the ubermensch should do. But we think not, and yet cannot explain what feature of objective reality imposes moral duties on anyone.

These are questions the Evolutionist explanation of morality simply fails to answer...and often, even to address in any meaningful way.

Posted: **Wed Sep 22, 2021 2:20 pm**

Vitruvius wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 9:16 am "I'll stoop a yard beneath your schemes and shoot them at the moon!"

Hamlet.

Nice.

Posted: **Wed Sep 22, 2021 2:31 pm**

A detransitioning story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27qjn0v4Av4

Posted: **Wed Sep 22, 2021 5:16 pm**

Vitruvius wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:54 am I've often posted this short passage when discussing pomo; not least because - I still can't believe it myself: "Common targets of postmodern criticism include universalist ideas of objective reality, morality, truth, human nature, reason, science, language, and social progress."

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 2:16 pmIt's all true, though. And it's been masterfully explained by a comedian named Evan Sayet. Here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xkyn3JaLrcw

Great, I'll watch that after.

That's insightful; not my line at all, but it strikes a chord. My philosophy is evolution, leading to the formation of religion as the central coordinating mechanism that united hunter gather tribes in multi tribal society; but after Galileo - I break with the religious thing, and follow the science.

...to my mind, the science we have today is a deliberately hobbled and horribly abused shadow of its true self.

I think that in many ways, that's true. The term "science" is used to justify all kinds of things that real science is not actually inclined to deal with, nor even equipped to do. It has, in some quarters, become little more than a label to slap on anything a person doesn't want to be questioned, whether that thing actually has anything actually scientific behind it or not.

No, you're not getting it, but - no-one does. It's difficult to speak to things that are not; the alternate history that didn't happen. You seem to think I'm talking about cosmetic companies adverts claiming cermaides or hyloeronic acid are real things, or peas - that if they are not frozen within 10 minuets lose all their nutritional value, which is misuse of science - but it's infinitely more than that.

In reality, the earth is a single planetary environment, and humankind is a single species, who all evolved on the same planet - and presumably, have a common interest in survival.

But not necessarily in each other's survival. They might have interest in the survival of their own family, tribe or even nation, arguably; but they also have strong interests in the defeat of those who compete with them. That's survival-of-the-fittest: it doesn't mean "everbody survives." It means a great many don't. The Cold War's a good example.

So now you're endorsing the naturalistic fallacy that, because it's natural, it's right? Ask yourself what makes me different from you; and principally, it's what you believe I don't, and I believe that you don't. If we all agreed that science is true - what would divide us? We'd have a common interest in survival. Why? Not because it's natural, but because it's true!

science lost out to the desperation to maintain religion as authoritative truth.

No, I don't think science today has anything to do with "maintaining religion." It hasn't for over a century now, I would say. I'm pretty sure it never really did, at least not since the name of science was "natural theology": and that's been a long time.

So you don't think the Catholic Church - threatened by the Protestant revolution, England breaking away, and rumblings from the Ottoman's - didn't react to Galileo's proof the earth orbits the sun as a threat to their authority? Oh yes they did!

My argument is that the Church made a mistake not embracing science,

Well, I know enough about that history to know it wasn't at all like that. Even the Catholic Church was very supportive of certain kinds of science or certain scientific conclusions: but I agree they did badly on others.

Therein lies the problem. If you believe in science - it's for scientific method to determine what's true, not the Church. You can't pick and choose, because everything is causally related. Any scientific truth is consistent with every other scientific truth. You don't seem to understand this - and the exact thing I'm trying to explain is wrong, is what you appeal to as right. There's something for you to understand here, please try!

It's good to shake off the old myths about a war between science and religion. The historical facts simply show that it's not how things went at all. It's really a convenient way for modern Atheists to view the past, but it's not accurate. This has been ably spelled out by a variety of historians, both secular and religious. Might I recommend, P. Samson's book, Six Modern Myths?

Might I recommend me? I'm not atheist. I'm agnostic, because I don't know if God exists or not. Do you? Does anyone?

Nietzsche was wrong, but it takes a bit of explaining why science and morality are not inconsistent.

