Morality inversions – Helian Unbound

The Age of Morality Inversions

Few illusions are more powerful than moral illusions. We have a powerful innate tendency to believe that some behaviors are good, and some evil. We imagine that these categories exist independently of anyone’s opinion about them, as objects, or things in themselves. This tendency, and hence the very existence of morality, is the result of evolution by natural selection. For the most part, its genetic basis evolved long before the emergence of anything resembling a civilized state. Indeed, similar tendencies exist in other animals. In those times it must have made a significant contribution to the reproduction and survival of those who carried the relevant genes. The predispositions spawned by these genes were quite open-ended and flexible, because there was little chance that they would spawn “dysfunctional” perceptions of good and evil in those simpler times. Times have changed. Instead of contributing to our survival, today these innate tendencies can easily have the opposite effect. They can inspire us with a firm conviction that behaviors that are more likely to result in our extinction rather than our survival are “good.” This is what I mean when I refer to “morality inversions.”

So powerful are our moral illusions that we refuse to believe that they aren’t true. As a result, we erect almost insuperable barriers to self-understanding. Good and evil seem so real to us that we flatly reject the truth that these moral categories exist by virtue of behavioral traits that evolved in the stone age, and in some cases perhaps long before that. It is now abundantly clear that rejecting the truth about something as fundamental as the reasons we behave the way we do is extremely dangerous, assuming we value our own survival.

Once we have accepted the truth about the reasons that account for the existence of what we refer to as morality in human beings, morality inversions aren’t difficult to spot. Simply look for cases in which significant numbers of us start exhibiting behavior that is the opposite of what we observe in every other species on the planet. Individuals of other species behave in ways that tend to increase the odds that the genes they carry will survive and reproduce. Often, we find them actually seeking to suppress the chances that other individuals of their own species will survive if it enhances the “fitness” of their own genes. When the behavior of significant numbers of individuals in our species is exactly the opposite, there must be a reason for it. We must consider the possibility that behavioral traits that once enhanced our chances of survival have become “dysfunctional” in the environment we find ourselves in today.

One such trait is what we refer to as morality, and a fundamental aspect of human morality is its dual nature. Different standards of morality apply depending on whether another individual is identified as ingroup or outgroup. The outgroup is commonly loathed and hated, deemed impure, unclean, corrupt, etc. Look for it, and you will always find it. There was little chance that this trait would “malfunction” during the stone age. The outgroup was always just the next tribe over. To the extent that other groups were known, they were largely irrelevant as far as morality was concerned. Today we are aware of a myriad racial, ideological, religious, and many other types of groups. The trait in question is sufficiently flexible that we are quite capable of identifying any one of them as outgroup. Whatever group it happens to be, we tend to hate and despise its members and deem them immoral. It is quite possible for us to hate and despise groups that are closely related to us and would otherwise pose no threat to us as outgroup, preferring others who are much more distantly related as ingroup, even though they do pose a threat.

The phenomenon of equalism is another aspect of modern human moral behavior. According to E. O. Wilson, we are a “eusocial” species. As noted in the article linked above, to qualify as eusocial, in Wilson’s definition, animals must live in multigenerational communities, practice division of labor and behave altruistically, ready to sacrifice “at least some of their personal interests to that of the group.” The resulting tendency to promote sharing and equal distribution within the ingroup must have enhanced the odds of our survival eons ago. It can hardly be assumed that it will have the same result in a world in which the genetic closeness of those we identify as ingroup has become a matter of coincidence. It, too, has become an abundant source or morality inversions.

It is interesting that in today’s world the white race appears to be uniquely susceptible to such inversions. This seems odd in view of the fact that the same race achieved a dominant presence on several continents where it had never previously set foot in a very short time. Obviously, what we see today was not always the case. Whites are in retreat all over the world, and particularly in the countries where they represent the “indigenous people.” The behavioral traits responsible for morality can lead to radically different outcomes within a few generations in the context of environments that bear no resemblance to the one in which they evolved. The chaotic moral behavior of whites is an excellent demonstration of this fact.

