-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Black [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 10:00 AM
To: TIPS
Subject: Lucifer Principle
Stephen wrote:
"'Survival mechanism' implies that an act of evil must be
something that someone does which promotes the survival of
his/her genes. So we're talking about a particular form of evil,
that which one person perpetuates against another. But here's
where the relative comes in. What is evil to one person is
honourable to another; it's a moral or religious judgement, not
an absolute. Rick gave some good examples. Some others: to kill
or not to kill Salman Rushdie; to extract or refuse to extract
stem cells from aborted fetuses to help people with multiple
sclerosis and Parkinson's disease; to wear or not wear a condom
and prevent AIDS, to eat or refuse to eat pork."
If it is actually true that what is evil to one is honorable to another and
there is no universal ethical principle, then there is no rational or
logical foundation for believing one's behavior is more moral than another.
This would be a strong blow against those who believe that it is possible to
logically construct a system of morality.
However, saying that what a person PERCEIVES as moral differs from person to
person is not the same as saying what IS moral differs from person to
person. Bringing this back out of the realm of postmodern relativism,
Kohlberg's solution to this problem, as I understand it, was to say that
anyone, reasoning correctly would eventually come to the same conclusion
about what is right and wrong (thus it is universal not because everyone
believes it but because it can be logically derived as a principle on which
the universe operates.) This puts it in the class of things like gravity.
You don't need to be a believer in gravity to pay the consequences of
violating it and you don't need to be a believer in a particular morality to
pay the consequences of violating the universal ethical principle. If you
wish to remain a moral atheist, it seems that it would be imperative for you
to logically derive some such universal ethical principle unless you wish to
be an anarchist moral atheist. I am surprised that none of the moral
atheists on the list have jumped on this argument yet since it is an attack
on the ability of a person to logically construct an ethic that is
applicable to everyone.
BTW, just as theists and atheists can agree on the principle of gravity,
they should also be able to agree on a universal ethical principle even if
they don't agree on its source. Theists would believe that a deity created
the universe including the moral code while atheists would believe that the
moral code evolved along with the rest of the universe.
Stephen continues:
"In each case, what is evil to one group is a moral act to
another. Nevertheless, as most of us are not Moslem extremists we
would probably agree that it would be evil to kill Salman
Rushdie. So how would his murder promote the survival of the
killer's genes?
Perhaps, then, the Lucifer Principle applies only to universal
evils, those which everyone in all cultures agree are absolutely
abhorent. These are not easy to find. Is infanticide one? Does
killing babies promote your genes? Possibly, if you are male,
and the baby you kill is not your own. But without access to
modern technology, how can you be sure? Killing your own baby
is not a good idea, evolution-wise."
It is not as difficult as you might imagine to find values that are shared
to a large degree by cultures worldwide. To hold it to the standard that
everyone must agree for it to be considered universal means that the
minority with extremely warped views of morality (Timothy McVeigh and, some
would argue, his executioners and those who would wish to view it on
television) would be the exceptions that would disprove the rule. It would
also mean that we cannot conclude that the world is round and sex leads to
children. There is no psychological finding extant to which you could not
find a few exceptions. Just because everyone doesn't believe in (or may not
even be aware of) all of the principles of the universe, that doesn't mean
that they are not subject to them. If there is a universal ethical principle
which all people could logically ascertain through reason, then its
existence and its effect on me is not dependent on whether I believe it or
not.
Stephen concludes:
"The point, I think, is that every case is different. Most cases
of evil are only evil to some; if truly universal evils exist,
each must be considered individually for the effect of the
practice on reproductive success. Down with abstractions! Evil
(and by extension, the Lucifer Principle) is not a scientifically
meaningful concept."
If morality is as relative as portrayed here, it is not a meaningful concept
at all. However, if a universal ethical principle could be ascertained
through logic, then morality would be a scientifically meaningful concept.
Another possibility is that morality exists as a universal principle but it
is not ascertainable through methods of science and logic.
If things are as relative as Stephen suggests, why stop with the moral?
Everything is up for grabs (especially if the Eurocentric scientific method
is seen as immoral to some). Also, if morality is that relative, it hardly
seems fair to hold someone accountable for criminal behavior. They obviously
didn't think it was wrong if they did it. To reiterate, my final point is
that the statement, "what a person PERCEIVES as moral differs from person to
person" is not equivalent to the statement, "what IS moral differs from
person to person".
Rick
Dr. Richard L. Froman
Psychology Department
John Brown University
Siloam Springs, AR 72761
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.jbu.edu/sbs/psych/froman.htm