I've been looking for a rationale that can allow a purely secular perspective to warrant morality for a few decades now. So have a whole lot of people. In fact, if somebody could achieve such a thing, then in terms of moral philosophy, I suggest he would deserve the Nobel Prize. But so far, that prize goes unclaimed.

I could explain it to you, but if you're approaching my every utterance with 'no, no, no, no' preloaded and ready to go - then you're not trying to understand. Okay, this is a debate forum and you have your own beliefs, as is your right, but you're not giving me a fair hearing.

In short, the well spring of morality is a sense ingrained into the individual by evolution in a tribal context. A sensitivity to moral implication was an advantage to the individual within the tribe, and to a tribe composed of such individuals, in the struggle to survive and breed.

Oh. Well, that's a bit disappointing as an explanation. I was hopeful of something new; but I've seen it before, many times. It doesn't work. It falls afoul of the fact-value distinction immediately. I'll explain, if I may.

Please do.

If it were true that "morality is a sense ingrained...by evolution..." then it would not go even a step in terms of proving that morality was legitimate.

No, you're right, it doesn't! But then I haven't suggested that the moral sense legitimates any particular moral value. I'm not saying evolution gives us a set of ten ingrained commandments that we act upon like robots. I've read Wittgenstein. I'm saying, evolution in a tribal context gave us a moral sense; a sensitivity to moral implication.

It would merely show that, like the vestigial tail, morality was something evolution threw up in its indifferent course, something that maybe was evolutionarily functional for a time, but which never had any objective or actual authority. Like the vestigial tail, it might well be something simply to be "gotten over" at a later stage of evolution: and how would we know?

Evolution is not indifferent in the way you think. It's a truth relation to reality. The organism must be correct to reality, or die out. Surviving organisms are physiologically and behaviourally intelligent; relative to a causal reality with definite physical characteristics. Evolution is not concerned about the survival or extinction of individuals or species of organism. If you're wrong you're gone. But surviving organism are thus, necessarily right to reality.

We need a morality that works all the time, not simply an illusion or an evolutionary accident of temporary utility. Nietzsche very much understood that fact, even though he thought that no such morality could ever be had. So appealing to evolution gets us absolutely nowhere in regards to proving that morality is legitimate, even if it we take it to show that morality existed. Those two are quite different.

Why do you suppose that philosophers have been trying to define morality since the dawn of time, and still haven't produced a moral system that works all the time? I can answer that; can you?

We are moral creatures.

Personally, I don't doubt this is true. But it's not the sort of fact that is easy to explain in Evolutionary terms. Why should it be the case that, for a brief period of its development, some species should come to depart from reality and start to believe in a totally arbitrary value structure? How is being deluded really survival-adaptive? And if, somehow, it were, would we not all be wise to keep being deluded in that way? Are we now arguing that the best thing for the human race is to remain deluded? But if not, if at some point people are supposed to evolve beyond such delusions, beyond morality, how long are they supposed to hang onto them?

Because you nononono'd the moral sense from the outset, you're unable to understand the arguments that follow from it - and prove it. If you entertained my thesis, if just pro temp, you might be able to understand that religion, politics, economic are expressions of the innate moral sense. So then we go political theory, and democracy as a means to decide what values we should adopt, and that everyone in the group should live by.

Which, of all the human moralities that have existed, is the genuinely "adaptive" one? Is it Judeo-Christian? Is it tribal? Is it Eastern? Is it Islamic or is it aboriginal? Is it the morality of the modern secular Humanist, or the morality of the Borneo headhunter? The problem is that all these moralities wildly contradict each other on many particular points. As current anthropologists and ethicists are inclined to put it, they are "incommensurable." (That means that a "win" for one is a "loss" in another -- and examples of that are many). So where is the meta-moral system that helps us locate the one that is the "adaptive" version, so we aren't misled by the maladaptive ones?

None and/or all of the above!

