Greetings Economists, This was recently published, http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=11
http://reason.com/0012/rb.the.shtml Claiming Darwin for the Left: an interview with Peter Singer Interview by Julian Baggini Peter Singer looks a very tired man. It It's not so much the early morning start of the interview, but the weeks of media scrutiny, misrepresentation and criticism, which seem to have taken their toll. Singer came to England to talk about "A Darwinian Left", but no sooner had he stepped off the plane than the Daily Express was reviving the old controversy over Singer Singer's view that in certain circumstances, it may be better to end the life of a very severely handicapped baby in a humane way, rather than use all modern medicine can do to let it live a painful and often brief life. Singer tried to defend himself on Radio Four s Today programme, but in such a brief news item, his calm reasoning was always likely to have less impact than the emotive pleas of his opponent. So once again, what Singer really wanted to say was overshadowed by his reputation. Which is a pity, because in his LSE lecture, A Darwinian Left?, which formed the centrepiece of his visit, Singer challenges a rather different taboo: the exclusion from left-wing thought of the ideas of Charles Darwin. Singer argues that the left s utopianism has failed to take account of human nature, because it has denied there is such a thing as a human nature. For Marx, it is the "ensemble of social relations" which makes us the people we are, and so, as Singer points out, "It follows from this belief that if you can change the ensemble of social relations , you can totally change human nature." The corruption and authoritarianism of so-called Marxist and communist states in this century is testament to the na�vet� of this view. As the anarchist Bakunin said, once even workers are given absolute power, "they represent not the people but themselves & Those who doubt this know nothing at all about human nature." But what then is this human nature? Singer believes the answer comes from Darwin. Human nature is an evolved human nature. To understand why we are the way we are and the origins of ethics, we have to understand how we have evolved not just physically, but mentally. Evolutionary psychology, as it is known, is the intellectual growth industry of the last decade of the millennium, though it is not without its detractors. If the left takes account of evolutionary psychology, Singer argues, it will be better able to harness that understanding of human nature to implement policies which have a better chance of success. In doing so, two evolutionary fallacies have to be cleared up. First of all, we have evolved not to be ruthless proto-capitalists, but to "enter into mutually beneficial forms of co-operation." It is the evolutionary psychologist s work in explaining how survival of the fittest translates into co-operative behavior which has been, arguably, its greatest success. Secondly, there is the "is/ought" gap. To say a certain type of behavior has evolved is not to say it is morally right. To accept a need to understand how our minds evolved is not to endorse every human trait with an evolutionary origin. Doyle, What I find amazing about such an article is the author appears to not know Stephen Jay Gould or the controversies in biology around evolutionary biology. That is a starting place, but the author also elides the critics of Singer around his 'ethical' stand on killing disabled babies. The key element though here is Singer's ethics. How are we to take ethics? I would propose an alternative to Singer's views. While I have no problem with examining historical ethics, I think the issue of ethics has to be placed in the context of the human emotional system. And in an architecture of the emotion structure in society. It is one thing to say thou shalt not kill. It is quite another thing to observe how intense feelings rise in abusive family structure and understand what is going on. Those are space and time structures in which the connection process between people is being made or broken. Emotion structure in abuse structures is meant to keep intact a particular social structure. I cannot see how ethical commandments can help in such circumstances since we are talking about dynamical information structures that happen in milliseconds. For example it is quite common for cops to kill depressed people in the U.S. The cop comes in out of the streets sees some distraught 50 year old woman with a kitchen knife and kills them on the spot. I see something else, a feeling structure surrounding the woman about to be killed by a cop who has no documentation nor scientific analysis of what is going on. The point opposite Singer's ethical conceits is to build a culture that authorizes a connection process suitable for disabled people to use in lieu of an idealized Darwinian evolutionary biology. The connection process is fundamentally emotion structure in dynamic interconnection between people. Further this connection process is a face based process for the most part between people so group dynamics is likely to be characterized by how well we understand the face. For example; URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/11/23/BUGHR9VT4B1.DTL quoting an excerpt, Page G - 1, �2004 San Francisco Chronicle The simulated face will work in real time, which requires tremendous processing power, but will enable researchers to do things that would be impossible with human subjects. For instance, researchers could gauge people's reactions to one of the computer model's expressions, and then alter the expression ever so slightly -- removing the eyebrow twitch or a slight squint -- to see if the reaction or interpretation changes. Doyle, essentially to have an emotion architecture built we need enough computing power to solve the dynamical connection process between people. That would supplant Singer's ethics. thanks, Doyle
