MARIKO C.

IWAKI

2015400098

SEMINAR 3

DOM MAXIMILIAN MARY

MAN AS INTRINSICALLY MORAL

I.

Abstract

This paper will discuss on how the realms of Morality developed over time and how did
humans adopt to the environment that we live in until one will grow and had a control in his life.
This academic paper will dwell on the biological and anthropological approach on how life takes
place on a perspective that man and animals are similar, not only as a creation of God, but on
how both organisms deal with on their everyday lives, being inherently moral.
The first part of the research will present the theory of Charles Darwin, not specifically on the
Evolution of Man, but on how animals and human have a comparison on how they live and
despite challenges and struggle for survival along the way, morality is still prevalent by nature.
This is with basis in his book the Descent of Man where natural selection paved way for us to
have an impulse to help each other.
This paper would like to emphasize that even before, and until now humans are intrinsically
good under natural conditions. A human nature that is truly developed in a natural way, without
any kind of manipulation from outside forces, such as the state, culture or religion, is universal
and will always be supportive towards, and in service of, the individuals desire to live. A natural
sense of morality that automatically follows from such a human nature, comes from within each
individual and is based on respecting each others right to life.

II.

Content

At the onset, Human Nature is the distinguishing characteristics, including ways of thinking,
feeling and acting, that humans tend to have naturally, independently of the influence of culture,
while Morality is the differentiation of intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are
good (or right) and those that are bad (or wrong).
And in order to possess both is through the primary biological instincts that we have which will
define ones behavior. By studying nature, we can learn that organisms have a desire to help and
support each other in difficult times; same as humans where we also want to help others to
satisfy their basic needs and to survive. It makes us stronger as a species and ensures our long
term survival. Charles Darwin, the founder of the Theory of Evolution, was known for his widely
held notion that all life is related and has descended from a common ancestor: the development
of life from non-life and stresses a purely naturalistic (undirected) "descent with modification.
According to him, "moral faculties of man" were not original and inherent, but evolved from
"social qualities" acquired "through natural selection, aided by inherited habit. That for us to
become moral, we must first become social which is a result of variations bringing some benefit
for survival. He followed his principle to the pattern of the modern natural right reasoning of
Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which assumed that human beings
were naturally asocial and amoral, and only became social and moral historically.
And in able to persist it over time, these instincts persist and work continually in the whole life
of any individual. In his book, Descent of Man, Darwin explains that since different races, like
different breeds of dogs or horses, develop different capacities, it followed that distinct
gradations in moral capacities would be found among human races, from having nearly the same
structure, constitution, and habits, generally come into the severest competition with each other.
All have the same senses, intuitions, and sensations,----similar passions, affections, and
emotions, even the more complex ones, such as jealousy, suspicion, emulation, gratitude, and
magnanimity; they practice deceit and are revengeful; they are sometimes susceptible to ridicule,

and even have a sense of humor; they feel wonder and curiosity; they possess the same faculties
of imitation, attention, deliberation, choice, memory, imagination, the association of ideas, and
reason, though in very different degrees.
Charles Darwin principles on his books were usually being meant understood as survival of the
fittest. However, Darwin contested and believed that animals and humans are morally good
through the power of sympathy; for we are led by the hope of receiving good in return to perform
acts of sympathetic kindness to others; and sympathy is much strengthened by habit. Sympathy
is an ability to re-present others' feelings, as well as one's own, within oneself; so that if this
animal/person acquires better knowledge about others, by means of its improved intelligence, it
is natural to suppose that the extent of sympathy will also be somehow widened. The feeling of
compassion is hardwired in a very old part of the brain called the Periaqueductal Gray, showing
that compassion is really old in the nervous system. All of this shows that humans are wired to be
intrinsically good, unless of course you put them in a hostile environment.
Human beings evolved mental faculties spawned the development of conscience, which
predisposed them to increasingly adhere to the utilitarian principle of championing the greatest
good for the greatest number. Since the "ever-enduring social instincts" were more primitive and
hence stronger than instincts developed later, the social instincts were the sources of our feelings
of unease when some action of ours violated them. Such feelings of unease, Darwin explained,
we now call "conscience." If men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees,
there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a
sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters; and no
one would think of interfering. Nevertheless the bee, or any other social animal, would in our
supposed case gain, as it appears to me, some feeling of right and wrong, or a conscience. In this
case an inward monitor would tell the animal that it would have been better to have followed one
impulse rather than the other. The one course ought to have been followed: the one would have
been right and the other wrong.

In his last writings, Darwin challenged John Stuart Mill and other popular utilitarian economists,
arguing that impulses do not by any means always arise from anticipated pleasure. To make his
point, he used the example of a person rushing to save a stranger in a fire despite the personal
risk and without any expectation of a reward. The motivation to come to anothers rescue derived
from a deeper human impulse than pleasurewhat he called the social instinct.
However, things start to go wrong when outside forces in the environment interfere with our
desire to live. Faced with a direct or indirect threat on their life and the fulfillment of their basic
needs, any organism will start to behave in extreme ways out of self-defense and selfpreservation. The same goes for humans. The natural state for any organism including human
beings is to be cooperative and live in harmony with its kind and in its environment.
Everything goes wrong when they are introduced into a system that manipulates and seeks to
exploit them, that forces them to live against their true nature, and that makes it difficult for them
to satisfy their basic needs and consequently threatens their survival. In such a case they start to
develop undesirable and unnatural behavior, and thats exactly what we see everywhere around
the world.

III.

Conclusion

Therefore, based on my research and by answering the paper through biological approach
where I used the works of English Naturalist, Charles Darwin as my basis, I believe that by
nature, man is intrinsically good. That our morality can be inhibited by our habits, just like the
animals, as they were born on how did they adopt and develop their social instincts, then learning
to use it for the good of others. That for us to be moral, we first need to be social. On the reason
that, for us to know what is right and wrong we must first ascertain the things around us. The
environment that we live, the persons we meet, the situations that we face so we may act, not
only by the impulse of our bodies which makes us humans, but through the goodness within us.
A natural sense of morality is connected to human nature and comes from within; it
automatically follows from the fundamental programming of life that drives us. I believe that we
are morally good, but is hindered by our beliefs on politics, government, religion, culture, and
etc. which is a division that separates us. Within such factors, the way we respond to situation
and on what we think differs. As what others would say: It is always a matter of perspective. One
act and to some, it may be right, but to others it is wrong.
But, as explained in this paper, according to Charles Darwin, who even founded the theory that
we are not made by God, but through evolution, we developed overtime, the realms of Morality
is present and by such, we are intrinsically moral.
Footnotes:
http://www.discovery.org/a/9591
http://www.discovery.org/a/1122
https://philosophynow.org/issues/71/Darwin_On_Moral_Intelligence
http://www.northwestern.edu/onebook/the-reluctant-mr-darwin/essays/darwin-morality.html