“Would you steal a bread from a shop?” Some of these questions go when talking about internet piracy. Some people brag about strictly following the policies of intellectual property owners. But what we have to do before making claims about Intellectual property? Question the innate biological human morality.
The origins of human morality
Human morality did not come to us as a gift from gods. It was not built to serve justice, fairness, the common good, or some higher principle. It emerged out of necessity, long before the first written laws, scriptures, or philosophies. Early humans lived in small, vulnerable groups where every member mattered. Food had to be shared. Danger had to be faced together. Raising children required support from others. Those who refused to give, those who cheated, those who failed to return favors, were pushed out—or killed. Their genetic line disappeared. Evolution had no patience for people who could not cooperate.
In this context, morality took shape. It favored individuals who felt guilt when they betrayed a friend, who became angry at cheaters, who helped others not out of generosity but because their minds were wired to expect something in return. Those who displayed loyalty and punished freeloaders became respected. Those who broke trust became targets. Morality was not a divine code. It was a survival instinct built around mutual exchange. It helped identify who was safe to trust and who was dangerous to rely on. The emotions we now associate with morality—shame, pride, outrage, admiration—developed to guide this system of alliances and punishments. It was reciprocity that mattered, not impartial fairness.
Power broker
Over time, as groups became larger and more organized, morality began to serve another function: power. Leaders used moral norms to consolidate influence. Moral reputation became currency. To be seen as generous, brave, or loyal increased one’s social capital. Public acts of sacrifice were rarely about the common good—they were performances to gain status and followers. On the other hand, to label an enemy as immoral became a powerful way to isolate, punish, or destroy them. Tribes, kingdoms, and religions all learned to weaponize moral norms. Morality became a battlefield, not a compass.
And despite the stories we tell ourselves, this has not changed. Today’s moral claims still function less as guides for justice and more as tools for coalition-building. Public outrage, cancel campaigns, political virtue-signaling—these are not signs of a moral awakening. They are tactics. Strategies. Ways to manage social competition. We praise fairness when it benefits us, defend the common good when it aligns with our interests. We invoke higher principles when they justify our side. But morality, as it evolved, does not actually care about any of these things. It evolved to keep groups stable, filter out defectors, and reward those who play the game convincingly.
That is why human morality so often fails when applied universally. It was never designed to be universal, it was built for tight-knit groups, not for global justice. And it makes us loyal to our side and blind to others. It drives us to protect insiders and punish outsiders. It is deeply tribal. And it never existed to serve justice, fairness, the common good, or some higher principle. Those are stories we layered on top, much later. The core of morality remains what it always was: a tool for survival, trust management, and power negotiation. Everything else is decoration.
Going philosophical? What the true morality is?
If the negative outcome of the worst moral system’s steps is to have the least number of consciousnesses the most negative experience, then the opposite is to have an infinite number of consciousnesses with the most ecstatic moments. This is some kind of total utilitarianism with hedonistic features.
Does it look like this way?
Absolutely no way. Current moral system serves as a power broker, to be able to own something and not to kill each other. Even though we still kill each other.
Moral system we live in resembles moral nihilism far more than my proposed moral system.
You may object there is contract law, tort law, criminal law, constitutional law, administrative law, tax law, property law, labor law, environmental law, antitrust law, international law, family law, immigration law, securities law, banking law, health law, civil rights law, bankruptcy law, entertainment law, military law, maritime law, cyber law, education law, energy law, real estate law, insurance law, human rights law, agricultural law, elder law, transportation law, media law and you are completely right.
The issue is it has had evolved somehow by contradicting pressures and power struggles. I do not want to tell that it may not include some kind of the common good.
Does every step in particular laws lead to infinite happiness for an infinite number of individuals? No.
There is no guarantee for every single citizen (for example, of the United States) that his or her life would be good.
People are just smart animals competing for limited number of resources such as money, sexual partners, stocks, jobs and so on.
Hitler vs contraception inventors
If we – and some people (hopefully not my intelligent reader) say this – that Adolf Hitler is the sole cause of WW2 (this is really absurd, it is historical fact that prewar constellation would have led to next war no matter what), we may say that contraception inventors are the greatest mass murderers in history.
The average ejaculation contains around 100 million sperm cells. Women are born with approximately 1-2 million eggs, but only a fraction of these eggs will ever mature and be released during ovulation over the course of a woman’s reproductive years.
