Instincts
Survival
Imagine an organism that was genetically inclined to kill itself. Obviously, this organism would produce fewer offspring than an organism that does not have this tendency. Thus, the self-destructive trait would have lesser chances of being passed on. If this process continued for a thousand generations, we would see that this trait would disappear completely — by the principle of natural selection. It follows that all species that exist today have a hard-wired drive to survive. This is simply a necessary requirement for having reached the present.
This does not mean that organisms cannot or do not kill themselves. An individual mutation can make the survival instinct weaker in one individual. For humans, many more factors can play a role, including psychological, medical, economic, and social ones1. Natural selection does not predict that no one will ever kill themselves. It does predict, though, that in general, every existing species has a basic tendency to aim for its survival. This is indeed what we observe also in humans.
People who consider suicide don’t want to stop their life.
They want to stop the pain.
Animal morality
Animals show a basic tendency to avoid death. However, this is about the only component of animal behavior that appears to resemble human moral values. In fact, animals often show behavior that appears rather “immoral”.First, many species can survive only if they kill other animals. This entails that the life of any carnivore is a continuous chasing, tearing apart, and guzzling of other animals. Nature thus appears inherently brutal. From an evolutionary perspective, this is understandable: It is not beneficial for the survival of one species to spare another species. On the contrary, a species that plays “nice” will just be eaten and eradicated. Hence, all species that survived in the animal kingdom until today pay no respect to the life of any other species — unless it is useful for themselves. As a common saying in evolutionary psychology goes: Animals have evolved to serve mainly the “four F”: Feeding, Fleeing, Fighting, and reproducing.
In the pursuit of these 4 Fs, the well-being of another animal plays no role. For example, some spider species eat not just their prey, but also devour their mates2. This is because their mates do not serve any reproductive purpose any more, they are too weak to defend themselves, and provide a valuable source of protein. Eating the mate offered an evolutionary advantage, and so spiders that behaved this way survived.
The list goes on: Some wasps lay their eggs in their prey without killing it, so that the larvae slowly eat their host alive5. Or take malaria. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people die from this disease, which is transmitted by mosquitos6. Of course, the mosquito does not care at all whether humans die. The mosquito just cares whether humans deliver the blood that the mosquitoes feed on. The malaria virus also does not care whether the human dies. The virus just has to make sure that it is transmitted before the host dies (where “has to make sure” is to be understood in the sense of an evolutionary pseudo-intention). All virus mutations that kill the host instantly before the transmission occurred have died together with their host. Hence, all viruses that exist today do not instantly kill.
Animals with higher brain functions are no exceptions: When lions take over a harem, they slaughter the entire population of baby lions in the group7. From a human perspective this appears cruel and wanton. However, it has a clear evolutionary advantage: It eliminates all the genes of the preceding alpha lion, and makes sure all successive offspring stems from the new lion. As before, the lion pays no respect to the fact that the baby lions are alive -– even though they are animals of his own species.
Our cute pet versions of lions, the domestic cats, do not fare much better: They play with their prey before killing it8. They will for example injure a mouse so that it cannot run. Then they will let it go a bit — just to catch it again. They will throw it in the air, punch it, or play with it like a ball — all while the mouse is still alive. They will even start chewing it, but only a bit. Cats do all of this apparently for entertainment. Curiosity and dexterity served them well throughout their existence. Pity for mice did not.
All of this shows us that there is no “ethical behavior” in nature. Nature is often mainly about eating and being eaten.
In nature, every mouth is a slaughter‐house and every stomach is a tomb.
Empathy
This trait has been observed in mice, rats, dogs, elephants, primates. The first such study dates to 1959: American psychologist Russell Church trained rats to obtain food by pressing a lever. He found that if a rat pressing the lever saw another rat in a neighboring cage receive a shock from an electrified cage floor, the first rat would interrupt its activity, to avoid the pain to the other rat. In a similar vein, researchers have observed consolation responses in chimpanzees: After one chimpanzee has attacked another, a bystander will go over to gently embrace the victim until he or she stops yelping. Both are instances of empathy: the caring for another living being.9
To see why such behavior makes sense, consider a species of animals that lives in social structures. In such social structures, the presence of the individual is useful for the community. Otherwise the community would not have formed in the first place, and the individuals would just go their own way. The community provides protection from predators, an opportunity to find mates, a system to raise the young, and the possibility to find new sources of food collectively. Now assume that there is a mutation where the individuals show a basic form of care for each other: Whenever one of them is attacked, the others help. In such a system, the individuals have a slightly higher chance of survival. Therefore, the community will have more individuals, provide its services better, leading to its members producing more offspring and ultimately outrunning egoistic variants of the species.
This explains why certain animals with social structures have a basic sense of empathy. This does not mean that every individual would be empathetic. In fact, many are not. However, for humans, most of us suffer when another human suffers.
If you can’t tell right from wrong, you lack empathy, not religion.
Altruism
at the firefighter station in Lagos, Portugal (freedom of panorama)
Like empathy, altruism appears in humans and some animal species. For example, laboratory rats worked to free trapped, distressed cagemates from restrainers, even if it meant giving up chocolate for themselves11. Green monkeys warn each other of predators using different calls. Zoologists have identified one call that means “Careful! An eagle!” (causing those who hear it to look up in fear) and another one that means “Warning! A lion!” (causing those who hear it to climb on a tree)12. Such behavior of warning others is beneficial for the survival of the group, and hence the trait has had an evolutionary advantage. Beyond that, it can be shown that, for humans, helping other people actually makes people feel happy13. This effect makes perfect sense from an evolutionary point of view: If helping makes you happy, you help more, and societies with happy helpers were more successful. Psychologists generally refer to this virtuous cycle of helping others, doing good and subsequently feeling good as the helper’s high.
Thus, altruism may ultimately not be so altruistic after all. Individuals appear to be altruistic mainly for egoistic reasons — namely to feel good. While this poses a problem from a philosophical and religious point of view, it does not from an evolutionary point of view: The helper’s high is the way that evolution found to make us care for each other.
If you need the threat of eternal torture to be a good person,
you're not a good person.
The cuckoo egg principle
We have seen that empathy and altruism may be a consequence of the fact that social communities benefit the survival of the species. This principle, however, suggests that we should feel more empathy for a person that is useful to us, and less empathy for a person from whom we do not directly benefit. This does not happen in practice.
Now the problem is that such ancient behavioral traits are coarse-grained. Consider for example birds. Birds are hard-wired to feed their young. However, birds will feed any young in their nest, not just their own. Birds will even feed young birds of other species, if they happen to be in the nest. This is how cuckoos work: They just put their eggs in the nest of another bird, which will then raise the cuckoos along with its own offspring. The bird does not know or understand that (from a purely evolutionary standpoint) it has to feed only its own young. The trait that developed was not “feed your young”, but “feed whatever opens its beak in your nest”. Similarly, the trait that humans developed was not “take care of another human if you figure that they will be of use to you”, but “take care of another human”. This is the cuckoo egg principle: Behavioral traits are rough14.
This may explain why we see altruism also across species: Humpback whales have been observed rescuing a seal; dolphins rescuing humans, dogs, and each other from sharks and fishing nets; and apes helping injured animals and even human children who fall into their enclosures11.
Remember the parable of the Good Samaritan from the Bible[Luke 10:25–37]?
How he helped the man who was beaten and left half dead alongside the road?
Now you know what? The good Samaritan was not a Christian.
He was a Samaritan.
Reciprocity
in Bali, Indonesia
Reciprocity is a mutual exchange of privileges15, i.e., the principle that one individual does a favor to another individual in the expectation that this favor is returned. The classical example is the monkey who turns its back to another monkey to pick out the parasites(pictured). After some time, the roles will be reversed. A monkey cannot remove the parasites from its own back, but if the monkeys work together, they can remove the parasites from each other’s back and both benefit.
For humans, reciprocity may have evolutionary reasons: Suppose for example that you are a hunter-gatherer some tens of thousands of years ago. One day, you are lucky and you kill a deer. You can’t possibly eat all of it in a day, and refrigerators are still a few centuries away. You decide to share the deer with the group, in the hopes that you will profit from others’ spoils when your haul is less impressive16.
The concept can also be generalized beyond mutual help. In a society, people benefit from sharing knowledge, solidarity, support or property. The society benefits if everybody generally contributes — no matter whether the donor receives their compensation from the recipient or from some other person. Therefore, society holds in high esteem those who contribute selflessly. This principle is encoded in the notion of reputation: A good reputation means that a person is known to help others. Psychological studies show that a good reputation makes it more likely that others will help that person — no matter whether they have benefited from that person’s help in the past or not.17
If I sometimes need help from others, then sometimes others will need help from me. Therefore, we help others. We are kind to each other. We share. What goes around comes around — it does not take a rocket scientist to figure this out.
Pacts
Pacts
in the National History Museum of Urugay
Now imagine that you were thrown into such a society. What would be the first thing you do? You might be tempted to run away. But you still have to hunt and/or grow food, which is very hard to do when you are alone. You could not even sleep at night comfortably for fear of being surprised and slaughtered. So what do you do?
You would likely find another person who is in a similar situation as you. Then you make a deal: You won’t hurt that person if that person does not hurt you. Now each of you can sleep half of the night. This is a particular instance of reciprocity. Later, more people may join the deal. Each of them vows not to harm any of the members. Each of them has to be judged for their trustworthiness before being admitted to the club. What you wind up with is a society based on a non-aggression pact — the root of a moral system. One variant of this scheme is that several people stick around one particularly strong member — a “protector”. Another variant is to base such clubs of non-aggression on the family or clan. This has the advantage that the club members already know each other.