Why is this happening? “Dysfunctional” outgroup identification certainly plays a major role. Ingroup/outgroup identification among the ruling classes of countries that are still predominantly white is commonly based on ideology. Increasingly, we see them behaving in ways that are sometimes referred to as “woke.” Their ingroup consists of those who “think right” when it comes to the ideological shibboleths that serve to identify the “good.” It also includes persons in other racial and ethnic groups, who are deemed “good in themselves.” The outgroup consists almost exclusively of other whites who oppose the ideology of the ingroup. As is typically the case for human outgroups, they are hated and despised as immoral, “deplorable,” etc. Only these outgroup whites are deemed capable of sins such as “white privilege” and “white supremacy,” evils to which the favored ethnic and racial groups are deemed immune.

White supremacy, indeed! Are the people who mouth such nonsense not aware that, as far as nature is concerned, our “function” is to carry genes from one generation to the next? There is no God or other entity out there to assign us a “higher” purpose. There is not a life form on this planet that is not a “supremacist” for the genes it carries. All others have gone extinct. That will be the fate of humans who are not “supremacists” as well, whether their skin color be white, black, brown, red, or yellow. Anyone who chooses that outcome in order to preserve the illusion that they are “morally pure,” is welcome to pass into oblivion in the odor of sanctity. I merely ask that, in the process, they don’t try to take the rest of us with them.

Of course, the belief that only those with a certain skin color can be guilty of such sins is racist by the very definition of the term. Similarly racist is the notion that whites are born guilty of the original sin of slavery even though slavery ended more than a century before any of them were born. Lost in the “conversation” is the fact that it never occurred to significant numbers of “people of color” that slavery was bad to begin with until whites began insisting on it. The fight against slavery and its eventual abolition was initiated and led almost exclusively by whites until the fight was virtually over. It was ended in the US at the cost of over 600,000 white lives. No matter. Whites are supposed to pay reparations for sins they never committed, simply by virtue of being white. The same does not apply to other races. Vast numbers of whites were enslaved by Arabs and Turks at the same time that blacks were enslaved in the US, but no one is suggesting that they pay reparations.

This anti-white racist ideology is fobbed off as “social justice,” an absurd term in itself, implying as it does that modern societies with populations in the millions should be regulated by moral emotions that evolved in the stone age. The remarkable fact about this currently dominant ideology is that it was created and is now maintained primarily by whites themselves. They have been bamboozled by their moral emotions into inventing an ingroup/outgroup complex that has resulted in the transfer of vast resources to other ethnic and racial groups with no prospect whatever that they will receive a comparable benefit in return. Nothing of the sort is observed in any other species on the planet, for the good reason that such behavior would lead to rapid extinction.

A similar morality inversion has resulted from the dominant ideology’s insistence that we are doing an injustice to animals by eating them. No matter that the transition from ape to man would have been impossible without hunting. We are informed by a legion of sanctimonious ideologues that eating animals is “evil,” and we must all become vegans. Since they have never experienced it themselves, they forget that famine has been prevalent throughout human history, and has hardly disappeared in our own time. Establishing these irrational taboos about what we can and cannot eat is harmful in the best of times. In times of famine, it becomes a direct threat to survival.

“Dysfunctional” ingroup/outgroup identification has resulted in another morality inversion of a sort that has been common as the source of the innumerable senseless wars that have been the bane of our species throughout human history. In this case, the Ukrainians are the “good” ingroup and the Russians are the “evil” outgroup. In order to ensure that the “good guys” win, thereby demonstrating how “virtuous” they are themselves, our rulers continue to escalate a conflict that doesn’t concern us, risking nuclear annihilation in the process.

I need not elaborate on the poisoning and mutilation of children in order to “transgender” them, nor the anti-natalism morality inversion. What can one say of these people who are convinced that racing down the path to a biological dead end is “virtuous?” As anyone who glances at social media occasionally is aware, the virtually universal response to these “woke” dogmas by those who oppose them is to perceive their proponents as outgroup. They are denounced as evil, not just as a matter of anyone’s opinion, but as an actual fact. The problem with this is that there are no moral facts. This typically human behavior is also irrational.