More importantly, we have this: what authority, rationale or explanation prevents anybody from throwing it all over, and going (to use Nietzsche's own phrase) "beyond good and evil" by simply realizing both are delusions and ignoring both? Nietzsche said that's precisely what the ubermensch should do. But we think not, and yet cannot explain what feature of objective reality imposes moral duties on anyone. These are questions the Evolutionist explanation of morality simply fails to answer...and often, even to address in any meaningful way.

Morality is not a delusion because individuals are imbued with a moral sense by evolution. You are not giving me the credit I deserve; treating me I'm an idiot rather than a genius, because I don't parrot the party line. But let me assure you, you're not telling me anything I don't know and haven't accounted for.

Chimpanzees have a moral sense as a consequence of the structural relations of the troop. They share food and groom each other, and further, they remember who reciprocates such favours, and withhold their favours in turn. They fight together against other troops of chimps; and drive out or kill those who fail to defend the troop.

See, what you're saying is that morality is only morality when codified and expressed as an axiom; but that's wrong. The axiom is an expression of what occurs primarily as a sentiment. We are moral creatures.

Posted: **Wed Sep 22, 2021 6:31 pm**

Vitruvius wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 5:16 pm So now you're endorsing the naturalistic fallacy that, because it's natural, it's right?

Not even a bit. I don't believe that, even if we could define uncontroversially what was "natural," that that would automatically be "right." Murdering each other seems to be something we do rather naturally. So does taking other people's spouses, desiring other people's possessions, and so on. These all seem to be quite "natural" to us, and you and I know they're not "right."

But anybody who might say, "Evolution warrants morals" would surely be practicing the Naturalistic Fallacy. I'm pointing that out.

If we all agreed that science is true - what would divide us?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean when you say "science is true." So I have to be careful here.

I'm a supporter of science, at least for the kinds of questions science can, and proposes to, reasonably address. Those are material and empirical concerns. But morality is not one of those questions that science can answer for us. It doesn't even aim to.

So you don't think the Catholic Church - threatened by the Protestant revolution, England breaking away, and rumblings from the Ottoman's - didn't react to Galileo's proof the earth orbits the sun as a threat to their authority?

Well, I know some of the facts surrounding that incident. And don't get me wrong: I'm not going to defend the Catholic Church's behaviour on that occasion. But when you look at the actual historical data on that, you realize that the story of Galileo the good guy versus the evil clergy is really an oversimplification at best, and dishonest at worst.

Did you know, for example, about Galileo's many "church" supporters, like Cardinal Barberini (Later Pope Urban VIII)? Did you know that Galileo's cantankerous personality often made political situations worse, when they didn't need to be? Did you know that at the time Galileo faced off against the Inquisition, the Copernican model was just a hypothesis, and one for which Galileo himself had neither sufficient evidence nor even a working mathematical model -- and that, ironically, it was the Church that was demanding Galileo provide the evidence, and Galileo who was insisting his model should be believed on blind assent? Did you know that Galileo's favourite "proof" was premised on the tides, and was completely scientifically wrong? Did you know that Galileo's really battle was not with the Church per se, but with the Aristotelean tradition that had long had a stranglehold on cosmology and "science"? And did you know that, after the trial, Galileo was allowed to retire in luxurious comfort, not burned at the stake? And did you know that not only Kepler and Newton, but even Galileo himself were Theists and "churchmen"?

You can verify all that. But if you didn't know these things until now, ask yourself why you weren't told them when the story was first told to you.

...it's for scientific method to determine what's true, not the Church.

About gravity? Sure, I agree. About hydrodynamics? Absolutely. About engineering, medicine, cosmology and chemistry? You bet.

In history or literature or aesthetics, science starts to struggle. It can still contribute, but is clearly not the whole story. It has relevant data, but not comprehensive data anymore. We're entering the human sphere, the sphere of mind: and there, science, which deals so well with materials, starts to wobble.

But what about morals? What about meaning? What about teleology? What is the scientific procedure for detecting that kind of truth? If you look, you'll find there is none: and science, real science, never wanders into such territory; because in those areas, it would be totally unequipped and ovewhelmed.

I don't know if God exists or not. Do you? Does anyone?

