With the evolution of action from simple locomotion of unicellular organisms in the quest for the fulfillment of their energy requirements to the development of complicated human activities, predicated upon one’s psychological motivations, the life on this planet has increased its complexities in many profound ways. Apart from the physical constraints imposed by nature, an individual has the ability and freedom to chart a course for his actions that he deems favorable for him. But natural hindrances such as the availability of food, type of diet, and competitiveness offered by the environment dictate majority of the animal species to form groups, whose size is again determined by the stated external factors . This group formation inflicts the freedom of an individual in the case of humans (an inevitability), as one is implicitly prohibited from carrying out actions that pose threats to the group and one is encouraged to do things that increases stability of the group. These impediments for the individual freedom formed the foundations for morality in the beginning of the cognitive evolution which ushered in an era of cultural revolution.
A COGNITIVE LEAP
Survival instinct of the animals pushed them to form groups that constitute individuals in cooperation with aims for mutual benefits. It resulted in the biological adaptation of the respective species, as a result of evolution through natural selection, with their brain hard wired to possess emotional attachment with other animals. One of the striking features of this cognitive ability was the correlation between the size of the Neocortex and the number of individuals with which an animal can maintain a relationship of some sorts, which implies that, nature had thrust a threshold for the size of an animal group, beyond which it cannot be expanded with the continuity of stability. In the case of humans, the size of our neocortex has limited our ability to form groups whose median value lies in the range of 150 members (Dunbar’s Number). Any efforts regarding the expansion of the group size past 150 is not possible without destabilizing and dividing the existing group.
This curtailment of group size due to the established neurological reasons indicates the fact that Dunbar’s number is the sufficient number of cooperating individuals required for a respective species to survive efficiently. It took several millennia for the humans to break this barrier to form groups that had individuals much greater than the Dunbar’s number (150) by exploiting our brain’s uniquely evolved capabilities.
A biological trait that underpins the stability in animal groups is “hierarchy” and it is premised on interpersonal trust. Animals establish stability by accepting a hierarchical system, the apex of which is occupied by the individual which manages to persuade majority of the members in its favor through a positive interpersonal relationship with them. Frequently, ascensions through brute force are met with chaos and instability in the group. Albeit sounding trivial, the notion of interpersonal relationship in a group is extremely complicated. A group with 150 members requires 3675 one to one relationships between its members for building trust between them all!
Therefore, for a group to expand beyond that limit, ancient humans had to have addressed the problem of the extrapolation of interpersonal trust to a larger number of people within the confines of their neocortex’s capacity. Fortunately for humans, our brains had evolved to start possessing a unique capability to circumvent this hurdle, some thirty thousand years ago.
INTERPRETATION OF PHYSICAL REALITY THROUGH ABSTRACT IMAGINATIONS
The ability of the human brain to imagine abstract quantities, contrived through its imagination, and interpret the physical reality arbitrarily in accordance with those imaginations formed the basis for the emergence of belief systems which then played a pivotal role in circumventing the requirement of interpersonal relationships for the establishment of trust between a huge number of people. The necessity of the knowledge about a person for building trust had become obsolete and got replaced by trust built through their adherence to common beliefs such as: tribe, clan, worshiped god, afterlife, suffering, etc. For the first time in history, it was possible for two complete strangers to trust each other without any prior acquaintance between them. The stability of the cooperation among such large number of people required a rigid hierarchical structure in the group with some principles acting as its scaffolding. These principles were the archaic form of morality which then developed into a comprehensive behavior pattern of the common man after few generations.
HIERARCHY AS THE FOUNDATION OF MORALITY
A trivial feature of hierarchical system is that a disproportionately small number of people wield influence over a larger population. For the order to be sustained, the majority should be swayed to have a static opinion in favor of the leadership and the hierarchy. These requirements manifested as the primitive structures of Morality later, the aims of which is to prevent the freedom of majority in having multiple conflicting opinions about the Bedrock idea behind a group’s existence. As the tribes and clans formed in the initial phases, the “authority” of the tribal leaders acted as the Bedrock idea for these groups.
As most human actions are motivated to result in propitious outcome for the individual who undertakes it, the denial of such outcomes for a particular set of actions by the structures of a society amounted to the disengagement of its populace from acts that could invariably result in tyranny. It happened as the consequence of their approbation for the accretion of power in the upper echelons of the hierarchy, which divides the society into two groups: people who possess authority and people who are powerless. In this scheme, as the authorities exert influence over the weaker people, they possess a peculiar freedom: carry out or abstain from doing some actions (that may or may not be favorable for powerless) irrespective of their ability to force a positive outcome (for people in authority), in either case. Contrarily, the people who are under their authority are deprived of such freedom, thereby, lacking the determination to force a positive outcome (in favor of them) for the actions that are not allowed by the authority. This non-equality emerged as two divergent form of morality in later years. Initially, moral principles were framed by the people in power and over the years, the weaker population had successfully created their version of morality as an antithesis to it, the success of which resulted in the rise of institutionalized religions that propagated renunciations. This paved a way for the powerless people to subvert the authorities by promoting their version of principles as a virtuous alternative. After a sufficient passage of time since their success in achieving it, the Kings had to compete with religious leaders for the supremacy of authority over the people. Slowly this transformation lead to the development of republics as these leaders’ powers started to decline in some societies. It is also interesting to note the fact that the stark differences between two of the prevalent forms of government (Authoritarian and Democratic) in today’s world are the result of these two dichotomous evolution of moral principles.