This scenario of non-aggression clubs might seem highly artificial; however, it is exactly what happens when you put humans together in a rough environment: They form clubs of non-aggression. This happens with fishers, farmers, and herders18, plane crash survivors in remote places19, the citizens of early city states20, and even soldiers of opposing parties21 and Mafia members22. People realize they fare best when they don’t harm each other, and hence they quickly make a kind of pact between them.
I don’t take his toys, and he doesn’t take my toys.
Punishment
We have seen that societies or sub-societies make pacts of non-aggression. Now what happens if one of the members violates the pact?Suppose that there is a group of 10 people, and one of them kills another one, thus breaking the pact. How would the others react? Suppose they did nothing. Then the pact is not worth anything –- it is as if you had no pact at all. If you are in this group and you see that members kill each other with impunity, you’d better join another club. You would want to join a group where the members punish any deviation from the pact in order that there was a deterrent to you yourself getting harmed. In such a system, individuals not only benefit from the mutual non-aggression, but they also know that if they transgress, they will pay a price, and therefore they do not. The threat of punishment is one of the most straightforward ways to enforce conformance. Thus, every member of the group has an interest in keeping up (and implementing) this threat of punishment.
It does not take a genius, or a god, to figure out that no normal human being wants to be murdered.
Conscience
We have seen that a system of pacts and punishments emerges wherever humans have to live together. One particular instance of this phenomenon is a family. Children usually follow what their parents do or tell them. This has proven an evolutionary advantage, since the parents are examples of a successful strategy of survival. Furthermore, the parents have accumulated more experience, i.e., they have validated more theories. Finally, children are physically weaker than the parents and dependent on them, and thus the parents can enforce or prevent certain behavior. Now we can imagine that one of the first things that parents tell their children is to adhere to the pact of non-aggression that forms the basis of their clan. If the children do not follow the pact, the family risks being thrown out of the club. Indeed, parents usually ensure that cooperative behavior towards the clan appears to be the best of all possible available strategies for their offspring23.This leads to a mechanism where children are expected to follow norms. If they don’t, they are punished, and are taught to feel bad. Thus, most humans today have learned the basic ability to follow norms. We can hypothesize that this process has formed our basic ability to adhere to norms — a phenomenon that we call conscience. In this sense, conscience may have evolved as a biological tool to facilitate social interaction and collective survival24.
The basic recipe for inner harmony:
What you believe =what you say =what you do
Tyrannies
We have seen that people have an interest in establishing moral norms in order to protect themselves. In this scenario, people voluntarily establish norms and ensure that everybody observes them.However, there are also cases where a strongman establishes control over the others. Examples are alpha-males in teams, companies, or organizations; the kings of old times; and the dictators and autocratic regimes of modernity. Such despots establish rules, which guarantee peace as long as no one questions their dominance. Canadian-American psychologist Steven Pinker gives the example of early governments: They pacified the people they ruled and reduced internecine violence, but imposed a reign of terror that included slavery, harems, human sacrifice, summary executions, and the torture and mutilation of dissidents and deviants. Such despotism has persisted throughout history not just because being a despot is nice work if you can get it, but because the alternative of unregulated anarchy was often worse25: The despot may be repulsive, and it is dangerous to cross him, but at least he guarantees peace. He establishes rules and makes people follow them — and for the average man, this is better than living in chaos. History seems to prove these people right: American librarian Matthew White has estimated the death toll of the hundred bloodiest episodes in 2500 years of human history. He concludes: “Chaos is deadlier than tyranny. More [deaths] result from the breakdown of authority than from the [despotic] exercise of authority.”26
Thus, even despotic systems have their raison d'être. In reality, we often see mixtures of the voluntary and the involuntary model, where a ruler promises to uphold peace in the community, but also uses his power to cement his own position.
No one won the last war, and no one will win the next one.
Why people follow norms
We have seen people form pacts of non-agression and how these are enforced by punishments and education. So when we ask why people adhere to norms, we can now offer several reasons:- Empathy
- Most of us have a built-in tendency to feel another’s suffering from their point of view when we see someone else suffering. Hence, we usually avoid hurting others.
- Safety
- We have an interest in protecting our life, limb, and property. We understand that others will protect our assets only if we protect theirs. This gives rise to a system of moral pacts in which we agree to protect each other.
- Reciprocity
- The idea of pacts goes beyond the protection of basic assets. We know that our lives are much easier if we can rely on the society to help us when we are in need. If we do not behave accordingly, society will be much less inclined to help us. Thus, it is in our interest to be a respected member of that society.
- Conscience
- We have been trained from our childhood to feel bad when we break norms. This system continues to work into adulthood — it is our conscience.
- Fear of punishment
- If a person believes that they are going to be punished for a deed, then they are less likely to do that deed.
However, some parts of these controls are innate -- a basic sense of empathy for sure is. As we have argued in this chapter, this may have evolutionary reasons. English biologist Charles Darwin makes the point as follows: “Although a high standard of morality gives but a slight or no advantage to each individual man and his children over the other men of the same tribe, yet that an advancement in the standard of morality and an increase in the number of well-endowed men will certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over another. [And as] at all times throughout the world tribes have supplanted other tribes; and as morality is one element in their success, the standard of morality and the number of well-endowed men will thus everywhere tend to rise”27. British biologist Richard Dawkins spins the idea further, and argues that a society basically has two choices with respect to moral behavior: If everyone is evil, and only a minority of people behaves nice, these nice people will suffer. Hence, they will stop behaving nicely. Vice versa, if everyone is kind, and only a few people are evil, then the nice ones will punish the evil ones. Thus, there are only two stable states for a society: Either everyone is nice, or everyone is evil. Evil societies have not lived for long (for reasons outlined by Darwin). Hence, nice societies have prevailed14 — a conclusion that also Canadian-American psychologist Stephen Pinker shares18.
Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a stone.
Moral Frameworks
Moral judgments
We have seen that humans follow moral norms for a variety of reasons. We will now look at the philosophical and logical nature of norms. We typically distinguish three types of behaviors:- Morally wrong behaviors
- These are behaviors that we want to avoid and punish. For example, most people agree that theft is morally wrong.
- Morally obligatory behaviors
- These are the things that we are morally obliged to do. One example is calling the police when we see a crime.
- Morally permissible behaviors
- These are the things that we may do. For example, most people will agree that it is morally OK to eat chocolate.
The moral quality of a behavior is not an intrinsic property of the behavior itself. Shooting a gun at someone might be morally wrong in one context (murder) and morally permissible in another (self-defense) and morally obligatory in another (if you are a police officer and this is the only way to save the life of others). Thus, the moral quality of a behavior depends on the circumstances.
A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.
Diversity of moral judgments
Societies had and have different opinions when it comes to moral judgments, as the following examples show:- Slavery
- Slavery was completely normal in large parts of the world during much of recorded history. The Ancient Romans and Greeks had slaves; monasteries and popes had slaves; Arabs had slaves; and American farm owners had slaves. The abolitionist movement gained traction only in the 19th century. Some countries did not abolish slavery until late in the 20th century: Saudi Arabia abolished it in 196228, the Catholic Church in 1965, and in Mauritania, it was not a crime to own slaves until 200729. Nowadays, slavery is considered immoral by the vast majority of the world population.
- Homosexuality
- Gay love has variously been labeled as morally bad or as morally acceptable. It was acceptable and even normal in Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and Mesopotamia30. It was largely shunned in the Western world with the rise of Christianity and Islam. Recently, it became acceptable again in some Western countries, to a degree that gay union or marriage is permitted in 67 countries as of 2023. In 5 other countries, homosexuality carries the death penalty31.
- Capital punishment
- The death penalty is another example of a controversial moral question. As of 2022, capital punishment is illegal in most countries, but legal in 55 others. In the United States, some states implement it, while others declare it illegal.32
- Abortion
- In Christianity, abortion was generally condemned, although it was permitted in Catholicism from 1591 CE to 1869 CE, and it remains permitted in liberal interpretations of the faith. Liberal countries typically allow abortion under some conditions. However, as of 2022, 24 countries forbid it.33
- Theft
- Theft is a crime in most countries. However, we can well imagine a society without the concept of property and hence without the concept of theft. Some sub-societies implemented this philosophy, for example the Hutterites34 or the Harmony Society35.
- Manslaughter
- One may think that the killing of people (who have done nothing wrong) would be one of the most obvious universal prohibitions. Yet, that is not the case. In Central America, the Maya sacrificed not just animals, but occasionally also humans to their gods36. The Torah, and by extension the Bible, also approvingly record numerous human sacrifices[Bible: Judges 11:29-40][Bible: 2 Samuel 21][Bible: 2 Chronicles 34:1-5]. We can argue that it is always prohibited to kill people for no reason — but that is of little help if these reasons are independent of your behavior and can be as arbitrary as “We want to please this god”. In the same vein, a Quranic verse prescribes kinship punishment, whereby an (unrelated) person is killed in revenge for murder (“a slave for a slave, a female for a female”)[Quran 2:178]. The verse is subject to different interpretations today, but confirms that there were and are different views on the value of human life.
- Prostitution
- The practice is illegal in most countries, but legal in 18 others (as of 2024). Where it is legal, it is often tightly regulated.37
- Other practices
- Sex before marriage, drinking alcohol, smoking, and gambling are all behaviors that are considered normal in some parts of the world and inherently sinful in others.
