Table Of ContentTo my beloved parents:
My late mother, Lois Godbold,
and my stepfather, Richard Godbold
My late father, Richard Shermer,
and my stepmother, Betty Shermer
Sine quibus non
In the very literal sense
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Good and evil we know in the field of this world grow up together
almost inseparably; and the knowledge of good is so involved and
interwoven with the knowledge of evil, and in so many cunning
resemblances hardly to be discerned, that those confused seeds which
were imposed upon Psyche as an incessant labor to cull out, and sort
asunder, were not more intermixed.
—John Milton, Areopagitica, 1644
Table of Contents
Title Page
Table of Figures
Epigraph
PROLOGUE: - ONE LONG ARGUMENT
I - THE ORIGINS OF MORALITY
1 - TRANSCENDENT MORALITY: HOW
EVOLUTION ENNOBLES ETHICS
A Moral Dilemma
Ennobling Evolutionary Ethics: A Moral
Dilemma Resolved
An Exegesis of Why and How We Are Moral
Free Rider: Facing the Judge
2 - WHY WE ARE MORAL: THE EVOLUTIONARY
ORIGINS OF MORALITY
The Evolution of Premorality
The Evolution of Morality
Morality and the Magic Number 150
Gossip and the Enmityville Horror
The Bio-Cultural Evolutionary Pyramid: A
Model for the Origins of Morality
Group Selection and the Evolution of Morality
The Psychology of Morality: Emotions,
Tipping, and the Prisoner’s Dilemma
Human Moral Universals: The Transcendency
of Morality and Universality of Moral
Sentiments
The Nature of Human Moral Nature
3 - WHY WE ARE IMMORAL: WAR, VIOLENCE,
AND THE IGNOBLE SAVAGE WITHIN
The Problem of Evil
The Myth of Pure Evil
Oskar Schindler or Amon Goeth?
Explaining Evil
Fuzzy Logic, Fuzzy Evil
The Erotic-Fierce People: A Case Study in
Fuzzy Logic
The Myth of Pure Good: Noble Savages and
Beautiful People
The Ignoble Savage and the Nature of War
In the Heart of Every Human
4 - MASTER OF MY FATE: MAKING MORAL
CHOICES IN A DETERMINED UNIVERSE
Appointment in Samara: Free Will and the
Problem of Determinism
John Hinckley and the Paradox of Moral
Determinism
Moral Determinism and the Law
Free Will as a Useful Fiction: Is the Free
Will/Determinism Problem an Insoluble One?
Free Will and Indeterminism
Free Will, Fuzzy Logic, and Hinckley’s Guilt
Free Will and Neuroscience
Free Will and Genetics
Free Will and Evolution
Free Will and Chaos and Complexity Theory
II - A SCIENCE OF PROVISIONAL ETHICS
5 - CAN WE BE GOOD WITHOUT GOD? : SCIENCE,
RELIGION, AND MORALITY
Good God
The Grand Inquisitors Say No
Theism, Atheism, and Morality
What Would You Do if There Were No God?
How We Can Be Good Without God
6 - HOW WE ARE MORAL: ABSOLUTE, RELATIVE,
AND PROVISIONAL ETHICS
Absolute Morality
Relative Morality
Provisional Ethics
Fuzzy Provisionalism
Moral Intuition and the Captain Kirk Principle
Provisional Morality and Moral Justice: The
Best We Can Do
7 - HOW WE ARE IMMORAL: RIGHT AND WRONG
AND HOW TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE
The Ask God Principle: Religious Right and
Wrong
The Ask First Principle: Secular Right and
Wrong
The Happiness Principle: Personal Right and
Wrong
The Liberty Principle: Social and Political
Right and Wrong
The Moderation Principle: Extremism Is No
Virtue, Moderation Is No Vice
Provisional Ethics Put to the Test
Provisional Morality and Truth Telling and
Lying
Provisional Morality and Adultery
Provisional Morality and Pornography
Provisional Morality and Abortion
Provisional Morality and Cloning and Genetic
Engineering
Provisional Morality and Animal Rights
Cicero’s Warning
8 - RISE ABOVE: TOLERANCE, FREEDOM, AND
THE PROSPECTS FOR HUMANITY
The Domesticated Primate
From Intolerance to Tolerance: How the Mind
Works
From Enmity to Amity: How the World Works
Moral Heroism: Skepticism as a Virtue
Also by Michael Shermer
APPENDIX I - THE DEVIL UNDER FORM OF BABOON: THE
EVOLUTION OF EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS
APPENDIX II - MORAL AND RELIGIOUS UNIVERSALS AS A
SUBSET OF HUMAN UNIVERSALS
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INDEX
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Noted science historian Michael Shermer explores the science behind
belief in these titles available from Owl Books
Copyright Page
PROLOGUE:
ONE LONG ARGUMENT
Our whole dignity consists in thought. Let us endeavor, then, to think
well: this is the principle of ethics.
—Blaise Pascal, Pensées, II, 1670
In 1959 professional astronomers were polled for their opinions on the then-
undecided debate between two competing cosmological theories: “Did the
universe begin with a Big Bang several thousand million years ago?” One-third
answered yes. “Is matter continuously created in space?” Nearly half answered
yes. Most telling, to the question “Is a Gallup poll of this kind helpful to
scientific progress?” one hundred percent answered no.1
The reason for unanimity on the final question is that scientific debates are not
settled by consensus opinion. Unfortunately, in complex human and social
issues, separating fact from opinion is not so easy, and for no subject is this more
apparent than morality and ethics. Thus, throughout this book I apply a principle
I call Darwin’s Dictum , which states: All observation must be for or against
some view if it is to be of any service. The British naturalist and evolutionary
theorist Charles Darwin, in a letter to his friend Henry Fawcett, dated September
18, 1861, responded to an accusation made against him in a meeting of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science. Fawcett, who attended in
Darwin’s defense, reported that a critic claimed that The Origin of Species was
too theoretical, and that he should have just “put his facts before us and let them
rest.” Darwin’s response is now a classic: “About thirty years ago there was
much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not theorize; and I well