Does it seem reasonable, regardless of one’s ideology, to conclude that those of a different opinion wake up every morning wracking their brains to come up with a list of bad deeds to do that day? Does it seem reasonable to conclude that the descendants of those who were “good,” because, within a few centuries, they occupied and became the dominant race on several continents they had never seen before have now suddenly become “evil” because they are behaving in ways that seem tailor made to nullify those results? Neither they nor their ancestors had a clue about the fundamental reasons they acted the way they did in either case. Neither they nor their ancestors understood that it is not possible for anyone to be “really good” or “really evil” because those categories simply don’t exist. They are only imagined. The firm belief that they do exist is based on a powerful illusion that itself exists because it helped us survive in a world that disappeared long ago. The fact that this illusion of moral good and evil can have such diametrically opposite results within a short span of time in the context of environments utterly different from the one in which it evolved seems to suggest that it’s high time for our species to gain some rudiments of self-understanding.

I am not suggesting that one should abandon moral arguments. In an age in which manipulation of moral emotions is the universal weapon for fighting ideological battles, unilateral disarmament is not a viable alternative. Assuming one has any goals in life at all, one must fight for them with the weapons at hand, even if one understands that the very effectiveness of those weapons is based on an illusion. It is not unreasonable to kill a poisonous snake, even if one realizes that the snake doesn’t behave the way it does because it is immoral.

I am suggesting that, whatever your goals in life happen to be, they be chosen based on an accurate understanding of how our species came to be, and why it is that we behave the way we do. If we are to learn anything from the example of the “woke,” it is that blindly responding to emotions that make us feel good, whether morally or otherwise, is a good way to follow them down the same rathole to oblivion.

All human behavior is driven by emotional predispositions that exist because, at some time in the past, they enhanced our biological fitness. It should come as no surprise that these predispositions can and do inspire radically different behaviors among individuals living at the same time and same place in the complex societies of the present. We are not rigidly programmed like so many insects. The fundamental drivers of our behavior are open ended and flexible, well-suited to the simple societies in which they evolved. When creatures with large brains but imperfect reasoning abilities try to interpret what those drivers are trying to tell them in the complex societies we live in today, it is predictable that they will not all come to the same conclusions. As the example of the “woke” among us demonstrates, it is quite possible for us to conclude that, in order to be “good,” we must behave in ways that reduce our biological fitness. We stumble into morality inversions.

It is not my intent to prescribe to anyone how they ought or ought not to behave. We are all links in a chain of life that has existed unbroken for upwards of two billion years. We exist because, unlike myriads of others, all of our ancestors over that vast gulf of time managed to survive and reproduce. The mental traits that are the root cause of our behavior, moral and otherwise, aren’t there by coincidence. They exist because they enhanced the odds of that outcome. If, in full knowledge of that fact, anyone consciously chooses to be the final link in that chain, and to follow so many other life forms into the oblivion of extinction, so be it. If they make that choice because it is comforting to them to imagine that they are being morally good, I have no objection as long as they understand what morality is. I merely observe as I wave goodbye that their behavior seems somewhat out of harmony with the reasons they exist to begin with.

The Great Equalist Morality Inversion

We exist by virtue of a natural process of evolution. The most likely reason for the existence of those aspects of our being that can significantly affect the odds that the responsible genes will survive and reproduce is natural selection. This includes innate predispositions that are the root cause of our behavior, including moral behavior. We are not robots. These predispositions do not rigidly determine that we will behave in some ways and not in others. This is especially true in the case of our species, because we are creatures with large brains. We can ponder over what these predispositions of ours are trying to tell us in whatever environment we happen to find ourselves in. These facts account for both the remarkable similarities as well as the differences we observe in the moralities of different cultures.

