Modern evolutionary picture of the world about laws. The evolution of the scientific picture of the world: a view from biology
The idea of world development is the most important idea of world civilization. In its far from perfect forms, it began to penetrate natural science back in the 18th century. But already in the 19th century. can safely be called the century of evolutionary ideas. At this time, development concepts began to penetrate geology, biology, sociology and the humanities. In the first half of the 20th century. science recognized the evolution of nature, society, and man, but there was still no philosophical general principle of development.
And only by the end of the 20th century did natural science acquire a theoretical and methodological basis for creating a unified model of universal evolution, identifying universal laws of direction and driving forces of the evolution of nature. Such a basis is the theory of self-organization of matter, representing synergetics. (As mentioned above, synergetics is the science of the organization of matter.) The concept of universal evolutionism, which reached the global level, linked into a single whole the origin of the Universe (cosmogenesis), the emergence of the Solar system and planet Earth (geogenesis), and the emergence of life (biogenesis) , man and human society (anthroposociogenesis). This model of the development of nature is also called global evolutionism, since it is precisely this model that embraces all existing and mentally imaginable manifestations of matter in a single process of self-organization of nature.
Global evolutionism should be understood as the concept of the development of the Universe as a natural whole developing over time. At the same time, the entire history of the Universe, starting from the Big Bang and ending with the emergence of humanity, is considered as a single process, where the cosmic, chemical, biological and social types of evolution are successively and genetically closely interconnected. Cosmic, geological and biological chemistry in a single process of evolution of molecular systems reflects their fundamental transitions and the inevitability of transformation into living matter. Consequently, the most important regularity of global evolutionism is the direction of the development of the world as a whole (universum) towards increasing its structural organization.
The idea of natural selection plays an important role in the concept of universal evolutionism. Here, something new always arises as a result of the selection of the most effective formations. Ineffective new growths are rejected by the historical process. A qualitatively new level of organization of matter is “affirmed” by history only when it turns out to be able to absorb the previous experience of the historical development of matter. This pattern is especially pronounced for the biological form of motion, but it is characteristic of the entire evolution of matter in general.
The principle of global evolutionism is based on an understanding of the internal logic of the development of the cosmic order of things, the logic of the development of the Universe as a single whole. For such an understanding, an important role is played anthropic principle. Its essence is that the consideration and knowledge of the laws of the Universe and its structure is carried out by a reasonable person. Nature is what it is only because there is a person in it. In other words, the laws of construction of the Universe must be such that it will certainly someday give birth to an observer; if they were different, there would simply be no one to know the Universe. The anthropic principle points to the internal unity of the laws of the historical evolution of the Universe and the prerequisites for the emergence and evolution of living matter up to anthroposociogenesis.
The paradigm of universal evolutionism is a further development and continuation of various ideological pictures of the world. As a result, the very idea of global evolutionism has a worldview character. Its main goal is to establish the direction of the processes of self-organization and development of processes on the scale of the Universe. In our time, the idea of global evolutionism plays a dual role. On the one hand, it represents the world as an integrity, allows us to comprehend the general laws of existence in their unity; on the other hand, it directs modern natural science towards identifying certain patterns of the evolution of matter at all structural levels of its organization and at all stages of its self-development.
List of used literature:
1. Louis de Broglie. Selected scientific works. T. 1. The formation of quantum physics: works of 1921-1934. - M.: Logos, 2010. - 556 p.
2. Hawking S. The shortest history of time. St. Petersburg. Amphora. 2011.
3. Bunge Mario. Philosophy of Physics."Progress", 1975.- 342 p.
4. History and philosophy of science (Philosophy of science): textbook. Alpha-M: INFRA-M, 2011.-416p. (2nd ed., revised and supplemented)
5. Grof S. Beyond the Brain, 1993.
29. Global evolutionism and the modern scientific picture of the world.
Global evolutionism is a direction of philosophical thought that considers the development of living and inanimate nature in a single evolutionary process; In such constructions, man usually acts as the crown of evolution.
