Dan Minette wrote:
> Survival of individuals, survival of family units, survival of packs,
> tribes, herds? I don't think that there is any biological reason to look
> out for the welfare of "the other.", whether it be another tribe, or another
> nation.
Diversity of the gene pool? I don't really know, I'm
guessing here. Also (and I don't know how directly
applicable this is here) if species A that preys on species
B develops a strategy or technology wherein they gain a huge
advantage and thus wipe out large numbers of species B not
because they need to but because they can, they could
subsequently suffer a die off themselves because they've
wiped out their food source. Thus a pressure to _not_ kill.
> Let me give an example. Nation A using its military power to take the land,
> rape the women, and kill the men of nation B. Since that behavior increases
> the probability that the genes of the men of nation A who engage in this
> behavior will be passed on, does that make it the ethical thing to do?
> Would someone who argued for peace be unethical?
How do the women whose men and probably children were killed
feel? How would they feel about nurturing the children of
these men? Do they have any influence on those children?
Would some of the children, inheriting the hate of their
mothers take vengeance upon their fathers? Would a cycle
like this be healthy for a species? The more of your
species you kill, the smaller the gene pool and the greater
the tendency of your offspring to kill (I would think).
> OK, then just killing the men and raping. Or, just enslaving them all, and
> having the women bear your children instead of the children of the men
> involved...and make the men work for the upkeep of your children. That is
> evolutionarily favored, right? (Zimmy, feel free to jump in and show how
> this is evolutionarily disfavored.)
It seems to me that that that would only be favored if we
were emotionless zombies and that if social behavior was of
little importance.
>
> OK, enslaving people for generation upon generation may be more favored than
> genocide. But, I know of many mass killing in history, so I don't see how
> you can argue that this is unnatural.
Do you know of any culture or of any species that has
survived through a strategy of genocide?
Indeed, in many ways, ethics are
> unnatural. The natural tendency is to look out for you and yours. The
> unnatural tendency is to love your enemy.
>
> BTW, I'm not accusing you of believing that any of the above is good.
Understood.
>I'm just arguing that is evolutionarily favored behavior.
I don't see it. If evolution selected for killers and
rapists and the like - anti social behavior - wouldn't life
have a tendency to whittle itself down - kill itself out?
Don't we need some semblance of social behavior to thrive?
The fact that human kind has formalized and codified social
behavior doesn't mean that it didn't exist beforehand, does it?
--
Doug
new email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.zo.com/~brighto