I do. And I'm not the only one. It's a thing we all should know, and it's discernable even from nature, for a start. But beyond that, God has intervened in history and revealed Himself.

Can anybody produce God on command? No. Is He a subject to be studied by dispassionate investigators? No. Does He bow to a Vernier caliper, crawl into a beaker or sit in magesterial pose at the end of a telescope or microscope? No, of course not. But it there sufficient evidence to warrant belief in the existence of God? Absolutely. In fact, I would maintain it's very hard to sustain the opposite.

I've been looking for a rationale that can allow a purely secular perspective to warrant morality for a few decades now. So have a whole lot of people. In fact, if somebody could achieve such a thing, then in terms of moral philosophy, I suggest he would deserve the Nobel Prize. But so far, that prize goes unclaimed.

I could explain it to you, but if you're approaching my every utterance with 'no, no, no, no' preloaded and ready to go - then you're not trying to understand. Okay, this is a debate forum and you have your own beliefs, as is your right, but you're not giving me a fair hearing.

Au contraire: I'm eager to hear. It's been a very long while since I saw anybody try anything fresh or interesting in regard to this sort of thing. I would consider it a huge favour if you were to spell out to me your understanding, and I'm all ears.

I'm saying, evolution in a tribal context gave us a moral sense; a sensitivity to moral implication.

Okay, let's start there. Let's say that Evolution did that. It made people think (erroneously, obviously) that there was something called "morals" around, and that they should follow it.

Which "morals" was that? And given that nothing in nature itself actually warranted this belief, why should people hold it?

Evolution is not indifferent in the way you think. It's a truth relation to reality. The organism must be correct to reality, or die out....

Let's work on that, too.

"Evolution" you say, is not "indifferent." Well, it doesn't have a will or a personality, so it must be indifferent to morality, surely. But I get what you're aiming at: that somehow, being good is going to turn out to be the same as "that which causes survival."

But that is empirically not at all what morality says. For example, it says that we ought not to have as many sexual partners as gazelles or chimpanzees have. But procreation is surely conducive to survival...at least of the species, though not of the individual. Why would morality forbid us to maximize our chances of reproduction?

Or, take theft. Theft increases the resources available to one organism, at the expense of another. There's no question that's a survival advantage for the thief. Yet morality tells us not to do that.

You see the problem, I'm sure. And we can multiply examples. There's clearly no easy or obvious relationship between morals and survival. The world's just not that simple.

Why do you suppose that philosophers have been trying to define morality since the dawn of time, and still haven't produced a moral system that works all the time? I can answer that; can you?

Absolutely. But I'd be interested in your answer, too. Do you want to go first?

Morality is not a delusion because individuals are imbued with a moral sense by evolution.

No, that doesn't follow at all. Even if it were true that the source of morality were "evolution," it would not give us reason to think morality was not a delusion. There are such things as survival-adaptive delusions.

Take the old belief that the world was flat, and people would die by sailing off it, or by being eaten by dragons. Doubtless that thought saved many a timid mariner from drowning at sea, starving on a desert island, or dying of scurvy in the bowels of a sailing ship. But one could hardly call that "not a delusion."

Chimpanzees have a moral sense as a consequence of the structural relations of the troop. They share food and groom each other, and further, they remember who reciprocates such favours, and withhold their favours in turn. They fight together against other troops of chimps; and drive out or kill those who fail to defend the troop.

Do you have any idea how absolutely brutal chimp life actually is? In the first place, unlike humans, chimps are completely promiscuous; the females are utterly indiscriminate in taking on the attentions of as many males are are available. Chimps kill and eat other monkeys all the time, and sometimes their own young as well. The head chimp lives in a state of continual peril, often beaten up by a stronger or torn to shreds by a cabal of weaker but more devious chimps. In fact, all the chimps you will have ever seen outside a zoo are young; because mature chimps are violent and incredibly powerful, and cannot be taught to behave in a way not extremely dangerous to humans and other creatures.

If you want to see a colony of vicious animals with no morals, go look at chimps. Yes, they have a few exchanges of mutuality, when advantages are to be had by both sides; but these are so far from being "morals," I can't tell you.