The predispositions that account for our moral behavior spawn a powerful illusion of ought. We imagine that we ought to do some things and ought not to do others as a matter of objective fact. We believe that good and evil exist as objective things, independent of what anyone thinks about the matter. There is no evidence that such objects exist in the natural world. They are a figment of our imaginations that happened to enhance the odds that the responsible genes would survive and reproduce in a particular environment. For almost all of us, this environment no longer exists. There is no guarantee that the predispositions that spawn our moral behavior will have the same outcome in the environments we live in today as they did in the one in which they evolved. It would hardly be surprising if the opposite were the case. In our current environment they may lead to behaviors that are likely to result in our speedy extinction. Supposing that we prefer not to become extinct, it would behoove us to gain some self-understanding; to realize what morality is and why it exists.

Most of us have goals in life, and most of us assign ourselves a purpose. In the process, most of us have no clue why we do that. We commonly imagine that some external deity has assigned us these goals and purposes, even though such beings don’t exist. Often, we imagine that, absent such external forces to assign them, we can have no legitimate goals or purposes, even though in reality we have always assigned them to ourselves. It follows that when we see others acting in ways that oppose our goals and purposes, we imagine that they are deliberately acting in opposition to God, or to objective Good, and promoting objective Evil. In other words, we consider them bad people. However, God, Good and Evil are imaginary objects. They don’t actually exist outside of our minds. Nature makes no judgments whatsoever about what we ought to do, or what is morally bad, or what is morally good.

For example, conservatives commonly imagine that their ideological opponents, the people they call Woke, or Social Justice Warriors are bad people. Of course, those on the left of the ideological spectrum imagine the opposite. However, regardless of whether we are liberals or conservatives, it is unlikely that the first thing very many of us think about when we wake up in the morning is how many immoral things we can do that day. It is probably more useful to attempt to understand the behaviors in question than to simply pigeon hole them as good or evil.

All of us categorize others in terms of ingroup and outgroup. All of us assign a status to those in our ingroup. No matter how small it is, we establish a pecking order. We also tend to be territorial. At the time these behavioral traits evolved, there was no ambiguity about any of these things. Our ingroup was the group of 150 individuals, give or take, to which we belonged. The outgroup consisted of the people in the territory adjacent to ours. In such small groups there was also no ambiguity about what behaviors were considered morally bad and good. It never occurred to anyone to question the moral consensus of the group. We knew what people were above us and below us in the pecking order. At the same time, we deemed it proper that food and other resources should be shared within the group. Thus, although status was certainly important, there was also a spirit of equality within the group.

Today, we are aware of groups that are massive by comparison; citizens of particular countries, members of political parties, racial groups, religious faiths, and so on. Evolution didn’t provide for this eventuality. We are quite capable of identifying any of these categories as our ingroup or outgroup. It is also quite possible for us to imagine that our backyard, or our country, or even the entire planet, is our “territory.” The result can occasionally be what I refer to as a “morality inversion.” Behavioral traits that promoted survival in our ancient environment accomplish precisely the opposite in the environment we live in today.

By way of example, let’s consider the behavior of leftists in modern western societies in light of these facts. Their ingroup consists of those whose ideology is similar to theirs, and their outgroup consists of conservatives; people who oppose their ideology. They imagine that those in the conservative outgroup are morally evil and deplorable, after the fashion of our species since time immemorial. They tend to place little value on having children, and often consider it positively immoral. Their ingroup consists not of a few hundred, but of potentially millions of others, so they assign differences in status not only to individuals, but to racial, religious, and other subgroups within these massive ingroups. At the same time, they place great emphasis on the spirit of equality mentioned above. They are “equalists,” in that they not only believe that subgroups within their group ought to be treated equally, but actually are physically and mentally equal. The fact that this is highly unlikely in the case of subgroups that have been isolated from each other in different environments for tens of thousands of years doesn’t matter. The equality of groups is accepted as a matter of faith, a quasi-religious belief. The same irrational behavior was evident in the case of the Blank Slate dogma, which was propped up for over half a century before it finally collapsed under the weight of its own absurdity.

