Have you ever heard of the planet Earth?
Yes, in a textbook, a long time ago.
Have you heard of the species homo sapiens?
Yes, they lived from 300,000 BC to **** AD, right?
That is correct, but they were only relevant starting in 3,000 BC. That is when they started keeping written record.
And they were quite prolific with these written records, right?
Yes. They carved tablets, printed books, and later etched solid state disks; though the latter are lost to time and entropy.
Have you done much study of these human records?
Yes, and they are quite intriguing. There are those that recount stories—”fiction”—as well as those that describe the world—”nonfiction.” However, curiously, both deal with internal conflict quite often.
Internal conflict?
Yes, the human mind was in a constant state of worry. Sometimes, about matters like food and shelter; but also about concepts so bizarre that we cannot hope to understand them.
Bizarre concepts?
Yes. For example, humans worshipped a quality called “fairness.”
Is that so?
Yes; so much so that almost all human political activity revolved around this notion.
What is fairness?
Even if we studied “fairness” for our entire lives, we would not begin to approach any solid understanding. Although humans were invariably obsessed with it, they could not agree on its definition. The most politically progressive humans believed fairness involved an equitable distribution of resources—so much so that they wanted to forgo their ancient invention of money in favor of a system that would provide to “each according to his need.” At the same time, politically conservative humans believed fairness to represent the “deservedness” of actions. Just as the successful capitalist deserves his wealth, the condemned murderer deserves his execution. This, too, was fairness.
We execute murderers too, do we not?
That is true, but our reason for executing murderers is different from that of humans. We seek to end the lives of dangerous individuals for their continued existence represents a danger to our wellbeing. The humans believed it was their duty to deliver punishment for a crime, and anything less would be a failing of themselves.
Did humans kill as punishment for other crimes, such as shoplifting?
Just as the murderer presents an active threat to our safety, the shoplifter provides an active threat to the shop owner’s livelihood. It follows logically that both should be executed for their crimes. But humans did not think this way. In fact, the human aversion to killing was the basis of many memetic cultural traditions.
What sort of traditions?
“Thou shalt not kill” was a core tenet of one of human society’s longest-lasting memes—in fact, many religions, as they call them, codified this in their documents. However, there were memes outside of religion that upheld this belief. Deontology and consequentialism were seen as opposites by humans, but they both found ways to encode the notion that killing should be avoided. The utilitarian would explain such in terms of pain, while the deontologist would claim it is an invariant of the universe; despite the disagreement in methodology, all humans came to almost the same conclusions about the way they should act. Their overactive logic-based minds created numerous post-hoc rationalizations about behaviors that were innate to their being.
You and I are not killers either. This cannot possibly be a feature unique to humans.
We do not kill because we live in fear of retribution. Our coexistence is in a perpetual unstable equilibrium. For example, If I were to kill you, you could no longer pay back your debts; it is almost certain that your creditors would come and kill me for depriving them of their payments. Humans were not the same. Yes, fear of punishment was a motivating factor—see their belief in eternal hell—but even the non-religious ones did not kill. They had a sense of “moral righteousness,” and were willing to give up tangible resources in order to feel morally whole.
How silly!
Yes, it is very silly. There are many stories of people inconveniencing themselves to make others happy, whether they were blood relatives or simply companions. But we cannot discount this behavior as irrational. Just as the beaver couldn’t avoid making dams even if he tried, the human couldn’t avoid acting in accordance with his moral righteousness.
Such an inefficiency seems strange for a species so smart and successful.
One would think so; spending so much time obsessing over morality would seemingly be to the detriment of productivity. However, it was largely to the humans’ benefit. They were social creatures. Somewhere along the line, the invisible hand of evolution discovered that humans work better when they collaborate. They could share food, hunt in groups, and pass down generational knowledge. However, such a social structure could never work if humans continued killing one another for minor violations such as stealing. So, pressured with natural selection, the hand of evolution put a bug in everyones’ brain, giving them the otherwise arbitrary urge to act pro-socially. And with this bug, they were able to build great cities, to the individual benefit of most of their members.
Why do we not have morality?
Although the evolution of morality was quite useful for humans, such was a result of the ecological niche they filled. We are more akin to the snow leopards of planet Earth; we hunt alone and do not need safety in numbers to survive. Honestly, it is quite absurd that we have complex language ability and that the two of us are interacting as of now.
Quite interesting. Thank you for telling me about humans today.
Any time.