Global evolutionism emerged as a coherent movement by the early 1990s, when the concepts of evolutionary cosmology became widely accepted and a clear continuity was noticed in the development of space, Earth, life and society. Equally clearly identified is a set of theoretical problems associated with the need to somehow reconcile the ideas of classical natural science (where the second law of thermodynamics remains the main law of irreversibility) and an array of empirical data indicating that over a period of about 15 billion years the Universe has consistently changed from a simple to the complex, from equilibrium to disequilibrium, i.e. from more likely to less likely states.
The principle of global evolutionism. The Universe as a whole and in all its manifestations cannot exist without development.
Darwin proposed a mechanism for its implementation, for the first time applying the principle of evolutionism to one of the areas of reality, thus laying the foundations of theoretical biology. G. Spencer tried to apply Darwin's ideas in the field of sociology; he proved the fundamental possibility of applying the evolutionary concept to other areas of the world that do not form the subject of biology. But in general, classical natural knowledge remained unaffected by the ideas of evolutionism; evolving systems were considered as a random deviation, the result of local disturbances. They were the first to try to extend the application of the principle of evolutionism beyond the biological and social sciences of physics. They put forward the hypothesis of the expansion of the Universe; astronomy data forced us to admit that the assumption of its stationarity was untenable. The Universe is clearly developing, starting with the hypothetical Big Bang that provided the energy for its development. This concept was proposed in the 40s and was finally established in the 70s. Thus, evolutionary ideas penetrated into cosmology, the concept of the Big Bang influenced ideas about the sequence of appearance of substances in the Universe.
The scientific picture of the world is a set of theories collectively describing the natural world known to man, an integral system of ideas about the general principles and laws of the structure of the universe. The functions of the scientific picture of the world include systematizing, explanatory, informative and heuristic. The systematizing function of the scientific picture of the world is ultimately determined by the synthetic nature of scientific knowledge. The scientific picture of the world seeks to organize and streamline the scientific theories, concepts and principles that make up its structure, so that most of the theoretical provisions and conclusions are derived from a small number of fundamental laws and principles (this corresponds to the principle of simplicity). The explanatory function of the scientific picture of the world is determined by the fact that knowledge is aimed not only at describing a phenomenon or process, but also at elucidating its causes and conditions of existence. The informative function of the picture of the world comes down to the fact that the latter describes the expected structure of the material world, the connections between its elements, the processes occurring in nature and their causes.
The heuristic function of the scientific picture of the world is determined by the fact that “the knowledge of the objective laws of nature contained in it makes it possible to foresee the existence of objects not yet discovered by natural science and to predict their most significant features.
Since the picture of the world is a systemic formation, its change cannot be reduced to any single, even the largest and most radical discovery. As a rule, we are talking about a whole series of interrelated discoveries in the main fundamental sciences. There are three such clearly and unambiguously recorded radical changes in the scientific picture of the world, scientific revolutions in the history of the development of science:
1. Aristotelian (VI-IV centuries BC) as a result of this scientific revolution, science itself arose, science was separated from other forms of knowledge and exploration of the world, certain norms and samples of scientific knowledge were created.
2. Newtonian scientific revolution (XVI-XVIII centuries), Its starting point is considered to be the transition from a geocentric model of the world to a heliocentric one, this transition was caused by a series of discoveries associated with the names of N. Copernicus, G. Galileo, I. Kepler, R. Descartes, I. Newton.
3. Einstein's revolution (turn of the 19th-20th centuries). It was determined by a series of discoveries (the discovery of the complex structure of the atom, the phenomenon of radioactivity, the discrete nature of electromagnetic radiation, etc.). As a result, the most important premise of the mechanistic picture of the world was undermined - the conviction that with the help of simple forces acting between unchanging objects one can explain all natural phenomena.
Evolutionary picture of the world
Development from the outside appears in the form of a change in evolutionary forms. If the picture of the world of the 19th century began with the hypothesis of the origin of the planets and the Sun, then modern ideas go back to the theory of the Big Bang. In the second half of the twentieth century, stable ideas emerged about the evolutionary series of self-developing material systems: galaxies, stars, planets, biosphere and society. They are forms of matter motion (FDM). The indicated FDMs, by virtue of the fact that they evolve, develop, did not always exist and did not arise simultaneously - they were formed sequentially and interconnectedly. There was a time when there was a biosphere without society, planet Earth without a biosphere, etc. This correlation of evolutionary forms, which can be easily traced in the history of society and the biosphere, confirms Lenin’s formulation of development: “the bifurcation of a single...”. From a previously unified form a new form arises, and that thereby becomes an old form; further development is determined by the “relationship” of the new and old forms (Fig. 1).
