There are lots of problems with this scenario, both conceptual and logical.
It is a hypothetical situation, that simply asks if a type of behaviour can ever be regarded as good.
Secondly, when you write "would it be okay ... to rape and/or murder...", what do you mean? Would it be okay from an evolutionary perspective, evolution being morally blind? Or would it be okay from the perspective of a moral human being making a decision?
You mean, when I ask if it would be okay?
The question is put to whoever reads it.
The answer the question from an evolutionary perspective is often more complex than it appears on the surface. Although rape might be an "okay" way to spread ones genes, in a morally neutral sense, there tend to be social repercussions to going around raping people.
We know that.
But why would it be wrong from an atheist perspective?
I appreciate that it may not be everyone's cup of tea. But why, is it actually wrong?
Being evolutionarily "fit" in the Darwinian sense means having good "fitness" in all the circumstances you find yourself: environmental, personal, and social. Being a rapist doesn't usually endear somebody to his fellow human beings, and that has inevitable impacts on his evolutionary fitness. So, even from a morally neutral Darwinist perspective, the rape strategy is often not an evolutionarily productive one, for many reasons.
Can we discuss some of those reasons?
Would you object to a group lobbying to the government the freedom to rape females who can't have children, who have no jobs, or extended families?
If yes. Why?
There is doubtless an interplay between other evolutionary pressures and the social environment in which codes of behaviour and "morality" develop, in both human beings and other animals. So, what is considered morally evil often has correlates with what is evolutionarily a bad strategy for survival and reproduction. The idea that this is always the case is, however, false.
So how do we determine what is ''morally evil''?
Where else could morality come from, other than from human beings? Who else talks about or writes down moral codes and discusses what it means to be a good person?
It is expressed by humans, but it isn't developed by humans. There seem to be a moral standard that humans adhere to.
Which is demonstrated by no one (as yet) thinking it is okay to rape, under any circumstances.
Perhaps you think that God dictates morality.
Perhaps I don't.
Where they come from, isn't the point (at least as yet),
Needless to say, the topics of evolutionary morality and of the sources of morality in general, are huge, interesting topics in themselves, but they would be more appropriately discussed in the Philosophy or Morality and Justice subforums.
On the contrary. The scenario I put forward is all about human psychology.
Why is it wrong to rape?
Under what circumstances could it be right?
Are serial rapists psychologically damaged?
Or are they within their evolutionary right (for want of a better expression) to act according to their natural given nature?
If they aren't within such right. Why not?
Why is it wrong to act naturally?
I could go on and on with these questions.
jan.
