Steve Jones and the moral Imperative. (Off topic)

Another rather profound point was raised by Steve Jones talk again in the question and answer session. It was his response to a rather garbled question about the role of intelligence in evolution.

His point was that human beings are able to step outside of evolution by virtue of their intelligence.

He mentions an observation for which there is good evidence:

Male rapists father more children than male non-rapists.

He agrees that based on the logic of Darwinian evolution rape is a “good” way to behave. He says that a naïve socio-biologist will explain the rapist’s behaviour in this way.

He then says that we invoke some other logic which provides a moral imperative…to get “Thou shalt not rape” bypassing the logic of evolution which says “Thou shalt rape.”

He says this (being evolutionarily successful by rape) is “entirely unacceptable anyway.” His argument is that “consciousness” provides the rule of what you should and should not do.

Presumably it is purely a matter of social convention that provides the “Thou shalt not rape” and in a society where rape is normal then we should have no problem with rape. Is a society which sees rape as “bad” better than a society that sees rape as normal…on what scale of values are we to judge other than simple majority vote or some kind of “moral feeling.”

It is this moral feeling or conscience or consciousness that I am interested in. Is it merely an accident of evolution in which case is it really authoritative? Are guilt feelings solely socially and educationally induced? If a society establishes entirely new guilt feelings can they be considered better or worse?

I suppose I am interested in how an atheistic gets to universal moral values.