Sociobiology as an Ethical System Vs. Natural Law

Sociobiology is the examination of social behaviors as species evolve. Evolution occurs in the means of survival, and they can adapt to what makes a species survive and grow. Sociobiology might be used as an ethical system because some ethical codes of conduct could develop through evolution and genetic altruistic traits being passed on through family lines. Sociobiology believes that social behaviors and positive relationships form based off of biological and scientific evolvement. The evolution of social codes that mold ethical choices, according to sociobiologists, are to continue family lineage such as with kin altruism, develop social protection contracts as with reciprocal altruism, and gain strength in numbers with group altruism. Christian ethics are based off of a religious doctrine. The ethics from faith beliefs are not felt to be biological, but of choice to follow a religious code.

Christian ethics reject evolution theories that contradict or undermine the ideology of their beliefs or morals. Christian ethics, or Natural law, is a concept that God created moral behaviors and that humans have ethical dilemmas that revolve around choosing good or avoiding evil. Christian ethics believes in forgiveness for repentance for ethical behaviors that contradict their belief system. Sociobiology is at odds with Christian ethics. Aside from the obvious difference in theories of evolution versus creation, there are fundamental conflicts. Sociobiology believes that altruism is promoted from evolution due to the success of improving the species and increasing survival through these social behaviors. Christian law believes in altruistic behaviors arising from the influence of God and an individual's ability to resist evil. Christians reject scientific evolution theories because it is a conflict in their belief that God has given humans the right to choose good from evil. Singer contends that Sociobiology cannot dictate ethical behavior and that Reason is needed to supplement biology. What does he mean by this? How does he support his contention?

Sociobiology contends to making choices that could not be ethically correct, but Reason differs us from making ethically unacceptable decisions. Sociobiologists believe that every action that you make should be made in the means of survival and passing down your genes to further generations, which can lead to unethical decisions to protect your group or young. This is shown through reciprocal, kin, and group altruism. The actions an individual takes is for the sole protection of their group, even if it sacrifices themselves or another group. Reason gives us a moral code that we follow to know what is right to do and what is wrong. For example, in the case of group altruism, if there is a group of monkeys with a weaker link, Sociobiology would tell the group of monkeys to kill off the weaker link because they were restraining your success, but ethics and Reason would explain to nourish the monkey back to health and stay united. Reason must be paired with sociobiology in order to make morally correct decisions. If you were to say that the behaviors and individuals portrayed were out of biology, you cannot deem them as ethical because the action would be made out of primitive instinct rather than the moral code we have evolved into following.