The mere fact of the emergence of a new FDM from the depths of the old reveals the contradictory essence of the old form and the inconsistency of their further coexistence. A new FDM could arise only if a qualitatively new type of interaction appeared, which emerged from the old type and came into conflict with it. Thus, the concept of “FDM” is also contradictory - on the one hand, it is a material system, and on the other, it is a method or type of interaction through which a new material system is separated from the old one.
Although a new FDM could not fail to appear, it must prove its viability in terms of interaction with the old FDM. This interaction leads to the improvement of the new FDM. Consequently, knowledge of the method of development is possible only by jointly considering the emergence of a new form and its interaction with the old one, as well as the relationship between the new and old types of interaction within the framework of the new form.
The principle of joint consideration can be illustrated by the example of the emergence of social FDM and its interaction with biological FDM. The essence of biological FDM is the change of biological species in conditions of its interaction with the geological environment. Change of species leads to the accumulation of heredity. The emergence of a qualitatively new type of interaction - collective labor - interrupted the change of biological species, making one biological species the king of nature. Subsequently, as labor formed, society separated from the biosphere. At the first stage, labor activity, acting as new, played a direct dominant role in relation to the preservation of the human biological species and the entire complex of biological relations, acting as old. At the same time, human biological inclinations were modified, humanized in accordance with labor relations, and acquired a social form. When society reached a level at which the task of preserving the human biological species was solved, labor relations were relegated to the background by biological, albeit socialized, relations. This is the second stage. Labor relations controlled social life indirectly through the exchange of goods. At the same time, society at the second stage managed to transform the biological FDM in its own interests, creating an artificial biosphere, which, in principle, ensured the possibility of normal development of the biological inclinations of all individuals. Therefore, a transition to the third stage became possible, which is characterized by a return to the clear primacy of labor relations over biological ones. This is a diagram of the development of society, which serves only to illustrate the emergence of abstractions of the theory of development - new, old, primacy - from history, as well as the relationship of these concepts in the course of development.
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At the beginning of the twentieth century, a crisis occurred in the teaching of evolution, which was caused by a clash of new data, methods and generalizations of genetics not only with the doctrines of Lamarckism, but also with the basic principles of Darwinism.
The way out of the crisis was associated with overcoming genetic anti-Darwinism (20-30s). Then a number of new areas of genetics and ecology were created, which prepared the scientific basis for the synthesis of these branches of biology with Darwinism, based on the doctrine of populations and natural selection. During this period, new directions became: experimental systematics (microsystematics), genetic ecology and gene geography, the study of “small mutations”, experimental and mathematical methods for studying the struggle for existence and natural selection, population genetics, evolutionary cytogenetics, the doctrine of distant hybridization and polyploidy.
Thus, the movement of scientific thought led to the creation of a synthetic theory of evolution (30-40s).
The most important pages in the development of biology and the formation of philosophical problems are associated with the emergence of such a science as genetics, which is the science of the laws of heredity and variability of living organisms and methods of controlling them. The fundamental concepts of genetics are:
Heredity- this is the universal property of living organisms to transmit their properties and characteristics from generation to generation.
Variability- the property of a living organism to acquire, in the process of individual development, new characteristics in comparison with other individuals of the same species.
The elementary unit of heredity is the gene. Gene- a material carrier of genetic (hereditary) information, capable of reproduction and located in a certain region of the chromosomes.
Let us note the main milestones and fundamental discoveries in the development of genetics.
1. G. Mendel (1822-1884) discovered the laws of heredity. The results of G. Mendel's research, published in 1865, did not attract the attention of the scientific community and were rediscovered after 1900.
2. A. Weisman (1834 - 1914) showed that germ cells are isolated from the rest of the body and therefore are not subject to influences acting on somatic tissues.