Posted: **Wed Sep 22, 2021 6:56 pm**

"Immanuel Can"

When you have to cut out all the salient points from my post to make your arguments stick, you're cheating!
What might ask yourself is, who are you lying to?
It's not me! I know you're lying. Do you?

Posted: **Wed Sep 22, 2021 7:52 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 6:31 pm
Vitruvius wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 5:16 pm So now you're endorsing the naturalistic fallacy that, because it's natural, it's right?
Not even a bit. I don't believe that, even if we could define uncontroversially what was "natural," that that would automatically be "right." Murdering each other seems to be something we do rather naturally. So does taking other people's spouses, desiring other people's possessions, and so on. These all seem to be quite "natural" to us, and you and I know they're not "right."

But anybody who might say, "Evolution warrants morals" would surely be practicing the Naturalistic Fallacy. I'm pointing that out.

If we all agreed that science is true - what would divide us?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean when you say "science is true." So I have to be careful here.

I'm a supporter of science, at least for the kinds of questions science can, and proposes to, reasonably address. Those are material and empirical concerns. But morality is not one of those questions that science can answer for us. It doesn't even aim to.

So you don't think the Catholic Church - threatened by the Protestant revolution, England breaking away, and rumblings from the Ottoman's - didn't react to Galileo's proof the earth orbits the sun as a threat to their authority?

Well, I know some of the facts surrounding that incident. And don't get me wrong: I'm not going to defend the Catholic Church's behaviour on that occasion. But when you look at the actual historical data on that, you realize that the story of Galileo the good guy versus the evil clergy is really an oversimplification at best, and dishonest at worst.

Did you know, for example, about Galileo's many "church" supporters, like Cardinal Barberini (Later Pope Urban VIII)? Did you know that Galileo's cantankerous personality often made political situations worse, when they didn't need to be? Did you know that at the time Galileo faced off against the Inquisition, the Copernican model was just a hypothesis, and one for which Galileo himself had neither sufficient evidence nor even a working mathematical model -- and that, ironically, it was the Church that was demanding Galileo provide the evidence, and Galileo who was insisting his model should be believed on blind assent? Did you know that Galileo's favourite "proof" was premised on the tides, and was completely scientifically wrong? Did you know that Galileo's really battle was not with the Church per se, but with the Aristotelean tradition that had long had a stranglehold on cosmology and "science"? And did you know that, after the trial, Galileo was allowed to retire in luxurious comfort, not burned at the stake? And did you know that not only Kepler and Newton, but even Galileo himself were Theists and "churchmen"?

You can verify all that. But if you didn't know these things until now, ask yourself why you weren't told them when the story was first told to you.

...it's for scientific method to determine what's true, not the Church.

About gravity? Sure, I agree. About hydrodynamics? Absolutely. About engineering, medicine, cosmology and chemistry? You bet.

In history or literature or aesthetics, science starts to struggle. It can still contribute, but is clearly not the whole story. It has relevant data, but not comprehensive data anymore. We're entering the human sphere, the sphere of mind: and there, science, which deals so well with materials, starts to wobble.

But what about morals? What about meaning? What about teleology? What is the scientific procedure for detecting that kind of truth? If you look, you'll find there is none: and science, real science, never wanders into such territory; because in those areas, it would be totally unequipped and ovewhelmed.

I don't know if God exists or not. Do you? Does anyone?
I do. And I'm not the only one. It's a thing we all should know, and it's discernable even from nature, for a start. But beyond that, God has intervened in history and revealed Himself.

Can anybody produce God on command? No. Is He a subject to be studied by dispassionate investigators? No. Does He bow to a Vernier caliper, crawl into a beaker or sit in magesterial pose at the end of a telescope or microscope? No, of course not. But it there sufficient evidence to warrant belief in the existence of God? Absolutely. In fact, I would maintain it's very hard to sustain the opposite.

I've been looking for a rationale that can allow a purely secular perspective to warrant morality for a few decades now. So have a whole lot of people. In fact, if somebody could achieve such a thing, then in terms of moral philosophy, I suggest he would deserve the Nobel Prize. But so far, that prize goes unclaimed.

