The Darwinian origins of morality and why elephants grieve

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What is morality?  Cue a knee jerk liberal response (we are moral) or a more measured perplexed frown that leaves the response dangling on a non sequitur.


There would appear, unless you wish to be surface and facile no substantive conclusion.


Morality, like most things can be explained in more than one way, this is a symptoms of a deeper malaise, of the distinction between hypothetical and categorical imperatives.
The question of morality brings about false assumptions, lapses in reasoning
and inevitable non sequitors


So a Darwinian perspective might throw some light as one looks at the behaviour of animals, a current debate being should animals, especially the great apes,  be accorded moral rights.


|However, some argue that  rights are normally accompanied by responsibilities, which cannot possibly apply to apes.  This view reflects profound condescension.



Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives”, Philosophical Review, 81: 305–16 Have we really reached the point at which respect for apes is most effectively advocated by depicting them as retarded people in furry suits

to witness a gorilla's self-sacrifice for a wounded mate, to watch an elephant herd's communal effort on behalf of a stranded calf--to catch animals in certain acts is to wonder what moves them. Might there he a code of ethics in the animal kingdom? Must an animal be human to he humane?


The origin of morality lies a Darwinian DNA, ie the survival and propagation of the species.


So next time one has to suffer a grandstanding politician espouse the morality of the liberal cause
one might just dismiss how surface this person is being, so boot him/her into the long grass
and let nature educate him/her.