3. Hugo de Vries (1848-1935) discovered the existence of heritable mutations that form the basis of discrete variability. He suggested that new species arose due to mutations.
4. T. Morgan (1866-1945) created the chromosome theory of heredity, according to which each biological species has its own strictly defined number of chromosomes.
5. N.I. Vavilov (1887 -1943) in 1920, at the Third All-Russian Congress on Selection and Seed Production in Saratov, made a report on the law of homological series he discovered in hereditary variability.
6. In 1926, S.S. Chetverikov published an article “On some aspects of the evolutionary process from the subtle point of view of modern genetics.” In this work, he showed that there is no contradiction between genetic data and evolutionary theory. On the contrary, genetic data should form the basis of the doctrine of variability and become the key to understanding the process of evolution. Chetverikov managed to connect Darwin's evolutionary teachings and the laws of heredity established by genetics.
7. G. Meller established in 1927 that the genotype can change under the influence of X-rays. This is where induced mutations and genetic engineering originate.
8. In 1927, N. I. Vavilov spoke at the V International Genetic Congress in Berlin with a report “On the world geographical centers of genes of cultivated plants”
9. N.K. Koltsov (1872 - 1940) in 1928 developed a hypothesis of the molecular structure and matrix reproduction of chromosomes (“hereditary molecules”), which anticipated the most important fundamental principles of modern molecular biology and genetics.
10. In 1929, S. S. Chetverikov spoke at a meeting of the Moscow Society of Natural Scientists (MOIP) with a new, theoretically very important report on the topic “The Origin and Essence of Mutation Variation”
11. J. Beadle and E. Tatum in 1941 identified the genetic basis of biosynthesis processes.
12. 1962 D. Watson and F. Crick proposed a model of the molecular structure of DNA and the mechanism of its replication.
Let us now consider the main provisions of the synthetic theory of evolution.
First of all, let us pay attention to the concept of microevolution, which is a set of evolutionary processes occurring in populations of a species and leading to changes in the gene pools of these populations and the formation of new species. Microevolution takes place on the basis of mutational variability under the control of natural selection.
Let us note that mutations are the only source of the appearance of qualitatively new characters, and selection is the only creative factor in microevolution. It directs elementary evolutionary changes along the path of formation of adaptations of organisms to changing environmental conditions. The nature of microevolutionary processes can be influenced by fluctuations in population numbers (waves of life), the exchange of genetic information between them, their isolation and genetic drift.
Microevolution leads either to a change in the entire gene pool of a biological species as a whole (phylogenetic evolution), or (when isolating any populations) to their separation from the parent species as new forms (speciation).
The next important concept is macroevolution, understood as evolutionary transformations leading to the formation of taxa of a higher rank than the species (genera, families, orders, classes, etc.).
Macroevolution does not have specific mechanisms and is carried out only through the processes of microevolution, being their integrated expression. As they accumulate, microevolutionary processes receive external expression in macroevolutionary phenomena. Macroevolution is a generalized picture of evolutionary change observed from a broad historical perspective. From here it is clear that only at the level of macroevolution are general trends, directions and patterns of evolution of living nature revealed, which cannot be observed at the level of microevolution.
Basic provisions of the synthetic theory of evolution:
1) the main factor of evolution is natural selection, which integrates and regulates the action of all other factors (ontogenetic variability, mutagenesis, hybridization, migration, isolation, population pulsation, etc.);
2) evolution proceeds divergently, gradually, through the selection of random mutations. New forms are formed through hereditary changes (saltation). Their vitality is determined by selection;
3) evolutionary changes are random and not directed. The starting material for evolution is mutations. The initial organization of the population and changes in external conditions limit and channel hereditary changes in the direction of unlimited progress;
4) macroevolution, leading to the formation of supraspecific groups, is carried out only through the processes of microevolution and does not have any specific mechanisms for the emergence of new forms of life.
Evolutionary ethics as a study of population genetic mechanisms of the formation of altruism in living nature
Evolutionary ethics - a type of ethical theory according to which morality is a moment in the development of biological evolution, is rooted in human nature, and morally positive behavior is that which contributes to “the greatest duration, breadth and fullness of life” (G. Spencer).
