While we have stated that social insects have certainly also partaken of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil when discussing ethics, we observe that they forget it rather quickly. They know what is good, what constitutes ethical behavior, and what serves the interests of the entire insect society. However, they have almost completely forgotten what is evil. Or has anyone ever seen a greedy bee hoarding honey in a secret hole next to the hive? Has anyone ever encountered a jealous termite king? Or a queen who strayed with a termite soldier?
Why Do Social Insects Not Sin?
The violation of “social norms” is so rare among social insects because, as we have established in the context of eusociality, their colony’s information-carrying subsystem is simultaneously the information-carrying subsystem of the individuals. The gene pool of the queen and the male with whom she mates is also the gene pool of the entire colony. Since they can produce thousands or even millions of offspring, there is no need for other individuals to reproduce. A division of labor can emerge where reproduction is limited to the queen and the one or few individuals that mate with her. The inherited traits of the colony are determined by the genes they pass on. Therefore, natural selection at the colony level does not diverge from natural selection at the level of these individuals. In eusocial animal species, the information-carrying subsystem of the colony is the gene—the genes of the individuals specialized for reproduction.
This is also the case for eusocial mammals (such as the naked mole-rat and the damaraland mole-rat), with the difference that, being mammals, they cannot produce offspring in the thousands, so their colony sizes remain small.
Thus, in eusocial animals, there is no conflict between the individual and colony levels when selective pressures are applied. The reason for this is that reproduction is the privilege of only one or a few selected individuals, while the rest of the colony does not participate in the selective competition with their own gene pool. Since, from an evolutionary perspective, there is no difference between the interests of the individual and the colony, individual selfishness has disappeared through evolutionary development in these species.
Why Does Sin Tempt Humans?
The human species is also a mammal, yet it has created societies consisting of countless individuals. Unlike eusocial mammals, humans have achieved this because the individuals living in these societies are both capable of and do reproduce. Therefore, in the human species, selective competition occurs at the individual level as well as at the societal level. However, the information-carrying subsystem of societies has become separate from that of the individuals. The human species has created a new information-carrying subsystem, which is now the information-carrying subsystem of society, not the individual. This information-carrying subsystem is what human ethologists refer to as the shared beliefs of society (Csányi).
Thus, humans are subject to evolutionary pressure at both the individual and societal levels, and the information that defines the evolutionary unit—the information that participates in evolution—is entirely different at these two levels. On the one hand, it is the gene; on the other, it is the shared beliefs of society, religion, the legal system, and culture.
This duality places humans in a constant state of conflict. Should they gather resources for themselves and their descendants? Should they favor those who inherit their genes? Or should they obey societal expectations and work for the benefit of the community?
Here, we can recognize why humans believe that ethics does not stem from the laws of nature but is a social construct. This is because, as humans, we always encounter ethical expectations from the perspective of society. It is society that expects cooperation from us—that is, selfless “good” behavior. Society expects us to serve the community, to push our individual well-being and that of our descendants into the background. We unequivocally evaluate nepotism as negative, even though, from the perspective of selection operating at the individual level, it is a completely understandable phenomenon.
Thus, the human species knows that cooperation is the right path and that it is appropriate to prioritize the interests of society over their own. But this knowledge is in constant conflict with the fact that they also participate in selection as individuals and instinctively wish to pass on their own genes as successfully as possible. This is the knowledge of good and evil, the constant temptation of sin in which we live.