>The question 'where do our ethical ideas come from' has the answer >'our nature as social mammals'.
>The question 'how do we tell good from bad' does not have the answer >'our nature as social mammals'. >Category Mistake Maru I'm not sure this is true, although I'll admit I don't have the answersto the questions it raises. If our ethical ideas come from our nature as social animals -- and I do believe that's true, even to the degree that we share "ethics" to a large degree with other social animals -- for instance birds who mate for life, the intricate social systems of wolf packs and primates, or the amazing civility of dogs toward other dogs (just go to a dog park sometime and observe for a while the "rules" by which dogs interact, and how 99% of the time even a group of strange dogs who have never met before recognize and behave by those rules) -- if all of that comes from our nature as social animals, then where else can the ability to tell right from wrong come from? Those of us who do not believe in a transcendent power, a revealed ethical system, can't argue from authority or tradition. The real danger here is that we can easily descend into total relativsm, which is essentially no ethic al system at all. I think we all believe that there are some things which are write and wrong absolutely (or every nearly so), but explaining that belief is more difficult. If our ethical ideas are a product f evolution and our social nature, and if the only way we can tell good from bad is by nature of our eithical ideas, then if follows that it all arises out of evolution. The question is how? Stephen Pinker, Daniell Dennett and other writers have done some very provocative work on this and related qestions. One explanation would be that our ethical sense is an emergent property of our species specific reasoning skills which are themselves probably a product of lanague. The ability to make analogies, to reason about long-term consequences, to imagine the effect of our behavior on others, and to abstract general propositions from specific circumstances all create a new level of ethical concerns. Ethics seems to be a little like mathematics, in the sense that there may be certain "axioms" that we have to start with, which cannot in themselves be proven. Since there are an infinite number of these possible axioms, we are left with the question of how to choose between them. Perhaps it comes down to something like the pragmatic test that William James and others suggested: the "cash value" of ideas. If I hold such-and-such an ethical principle, and I draw out all the logical conclusions from that principle, what kind of world would I be living in? This approach has had mixed success of course. I think there's also an analogy to language. Noam Chomsky pointed out a long time ago that certain aspects of lanague are hardwired into the human brain, they develop normally in any child exposed to language in a critical period. He noted that many of the patterns found in laugages around the world are not inherntly logical -- and that it is possible to create far more logical, rational language -- Esperanto is an example -- but humans have a hard time learning these languages, because the are not human languages, not in keeping with the intricate grammar structured in our heads by evoltuion. I suspect that the same thing is true of a lot of our idealistic ethical systems -- and the systems I hold most precious, democracy, the open society, etc. almost certainly fall into this category -- they do not come naturally to us, and in a sense we must re-learn them over and over again, and we must make a concious effort to translate from our "natural ethical language" into these systems, because on a basic level we may never really learn to think in them. Maybe out descendents will, if these systems turn out to have survival value. These are all scientific questions though. If the answers don't come form there, where will they come from? Olin - Original Message ----- From: William T Goodall<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion<mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Monday, September 01, 2008 1:56 AM Subject: Re: Science and Ideals. On 1 Sep 2008, at 04:17, Dan M wrote: > That all sounds reasonable to me. But, if one also Googles Social > Darwinism, > one finds numerous references that list a number of folks who > believed in > it, including a number who clearly spent more than 10 minutes > thinking about > ethics. Now, I don't think they thought all that well, but it's not > what I > consider a straw man because it is a view that was (and is) held by > many. It's not a view held by anyone on this list, so who are you arguing with? Hence strawman. > > > Indeed, I know that I've argued strongly with list members against > evolutionary ethics while you were on the list. So, folks I'm > trying to > discuss things with do believe in things that fall under this > umbrella...so > I'm not sure how it's a straw man. The question of how we come to have ethical ideas is a different kind of question, with a different kind of answer, than the question of what is good. The question 'where do our ethical ideas come from' has the answer 'our nature as social mammals'. The question 'how do we tell good from bad' does not have the answer 'our nature as social mammals'. Category Mistake Maru -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk<http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk/> Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/<http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/> "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." ~Voltaire. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l<http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l> _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