The evolutionary approach to ethics was formulated by Spencer (see “Foundations of Ethics”), but its basic principles were proposed by Charles Darwin.
Darwin's Basic Ideas regarding the conditions for the development and existence of morality, developed by evolutionary ethics, are as follows:
a) society exists thanks to social instincts that a person satisfies in the society of his own kind; from here flow both sympathy and services that are provided to neighbors;
b) social instinct is transformed into morality due to the high development of mental abilities;
c) speech became the strongest factor in a person’s behavior, thanks to which it became possible to formulate the demands of public opinion (the demands of the community);
d) social instinct and sympathy are strengthened by habit.
The opinion has already been firmly established that a person (every person, an individual) is not born in the form of a tabula rasa. A person is born equipped not only with a large set of instinctive reactions, but also with a large set of dispositions (predispositions) to behave in a certain (strictly limited number) way.
Altruism - a moral principle that prescribes selfless actions aimed at the benefit and satisfaction of the interests of another person (people). Typically used to denote the ability to sacrifice one's own benefit for the common good. According to Comte, the principle of altruism states: “Live for others.” Altruistic behavior of animals is composed of various specific behavioral features. In general, it can be defined as behavior that benefits other individuals.
Let's consider three cases.
- Altruistic behavior of parents towards their offspring. This type of altruistic behavior includes the general phenomenon of caring for offspring. Caring for offspring is clearly the result of individual selection, since individual selection favors the preservation of the genes of those parents who leave the greatest number of surviving offspring.
- Self-sacrificing defensive behavior of workers in social bees. When a worker bee uses a stinger, it is tantamount to suicide for her, but it is useful for the colony, as it prevents the enemy from invading. The self-sacrifice of worker bees, along with other characteristics of the worker caste, can be adequately explained as the result of social group selection, since it benefits the bee colony as a whole.
- Groups of primitive people in the gathering and hunting stage, exemplified by the Bushmen of southwest Africa. These communities are organized groups that include family members, other relatives, in-laws, and sometimes random guests from other groups. The custom of sharing food is deeply rooted in them. If a large animal is killed, its meat is distributed to all members of the group, regardless of whether they are relatives or random visitors. In such groups other types of cooperative behavior also develop.
Let us now assume, for the sake of discussion, that food distribution and other similar types of social behavior have some genetic basis; this will allow us to try to study the types of selection that may be involved in the development of such behavior. Individual selection favoring the development of parental care is probably very intense. It is difficult to imagine, however, that members of a community would share food only with their descendants, depriving other members and close relatives, since the behavioral phenotype and “social pressure” from other members of the group are usually plastic. Food distribution behavior must naturally extend beyond its original goals, i.e., providing food for offspring, and extend to the entire family and kin group. It should also be expected that social group selection should favor the development of such behavior. The group as a whole depends on the association of its members in the foraging activities that essentially ensure survival, and it must benefit from the distribution of food on a broad basis. The tendency to share food, strengthened by social group selection, should extend to all members of the group, both blood relatives and “in-laws” equally. Such behavior likely overlaps with behaviors created by individual selection among intermediate rand relatives. In short, the distribution of food could be adequately explained as the result of the combined action of individual and social-group selection aimed at creating plastic cultural traditions.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, a crisis occurred in the teaching of evolution, which was caused by a clash of new data, methods and generalizations of genetics not only with the doctrines of Lamarckism, but also with the basic principles of Darwinism.
The way out of the crisis was associated with overcoming genetic anti-Darwinism (20-30s). Then a number of new areas of genetics and ecology were created, which prepared the scientific basis for the synthesis of these branches of biology with Darwinism, based on the doctrine of populations and natural selection. During this period, new directions became: experimental systematics (microsystematics), genetic ecology and gene geography, the study of “small mutations”, experimental and mathematical methods for studying the struggle for existence and natural selection, population genetics, evolutionary cytogenetics, the doctrine of distant hybridization and polyploidy.
Thus, the movement of scientific thought led to the creation of a synthetic theory of evolution (30-40s).
