So they're selfish? How can something that someone has no choice but advocate be selfish? Ethics are something we all inherently desire to establish. I wouldn't listen to Ayn Rand about anything, really.

this is going to be my last post in this thread

since moral dilemmas over what is right and wrong are due to cultural and religious corruption, we must all innately know whether abortion is right or wrong and what the proper ethical treatment for animals is. you might think you innately know the answer to both of these questions, which would explain why you can hold such a view, but since i don't know whether it is wrong to abort an unborn fetus or whether it's wrong to hold an animal in close captivity for most of its life so you can eat it, it must be that the ability to know such things is not innate.

We all innately have an idea of right and wrong and how to recognize it when we see it. However, religious and cultural corruption can displace these feelings or drown them out. In the case of religion it's probably because our desire to know the answers to big questions is very strong, and when we're offered an answer and then told it requires something of us, we often give in. I don't innately know that abortion is right or wrong or how to treat animals, but I have an idea of in which direction the right answer lies. This is why morality is constantly evolving and changing, and while you may not have decided yet, it is possible for a decision to be made based on your sense of what the right answer should be. The potential to discern between right and wrong decisions as they present themselves is all that matters, and it most certainly is innate.

i am in absolute disagreement with the notion that ethics are selfless. in order to deem something to be selfless or selfish, you have to first define 'self', then outline its motives.

humans are animals, and animals (in fact all organisms) are nothing more than complex mechanisms which have evolved to ensure the duplication of DNA molecules. life began as an inorganic, self-replicating molecule, and has evolved by means of a mindless, mechanistic, algorithmic process to the myriad forms we see today. but no living thing is any more than a DNA duplication machine.

the 'motives' of any living creature (if we can make a giant leap and impose a telos onto a process as mindless and mechanistic as self-replication) are therefore ultimately selfish. seemingly selfless acts, such as rare bouts of altruism, or a mother caring for its young, ultimately function only to increase the fitness of an organism, or of other organisms with closely matching DNA. if right and wrong exist on any level at all, it is on this biological level, not on the illusory level of our social or mental 'selves'.

but right and wrong, or good and evil, are still too abstract. really, all we can really talk about is 'promotes DNA replication' and 'inhibits DNA replication'.

the telos of a human being, if we can be said to have one at all, is to reproduce. it is therefore in an individual's best interests to play nice so that one's DNA may be multiplied as many times as possible.

as for this nonsense about innate feelings of right and wrong, this facts quite simply don't support the hypothesis. if this were true, then we would see very strong trends throughout history which show the majority of the global population acting the same way in similar situations.

actually, patterns do emerge: we find repeated instances of war, cruelty, greed, and corruption! ultimately, humans reliably exhibit unabashed selfishness, not good will towards men. it just doesn't add up!

if you want to blame social or religious pressures for all this 'evil', then you're ultimately calling the entire edifice of society an evil thing which we would be better off without!

last but not least, people tend to be forgetting natural 'evils'. what of earthquakes? gravity gone wild? rat-borne bubonic plague? rusty nails that poke without bias? grapes that choke?

^I applaud you for your insights into selfishness and evolution of genes. I think that knowledge is crucial to understand many aspects of humanity such as much of our behaviour. However, you must remember that humans are social beings and working in numbers raises the fitness of everyone. One hunter can't take down a mammoth, but 10 or 20 could. Thus, something that looks like altruism does arise out of what is essentially selfishness. This is what explains the "biological morality" and innate sense of right and wrong. As you would understand, killing your own child makes no sense because it's DNA is so close to your own - it has 50% of your genes. But killing someone elses child might not be a good idea either because it's the child of someone whom you are in a community with and who your fitness is partially dependent on. If it is a child from a community competing for the same resources as yours, then the act may make sense from a biological point of view.

So you have some good points, but don't overlook these essentials.

yes, good points. i am aware of them, and glossed over the whole thing when i said "it is therefore in an individual's best interests to play nice so that one's DNA may be multiplied as many times as possible."

by this i meant that cooperation can ultimately benefit an individual organism's quest to reproduce.

but in the end, i honestly don't believe any of this. i'm not a materialist, and i don't think that humans can be reduced to mechanisms as i described.

i really don't know what i believe anymore. i read a lot about evolution and life sciences, so i'm inclined to believe what i argued above. but on the other hand, i'm trained in anthropology, so i know how important the role of society is in human endeavors. i'm also well-versed in philosophy which just adds another branch to the tree. and then there's quantum uncertainty which comes along like a chainsaw and cuts the whole damned tree down. what a mess!

