The Selfish Gene

Listen carefully the next time you overheard an argument in office or at home. For youmay just stumble upon a powerful clue for God’s existence!In his bestseller

Mere Christianity

, C.S. Lewis observed that when we quarrel, we wouldoften appeal to some higher Moral Law to which the other party is accountable. For example, it is common to hear people argue like this: “That’s my seat, I was here first”,“Give me a piece of your orange, I gave you some of mine” or “How do you like it if someone did the same to you?” Such arguments do not merely express our displeasure atsomeone’s behavior. They are actually appealing to a standard of right and wrong whichwe expect others to know about and ought to follow. Otherwise it would be as futile asclaiming that a footballer had committed a foul without some agreement about the rules.This transcendent and universal Moral Law is a signpost pointing to God who is theLawgiver.But not everyone would agree. Popular writers such as Richard Dawkins and RobertWright have tried to show that rudimentary forms of moral cognition can be found inanimals as well. In some typical experiments, chimpanzees were given simple tasks to perform which were subsequently rewarded. When the same rewards were dispensed atrandom, some of the animals seemed to sulk at the ‘unfair’ state of affairs and refused totake further part in the activities.Therefore, our genetic makeup and externalenvironment are responsible for developing variations of social behaviors, and only1

behaviors that increase our chances of survival will be retained.What appears to bealtruism or an unselfish regard for the welfare of others are actually disguised self-interest programmed in our ‘selfish genes’, kin selection (“My relatives share my genesso if I help them, it will help propagate my genes as well”) or reciprocal altruism (“Iscratch your back, you scratch mine”).In the final analysis, "Do unto others what youwant others do unto you" is not a universal moral law. It just happens to be a strategy thathelps us in the game called ‘survival of the fittest’.If so, morality is not unique tohumans and can be explained by natural selection without appeal to a divine Lawgiver.As Robert Wright explained, "The conscience doesn't make us feel bad the way hunger feels bad, or good the way sex feels good. It makes us feel as if we have done somethingthat's wrong or something that's right. Guilty or not guilty. It is amazing that a process asamoral and crassly pragmatic as natural selection could design a mental organ that makesus feel as if we're in touch with higher truth. Truly a shameless ploy."Evolution conjuresup an illusion of a transcendent moral law.In actual fact, we behave morally becausethat's how our instincts wired us – a sort of biological plus environmental determinism.Our "fidelity gene" or "infidelity gene" shape our behavior in order to make more copiesof itself in future generations. If so, one may wonder why Mother Teresa is praised whileHitler is condemned since each of them is merely doing what their genes tell them to do?But our sense of right and wrong does not merely describe human behavior. It also prescribes what behavior we should have. Therefore an adequate explanation of moralitymust be able to account for this ‘oughtness’. Natural selection may be a viable2

description of human behavior in the past. But it does not offer any reason why we areobligated to be good tomorrow.It explains why we believe moral truths exist when, infact, they don't.If everything came about by ‘chance plus time plus matter’ there can beno moral absolutes to live by. If the placebo effect from such illusory notions has now been dispelled, then it's very hard to see why people are not morally allowed to adopt thelaw of the jungle. One may well be justified to adopt ‘might-is-right’ or eliminatehandicapped babies and the physically weak so that our chances of survival as a specieswill be greater. Morality, then, is not so much explained by natural selection. It has beendenied.Moreover we cannot reduce morality to merely external, observable behavior inchimpanzees. Morality goes beyond outward conduct to inward motives. We do not blame people for something done purely by accident. We distinguish between the blameworthiness of stepping unintentionally on someone’s toes in bus and the same actdone on purpose. Indeed some ‘noble’ actions like giving out donations may be immoralif the motive behind the act is solely to gain others’ approval. And vices such as lust,greed and hatred may be committed in the mind without any outward action. Therefore,we cannot make simplistic conclusions about morality in animals based merely onobservations of their external, instinctive conducts.Although Social Darwinism could and had been used to justify horrible evils such aseugenics, abortions, infanticide and racism in Nazi Germany, Wright (to his credit) wasvery much opposed to it and called us to be a truly ‘moral animal’. In a stirring call for 3