When you consider the potential combinations of different sperm and egg pairs, the number of possible genetic combinations is incredibly large. Each sperm cell carries a unique set of genetic information, as does each egg. When one sperm fertilizes one egg, it creates a genetically distinct individual.
To calculate the number of potential genetic combinations, you would multiply the number of sperm by the number of eggs. For example, if there are 100 million sperm and 1 million eggs available for fertilization, the total number of potential genetic combinations would be 100 million multiplied by 1 million. It would result in 100 trillion possible combinations.
Those people could have lived a better life than you, be extremely moral, and have had intelligence a few standard deviations above, matching John von Neumann. So this also pinpoints why this moral system is wicked.
The twisted logic of a killed child and a child never born
I am definitely not a supporter of killing children. But when you kill a child in Christian culture they regard you as the worst scum. Prisoners will torture you because a child is a God’s gift and because they were abused in their childhood as well.
However, if the child isn’t born at all everything goes. And this is, in my humble opinion, one of the biggest flaws of the current Western moral system. But we unfortunately live in a primitive, animal-like moral system. Evolution programmed us to have children all the time. Contraception means didn’t exist in the vast majority of human existence so there consequentially wasn’t any pressure when people didn’t have kids.
So there is now evolutionary pressure on the population to have lower IQ because the main natality-risers are people with low IQ.
In summary, without contraceptive pills, the global population might be around 15-20 billion today, though it’s impossible to know exactly, given the complex interplay of factors that influence birth rates.
Now let’s get back to Intellectual property
Let’s take the music industry as an example. They used to have obscene profits, and any kind of sharing was strictly kept away. Paid music television, paid for playing songs on the radio, paid for concerts. They never ever occurred to have any kind of sense of the greater common good.
When internet piracy started, they cried so bad. Suddenly, the content was available without paying. So they – as they always did before – started their power-brokering games and they agreed to YouTube or streaming applications.
Yet, this kind of power game brought the same fruits of obscene profits.
The horrors of human morality
Claiming human morality as something perfect is utterly laughable. Not only morality had been developing in time, but changed from culture to culture.
It is something biological in the core, so how can we include some compromise of intellectual property
Intellectual property: The great compromise
If we live in such an inperfect morality, some compromise must be made between the Intellectual property owners and users.
Creators—whether artists, coders, scientists, or writers—need motivation. Without some form of return, many would lose the incentive to produce. Their time would be spent elsewhere. Their effort would fade before it reaches the public. Society cannot afford that. We rely on new ideas, technologies, and stories to move forward.
At the same time, users deserve the widest access possible. Intellectual property is not like a car or a loaf of bread. It can be copied, shared, and spread without being consumed. That changes everything. Locking it down behind legal walls and endless licensing kills opportunity, learning, and cultural growth.
Somewhere between these two needs lies the compromise. The creator should not be robbed. But neither should the public be denied. Intellectual property laws must find that narrow path: one that rewards the individual while serving the collective.
This is not just about law or economics. It is about morality. A system that overprotects creators turns into monopoly. A system that ignores them turns into theft. The space in between is where justice tries to live—imperfectly, but necessarily.
Conclusion
Morality, as we live it, is not divine. It is not universal, itt is not even fair. And it is the crude software of a tribal brain trying to function in a digital civilization. It evolved to manage food sharing, not software licenses. It was designed to punish freeloaders in a small group, not to regulate ownership of ideas across billions of people.
That is why our moral instincts break down when applied to something like intellectual property. We are told that copying a file is theft, that downloading a song is equal to robbing a store. But our ancient brain does not see it that way. It knows that nothing is lost, no one is physically harmed, and that sharing brings joy. The law may speak in one direction, but biology often whispers the opposite.
So we end up trapped in a contradiction. We pretend morality supports current intellectual property laws, but it does not. Not naturally, not emotionally. Not evolutionarily. Instead, these laws are upheld by power—by industries protecting profits, by states enforcing norms, by legal systems shaped through struggle and compromise. There is nothing sacred about this. It is all negotiation under pressure.
And still, we must make it work. Because without any structure, creators lose the reason to create. But without access, the public loses the reason to care. The only way forward is not moral purity, but moral humility. Not rigid doctrine, but intelligent compromise.
We must admit that our morality is not perfect. It never was. And if we are honest about that, we can start building systems—not just in intellectual property, but across the board—that do not pretend to be holy. Only functional. Only fair enough. And hopefully, better than what came before.
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