The territory of the ingroup is commonly imagined to be the entire planet. Thus, international borders are to be ignored. The principle of equality requires that all members of the ingroup be allowed to come and go as they please within the planetary territory. Those who favor individuals who are most closely related to them genetically are referred to as “white supremacists.” In other words, they are deemed to be morally bad. I am not aware of another species on the planet that behaves in ways that put others of their species that are most closely related to them at a disadvantage.

These behaviors are all perfectly understandable in terms of the open-ended innate predispositions that inspire them. It should also be obvious that they don’t accomplish the same thing as the behaviors that those same predispositions inspired in the environment in which they evolved. You might say they have become “dysfunctional” in the much different environment we live in today. For example, as noted above, leftists have encouraged genetically and culturally alien foreigners, perceived as “equals,” to move into and occupy their territories. This is not a symmetrical process, because if western leftists were to do the same thing in the countries of origin of these aliens, it would be referred to as the evil of colonialism. Leftists not only do not reproduce at a rate sufficient to prevent a gradual decline in their numbers, they often declare reproduction by members of their ingroup a positive evil. No other species on the planet exhibits behaviors similar to these, for the obvious reason that it is a sure path to extinction. It goes without saying that the vast majority of conservatives are no more aware of the evolutionary root causes of their behavior, and can be every bit as “dysfunctional” as a result.

Such behaviors are not objectively evil because there is no such thing as objective evil. There is no objective reason why any human being either ought to or ought not to strive to become extinct. However, some of us do not share that goal, including myself. If anyone who understands the basic psychology of our species decides on due consideration to become extinct, I have no objection. Their removal from the gene pool is probably “good” in terms of my personal goals. However, I do object when they seek to drag the rest of us down with them. There is no objective reason why we ought or ought not to resist their attempts to have us accompany them into extinction. However, we may very well have personal reasons. In that case, there is also no objective reason why we can’t fight back, either. Supposing that, like me, you include survival among your personal goals, I suggest that’s what you do.

Anti-Natalism For Thee, But Not For Me

According to Wikipedia, anti-natalism is “a philosophical position that assigns a negative value to birth.” In general, it includes the claim that having children is immoral. Commenter Simon Elliot asked that I take up the topic again, adding,

I remember you said that you didn’t take it seriously because you thought it demonstrated a “morality inversion” of sorts, but I’ve since spoken to a fellow anti-natalist who has heard that argument many times and has found a way around it.

I’ll gladly take up the topic again. As for the anti-natalist who’s “found a way around it,” all I can say is, more power to him. I don’t peddle objective “oughts” on this blog, because no one has ever succeeded in capturing one and showing it to me. As far as I’m concerned, there are only subjective oughts, and I know of no mechanism whereby the ones that happen to reside inside my skull can manage to escape and acquire normative power over other human beings. My personal ought regarding natalism applies only to myself.

According to that ought, I should have as many children as possible. Since I also believe that I and my descendants would be much better off if the population of the planet were greatly reduced, I certainly don’t want everyone else to share this particular ought. Ideally, I would prefer that only a small percentage of the current population share my opinion on the subject. The subset in question would consist of those individuals whose survival would contribute most to the survival of my own kin in particular, and to the indefinite survival of life as we know it in general.

Simon is right when he says that I consider anti-natalism an example of a “morality inversion.” By that I mean that anti-natalists typically rely on moralistic arguments to render themselves biological dead ends, whereas morality exists because the genes that are its root cause were selected by virtue of the fact that they resulted in just the opposite. Why am I a natalist? You might say it’s a matter of aesthetic taste. I perceive morality inversions as symptoms that a biological entity is sick and dysfunctional. I don’t like to think of myself as sick and dysfunctional. Therefore I tend to avoid morality inversions.