Moral statements
We have seen that people do not agree on moral rules — neither across times nor across societies. Even supposedly universal maxims such as “Society should not fall apart” or “All people should be treated equally” are not given: A Humanist can very well wish that an oppressive, misogynistic, slave-holding society such as the Islamic State should fall apart. Vice versa, the Islamic State does not share the opinion that all people should be treated equally. This leaves us to conclude that there are different judgments of morality. That is something we can regret, but this does not make it any less true.We will therefore take a rather unconventional approach. We will say only that certain people find certain behaviors morally wrong. For example, we will say:
While moral statements are subjective, they are still falsifiable: It suffices to ask the person about their opinion about the morality of a certain behavior. The answer will then validate or falsify the statement. With this, moral statements have meaning. The meaning of “I find theft morally wrong” in the sense of this book is: “I will get angry when you steal and I will try to punish you.”
In this setting, moral statements by different people cannot contradict each other. For example, “I find taking someone else’s things wrong” is as true as “You find taking someone else’s things acceptable”. These opinions clash only when we try to agree on a common set of rules. Such sets of rules are called moral frameworks.
Moral frameworks
A moral framework is a package of moral statements. Examples for such frameworks are:- The national criminal law. The law says that certain behaviors are morally wrong.
- Religious scripture. Religious books commonly tell people what is good behavior and what is bad behavior.
- Politeness codes. These codes can regulate, for example, that people should sneeze in their elbow.
Since moral frameworks define what is good and what is bad, a given moral framework cannot be by itself “good”. It cannot be “better” than another moral framework. For example, we cannot say that the British law is “better” than the biblical Ten Commandments. The quality of two moral frameworks can be compared only with reference to a third moral framework. For example, if we take the UN Declaration of Human Rights as a reference framework, then we can discuss whether British law implements human rights “better” than the Ten Commandments. This, however, still does not tell us whether the UN Human Rights are “good”. An alternative for comparing the two systems would be to use a measure such as the happiness of the population. We could then say that the system that increases the happiness more than the other one is better. However, we would still need a third moral framework that tells us that this measure is what we call “good”.
Laws
Moral frameworks are nothing metaphysical: They are just lists of statements written on a piece of paper, on a stone, or on a computer — or even just transmitted orally. They come into existence when someone defines them. This is done mostly by writing them down. For example, the creators of the criminal law gathered and produced a document that contains rules with moral statements.If a moral framework is produced by a government, it is called a law. Something is legal if the law deems it morally acceptable. The concept of legality is often opposed to the concept of morality. While the former refers to the laws of a country, the latter refers to the “natural” or “true” moral quality of actions. We have already seen that there exists no such “natural” or “true” moral quality of actions. All moral frameworks are just lists of human preferences. Therefore, when people criticize a law as “immoral”, what they usually mean is that it contradicts their own personal moral framework.
Laws serve not just to define crimes. They also have a symbolic value: The lawgiver may choose to define, for example, flag burning as an offense — not to reduce the carbon footprint, but to show adherence to (and foster) patriotic values. The same goes for laws concerning capital punishment, hate speech, or recycling, which serve not just to define an offensive behavior but also to convey a political stance.38
Laws are like sausages. It is better not to see them being made.
Enforcing moral frameworks
Moral frameworks do not have any intrinsic moral force. They come into effect only once they are enforced, i.e., once someone establishes punishments for those who do not observe the rules. For example, the government of a country enforces its criminal law, using its jurisdiction and executive power to prosecute people who behave morally wrong according to this law. This does not make the law “true” or “good” in any sense. It just means that the law is enforced.Typically, moral frameworks stipulate not just the morally wrong behaviors, but also the methods to punish evildoers. (Technically, they do so by declaring the punishment an obligatory behavior, i.e., a non-punishment a moral fault of the competent authorities.) Such a punishment usually has several goals39:
- Incapacitation
- The objective of incapacitation is to prevent the offender from committing another breach of the framework. In ancient times (and still in some modern jurisdictions), incapacitation could take the form of amputation or the death penalty. In most modern jurisdictions, incapacitation rather takes the form of prison sentences.
- Deterrence
- Deterrence aims to discourage other people from breaching the rules as well. In older times, deterrence was often achieved by brutal public punishments, and in some countries, it still is.
- Retribution
- Retribution is the idea that offenders have to suffer proportionally to the crime they committed. Retribution can lead to the feeling that “justice has been done” in the victim and in society.
- Rehabilitation
- Rehabilitation aims to re-educate the offenders, so that they are less likely to breach rules in the future.
Societies with moral frameworks
- Associations
- Associations (such as a golfers’ club or a charity) are typically governed by a moral framework in the form of regulations. These say who can be a member and what are the rights and duties of the members. They also establish punishments, such as the payment of fees or the exclusion from the association.
- Organized Criminals
- Criminal gangs also establish moral frameworks to govern their own workings. The Italian Mafia, for example, uses a code of 10 commandments that all its members have to follow. The rules prohibit going to pubs, being seen with cops, or looking at another member’s wife.22
- Rebel Groups
- Rebel groups aim to overthrow a government. In order to ensure that all group members work for a common end, such groups typically establish rules. These rules usually require members to swear an oath to the group leader, to protect other members, and to fight for the cause of the rebel group. Members who do not comply risk being excluded from the group or worse.
- Religious denominations
- Religions usually come with a framework of conduct, which typically regulates things such as murder, theft, sexual deviations, and rites. The followers of the religion are expected to follow these rules, and are punished or promised punishment if they don’t.
- Countries
- Countries have governments and establish laws, and different legal systems have evolved over time.
Subjects of moral frameworks
The people governed by the enforcement of a moral framework (i.e., those who get punished when they violate it) are called the subjects of said framework. This leaves the question of how the framework acquires its power over its subjects.In modern societies, we usually require that moral codes be agreed upon by the people. This tradition stems from the Athenian democracy of Ancient Greece, where laws were voted into effect40. The US constitution was likewise voted into effect, as are most modern constitutions. In modern liberal democracies, every law is voted into effect by representative governments, which are elected by the citizens. Thus, at least in theory, the citizens themselves decide what laws they give themselves. When a law has come into effect, any citizen becomes subject to the law, no matter whether they supported this law or not. A similar principle applies to associations, such as golf clubs. These typically vote their rules into effect.
Voting is only one possible way in which a moral framework can come into effect. Another way is force. In absolute monarchies, for example, the ruler can just decide the laws and enforce them. Anybody who lives in that place then becomes subject to the law. This is how the medieval monarchies in Europe used to function. There are still 6 countries today that are absolute monarchies: Brunei, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Swaziland, the Vatican City, and Qatar. Dictatorships work very similarly: The dictator can just decide laws and force them upon his people.
One can also become a subject of a moral framework by force. If, for example, a rebel group takes over a country, it will start imposing its own moral framework. Whoever happens to be in the range of power of this group becomes subject to their law. This is what the Normans did when they invaded England in 11th century: They conquered the country and imposed their rules.
In other cases, a small community establishes a moral framework, and everybody who joins the community then becomes subject to that framework. For example, a country that wishes to join the European Union is expected to follow the laws that the other members have already put in place. Similarly, utopian societies (such as the New Harmony movement41) usually start off as small communities, and everyone who joins is expected the follow the rules. The same applies to organized crime gangs (such as the Mafia) or to associations (such as golf clubs): People who join have to follow the rules that are already in place.
One can also become subject to a moral framework by being born into a society of subjects. Children of slaves, for example, were traditionally regarded as slaves as well. Children who are born in a country and granted citizenship automatically become subject to its law. Children who are born into a religious community usually become members of that religious community, and thus subjects to its moral framework.
Humanist Moral Frameworks
Harm-based moral frameworks
in the library of Dakar University, Senegal
An important component of harm-based frameworks is consent: An action is not considered harmful if it happens with the consent of the concerned people. For example, if you choose to have an earring hole, then the injury that is inflicted upon you (i.e. piercing your flesh without anesthesia) is not considered harmful. This principle is known as Volenti non fit injuria43. This principle includes the permission to do harm to yourself. For example, you can decide to smoke if you wish. This harms you but is your choice. This liberty is known as the principle of self-ownership44. Harm-based moral frameworks typically establish exceptions to this principle: Children and the mentally ill are usually considered unable to consent to harm. (As for smoking, it can actually cause harm to others: Other people inhale the smoke, and they also shoulder the higher load on the social security fund that is caused by smokers.)
Why would someone opt for a harm-based framework and not for another possible framework? The reason is that if someone does something that does not harm anybody, then most people do not care (unless they are driven by a universalist ideology). In this view, a harm-based system is the one that requires least effort from everybody, while still protecting what most people care about.
Liberty consists in being able to do anything that does not harm others. Thus, the exercise of the natural rights of every man has no bounds other than those that ensure to the other members of society the enjoyment of these same rights. These bounds may be determined only by law.
Egalitarian moral frameworks
Another popular guiding principle for moral frameworks is equality: The framework should give equal rights to everybody. This idea existed in Ancient Greece already45, and it was defended in the 17th-19th century by English philosopher John Locke, American statesman Alexander Hamilton46, and English polymath Herbert Spencer47.The idea of equality before the law was not always universally accepted. For example, several societies had slaves, and slaves do not have the same rights as free people. In the same vein, all major religions traditionally gave less rights to women.
