A society's cultural values show up in many ways; in fact, its values are expressed in every aspect of any social group, no matter its size.
Concepts of morality, politics, government, business, economics and religion are all intertwined. And within each concept, there are opposites, always in conflict.
Thus, in morality, there are those who do evil. In politics, there is debate about the "right" policy. In government, there is conflict over how to carry out policy. In business, there is competition for customers. In economics, there is, in Joseph Schumpeter's phrase, the "creative destruction" inherent in capitalism, and Karl Marx's belief that capitalism will destroy itself completely. And in religion there is not only its opposite -- atheism -- but debate over which spiritual path is the most "righteous."
In short, what works for one society may not work for another. A hunter-gatherer tribal society does what it does because it works. Giving a mechanical harvester combine to a people with no experience in large-scale agriculture is an extreme example, but the principle remains.
In many ways, then, morality is culturally defined. What is acceptable behavior in one social group may not be in another. Even so, there may be a core set of beliefs that could be termed a "univeral morality" that is shared by all humans. Perhaps science can find out whether such a morality is "hard wired" in the human brain.
Man seems to be one of the few creatures that kill others of the same species for no sane reason (war, etc.). Other pack animals, such as wolves, lions, tigers, and some in the ape family may ostracize a member for reasons that may not be discernable to us, but killing is extremely rare, if it happens at all.
ReplyDeleteBut to your question as to survival benefits: Morality helps to ensure survival of the group, because it prevents members of the tribe from killing each other.
Some years ago, there was a book published on the idea that the human brain is hard-wired to believe in God. This might be a similar circuitry.