Designer Evolution: A Transhumanist Manifesto by Simon Young

Author:Simon Young [Unknown]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2009-07-07T01:31:00+00:00

The Evolution of Morality

Morality is the capacity of a conscious agent to determine the nature of its habitual responses toward others. Benevolent morality is the willingness to help or avoid harming others.

Human beings are programmed to survive. There thus exist certain moral codes shared by every culture, based on the automatic impulse to stay alive. In this most fundamental sense, "good and bad" means "behavior beneficial and detrimental to survival."

"Morality" in the popular sense of benevolent behavior is instinctive to man, because goodwill benefits self-preservation. Those animals capable of benevolence were more able to survive and pass on their genes than those who acted entirely for themselves. A "bad ape" incapable of sociability was more likely to suffer rejection from the tribe, and thus fail to reproduce-or survive. The phenomenon of Natural Selection through the "survival of the fittest," whereby genetically based characteristics which benefit survival and reproduction are preserved in a gene pool over generations, has thus resulted in a species capable of a high level of cooperation, enabling it to build vast semicivilizations based on mutual assistance. Darwin expressed it thus:

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