My position on the matter also has to do with my perception of my consciousness. My consciousness is the “me” that I perceive, but it will survive but a short time. On the other hand, there is something about me that has survived 3 billion years, give or take, carried by an unbroken chain of physical entities, culminating in myself. That part of me, my genes, is potentially immortal. I consider them, and not my consciousness, the real “me.” My consciousness is really just an ancillary feature of my current phenotype that exists because it happened to increase the odds that the real “me” would survive. I find the thought that my consciousness might “malfunction” and break the chain disturbing. I would prefer that the chain remain unbroken. Therefore, I am a natalist. However, I have no interest whatsoever in “converting” anti-natalists. Other than the exceptions noted above, the more of them the better as far as I’m concerned.

Good and evil have no objective existence. It is therefore impossible that I could have a “duty” to be either a natalist or an anti-natalist, independent of what is thought to be my duty in my own or anyone else’s subjective mind. It does not occur to me that my personal opinion on the matter has some kind of a normative power on anyone else, nor am I willing to allow anyone else’s opinion to have any normative power over me.

I realize perfectly well that anti-natalists like David Benatar seek to justify their opinions on what they perceive as objective moral standards. However, that perception is an illusion. In view of what moral emotions really are, and the reasons that they exist to begin with, I consider attempts to apply morality to decide this issue not only irrational, but potentially dangerous, at least in terms of the goals in life that are important to me. They are irrational and potentially dangerous for more or less the same reasons that it is irrational and potentially dangerous to blindly consult moral emotions in any situation significantly more complex than the routine interactions of individuals. Western societies are currently in the process of demonstrating the fact by engaging in suicidal behavior that is routinely fobbed off as an expression of moral righteousness. No doubt the verdict of history on the effects of this “righteousness” will be quite educational for whoever happens to occupy the planet a century from now. Unfortunately, the anti-natalists won’t be around to witness what the resulting “human flourishing” will look like in the real world.

In a word, then, my position on the matter is, “anti-natalism for thee, but not for me.” No doubt it is a position that is immoral according to the subjective standards prevailing in the academy and among the like-minded denizens of the ideological Left. However, I am confident I can bear the shame until the individuals in question manage to successfully remove themselves from the gene pool.

Extreme Altruism – The Case of the Pathological Do-Gooder

The Guardian just published an article by Larissa MacFarquhar entitled, “Extreme altruism: should you care for strangers at the expense of your family?” The byline reads as follows:

The world is full of needless suffering. How should each of us respond? Should we live as moral a life as possible, even giving away most of our earnings? A new movement argues that we are not doing enough to help those in need.

It’s a tribute to the power of the emotions responsible for what we call morality that, more than a century after Westermarck published The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, questions like the one in the title are still considered rational, and that a “moral life” is equated with “giving away most of our earnings.” Westermarck put it this way:

As clearness and distinctness of the conception of an object easily produces the belief in its truth, so the intensity of a moral emotion makes him who feels it disposed to objectivise the moral estimate to which it gives rise, in other words, to assign to it universal validity. The enthusiast is more likely than anybody else to regard his judgments as true, and so is the moral enthusiast with reference to his moral judgments. The intensity of his emotions makes him the victim of an illusion.

and

The presumed objectivity of moral judgments thus being a chimera, there can be no moral truth in the sense in which this term is generally understood. The ultimate reason for this is, that the moral concepts are based upon emotions, and that the contents of an emotion fall entirely outside the category of truth.

The article tells the tale of one Julia Wise, whom MacFarquhar refers to as a “do-gooder.” She doesn’t use the term in the usual pejorative sense, but defines a “do-gooder” as,

…a human character who arouses conflicting emotions. By “do-gooder” here I do not mean a part-time, normal do-gooder – someone who has a worthy job, or volunteers at a charity, and returns to an ordinary family life in the evenings. I mean a person who sets out to live as ethical a life as possible. I mean a person who is drawn to moral goodness for its own sake. I mean someone who commits himself wholly, beyond what seems reasonable. I mean the kind of do-gooder who makes people uneasy.

