In "Evolutionary Ethics" Michael Ruse makes the case that our morality is merely "evolutionary tricks" because it ensures survival of the species to believe in some "transcendent morality" ("Evolutionary" 1). Ruse (90) makes the argument that we are all programmed to believe in morality or have moral urges because such a force that ensures adaptation more than if we were to think of morality as a mere genetic response: "The illusion is that there is any objective reference to ethics. The fact that ethics is evolution's way of making a more humane form of life."
Ruse's argument is valid in that his premises include human organisms have developed via natural selection, an advantageous quality develops through natural selection, and since altruism is an advantageous quality to human fitness it is a product of natural selection ("Evolutionary" 1). Ruse (95) demonstrates that morality is a product of natural selection or evolution, because it is highly advantageous for members of the same species to cooperate, "between members of the same species, much more personal benefit can frequently be achieved through cooperation." Therefore, cooperation for personal evolutionary gain has come to be known as "evolutionary altruism" but this is not necessarily associated with "moral altruism," which Ruse (95) believes developed on its own as an advantage that motivated individuals to adhere to moral courses of action due to belief in an objective higher moral judge.
As noted in Unit 3, "Believing that an urge to cooperate is willed by God or the objective moral good makes it more likely that we will cooperate than merely believing that it is good for the propagation of our genes" ("Evolutionary" 1). It is in this way that Ruse believes that biology or genetics is linked to ethics, through the evolution of a belief that morality has an objective reference when in reality it is merely genetic or evolutionary trickery...