Morals - all correct moral laws - derive from the instinct to survive. Moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Heinlein suggests that morality is rooted in biological survival needs extended to the group level rather than abstract divine command.
- In plain terms
- Moral rules exist to help groups survive, not just individuals.
- What can you take from it?
- Ethics serve the purpose of collective survival.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Do moral laws exist independently of survival needs?
- How do individual and group survival conflict?
Another view
This view reduces complex cultural ethics to biological imperatives.
More from Robert A. Heinlein
Life is short, but the years are long.
Permalink to quote #27 Correct morality can only be derived from what man is - not from what do-gooders and well-meaning aunt Nellies would like him to be.
Permalink to quote #29 A committee is the only known form of life with a hundred bellies and no brain.
Permalink to quote #26
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