Just for the sake of chatting a bit about the topic, I think a lot of people find it hard to bridge the ideas of selfishness with practical experience. According to selfish theory, it might make sense to kill another child as I mentioned if that child comes from a competing or hostile community. From that, it sounds like people are cold machines and often, that's how theory describes all organisms - machines that reproduce genes (you wrote it yourself). However, a killing behaviour is not switched on or off like a lightswitch. Instead, we have evolved the multitude of feelings that trigger and motivate us. You're not a robot, so seeing the child won't turn on your killswitch .. but if you were out with your hunting group and you saw a different group of hunters that you'd never seen before take down the mammoth that you and your hunter-friends were going for, that could start feelings of animosity and other things to promote self-preservation (those bastards stole our mammoth!). Those feelings could eventually lead to a war between groups with resulting killings. It doesn't have to, having to fight is also not good for your fitness, so it should only be done if the potential gain by doing so outweighs the potential loss. Thus, a peace tactic is probably more commonly employed.

However, I think people are very community minded and so the same kind of morale does not apply to all people. From a selfish point of view, people you consider from your community deserve a lot more morality on your part than people outside it. When you think about it - a lot. This alienation thinking is very important. It subjectively morally justifies acts that would otherwise be considered gruesome. Soldiers killing others in a war can be one example. For a KKK member, it might justify racism.

I think a bad thing for a community to degenerate into is a group of individuals fighting for their space and resources - where everyone feels like they're on their own instead of a part of a whole where everyone lifts everyone up. Maybe a large community can get comprised of many smaller communities where people belonging to one don't naturally extend the same kind of morale to people from others. Something like that could lure out the "worst" sides of our caveman nature and could well help explain a degeneration of morale in a community.

Needless to say, I lean towards leftist thinking and I think that aside from having very high living standards, the kind of social democratic politics we have in Norway also help make people more community minded. And that in turn help lower crime rates, etc.

I don't think reproduction is "the ultimate goal" by any means. While I do see why it could be considered as such, I know that I tend to pull out.

^The "urge" to reproduce manifests itself as a want for sex, something you probably do feel. In other words, don't blame evolution for coming up with condoms (Seriously, people should know this by now).

This is along the lines of how I would have responded. When I say that morality is innate, I don't mean that we're born knowing to advocate stem-cell research and give to the poor.

IM Moraly-Grey

I don't drink.
I don't smoke.
I don't do drugs.
I don't curse (much).
I'm not nessicarily a violent person, I've lost my temper quite a bit but I always cool off.

Okay some of these were cheating since I'm underage anyway, but I really don't see the point of drinking or drugs.

of course not. those are complicated and rather abstract concepts. the best we can do is extrapolate from basic moral values, hoping to arrive at a scheme that will cover those outer branches of the tree.

but innate = biological, yes?

moreover, i don't feel that i 'know' i ought to give to the poor. in fact, i'm rather inclined not to. the only reason i can imagine to do so is that it might have a beneficial psychological impact on my ego, but my ego is quite healthy, and does not need any food right now...

I disagree. First of all, evolution isn't really a person so it can't have blame. You could say that it is not the cause of condoms.

Secondly, as humans we strive for more than survival. We strive for our own personal happiness.

^I'm a little confused. I never wrote that we don't strive for more than survival. We do .. Skydiving is a good example of an activity that is probably not likely to increase your fitness.

edit :

By the way, you shouldn't confuse the motive "survival" as a thought that is always concious. You eat food because you're hungry, not because "I don't wanna die!".

What I am saying is that the notion that we should live with evolution creating our morality in such a way that we live to produce is offspring is not a human idea. Humans are selfish. We choose to exist longer. We choose to pursue our own happiness, the goal of every man in the universe whether he will admit it or not. Humans aren't a slave to their species like animals. Condoms exist because we feel that reproducing is not always the best thing for us. This is because we don't put our species above ourselves, we put our own happiness above our species. It just so happens that it is our motivation for happiness is really what has allowed us to overpower this planet to the point where we may destroy it.

I just realized I may have possibly missed the point though, and if this is true just ignore everything I typed above.

When you see a starving African child or a homeless man begging for food (not a panhandler, someone who is clearly down on their luck) do you not feel a little bit of sympathy? I have a hard time believing that all humans (at least sane and well adjusted ones) don't have some empathetic core in them that at least makes them react in a charitable, pitiable or even disgusting manner to those sorts of situations. I can understand feeling justified in knowing you have no obligation to help the downtrodden but that still points to you being aware of your superior position and it also points to you arguing against some original structure (that helping the poor is good), a structure created by a humanity before you. That aside, the fact you say the only reason you'd imagine giving to the poor is to have a beneficial impact on your ego shows you're aware it would be the "right" (or at the very least nice) thing to do, even if there's no beneficial effect that's tangible.

giving to the poor would only have a beneficial psychological impact because it would allay guilt. but the guilt comes from social pressure, not from inside me. i have learned that giving to the poor is the right thing to do. it's that whole 'do unto others as you would have done unto you' deal.

i don't presume to know how i would act in the absence of such social pressures, but i can't imagine why i would help another another in need if there were nothing in it for me. do herd animals protect the young, old, and sick when a predator comes, or do they run as fast as they can and never look back?