However, today most people in the Western world agree on the principle of equal rights. The reason is simple: If we give different rights to different people, then we cannot guarantee that we (or our children, friends, family, etc.) are in the group with the best rights. So we better give the same rights to everybody. American philosopher John Rawls makes this point by help of a thought experiment that he calls the Original Position48: Imagine you were to decide the laws of a country behind a “Veil of Ignorance” that prevents you from seeing what role and social status you have in that country. You would most likely make the law in such a way that everyone has the same rights, so as to make sure you are not disadvantaged when you take your role. That is, Rawls proposes that a just society is a society in which you would agree to be incarnated as a random citizen — without knowing whether you would be a woman, a man, a child, a white, or a black person. In such a scenario you would want society to give equal rights to everyone. In an ideal system, Rawl writes, “men agree to share one another’s fate”48.
Empathy may provide additional motivation for the idea of equal rights: We suffer if other people suffer. Therefore, many people believe that we must protect other people in the same way that we protect ourselves. The result is a system that gives the same rights to everybody. Moral frameworks that implement the same rights for everybody are called egalitarian.
Egalitarian moral frameworks do not postulate that all people are equal. Different people, and different groups of people, may have different characteristics, interests, possessions, or abilities: Women can give birth, while men can’t; conservative people may or may not prefer more traditional gender roles; the rich may or may not own more cars or be generally healthier than the poor. The only thing that matters for an egalitarian framework is that all people have the same rights before the law.
Equal rights for others does not mean fewer rights for you. It’s not a pie.
Liberal moral frameworks
We will call a liberal moral framework a moral framework that is both harm-based and egalitarian495051. This means the system gives the same rights and duties to everyone, independent of profession, salary, social status, religion, gender, or ethnic group. It prohibits what causes harm to another being and permits everything else. Thus, it offers a minimalist stable equilibrium, in the sense that whenever we change something, someone will lose out and thus complain.Liberal moral frameworks are concerned only with the behavior of people, not with people themselves. Thus, they will only ever condemn what someone does, not what someone is.
Freedom is indivisible. When one man is enslaved, all are not free.
Humanist moral frameworks
Humanism, the particular brand of atheism promoted in this book, advocates a liberal moral framework: Humanists believe we should prohibit only what causes harm to others, and we should have the same rules for everyone.
It remains to define what exactly “harm” is. We could go with the Golden Rule, and say that harm to someone else is what I consider harm for myself. That, however, would leave the decision of what is moral and immoral to the perpetrator: If I am OK to let you come on my land, you must let me come onto your land. Someone else could thus impose their own personal moral standards on you — we would have a perpetrator’s justice.
We could say, vice versa, that “harm” is anything that lets someone suffer. This, however, would put justice entirely in the hands of the victim: If I own a bakery, and you want to open another one in the same village, I suffer. But that does not mean that you should not open your bakery. In the words of American-Canadian lawyer Mary Ann Shadd: “The fact that someone is displeased is no evidence that we are wrong.” By letting the victim decide what is harm, we would establish a victim’s justice.
To avoid both perpetrator’s justice and victim’s justice, we need a common definition of what is harm. In the democratic spirit of Humanism, the task of finding such a definition is up to the society. It is not an easy task: The understanding of “harm” evolves over time and has to be adapted to new technologies (witness, for example, the moral questions raised by the use of large language models52). However, here is a starting point for a list of things that can be considered harmful53:
- Physical damages
-
- Injury: Some person or animal suffers bodily harm.
- Killing: Some person or animal gets killed.
- Sexual assault: Someone endures undesired sexual contact.
- Property violation: Somebody’s property is affected.
- Trespass: Something or someone trespasses on somebody else’s territory.
- Obstruction: Someone is forced to do something or prevented from doing something.
- Disturbance: Someone causes repeated or extreme noise, smell, etc.
- Harassment: An offense (even if minor) is committed repeatedly, in particular against a dependent person.
- Non-physical damages
-
- Lying: Someone says something that is not true.
- Threat: Someone threatens somebody else with harm.
- Insult: Someone says something about someone else that is (1) not provably true and (2) pejorative. This includes the claim that some other person shall suffer harm.
- Sabotage: Someone disturbs the working of a machine, computer, or digital system.
- Graphic violence: Suffering is described in disturbing detail, in particular through images or video (except for activist purposes).
- Intellectual Theft: Intellectual property is used in a way that is not permitted by the author.
- Privacy violation: Information about a person is obtained by (1) causing damage or (2) using illicit technical means.
- Exposure: Embarrassing information about a person is shared.
- Disclosure: Personally identifying information is made public.
- Damages caused by non-action
-
- Missing credit: Intellectual property is used without giving due credit.
- Denial of assistance: Someone suffers harm while someone else just stands by.
- Dereliction: A child is not given the basic conditions for a proper upbringing.
My life and limb and liberty,
my property and privacy,
creative works I cause to be,
my public credibility,
your truthfulness, tranquility —
that is what you shall grant to me
and I shall grant the same to thee.
Responsibility towards society
One of the tasks of a government is social security. Humanism recognizes that people may face obstacles in their quest to flourish in life, such as disease, discrimination, or inequities of circumstance and ability. Since Humanism aims for the fullest possible development of every individual, it seeks to reduce these barriers.56 Indeed, the UN Declaration on Human Rights (to which Humanism subscribes54) grants everyone a basic standard of living, with “the necessary social services and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age, or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond their control”[Human Rights § 25]. These social services are, in a Humanist view, to be provided by the government58, and Humanism acknowledges that everyone has to contribute to their funding.
Humanism also recognizes that individual rights have sometimes to be restricted for the benefit of the society — for example, by encouraging or requiring individuals be vaccinated to establish herd immunity, by breaking up a monopoly to allow for healthy competition between companies, or by removing land from a landowner to build a railroad. A strictly harm-based moral framework cannot do such things, as no-one suffers immediate harm if, for example, a railroad is not built. But Humanism deviates from the individualistic liberal moral framework and insists that personal liberty must be combined with a responsibility to society54.
A variant of this principle concerns dangerous goods and substances. Technically, everyone is entitled to own a gun in a society governed by a liberal moral framework as long as they do not use it to injure others. However, it is obvious to most Humanists that guns bear so much risk that it is safer for everyone to restrict or outright prohibit their ownership59. A similar observation holds for drugs like Cocaine or Heroin. Technically, within a liberal moral framework, everyone has the right to get high as often as they want. However, this freedom comes at a price: first, to the individual, who will likely suffer addiction and a degradation of their health and quality of life; and second, for the society, which has then to take care of people so afflicted. The same holds true, to a lesser degree, for other addictive substances such as cigarettes, alcohol, and sugary drinks. Here, likewise, Humanist moral frameworks can deviate from a strictly liberal moral framework by recognizing that there are some goods and substances whose use is harmful (to the individual and, by extension, the society), and that such goods must be restricted for the benefit of all60.
Even a free person has duties to others.
Humanist justice
Humanism subscribes to a harm-based moral framework. This means that the only behaviors considered offensive are those that harm others. In this way, there are actually fewer offensive behaviors in Humanism than in more conservative moral frameworks. Still, even a Humanist moral framework must have a way of dealing with breaches of said framework. Let us now outline some ideas of how this could be done.- 1. Compensation
- When someone causes harm, the priority for a Humanist moral framework would be to provide reparation for the harm itself: giving back stolen goods, repairing what was broken, giving a victim the possibility of replying to an insult, or covering the cost of a hospital stay in case of an injury. Some harms are irreversible, however, and thus cannot be repaired (think of the death of a human). Even then, the perpetrator would have to make an effort to reduce secondary harm, for example, in the form of monetary compensation to the bereaved.
- 2. Apology
- Beyond a compensation or reparation of the material damage, the victim should be compensated also for the suffering itself. For example, it is not sufficient for a perpetrator to simply pay for the cost of a victim’s hospital stay and medical procedures, they must compensate also for the pain and loss of quality of life during a victim’s recovery. This compensation could range from an apology in less impactful cases to a larger monetary amount in cases of heavy suffering. In any case, the suffering itself has to be acknowledged.
- 3. Prevention
- Finally, the perpetrator should be prevented from causing further harm to the victim or to others. This is the role of what is traditionally called the punishment. In a Humanist spirit, the punishment should be the mildest possible means that prevents the perpetrator from repeating their deed. Determining the right measure to this end is no easy feat: In cases of negligence, a simple pledge of betterment might do; for a fanatical serial killer, in contrast, a lifelong prison sentence might be the only means to stop that person from reoffending. We elaborate on this issue below.
Justice is not just making sure misconducts don’t happen,
it is also handling them when they do.
Humanist punishment
In what concerns the methods of punishment, Humanism cannot agree to corporal punishments. This is because, driven by the innate human tendency for empathy, Humanism abhors violence and cruelty. It cannot stand the physical suffering of human beings. Indeed, most legislation today aims at a consistent and fair punishment rather than a brutal one. The current scholarly opinion is that the certainty of being caught is more effective as a deterrent than the punishment itself3961. This is because people (especially people who are likely to get into trouble with the law) steeply discount the future and respond more to certain and immediate punishments than to hypothetical and delayed ones18. (Judges or juries may even be unwilling to convict offenders if punishments are set very high62.) The death penalty, too, is off limits for Humanism. This is because Humanism is convinced that humans are inherently prone to making mistakes, and this includes the judges. Thus, there is always the possibility that an innocent person is convicted of a crime and executed63. This is an unbearable thought to Humanists. Besides, even the most brutal criminal is human, and hence, worthy of protection in Humanist eyes.Let us now discuss the justification for punishment. In ancient times (and still in some modern jurisdictions or in modern everyday thought), punishment is retributive, meaning it aims to inflict harm on the perpetrators with the idea that this harm makes up for the harm caused. This position is difficult to defend from a Humanist point of view: Humanism aims to avoid harm, and retribution adds more harm to this world. There is no logical reason why a man who killed another one would deserve any punishment at all. The idea that this punishment would somehow “make up” for his deed, or somehow “neutralize” the evilness of it has been created by us humans. It exists merely in our minds.