The most important pages in the development of biology and the formation of philosophical problems are associated with the emergence of such a science as genetics, which is the science of the laws of heredity and variability of living organisms and methods of controlling them. The fundamental concepts of genetics are:
Heredity is the universal property of living organisms to transmit their properties and characteristics from generation to generation.
Variability is the property of a living organism to acquire, in the process of individual development, new characteristics in comparison with other individuals of the same species.
The elementary unit of heredity is the gene. A gene is a material carrier of genetic (hereditary) information, capable of reproduction and located in a certain region of the chromosomes.
Let us note the main milestones and fundamental discoveries in the development of genetics.
1. G. Mendel (1822-1884) discovered the laws of heredity. The results of G. Mendel's research, published in 1865, did not attract the attention of the scientific community and were rediscovered after 1900.
2. A. Weissman (1834 – 1914) showed that germ cells are isolated from the rest of the body and therefore are not subject to influences acting on somatic tissues.
3. Hugo de Vries (1848-1935) discovered the existence of heritable mutations that form the basis of discrete variability. He suggested that new species arose due to mutations.
4. T. Morgan (1866-1945) created the chromosome theory of heredity, according to which each biological species has its own strictly defined number of chromosomes.
5. N.I. Vavilov (1887 -1943) in 1920, at the Third All-Russian Congress on Selection and Seed Production in Saratov, made a report on the law he discovered of homological series in hereditary variability.
6. In 1926, S.S. Chetverikov published an article “On some aspects of the evolutionary process from the subtle point of view of modern genetics.” In this work, he showed that there is no contradiction between genetic data and evolutionary theory. On the contrary, genetic data should form the basis of the doctrine of variability and become the key to understanding the process of evolution. Chetverikov managed to connect Darwin's evolutionary teachings and the laws of heredity established by genetics.
7. G. Meller established in 1927 that the genotype can change under the influence of X-rays. This is where induced mutations and genetic engineering originate.
8. N. I. Vavilov in 1927 spoke at the V International Genetic Congress in Berlin with a report “On the world geographical centers of genes of cultivated plants”
9. N.K. Koltsov (1872 – 1940) in 1928 developed a hypothesis of the molecular structure and matrix reproduction of chromosomes (“hereditary molecules”), which anticipated the most important fundamental principles of modern molecular biology and genetics.
10. In 1929, S. S. Chetverikov spoke at a meeting of the Moscow Society of Natural Scientists (MOIP) with a new, theoretically very important report on the topic “The Origin and Essence of Mutational Variability”
11. J. Beadle and E. Tatum in 1941 identified the genetic basis of biosynthetic processes.
12. 1962 D. Watson and F. Crick proposed a model of the molecular structure of DNA and the mechanism of its replication.
Let us now consider the main provisions of the synthetic theory of evolution.
First of all, let us pay attention to the concept of microevolution, which is a set of evolutionary processes occurring in populations of a species and leading to changes in the gene pools of these populations and the formation of new species. Microevolution takes place on the basis of mutational variability under the control of natural selection.
Let us note that mutations are the only source of the appearance of qualitatively new characters, and selection is the only creative factor in microevolution. It directs elementary evolutionary changes along the path of formation of adaptations of organisms to changing environmental conditions. The nature of microevolutionary processes can be influenced by fluctuations in population numbers (waves of life), the exchange of genetic information between them, their isolation and genetic drift.
Microevolution leads either to a change in the entire gene pool of a biological species as a whole (phylogenetic evolution), or (when isolating any populations) to their separation from the parent species as new forms (speciation).
The next important concept is macroevolution, understood as evolutionary transformations leading to the formation of taxa of a higher rank than the species (genera, families, orders, classes, etc.).
Macroevolution does not have specific mechanisms and is carried out only through the processes of microevolution, being their integrated expression. As they accumulate, microevolutionary processes receive external expression in macroevolutionary phenomena. Macroevolution is a generalized picture of evolutionary change observed from a broad historical perspective. From here it is clear that only at the level of macroevolution are general trends, directions and patterns of evolution of living nature revealed, which cannot be observed at the level of microevolution.
