Good and bad come from conscious experience. Evolution shaped our brains to recognize suffering, empathy, cooperation, and wellbeing because social beings survived better that way. Atoms donβt create morality by themselves, but they created minds capable of feeling and understanding it. A child suffering is wrong because the suffering is real, not because we need a supernatural source to recognize it.
Replies (2)
Evolution explains the feeling, not the obligation. βHelped us surviveβ tells you what worked, not whatβs owed.
Calling suffering βreally wrongβ smuggles back the transcendent standard you just denied. You get an explanation for the impulse. You donβt get a reason it binds anyone else.
Evolution explains why we developed morality, just like evolution explains why we developed reasoning. That doesn't make either one meaningless. A conscious being experiencing pain is a real fact, and caring about reducing suffering is a rational conclusion from understanding conscious experience, not something that requires a supernatural authority.