More in line with Humanism would be the consequentialist approach. This approach holds that the sole purpose of a punishment is the prevention of future offenses — both by the perpetrator and by someone else64. Thus, the consequentialist approach does not ask whether the perpetrator is guilty in some ultimate sense. For example, if someone hits someone else in rage, the consequentialist approach does not ask if that rage was justified. Rather, it asks what needs to happen to make sure that the person does not offend again. In this example, we would perhaps see whether the perpetrator has trouble controlling their emotions, and if so, what could be done to mitigate this, or whether the person is in an abusive environment and, accordingly, how they would benefit from exiting that environment. In general, Humanists want to prevent the offender not just from repeating the deed, but also, by extension, from justifying it and from helping others to commit similar offenses.
Let us now outline some ideas of how that could look.
- Convincing the perpetrator
- First, when an offense happens, and the perpetrator has been identified, one could see whether the perpetrator understands the harm they caused. That is not always the case. Some perpetrators use so-called neutralization techniques: They deny that an injury happened, they assume that the injury was the victim’s fault, they insist that the victim deserved the injury, or they appeal to supposedly higher loyalties such as the “common good”65. For example, a man who beats a rival suitor may contend that this victim deserved to be beaten. In such cases, one could first try to convince the perpetrator that harm happened, perhaps through meetings with the victims, or through educational programs that emphasize the harm that the perpetrator has caused and the need to conform to the social pact.
- Enabling the perpetrator
- One would then work to enable the perpetrator to abide by the law, i.e., one would try to eliminate the conditions that led the perpetrator to commit the offense in the first place. For example, some people are unable to control themselves due to substance abuse, alcoholism, gambling addiction, or mental health problems. They may, for example, steal money to finance their drug addiction. In such cases, one would obligate the perpetrator to consult medical and psychological services such as rehabilitation sessions or (in more intractable cases) supervised accommodation or psychiatric care. Beyond that, the main risk factors for criminal behavior are anti-social attitudes, anti-social friends, lack of empathy, and poor impulse control66: People engage in harassment of others, for example, because they feel emboldened by their social clique. Fortunately, poor impulse control, substance abuse, and the habit of picking anti-social friends can all respond to treatments (such as cognitive behavioral therapy)39. By contrast, if the perpetrator was driven to offend due to poverty, one should support (and obligate) the person to find stable income67. If finding a job proves difficult, one should consider creating unskilled, government-paid jobs specifically for this purpose, as these might be less expensive to fund than prison detentions.
- Nudging the perpetrator
- Once the societal preconditions for non-criminal behavior are in place, one could then nudge the perpetrator to follow the law by making the alternatives less attractive. Indeed, some persons become criminals not because their basic motivation differs from that of other persons, but because their benefits and costs differ62. The goal would thus be to tilt the balance in favor of lawful behavior. One could, for example, implement correctional orders such a fine or community work. These disincentives could be spread out over a long period of time and be accompanied by a correction officer to ensure they maintain their instructional effect. Such efforts are more likely to work if one can enlist the support of community leaders, religious figures, and family authorities (e.g., mothers or grandmothers). What’s more, such a network could even be built up preemptively in risk-affine environments18.
- Forcing the perpetrator
- Finally, there may be cases where one finds oneself unable to nudge the perpetrator to follow the law — for example, when the perpetrator reoffends, keeps insisting on the morality of his actions, or instigates others to follow suit. In such cases, one would finally have to force them to follow the law — for example, by imprisoning them. Indeed, in cases where recidivism is likely and would cause considerable harm, a prison sentence may be the only means to prevent the perpetrator from re-offending. However, prison sentences have to be used sparingly: Imprisoning people risks bringing them in contact with more dangerous criminals39, is expensive, and may actually increase the risk of recidivism because it disrupts the social and professional life of the perpetrator. In Buenos Aires, for example, the reoffending rate for prisoners is 22%, while it is 13% for those who merely had to wear an electronic tag (even when controlling for severity of the crime)39. In any case, a prison sentence should end when the danger of reoffending has subsided — for example, because the perpetrator has reached an age that makes an offense unlikely39 or because they collaborate with the prosecution to identify or bring to terms other perpetrators. If it becomes clear that the risk of recidivism remains unabated (for example in cases of fanaticism or the inability to control oneself), a life-long prison sentence may be necessary. These schemes could also be combined, for example, by imprisoning someone who does not pay their fine, by prescribing an educational program for someone who has to find a job, by proposing work in prison to a prisoner, or by releasing a prisoner who has completed a voluntary educational program68.
The consequentialist approach essentially sees humans as complex systems (machines if you wish), which we try to fix with various techniques so that they stop misbehaving. Seeing humans as machines may appear inhumane. Yet we can argue that the consequentialist approach is actually more humane than the retributionist approach. This is because, for the consequentialist approach, punishment is not a moral imperative or a goal in and of itself. It is merely a means to achieve a downstream objective. Thus, different from the retributionist approach, the consequentialist approach draws no comfort from the suffering of the perpetrator. As American philosopher Sam Harris has argued: “If we recognize that even the most “evil” or dangerous people in existence are, at root, unlucky to be who they are, the logic of hating them begins to unravel.”69 In this way, the consequentialist approach takes the emotional sting out of judicial decisions: The notions of wickedness, of moral responsibility, of deserving a punishment, of guilt, fault, and intention are not central metaphysical concepts to which we have to cater. Rather, they are auxiliary notions that humans have created to describe the likelihood that a perpetrator will reoffend. The consequentialist approach thus invites us to not get carried away by these concepts but rather to concentrate on the main raison d'être of moral frameworks: that of avoiding future offenses. Thereby, the consequentialist approach takes an impersonal, goal-driven, and ultimately constructive view on justice.
We will later elaborate how this view on punishments goes hand in hand with the naturalistic view of the human brain that this book proposes.
No man treats a motorcar as foolishly as he treats another human being. When the car will not go, he does not attribute its annoying behavior to sin; he does not say, “you are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go”. Rather, he attempts to find out what is wrong and to set it right.
Laws
Early legal frameworks
One of the best-known moral rules is probably the Golden Rule: “Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself”. This rule is often associated with Christianity[Bible: Matthew 7:12], but it was written down already 500 years before Jesus by Ancient Greek sage Thales of Miletus70. It also appears in all major religions: Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, and Jainism (which were conceived earlier than Christianity), and Islam and the Bahai Faith (which were conceived later than Christianity)71.But humanity also developed more sophisticated moral frameworks. The first legal framework of recorded history is the Code of Urukagina, from around 2400 BCE. It was decreed by King Urukagina, who was the ruler of the city-states of Lagash and Girsu in what is Iraq today. Although the actual text has not been discovered, much of its content can be deduced from references to it that have been found. Among other things, the code regulated abuses in commercial transactions and abolished polyandry.72
The oldest legal framework that has survived intact is the Code of Ur-Nammu. It was developed in Mesopotamia (today’s Iraq) around 2000 BCE. The code contains very detailed instructions in the form of IF...THEN... statements, which tell us which punishment shall be given for which crime. The system divides people into free men and slaves, and regulates the rights and duties of each of them. Interestingly, the code institutes fines of monetary compensation for bodily damage, as opposed to the later “eye for an eye” principle of Babylonian (and Jewish) law. Murder, robbery, adultery and rape were capital offenses. Most of the code has been deciphered.7374
The Code of Hammurabi influenced Assyrian Law (from 1075 BCE), as well as the Law of Moses (900 BCE), which was integrated as the Ten Commandments into the Jewish Torah and the Christian Old Testament. All of these codes proclaim divine authority: The kings claimed they were passing the will of the gods down to the people.75
Our goal must be to replace the law of force by the force of the law.
Other early legal frameworks
Legal codes emerged also outside the Near East. Although no law code has as of yet been found in Egypt, it is believed that basic laws and legal proscriptions were in place there as early 6000 BCE. Evidence for such laws comes from precedents used in legal cases by the time of the Early Dynastic Period (3150-2613 BCE). By the end of that period, legal practices were firmly established. The Third Intermediate Period (1069-525 BCE), however, saw a return to consulting a god instead of a judge to assess innocence or guilt. Suspects were brought before a statue of Amun and the god would render a verdict. This was accomplished by a priest either inside or behind the statue moving it one way or another to give an answer.76In Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), the Hittite established their laws around 1650 BCE. Their Code of the Nesilim had 200 laws, and dealt with assault, slavery, marriage, theft, commercial contracts, sacred matters, and illicit sexual relationships77. In 621 BCE, Draco was the first known leader in ancient Greece to develop a legal code. With the death penalty even for minor offenses, his laws were so brutal that we still use the word “draconian” to refer to brutal punishments20. The Romans developed their legal code in 451 BCE in the form of the Twelve Tables. Their laws brought several novelties: They were of practical value, separated from any religious consideration, visible to all, and outlined in precise language with explicit definitions. These principles would later serve as a role model for many other societies and governments.78
In China, evidence of legal codes dates back to 500 BCE. At that time, the sage Confucius was the “Minister of Crime” of the state of Lu. He acknowledged the usefulness of law, but believed that people should be governed by the ideal of virtue rather than by laws[Analects: 2:3] (thereby proving their existence). The first Chinese empire (the Qin dynasty) emerged in 221 BCE, and did away with Confucian idealism, instantiating a simple, harsh, and uniform law.79
In India, the Law of Manu (Manu-smriti) was developed around 100 BCE. It is ascribed to Manu, the legendary first man and lawgiver. It contains 2,694 stanzas, and deals with marriage, hospitality, funeral rites, dietary restrictions, pollution, the conduct of women, and the law of kings.80
As we see, humanity came up with comprehensive legal frameworks in different regions of the world. Some law systems influenced each other. Others developed independently.