Basic provisions of the synthetic theory of evolution:
1) the main factor of evolution is natural selection, which integrates and regulates the action of all other factors (ontogenetic variability, mutagenesis, hybridization, migration, isolation, population pulsation, etc.);
2) evolution proceeds divergently, gradually, through the selection of random mutations. New forms are formed through hereditary changes (saltation). Their vitality is determined by selection;
3) evolutionary changes are random and not directed. The starting material for evolution is mutations. The initial organization of the population and changes in external conditions limit and channel hereditary changes in the direction of unlimited progress;
4) macroevolution, leading to the formation of supraspecific groups, is carried out only through the processes of microevolution and does not have any specific mechanisms for the emergence of new forms of life.
Evolutionary ethics as a study of population genetic mechanisms of the formation of altruism in living nature
Evolutionary ethics is a type of ethical theory according to which morality is a moment in the development of biological evolution, is rooted in human nature, and morally positive behavior is that which contributes to “the greatest duration, breadth and fullness of life” (H. Spencer).
The evolutionary approach to ethics was formulated by Spencer (see “Foundations of Ethics”), but its basic principles were proposed by Charles Darwin.
Darwin's main ideas regarding the conditions for the development and existence of morality, developed by evolutionary ethics, are as follows:
a) society exists thanks to social instincts that a person satisfies in the society of his own kind; from here flow both sympathy and services that are provided to neighbors;
b) social instinct is transformed into morality due to the high development of mental abilities;
c) speech became the strongest factor in a person’s behavior, thanks to which it became possible to formulate the demands of public opinion (the demands of the community);
d) social instinct and sympathy are strengthened by habit.
The opinion has already been firmly established that a person (every person, an individual) is not born in the form of a tabula rasa. A person is born equipped not only with a large set of instinctive reactions, but also with a large set of dispositions (predispositions) to behave in a certain (strictly limited number) way.
Altruism is a moral principle that prescribes selfless actions aimed at the benefit and satisfaction of the interests of another person (people). Typically used to denote the ability to sacrifice one's own benefit for the common good. According to Comte, the principle of altruism states: “Live for others.” Altruistic behavior of animals is composed of various specific behavioral features. In general, it can be defined as behavior that benefits other individuals.
Let's consider three cases.
· Altruistic behavior of parents towards their offspring. This type of altruistic behavior includes the general phenomenon of caring for offspring. Caring for offspring is clearly the result of individual selection, since individual selection favors the preservation of the genes of those parents who leave the greatest number of surviving offspring.
· Defensive behavior of workers in social bees associated with self-sacrifice. When a worker bee uses a stinger, it is tantamount to suicide for her, but it is useful for the colony, as it prevents the enemy from invading. The self-sacrifice of worker bees, along with other characteristics of the worker caste, can be adequately explained as the result of social group selection, since it benefits the bee colony as a whole.
· Groups of primitive people in the gathering and hunting stage, exemplified by the Bushmen of southwest Africa. These communities are organized groups that include family members, other relatives, in-laws, and sometimes random guests from other groups. The custom of sharing food is deeply rooted in them. If a large animal is killed, its meat is distributed to all members of the group, regardless of whether they are relatives or random visitors. In such groups other types of cooperative behavior also develop.
Let us now assume, for the sake of discussion, that food distribution and other similar types of social behavior have some genetic basis; this will allow us to try to study the types of selection that may be involved in the development of such behavior. Individual selection favoring the development of parental care is probably very intense. It is difficult to imagine, however, that members of a community would share food only with their descendants, depriving other members and close relatives, since the behavioral phenotype and “social pressure” from other members of the group are usually plastic. Food distribution behavior must naturally extend beyond its original goals, i.e., providing food for offspring, and extend to the entire family and kin group. It should also be expected that social group selection should favor the development of such behavior. The group as a whole depends on the association of its members in the foraging activities that essentially ensure survival, and it must benefit from the distribution of food on a broad basis. The tendency to share food, strengthened by social group selection, should extend to all members of the group, both blood relatives and “in-laws” equally. Such behavior likely overlaps with behaviors created by individual selection among intermediate rand relatives. In short, the distribution of food could be adequately explained as the result of the combined action of individual and social-group selection aimed at creating plastic cultural traditions.
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