I could explain it to you, but if you're approaching my every utterance with 'no, no, no, no' preloaded and ready to go - then you're not trying to understand. Okay, this is a debate forum and you have your own beliefs, as is your right, but you're not giving me a fair hearing.
Au contraire: I'm eager to hear. It's been a very long while since I saw anybody try anything fresh or interesting in regard to this sort of thing. I would consider it a huge favour if you were to spell out to me your understanding, and I'm all ears.

I'm saying, evolution in a tribal context gave us a moral sense; a sensitivity to moral implication.

Okay, let's start there. Let's say that Evolution did that. It made people think (erroneously, obviously) that there was something called "morals" around, and that they should follow it.

Which "morals" was that? And given that nothing in nature itself actually warranted this belief, why should people hold it?
Evolution is not indifferent in the way you think. It's a truth relation to reality. The organism must be correct to reality, or die out....
Let's work on that, too.

"Evolution" you say, is not "indifferent." Well, it doesn't have a will or a personality, so it must be indifferent to morality, surely. But I get what you're aiming at: that somehow, being good is going to turn out to be the same as "that which causes survival."

But that is empirically not at all what morality says. For example, it says that we ought not to have as many sexual partners as gazelles or chimpanzees have. But procreation is surely conducive to survival...at least of the species, though not of the individual. Why would morality forbid us to maximize our chances of reproduction?

Or, take theft. Theft increases the resources available to one organism, at the expense of another. There's no question that's a survival advantage for the thief. Yet morality tells us not to do that.

You see the problem, I'm sure. And we can multiply examples. There's clearly no easy or obvious relationship between morals and survival. The world's just not that simple.

Why do you suppose that philosophers have been trying to define morality since the dawn of time, and still haven't produced a moral system that works all the time? I can answer that; can you?

Absolutely. But I'd be interested in your answer, too. Do you want to go first?

Morality is not a delusion because individuals are imbued with a moral sense by evolution.
No, that doesn't follow at all. Even if it were true that the source of morality were "evolution," it would not give us reason to think morality was not a delusion. There are such things as survival-adaptive delusions.

Take the old belief that the world was flat, and people would die by sailing off it, or by being eaten by dragons. Doubtless that thought saved many a timid mariner from drowning at sea, starving on a desert island, or dying of scurvy in the bowels of a sailing ship. But one could hardly call that "not a delusion."

Chimpanzees have a moral sense as a consequence of the structural relations of the troop. They share food and groom each other, and further, they remember who reciprocates such favours, and withhold their favours in turn. They fight together against other troops of chimps; and drive out or kill those who fail to defend the troop.
Do you have any idea how absolutely brutal chimp life actually is? In the first place, unlike humans, chimps are completely promiscuous; the females are utterly indiscriminate in taking on the attentions of as many males are are available. Chimps kill and eat other monkeys all the time, and sometimes their own young as well. The head chimp lives in a state of continual peril, often beaten up by a stronger or torn to shreds by a cabal of weaker but more devious chimps. In fact, all the chimps you will have ever seen outside a zoo are young; because mature chimps are violent and incredibly powerful, and cannot be taught to behave in a way not extremely dangerous to humans and other creatures.

If you want to see a colony of vicious animals with no morals, go look at chimps. Yes, they have a few exchanges of mutuality, when advantages are to be had by both sides; but these are so far from being "morals," I can't tell you.

You could replace the word 'chimps' with 'humans' here and it would be true. Chimps are complex. SOME chimps are violent. SOME are mentally unstable--just like humans. Most of the time they are just being sociable and surviving as best they can. And you can't say 'other' monkeys, because chimps aren't monkeys.
There is also the theory that human interference actually 'made' chimps behave more violently towards each other. Disputed, but it makes complete sense. Jane Goodall famously fed them bananas, cause them to become competitive with each other. And who wouldn't become violent when their home is being destroyed around them? Human interference with the rest of the animal kingdom is the kiss of death.

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