Later legal frameworks
- Civil Law
- Civil Law is a law system that is based on systematic treatises of legal questions traditionally written by professors and jurists. It draws inspiration from Roman Law and gave rise to the French Napoleonic Code (1804 CE) and the German Civil Law Book (1900 CE), which, in turn, influenced the legal systems in many other countries.81
- Common Law
- Common Law is created by judges rather than by university scholars. It gives more importance to preceding similar law cases than to written law. The Common Law system was developed in England, and is shared today by many of its former colonies.81 To this date, the UK does not have a written constitution82.
- Islamic Law
- Islamic Law (also known as Sharia) is a system of moral codes that are based on the Quran and the teachings of Mohammed, the prophet of Islam. It emerged in the 7th century CE. It regulates crime, politics, and economics, as well as personal matters such as sexual intercourse, hygiene, diet, prayer, everyday etiquette, and fasting. In different variants, and to different extents, the law is today used in several Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia and Iran.83
Artifacts of the law
We have argued that humans are very accustomed to following laws. This holds no matter whether these laws are reasonable or not, as there is no objective reason why something has to be legal or illegal. Furthermore, laws may be enacted with a purpose that later becomes obsolete. Finally, it requires effort to repeal laws, and this effort is not always made. This has led to systems with very bizarre laws. Some of them are listed here:- In the EU, the shape of a banana is prescribed by law84.
- In France, you can marry a dead person under exceptional circumstances85.
- Similarly, an uncle can marry his niece if the president of France is OK with it86.
- In France, women were allowed to wear trousers only in 201387
- In Germany, public dancing is prohibited on certain holidays88.
- In North Carolina, statute 14-309.8 says that a bingo game may not last more than 5 hours89.
- In Saudi Arabia, it is prohibited to dab, to dance at concerts, to wear shorts, to possess alcohol, to bring pork into the country, to be gay or transgender, to display affection publicly, to bring a Bible into the country, and to enter Mecca and Medinah as a non-Muslim90. Cinema and concerts were banned until the 2010’s91.
- In Swaziland, in an effort to combat AIDS in 2005, young girls were not allowed to have sex for 5 years and had to wear tassels as sign of their chastity92.
- In Britain, you may not die in Parliament93.
- In Britain, it is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the monarch’s head upside down on an envelope93.
- In London, a pregnant woman can relieve herself anywhere she wants — including in a policeman’s helmet93.
- In the Netherlands, it is legal to smoke cannabis in coffee shops, but illegal to smoke tobacco 94.
If people did not sometimes do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done.
The rule of law
The enforcement of the law can be more or less effective. For example, in some countries, the arm of the law does not reach the remote regions. Crimes basically go unpunished there, and criminal gangs or militia have taken root. In some countries, criminals can bribe the judges or police and get free. In others, the law is vague, and allows members of the ruling class or the nobility to interpret the rules in their interest. In such places, the law has not much value.There are other countries where the laws are transparent, clear, and enforced coherently. An independent court system guarantees that a claimant gets their redress, no matter who they are. In such places, the citizen knows that whoever transgresses the rules gets punished. This is very useful not just for establishing a sense of security and justice in the society, but also for enforcing contracts. If someone does not honor a contract, the other person can go to court and ask for it to be enforced. If the system works well, the claimant will get their compensation in a few months' time. Contracts are the basis of any commercial activity — be it trading, sharing work, or specializing in certain tasks. If I can be sure that you will honor a contract, I will work for you, buy your goods, or sell you mine.
The well-functioning of such a system is called the rule of law. Technically, the rule of law is the principle that people in positions of authority should exercise their power within a constraining framework of well-established public norms rather than in an arbitrary, ad hoc, or purely discretionary manner on the basis of their own preferences or ideology. It insists that the government should operate within a framework of law in everything it does, and that it should be accountable through law when there is a suggestion of unauthorized action by those in power.95 Laws must always forward-looking, never retroactive. They must be accessible and intelligible by citizens so that they can adjust their behavior accordingly. Laws must also be sufficiently precise so as not to leave room for arbitrary application by government.
Countries that uphold the rule of law provide better conditions for economic activity, and they are thus generally richer. This does not mean that the laws would be “good” in any sense. It just means that people can rely on them. For example, jihadists in the Sahel and in Afghanistan are known to enforce the law better than the corrupt secular governments in these regions96. Although these laws are not compatible with human rights, they offer legal security that some people admire.
That said, a perfect implementation of the law is not always possible, and may even not always be desirable. This is because the law is, by its nature, general and thus deliberately imprecise, leaving room for judiciary interpretation for specific cases. A law that is perfectly formulated and perfectly enforced would eliminate this leeway and, it has been argued, amount to fascism97. Furthermore, a perfect enforcement may also not be desirable from an economic standpoint. This is because it generates its own costs — to individual privacy and autonomy, but also for police, courts, and prisons. These enforcement costs can exceed the benefits associated with preventing the harmful activity. Hence, social welfare is often maximized when enforcement is less than perfect.62 Finally, a system that strives for perfect enforcement may reduce the number of guilty people who are let go, but it will inevitably also increase the number of innocent people who will be convicted in error. On a humanist view, however, it is better to let some guilty go free rather than risk imprisoning a single innocent person98.
It is better that ten guilty escape than one innocent suffer.
Human Rights
The UN Declaration stipulates that national laws should respect the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly, as well as electoral rights and rights to due process and fair trial100. It also contains economic, social, and cultural rights, such as labor rights and the right to health, the right to education, and the right to an adequate standard of living. The UN Declaration abolishes slavery, guarantees equality before the law, prohibits torture, and establishes the presumption of innocence.
The UN Declaration is a statement of principles for national laws and not a legally binding document or enforceable law. However, it became the basis of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. These were signed into national law by the large majority of countries in the world, thus making them at least nominally binding nearly all over the world. Several countries have made reservations to the convention101 but still, the UN Declaration of Human Rights is the de facto yardstick for most legal systems.
The European Union and its predecessor, the Council of Europe, have also adopted human rights legislation: The 1950 European Convention on Human Rights takes over the UN Declaration, and specifies limits in its interpretation102. The 2007 Charter of Fundamental Rights highlights the right to privacy and social rights103.
It’s better to have a good ideal and fail to live up to it,
rather than to have a bad ideal and succeed with it.
Human Rights in Humanism
Humanism, the particular atheist life stance promoted in this book, holds that governments should follow the UN Declaration of Human Rights. However, as we have seen, this declaration is just an arbitrary moral framework, with no more intrinsic value than other frameworks. Then why do Humanists adhere to this system and not to some other system?Humanists cannot argue that their system would be given by a god. Nor can they argue that their system would be in any way “innate” (otherwise the shunning of slavery would have had to become innate very recently). Rather, Humanists argue for the UN Human Rights from the definition of their creed: Humanism believes in the equal worth of every human being, and aims at the fullest possible development of every individual. For such a personal development, the abolition of slavery, freedom of religion, the right to health, education, and an adequate standard of living are arguably productive. The general principle of basing the law on harm alone is likewise productive for individual development, as it extends the individual freedom to the maximum. The right to a fair trial (with, by extension, the right not to be tortured and the presumption of innocence) protects the individual from harm by the legal system. The belief in the equal dignity of every human (in the sense of the right to be valued and respected for one’s own sake, and to be treated ethically) leads to the principle of equality before the law, and more generally an egalitarian moral framework. The most forward-looking component of the UN Human Rights is the right to challenge the status quo (freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of assembly, and electoral rights). This right is essential in the Humanist view, as human reasoning can err. If humans can, at every time point, be mistaken about how to best achieve the fullest possible development of every individual, then the right to challenge the status quo is the only means to achieve that goal on the long run.
Now all of these arguments are valid only if we strive, like Humanists, for the fullest possible development of every individual. We may assume that most people strive well for their own development, but why should they strive for the development of others? Here, Humanists argue that the development of others is in our own interest: Social pacts are based on reciprocity. We grant others what we want to be granted ourselves, so that they grant us what we need. Human Rights are designed to be such a pact not for a single society, but for humanity as a whole.
Now why should we aim for the UN Human Rights, and not for any other global system? The reason is that the UN Human Rights target directly the goal of individual flourishing, without any intermediary or overriding goals. Unlike frameworks that promote a specific religion (such as the Cairo Declaration104) or prioritize government stability (as seen in the ASEAN Declaration105), the UN Human Rights focus solely on human well-being. In this sense, the UN Human Rights are a minimalist framework without supplementary constraints. Hence, this framework is more likely to find global support than competing frameworks. And indeed, the UN Human Rights are the framework that most countries agree on (at least nominally), and the same can be said of no other generalist moral framework.