Julia is just such a person. MacFarquhar describes her as follows:

Julia believed that because each person was equally valuable, she was not entitled to care more for herself than for anyone else; she believed that she was therefore obliged to spend much of her life working for the benefit of others. That was the core of it; as she grew older, she worked out the implications of this principle in greater detail. In college, she thought she might want to work in development abroad somewhere, but then she realised that probably the most useful thing she could do was not to become a white aid worker telling people in other countries what to do, but, instead, to earn a salary in the US and give it to NGOs that could use it to pay for several local workers who knew what their countries needed better than she did. She reduced her expenses to the absolute minimum so she could give away 50% of what she earned. She felt that nearly every penny she spent on herself should have gone to someone else who needed it more. She gave to whichever charity seemed to her (after researching the matter) to relieve the most suffering for the least money.

Interestingly, Julia became an atheist at the age of eleven. In other words, she must have been quite intelligent by human standards. In spite of that, it apparently never occurred to her to question the objectivity of moral judgments. I’ve always found it surprising that so many religious believers who become atheists don’t reason a bit further and grasp the fact that they no longer have a legitimate basis for making moral judgments. They commonly consider themselves smarter than religious believers, and yet they cling to the illusion that the basis is still there, as solid as ever. Religious believers can usually detect the charade immediately, and notice with a chuckle that the atheist has just sawed off the branch they thought they were sitting on. Alas, the faithful are no less delusional than the infidels. Again quoting Westermarck,

To the verdict of a perfect intellect, that is, an intellect which knows everything existing, all would submit; but we can form no idea of a moral consciousness which could lay claim to a similar authority. If the believers in an all-good God, who has revealed his will to mankind, maintain that they in this revelation possess a perfect moral standard, and that, consequently, what is in accordance with such a standard must be objectively right, it may be asked what they mean by an “all-good” God. And in their attempt to answer this question, they would inevitably have to assume the objectivity they wanted to prove.

In any event, Julia’s case is a perfect example of why it is useful to understand what morality actually is, and why it exists. The truth was obvious enough to Darwin, and of course, to Westermarck and several other great thinkers who followed him. Morality is the manifestation of evolved behavioral traits. It exists because it enhanced the probability that the genetic material that gave rise to it would survive and replicate itself. Julia, however, lives in a world radically different from the world in which the evolution of morality took place. She is an extreme example of what can happen when environmental changes outpace the ability of natural selection to keep up. She suffers from an assortment of morality inversions. It’s as if she had decided to use her hands to cut her throat, or her legs to jump off a cliff. In short, she is a pathological do-gooder.

Several examples are mentioned in the article. In general, she believes that it is “good” to hand over money and other valuable resources that might have enhanced her own chances of genetic survival to genetically unrelated individuals, even though the chances that they will ever return the favor to her or her children are vanishingly small. She very nearly decides it would be “immoral” to have children because, according to the article,

Children would be the most expensive nonessential thing she could possibly possess, so by having children of her own she would be in effect killing other people’s children.

However, she manages to dodge this bullet by reasoning that she and her husband will be able to indoctrinate their child with their own pathological “values.” The decision to have a child becomes “good” as long as the parents are confident that they can control its environment sufficiently well to insure that it will grow up as emotionally crippled as they are. Of course, such therapeutic generational brainwashing is unlikely to be a “good” long term strategy for survival. MacFarquhar concludes her article with the question,

What would the world be like if everyone thought like a do-gooder? What if everyone believed that his family was no more important or valuable than anyone else’s? What if everyone decided that spontaneity or self-expression or certain kinds of beauty or certain kinds of freedom were less vital, or less urgent, than relieving other people’s pain?

Assuming the environment remains more or less the same, the answer is simple enough. The Julias of the world would die out. In the end, that’s really the only answer that matters. Is Julia therefore “wrong,” or even “immoral” for clinging to her pathologically altruistic lifestyle? Of course not, because the question implies the objective existence of things – Good and Evil – that are actually imaginary. One cannot logically claim that either using your hands to cut your throat, or using your legs to jump off a cliff, is objectively immoral. One must be content with the observation that such actions seem a bit counter-intuitive.