Re: Morality is just self interest?
I'm going to focus on one answer that relates to a post of Doug for now. - Original Message - From: Erik Reuter [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2003 6:25 PM Subject: Re: Morality is just self interest? On Sat, Jul 19, 2003 at 04:49:49PM -0500, Dan Minette wrote: This was clearly in the best interest of the Iroquois, but not the slaughtered tribes, nor humanity in general. Yet, it was a perfectly rational act, if you assume the Iroquois acted in the self interest of their own tribe. Until they got slaughtered in turn by a stronger tribe. Not so rational, after all. Perhaps if they had cooperated with the other tribes, they (collectively) would have been much stronger when the Europeans arrived, and could have negotiated a peace from a position of strength. Well that's an interesting hypothesis. I realize that history cannot be tested experimentally, but I do not consider it meaningless. So, it is important to me to realize that they were strong when the Europeans arrived. Indeed, amazingly they were able to maintain their strength, as the first nation of the six nations, for over 100 years (from before 1650 to the Revolutionary War). This was in spite of the ravaging of their nation by disease imported by the Europeans. Part of this is attributed, to the adoption of some of their slaves, to keep their numbers up in the face of disease. Some slaves became junior members of the tribe. It was found that slaves with no home tribe were especially ameanable to such identity changes...which reiforced the massacre of tribes from which they had slaves. They were well known and received a measure of respect from the Europeans. Indeed, one of the documents studied before the writing of the US constitution was the Iriquois constitution. They were fairly unique in how they were treated as players by the Europeans. I can think of no other example of Native Americans in North America retaining a reasonable amount of power with respect to the Europeans for so long. If you wish to remark that this is just a function of my poor memory, then I'd invite you to show a counter example. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Morality is just self interest?
Seriously, I don't know why I have become so involved. ... Do I worry about my fellow man because I want there to be a fair and clean world for my nephews? Roy Rappaport pointed out, in `Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity', which I am reading right now, ... whatever may be the case among other species, group selection (selection for the perpetuation of traits tending to contribute positively to the survival of the groups in which they occur but negatively to the survival of the particular individuals in possession of them) is not only possible among humans but of great importantance in humanity's evolution. All that is needed to make group selection possible is a device that leads individuals to separate their conceptions of well-being or advantage from bilogical survival. Notions such as God, Heaven, Hell, heroism, honor, shame, fatherland and democracy encoded in procedures of enculturation that represent them as factual, natural, public, or sacred (and, therefore, compelling) have dominated every culture for which we possess ethnographic or historical knowledge. page 10 So perhaps it is not your pre-humanity that is affecting you, but your humanity. -- Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises http://www.rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.teak.cc [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Morality is just self interest?
- Original Message - From: Erik Reuter [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2003 1:38 AM Subject: Re: Free will and physics I did not label goals rational and irrational -- in fact, in this thread I specifically stated that my stated goal was subjective. Your reply does not address my comment...I was just watching the Godfather. If everyone behaved as the dons in that movie, almost no one would want to live in the resulting world. This is not the question we are differing on. I agree that a society in which everyone cooperates and works for the common good is better than a cut-throat society. The question is whether such a society naturally arises out of simple enlightened self-interest. And sure enough, the crime bosses are largely gone now. Most people realized what would happen if such a system were allowed to expand. You are seriously arguing that organized criminal activity doesn't exist? Actually, the overwhelming amount of evidence is for it. That is why humans have progressed from animal-like apes, to tribes, feudalism, and finally liberal democracy with the rule of law. And progress has accelerated, especially with the transition to liberal democracy and rule of law. Things are better than they were before. I'm not arguing with that. But, I didn't see the total connection between people seeking their own narrow self interest and this progress. I won't argue that it has happened; that people have sought to benefit themselves and have ended up benefiting everyone. There are indeed times when self interest and the interest of the community coincide. During these times, one need not worry about morality; just informing people where their own self interest lies. But, there are a multitude of historical examples where people have used force to enforce a system in which they prosper at the expense of others. Let me give an example from Native Americans. Iroquois were warriors who attacked other tribes to extermination. The reason for this is that they noted that, as long as their slaves knew that their tribesmen still lived, they acted as if they had hope of escape and/or being freed. But, once the rest of the tribe was slaughtered, they gave up this hope and were more subservient. This was clearly in the best interest of the Iroquois, but not the slaughtered tribes, nor humanity in general. Yet, it was a perfectly rational act, if you assume the Iroquois acted in the self interest of their own tribe. No, you are thinking much too small. There are indeed many win-lose scenarios if you look at thing myopically. But if you consider both the long-term and the interaction of others if they all followed a similar strategy, then the world is a big win-win scenario. Fine, but again, that misses the question at hand. The question is it better for person X if X behaves in a given manner. Self interest, pretty well by definition, looks myopically at what benefits one person: oneself. To use your language, the question at hand is if one considers their own self interest only in a myopic fashion, why worry about others? Indeed, if you look at ancient moral codes; you will find repeated reference to the goodness/evil of a time being measured in how society treats the widows, the orphans, and the strangers. These are obviously three relatively powerless groups. They are not in a position to play tit for tat. So, winning strategy for an individual playing a game against someone this weak is to roll over them. Maybe the stranger could be if he got back to his home, and the people in the original town then had to travel to his town. But, if one is not likely to be at the mercy of the people at that town at a later date, then it is similar to the 2/3rds rule of tit for tat. The reason I bring this up is that one can see 2500 years ago an understanding that there was a difference between treating someone who would have the power to harm you in the future poorly and treating someone who is at your mercy poorly. Maybe one could argue that this was only implicitly addressed 2500 years ago, but it was explicitly addressed 2000 years ago. So, using examples of situations where one has enlightened self interest in being nice to people who are in a position to either be nice or nasty to you in return doesn't work when discussing the foundation of morality. The question at hand was how do you treat those who do not have the power to demand good treatment. I mentioned this previously, but again you failed to address it. Surely you don't think we could have made as much progress as we did in the 20th century with everyone acting myopically in their own self interest? So, are you agreeing that the progress is inconsistent with people acting only in their own self interest? This seems to refute the contention that cooperation is reducible to enlightened self interest. How do you explain the huge growth in GDP per
Re: Morality is just self interest?