In summary, Humanists, like all humans, have an innate need for protection, and a basic desire to avoid suffering in general. With their (likewise innate) ability to reason, they come to believe that the UN Human Rights are an effective means to cater to these objectives. However, while all people share these objectives to some degree, not all of them arrive at the same conclusion. The UN Human Rights are not an innate moral imperative, nor do they logically follow from the laws of nature. Nothing prevents people from putting a god above the well-being of humans. Nor are the UN Human Rights absolute and perfect. They are merely an invitation that Humanists extend to people of all creeds and nations as a minimalist moral framework in the pursuit of the well-being of all of us.
Don’t like free speech?
And wanna have the right to say it aloud?
Freedom of expression in Humanism
in Chicago, USA
There is thus a trade-off to be found between the freedom of expression on one hand, and the necessary restrictions on the other. In this trade-off, liberal moral frameworks tend to be on the permissive end of the spectrum, in that they prohibit only what causes immediate harm to others: People should not insult others, assert as facts claims that are provably false, threaten others, expose other people’s private information, or misuse intellectual property. However, it must be possible to debate and criticize governments, political parties, ideologies, and religions107. Moreover, there shall be no censorship, i.e., it shall be possible to legally attack a piece of information only after it has been published, and not to suppress it upfront. In other words, liberal moral frameworks only ever protect people — and not ideas, beliefs, or ideologies.
Humanism adheres to such a liberal view on freedom of speech. This is because Humanism aims for human well-being, and it holds that a society can serve that goal better if its choices are informed by the truth. The truth, in turn, is more likely to be discovered when a society can conceive, ponder, discuss, and criticize different points of view. This is because humans are not very good at coming up with perfect solutions to problems. It is unlikely that a given human-made system (or the human choice of a religious system, for that matter), is the optimal one. However, humans are very good at spotting the mistakes in other people’s solutions108. For this reason, the best path towards human well-being is more likely to be discovered in a society that allows for the open debate of competing ideas.
It is unavoidable that in this process, people will also venture bad or even harmful ideas. However, Humanism holds that bad ideas cannot be defeated by trying to silence them or by wishing them away. Rather, bad ideas are best defeated by exposure, argument, and persuasion109. Humanists hold that if a system (be it political, philosophical or religious) is good, then it will withstand any debate by its own virtue. Any system that truly aims for human well-being does not need to fear criticism. On the contrary, it must invite criticism, as it must aim to continuously improve itself. Conversely, it follows that any system that fears (or outright prohibits) criticism cannot have human well-being as its goal. It must have other goals — be it the maintenance of power for its leaders, the accumulation of wealth for those in control, or other motives.
That said, the ideal of an “open marketplace of ideas”, where all ideas can be expressed and considered, is frustrated when bots and trolls flood the information space with biased or outright false messages. One may thus, in the name of freedom of expression, have to restrict that freedom of expression when it is used systematically at large scale by automated or paid contributors110111.
And I come to the conclusion that a society that was honest about its perils was better than one that denied its citizens the knowledge and the preparation to fend off their approach.
Universality of moral frameworks
Some moral frameworks are local to an association, group of people, or country. Others assert universal validity for all humans. The UN Declaration of Human Rights, for example, declares that all people of all creeds and nations shall have certain rights. Some religions, too, aspire to reach out to all of humanity, most notably Islam and Christianity. This is not the case for all religions: Hinduism and Judaism, for example, correlate strongly with an ethnicity, and have no aspirations to reach out to all of humanity.When a moral framework aspires validity for all of humanity, we have to ask how this feat can be achieved. In the past, Christianity and Islam have conquered foreign lands by force. The United Nations, too, can intervene with military force: The United Nations Charter gives the United Nations Security Council the power and responsibility to take collective action to maintain international peace and security112. More controversially, NATO forces or the United States have intervened in other countries with the goal to establish peace there — often with disastrous consequences.
Humanists in particular have to answer the question of how they want to achieve that all people benefit from Human Rights. What should we do if some country mistreats its citizens? This is a difficult question with no definite answer. This book advocates a diplomatic path: Countries should lead by example, expose Human Rights violations both at home and abroad, and resist any attempts to weaken Human Rights at the international level. Military intervention, however, should happen only with approval from the international community.
It is easier to start wars than to end them.
The future of laws
in the Thomas Jefferson memorial in Washington DC, USA
A fundamental flaw in the UN Charter, which guarantees people the right to self-governance112 but deprives them of any means to achieve it when the host country objects, might come under scrutiny again. A right to UN-administered referendums for independence (with some large threshold for independence, say 60%, or with a confirmation referendum a few years later) could address conflicts in Palestine, Scotland, Quebec, Kosovo, Kurdistan, Catalonia, Corsica, Northern Ireland, Yemen, Western Sahara, Ukraine, and China.
We might also have to deal with new inventions. What happens for example if we are able to grow animals in the lab? What happens if we can grow humans? How do we define the rights of a person who has been cloned from another person? What happens if robots become intelligent or even conscious? All of these questions show that moral frameworks will need to be developed continuously in order to keep up with the pace of change in society.
The people of the future will yet fight their way to many a liberty that we do not even miss.
Morality and Atheism
Demystification
What is right and what is wrong has long been a philosophical conundrum. We tend to believe that certain behaviors have an innate quality of being bad or being good. This clashes with the fact that the animal kingdom does not care at all about right and wrong. It also clashes with the fact that different societies make so different moral choices. Religions teach us that the gods determine what is good and what is bad and yet different gods say different things. In all of this, we are always looking for the intrinsic quality that makes a behavior “good”. The fact that we are never able to nail it down gives the question a mystical aura.For this book, the answer to the question of what is good is quite plain: “Good” is whatever we define it to be. Goodness is not some absolute, intrinsic, innate, mystic, or metaphysical quality — it is simply a subjective label that humans attach to certain behaviors. People create such collections of labels and call them laws. They do so not out of an innate love for justice, but because they need such laws to establish a stable society. They want a stable society not out of idealism, but because a stable society caters best to their desire to survive. People have this desire not because some god decreed it, but because natural selection favored those species that possessed it. People follow laws not due to a universal moral compulsion, but because of biological, social, pragmatic, and psychological factors. And a bad deed is punished not because it “deserves” punishment in some metaphysical sense, but because punishment is the method humans have found to maximize adherence to their laws.
We have thus demystified the notion of “morals” much like we have demystified the notion of “free will” before, and much like we will demystify the “meaning of life” in the next chapter.
Don’t get too caught up in the symbolism of “the court” as a place where justice prevails and the bad are punished. The courthouse itself is a building, nothing more and nothing less.
What is the link with atheism?
Atheism is the disbelief in supernatural beings. It follows that, in the atheist view of things, moral rules cannot come from the gods. Hence, the most popular opinion among atheists is that moral rules come from people. This chapter has outlined ways in which this happens.Although we know what atheists think about the origin of moral rules, we still do not know what moral rules atheists follow. In fact, we cannot say what moral rules atheists follow, because atheism is not an organized movement. Different atheists follow different moral rules.
However, we can talk about one particular type of atheism: Humanism. Humanism says that the UN Declaration of Human Rights should be the basis of laws, that freedom of speech is indispensable in the quest for human well-being, that moral frameworks should be harm-based and egalitarian, and that punishment should not be retributive but consequentialist. We have also discussed a concrete moral framework in this spirit.
Evil thrives on apathy and cannot survive without it.
Responsibility
In the theory of moral values put forward in this book, humans can define any rules they want: They can introduce or abolish slavery, condemn or condone the death penalty, and define the shape of legal bananas. Humans then enforce, propagate, and update these laws, and they are under no supernatural obligation to choose one law over another.As it turns out, with this freedom also comes responsibility, in the following sense: How we structure our society is completely up to us. We cannot say that humans are the victims of the rules that govern them, because it was humans who made these rules in the first place. One way or another, it is always humans who are responsible for the laws.
There once was a time in America when no woman could vote. Yet, somehow, even though women could not vote, they all have the right to vote today. How did that happen?
There was once a time in America where the large majority of people smoked cigarettes. Smoking was allowed everywhere — even on airplanes and in public restrooms. Yet today, smoking is banned in most public spaces, including airplanes. How did that happen?
It was not God who reached down and made these laws — it was people.
Questions
Arbitrary rules are horrible!
The theory of moral frameworks in this book essentially says that humans can define any laws or moral codes that they want. But would such a world not be completely merciless and ungovernable? Wouldn’t it be horrible if there were no absolute moral rules? Is there nothing that prohibits us from establishing slavery, dictatorships, or suppression?The answer to all of these questions is “yes”: Humans can define any rules that they wish. They have established rules that abolish slavery, that require regular prayers, or that prohibit dying in parliament. It is just a fact that humans establish arbitrary rules, and since they do, it follows that they can.
What we consider the standard of law today was completely different just 100 years ago. For example, in the United States, women were not allowed to open a bank account as recently as 1974114. It follows that what we consider lawful today may be completely different in 100 years from now: Witness the growing acceptance of gay marriage, the creeping abolition of the death penalty, or the increasing concern over the treatment of animals. These are debatable topics nowadays, but in 100 years’ time, people will look back at some of our current laws in horror — much like we look back at the medieval laws with horror.
Of course it is perfectly understandable that the majority of people think their laws are the “right” ones. Those same people do not imagine that their laws are immoral in the view of other societies, or that their laws will be considered obsolete in 2000 years from now. But history shows that this is what happens. Had these people been slave holders a few hundred years back, they would have considered the abolition of slavery an outrageous idea that goes against the law of nature. If that view is wrong in today’s terms, there is no reason to assume that today’s view is right in tomorrow’s terms. Different societies and different times make different laws. The fact that people are unhappy about this does not make it less true.
I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change.
I am changing the things I cannot accept.
There are absolute rules!
Some moral rules appear so natural that we have a tendency to assume that they are innate.Indeed, there may be some behaviors that are innate. For example, a general aversion to suicide is probably an innate behavior. This, however, does not mean that suicide would be immoral in general. There are societies that allow suicide and others that disallow it115. Love of kin likewise seems to be innate. Then again, in some cases the law may require us to go against our kin (e.g., turning in a criminal family member). Empathy may be a general innate trait. However, we mostly agree that criminals should be punished even if the punishment causes harm to the criminal. Punishment may be a universal constant. Then again, it is hardly a moral value in itself if we cannot say which behaviors should be punished or how.
Many rules that we hold dear have been violated by some society in modern times or in history. Even the UN Human Rights, a supposedly universal catalog of laws, are hotly contested and nowhere near universal implementation.
This is not to say that there cannot be universal rules. Maybe there are some that we have not discovered yet, or there will be some one day when people agree on them. For example, as a friend of the author helpfully suggested, most societies probably consider it immoral to feed babies into a blender. If such absolute rules ever become apparent, the corresponding moral statements in the sense of this chapter can be updated. They could then say “feeding babies into a blender is morally wrong in the universal moral system”, or even just “feeding babies into a blender is morally wrong”. Thus, our model of morality is capable of dealing with absolute rules. However, it does not require such rules. It can deal also with rules that are subjective, and these are, until now, more prevalent.
Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.
People are not like animals!
This book suggests that there are no absolute rules, and that people just make their own rules. But wouldn’t that mean that people behave just like animals — barbaric and brutal, caring only for their own interests?And the answer is: Yes, they do. Throughout history, humans have exterminated each other in the most brutal forms of warfare, with no respect for the other group. They have tortured, murdered, and raped whatever was not their own clan. The Islamic State, for example, a 2014 terror group in Iraq, routinely killed the men in the conquered non-Muslim areas and raped the women116. How is this different from a lion that takes over another lion’s realm by killing the male, killing the babies, and mating with the female lions?. The Bible actually tells us to do something very similar[Bible: Deuteronomy 21:10-13].
Inside the group, however, human animals establish very strict rules. The Islamic State, for example, had very rigid rules of conduct within its community, which were rigorously enforced117. Otherwise the group would not have functioned. In other words, the groups that did not have such rules were too weak and eventually were eradicated. Hence, all groups that we see today have these types of rules.
This is the mechanism that we see in reality, and this is the mechanism that this book describes. It is not “good” to be sure — but that doesn’t make it less true.
God gives us the rules!
Many religious people believe that a certain moral system was established by God. Thus, this system would form an absolute moral truth.Indeed, most ancient legal systems were said to come from the gods. The Babylonian Laws, for example, from 2000 BCE, usually stated in their preamble that they were designed and enforced by the gods. In India, the Law of Manu was assumed to be dictated by Brahma, the god of creation, to Manu, the first human. The Quran, the book that forms the basis of Sharia Law, is assumed to be dictated by the Abrahamic god to the Prophet Mohammed.
Divine authority was proclaimed not just for laws, but also for those who made the laws. In China, the emperors had a “Mandate from Heaven”, which gave them divine right to govern. In medieval Europe, the kings took their office by the grace of the Christian God. Indeed, the Bible states that all government power stems from God [Bible: Romans 13:1–7]. The medieval kings were absolute monarchs, meaning that that they could also make the law. Thus, medieval European laws were ultimately traced back to God. Still today, the monarchs of Denmark and the United Kingdom reign (by their own account) via the grace of God. In this role, they can typically veto laws. When they don’t, the law has royal assent — and thus, we must assume, divine support.
In all of these cases, the legal systems derive or derived their authority from gods. Still, these legal systems vary widely. Behaviors that were prohibited in imperial China were not necessarily prohibited in Ancient Babylonia, medieval France, or modern Denmark. Thus, the reference to a god does not make a moral system universal (even when it is supposedly the same god, as in the case of medieval France and modern Denmark).
This is, of course, entirely consistent with the atheist world view: From an atheist point of view, the gods don’t exist. They are a creation of the human mind, and different cultures came up with different gods. Rulers of all times and cultures then ascribed their rules to their gods. This gave the rules divine authority, and fended off any questions and doubt. However, this practice does not make the rules (or, for that matter, the gods) any less of a human creation. It rather explains why rules, just like gods, vary across the cultures.
Imagine just for a minute that all criminal law would be declared void. If all the protection that remains were the religious belief of our co-citizens, then neither you nor I would dare just to cross the street. If, conversely, all religions were declared void from one day to the other, but the criminal laws remained in place, then you and I would still live our daily lives without too much preoccupation.
Where do the rules come from?
This book says that there are no absolute divine rules. So then where do we get our moral rules from?The answer to this question is very simple: It is us humans who develop and establish rules. Most of us have a basic trait of empathy, i.e., we abhor suffering in others. Most of us also have the desire to live in a stable and peaceful society. The easiest way to achieve this is to make pacts between us. Now what exactly constitutes “suffering”, a “peaceful society”, and a “good pact” is subjective. Our subjective view is shaped by what we learn from our parents, by what the society around us does, and by what we read or hear. Out of this mix, we build our moral frameworks.
People then start to impose these moral frameworks on others where they can. A sports club decides its charter and imposes it on its members. An elected local party imposes their values on the city. A criminal gang forces its values upon its members. An elected national party makes the laws for the country. A dictator dictates what laws his subjects must follow.
So, to answer the question, this is where we get our moral rules from: We make them ourselves, or we get them from the other people.
You know those parts of the Bible that are completely ridiculous? The bits about stoning adulterers to death, and not wearing mixed fibres and not working on a Sunday and so on? [...] Whatever part of your brain is responsible for working out that those parts of the Bible are safe to ignore — that’s where an atheist’s morals come from.
What is morality anyway if we’re all just atoms?
The biological view of the human holds that we are all just atoms. Everything that happens in our body is just chemical reactions — including our thoughts, wishes, feelings, and choices. In such a system, how can we even talk of morals, guilt, sin, and duties? And what sense does it make to punish someone for a chemical reaction in his brain that caused him to kill someone?This is indeed a difficult question, and it is hotly debated in philosophy of law and philosophy of mind. When some man commits a crime, we usually ask whether he could have acted any differently. If that is the case, we ascribe his actions to his own decisions (his own free will), we call him morally responsible for his actions, we decide that he deserves punishment, and we administer it. The problem is that in such a system, we have to find out whether perpetrators are really free in their decisions. Mentally ill people, for example, are not considered free in this sense. Nor are people under the influence of drugs. It is also known that a brain tumor can cause criminal behavior118. A “heat of passion”, likewise, can act as a mitigating factor, since a man in rage is no longer considered the master of his own decisions. Thus, we already acknowledge that not everything that happens in the brain is our own free choice. There is still ample space for free will, to be sure, but the more we know about social factors, environmental factors, emotions, genes, hormones, cognitive biases, and the human brain, the smaller that space of the free decisions will become. If the naturalistic approach is right, then that space will eventually shrink to zero. There is just no room in the human brain for a small person who takes the decisions for us –- there are only neurons, and these work by the laws of nature. There is, as American neuroscientists Joshua Greene and Jonathan Cohen have argued, not a shred of scientific evidence to support the existence of causally effective processes in the mind or brain that violate the laws of physics64.
In comes the naturalist stance: Humans are essentially big machines whose decisions are dictated by the laws of nature. Then why should we punish the evildoer in this setting? The answer is quite plainly that punishing someone for a deed will reduce the probability that he (or, for that matter, someone else) repeats the deed. This is true in particular for consequentialist punishments, whose main goal is to prevent the offender from reoffending. Of course, we cannot guarantee this effect, because human behavior is unpredictable in general. However, the theory “Punishment reduces the probability of a crime (as compared to no reaction at all)” is true, i.e., the percentage of people who commit a crime is lower when there is the threat of punishment. This is a validated theory that we can build about humans, just as we can build a validated theory about the working of an atom, the Sun, or a coffee machine. If we establish a moral framework with the goal of preventing what that moral framework condemns, then it follows logically that we will want to reduce the probability that such condemnable acts happen in the future as well. As it so happens, the validated theory of punishments is a useful instrument for that purpose.
That leaves the question why there are people who seek such justice in the first place, given that everyone is equally driven by the laws of nature in their heads. The answer is that we have all been equipped by natural selection with certain innate impulses -– most notably the desire to stay alive, the avoidance of suffering, and the ability to empathize with the suffering of others. We have also been endowed (by the same benevolent agent) with the ability to reason, and the ability to act on the outcomes of that reasoning. Put these two together, and some humans come up with the idea of punishments. They act on this insight, and find that administrating punishments serves their goals. Therefore, humans punish offenders. Do they freely choose to do so? Not in the sense that they take decisions that are not determined by the laws of nature. But they condition their actions on the circumstances, and this is what appears as a “choice” to the observer. On the receiving side, the perpetrator builds the theory that if he offends, he is punished. Every punishment (also that of other offenders) is a training datapoint to that effect in his stream of perceptions. His built-in desire to avoid suffering, together with his own ability to reason, will then conduct him to avoid offending again.
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- United Nations: “United Nations Charter”, 1945
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