Amoral evolution

This short article hangs on the Taoist notion that ‘the reality that can be described is not the real reality.’ I consider acts of God, People and Nature and the concept of an intentional agent

Consider this simple sentence – “People forage for food”.

It can be restated at a more general level – “Intentional agents act to achieve a result.”

Here are some more examples:

Intentional agent	Acts	Achieves a result
SUBJECT	VERB	OBJECT
People	Forage	Food
People	Have sex	Children
God	Rain	Good harvest
God	Flood	Homes washed away

We speak using sentences which require a subject, verb and object. But the concept of ‘subject’ as an ‘intentional agent’ and as ‘God’ is problematic if, like me, you are not convinced that ‘God’ exists.

People talk of Acts of God as if he (sic) was a superhuman bloke who works in mysterious ways such that his intentions are unclear. But this makes him (or the agentic devil) an easy scapegoat when things go wrong; and when myth and magic are called on to paper over the cracks and legitimise the role of the religious elite.

Some of what used to be acts of God can now be branded as acts of people (eg global warming) or as acts of nature (eg volcanoes). Acts of nature can be labelled as serendipitous and left at that. But we are hard wired to look for patterns and agents so that acts can be explained and understood. But, luckily, by taking thought, we can do away with the concept and metaphor of intentional agent.

The gap can be filled by the concept of ‘Evolution by natural selection’ because (a) it is not a self-conscious agent, and (b) it has no intention.

“Sitting quietly doing nothing, Spring comes
and the grass grows by itself.

Winter turns into Spring all by itself. There is no central, meteorological planning committee and no forward looking intention/purpose. And so it is with the ice ages, continental drift and the big bang.

Evolution has no ethics. It has no plans or planners. So nothing can go right or wrong.

Evolution can be viewed in retrospect as if it had been well planned and implemented but, unlike acts of people, the retrospect has no prospect.

Earlier we considered the phrase “Intentional agents act to achieve a result.” We can now revise it in four ways:

1	“Acts of God achieve a result.”	But there is no God
2	“Acts of People achieve a result.”	OK
3a	“Acts of Nature achieve a result.”	But there is no egoic actor
3b	“A non-agent without intention achieves a result”	Stuff happens

Therefore

Amoral evolution - Amen