Interesting... I want the world to be a better place because I want it to be around by the time my nephews are old enough to take over. Haha. I must say, that before my brother and sister-in-law started to produce kids, I was worried about the future of the world, but not as much as now. I worry about the future of the nation's parks, nuclear power, the seas and what books should I save, that might be out of print by the time they start reading at such levels. I worry about the school system, the food they will have available and what is the best way for them to take over: mind control , death ray or some kind of weather control? Seriously, I don't know why I have become so involved. I, myself, don't plan to have kids so maybe I am nothing more then a beta male helping the rest of the family to protect the young and help pass on our genes? Or is it a higher sense of purpose that only mankind holds within? Do I worry about my fellow man because I want there to be a fair and clean world for my nephews? Mike V. You can't get us all, Hercules, someone called from his left. Some of us, though, another answered nervously. But not all, the first one insisted. -By the Sword- by Timothy Boggs. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Morality is just self interest?
On Sat, Jul 19, 2003 at 04:49:49PM -0500, Dan Minette wrote: This was clearly in the best interest of the Iroquois, but not the slaughtered tribes, nor humanity in general. Yet, it was a perfectly rational act, if you assume the Iroquois acted in the self interest of their own tribe. Until they got slaughtered in turn by a stronger tribe. Not so rational, after all. Perhaps if they had cooperated with the other tribes, they (collectively) would have been much stronger when the Europeans arrived, and could have negotiated a peace from a position of strength. Fine, but again, that misses the question at hand. The question is it better for person X if X behaves in a given manner. Self interest, pretty well by definition, looks myopically at what benefits one person: oneself. Then we are arguing semantics. What I mean by self-interest is what is best for oneself in the long-term. If you want, I will call that long-term-self-interest since I don't want to argue semantics. To use your language, the question at hand is if one considers their own self interest only in a myopic fashion, why worry about others? Frequently not much reason to. Why only consider short-term-self-interest? So, are you agreeing that the progress is inconsistent with people acting only in their own self interest? Yes, short-term-self-interest. This seems to refute the contention that cooperation is reducible to enlightened self interest. No, long-term-self-interest. That's an interesting question, and one that would take an L5 post...but I'm not sure how it relates to the question of whether morality can be shown to be derived from self interest. I explain a huge chunk of it by free markets, capitalism and rule of law (including property laws). Once you set up such a system, individual greed and long-term-self-interest of groups are forced to overlap quite a bit. You have both competition and cooperation at the same time. This is the most efficient system in history for progress in our mastery of the world. But, no reasonable person would think that. Even if they are willing, what are the odds of them being in a position to do that? Even if you assume that the risks of death assumed by someone going door to door in a smoke filled building (to the point where they had to be hospitalized) is only 1%, one can clearly see by looking at the frequency of life threatening fires, the mobility of people, the number of people that he saved, etc, that it was not a cost effective strategy. If, for example, you were to have a game theory with multiple scenarios during which people would either act in their immediate self interest, or act in a manner that helped others immediately and stored good will for the future, it would be a no brainer to run as fast as possible in this scenario. One would just do the numbers, and program accordingly. No one BUT reasonable people would think that. There are many other scenarios than fires where this behavior will come up. The group benefits by cooperation in a huge variety of situations. This certainly excludes the widows and orphan problem. It also excludes slaughtering people and taking their land. Further, it excludes using military power to set up an unequal system; to maintain oneself in power. In short, it excludes many/most situations where morality comes into play. It is a simple model. More work is required, but the results are highly suggestive. From my perspective, you are so sure that faith is bad, even when it proves beneficial, when the benefit is tangible and measurable, it is still bad because it is at odds with your metaphysics. No, it is bad because it does not prove beneficial, overall. The bad outweighs the good. You and I made very different types of statements. When I say I believe in something; I acknowledge that there is no proof; no empirical basis. You claim an empirical basis for morality: it is the behavior that occurs when someone pursues their enlightened self interest because harming others harms oneself. So, where we differ is that you believe a number of things that are not derivable from the empirical; Wrong, they are verifiable. Just not easily. This is far better than your baloney which is DESIGNED to be unverifiable. If someone comes along with a system that is better than mine (one example, if it is more easily verifiable), than I am certainly flexible. Indeed, what you posts indicate as your basic metaphysical position: strong realism, needs a lot of contortions to be at all consistent with experimental results of modern physics collected over the last century. No contortions are required. You seem to be confusing the mental gymanstics required for your position with that of others. Right now the best realistic interpretation of modern physics assumes that there is a rich infinity of inherently undetectable universes that contain a rich infinity of variations** of you and me (as well as
Re: Morality is just self interest?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Seriously, I don't know why I have become so involved. I, myself, don't plan to have kids so maybe I am nothing more then a beta male helping the rest of the family to protect the young and help pass on our genes? Or is it a higher sense of purpose that only mankind holds within? Do I worry about my fellow man because I want there to be a fair and clean world for my nephews? If you're not planning on reproducing, the members of the next generation sharing the greatest percentage of your genes are those nephews, so it's in the best interests of your genes to do what you can for those boys. If their arrival into the world triggered your interest in what happens to the next generation, that seems logical from a genocentric point of view. Yes? Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
