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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh
From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Evidences for Religion (reposting)
Message-ID: <618@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Jul-85 12:40:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.618
Posted: Mon Jul 15 12:40:52 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 17-Jul-85 21:07:51 EDT
References: <1182@pyuxd.UUCP> <800@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1202@pyuxd.UUCP> <2127@pucc-h>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 19
Summary: 

In article <2127@pucc-h> aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent) writes:
> If human beings, as you believe, are mere biological organisms, bags of
> protoplasm, collections of chemicals, pieces of meat, then why should there
> be even the rudimentary morality of non-interference rules which you have
> plugged many times?  Why should it matter in the least if one collection of
> chemicals -- if that's all it is -- is violently put permanently out of
> commission?

Morality is an evolutionarily adaptive trait.  It can be a heuristic for
optimizing reproductive success.  Just like intelligence.

Your example resolves simply in terms of game theory: kill a relative of
somebody and you are reducing the genetic fitness of the survivor.  Thus
it may pay to make standing threats against people who bump off your
relatives.  Making killing someone immoral is a shorthand that is simpler
to teach than game theory.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh