Micah, Like any human who has lived over the past 1,000,000 years you can play naughty or nice. But at least in the past those who played nice passed their genes along more frequently than those who didn't. Moral codes were put in force when the population sizes allowed free riders a foot hold. The fact that an individual chooses to play naughty has nothing to do with the overall genetic basis of the behavior.
Krimel ---------------------------------- Krimel, Thanks. The last line highlights why Shermer is incorrect in my case. It is a study of Social Value - what others think. I don't steal because it is a violation of Micah, the victim is irrelevant. Micah -------------------------- Micah, Shermer begins by correlating brain size to social group size in primates and showing the relative amounts of within and between group aggressions among different primate species. He also points to primate studies that are similar to Prisoner's dilemma studies in human. These suggest that even capuchin monkeys have some sense of the golden rule. I personally consider golden rule in itself as evidence for some kind of genetic basis for morality. Beyond this Shermer points out that for about 1,000,000 humans on this planet have lived in groups of about 150. This is still the number of friends and family that people can effectively relate to; the military and businesses organize themselves in keeping with this principle. In groups of this size a formal code of morality is not needed. People in these setting know their neighbors; who is naughty and who is nice. Formal codes of morality and law do no appear until population sizes increase to the point that anonymity is possible. It is easier to steal from people who don't know who you are. That's the short version. Krimel ---------------------------------------- moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
