Evolution, ethics and religion

Abstract

Arguments are advanced that ethics provide the building blocks for the cultural evolution of those forms of behaviour that distinguish different human moral communities. To perform this function ethical variants need to be maintained within communities over many generations and this is achieved by religious prescription enshrining the ethical variants. This gives religions their essential function. It also follows that ethics themselves must evolve and be subject to natural selection. Some ethical variants and their possible survival value are discussed. This survival value is clearly distinct from the reasons that the variants were introduced. Finally, the consequences for ethical evolution arising from the change of humans from an endangered to an endangering species are considered.