You've got some points and you are missing some. Most people don't really know the theory behind selfishness. Basically, every organism is driven by selfishness - you, me, the birds in the trees and the earthworms digging through your garden. The only exception are perhaps altruistic mutants and animals bred by humans to act altruistic, but those "altruistic genes" are selected against in nature because they get exploited by the selfish ones. Evolution will remove them. From this, you would think that we are all horribly selfish, but the redeeming factor and what makes us basically nice and work together with those we include in our mental idea of "us" and not "them" is because it ultimately raises our own fitness. Fitness is not the same as survivability, but it has a lot to do with it.

People don't care about their own species .. Neither do wolves or cats. Noone does. We care about ourselves, those we share genes with and those our fitnesses are dependent upon.

When talking about human nature, you should be careful to mention fun-facts from modern life. In our billions of years life history, condoms and fast-food joints haven't even been around for 0,1‰ of that time. Using modern life as an argument on the nature of people is an annoying habit by those who can't seem to grasp or at least remember that our natures are cavemen natures. Try to keep the caveman in mind. Things we are adapted to do (like having sex or hunting animals) can be expressed in new ways now that we did not actually evolve to. We are cavemen - driving cars and living in big cities, enjoying modern lives.

As for the pursuit of happiness, think about what the pursuit of happiness would mean if you were a caveman. It would mean food, shelter, probably a mate, a bit of sex now and again, a community to provide food/safety/etc. Basically, the pursuit of happiness would be the pursuit of things that help you survive or, more correctly, raise your fitness.

We don't have an innate care for "the world" or "our species". No animal has. If you understand selfishness, then you'll see that theoretically, such a care would make no sense at all.

i'm starting to think that 'selfish' is the wrong word to use here, toretorden.

to me, selfish behaviour is action that benefits the actor, and is carried out in spite of its consequences to other parties involved. there is an implicit acknowledgment in a selfish act that it might have adverse effects on others. i think that's what really defines a selfish act, not just an action that benefits only the actor.

but in the natural world, there is no such acknowledgment. a predator is not selfish when it kills to survive. a tree is not selfish when its branches prevent its offspring from receiving enough sunlight to survive. organisms do what they do, and while this often conflicts with what other organisms do, it is simply the way of the world.

if that makes any sense...

When I say selfish, it's because the word has a certain meaning in biology and that's my background. I understand others who are not familiar with evolutionary theory might get confused by how I use the word, though.

This is about selfish genes, but of course animals also behave selfish because the way they act is an expression of those selfish genes. Selfishness occurs when you have something that can replicate itself, is able to change (and improve) and compete with others for limited resources. Let's hypothesize the very start of life as something that started with a gene in a primordial soup that was able to use a resource to replicate itself. After doing so a number of times, there would be many and they would compete for those resources. When some mutate, new versions of that gene may appear that are better at replicating than the original genes, so they might outcompete the first ones. There's no concience behind it, one version drives the other to extinction simply because there is a selection for being better at replicating itself and since their needs overlap, the presence of one essentially kill the other. From this naturally occurring competition arises what we call selfishness and it's a quality that applies to all the genes that make up all organisms and so it is a fundamental "force" almost if you will in nature.

woah your avatar just moved. creepy.

yeah that's more along the lines of what i was trying to say. i assume this is Dawkins? never read him.

i did just finish Dennett - Darwin's Dangerous Idea. he had a whole chapter bashing Dawkins, but it was boring so i skipped it ;)

It's not really just Dawkins, but he did write "The Selfish Gene" which coined a lot of terms and gathered the thoughts, ideas and discoveries made by several biologists at that time. His book is a bit like a review with a lot of his own thoughts thrown in. Instead of giving him all the credit, let's rather say he was able to popularize the ideas of many biologists at that time (and now). The theories behind that book are by far at large accepted by biologists and has really helped us understand behaviour we found it hard to explain before.

Evolutionary biology and the theories behind it still have a lot of opposition which is only natural because they rock the very foundations of what so many people believe in. The Selfish Gene is a relatively easy read even for non-biologists and should be attempted by everyone. ;)

My avatar looks your way every now and then by the way :D

You dodged my question...when you see suffering don't you feel even a shred of sympathy? I have a hard time believing all this comes from social pressure, I know a good deal of our morality has been constructed by society but this is because morality - not killing one other, or stealing, rape, etc - is what allows us to coexist productively and peacefully.

I think there is a basic moral compass in all our advanced brains; Adam Smith called it an unspoken partner in conversation who's approval you hope to gain, Socrates called it (much more simply) his Daimon. If we didn't we couldn't be partially rational animals. I don't think it points to anything beyond an innate sense of right and wrong and it doesn't help with more abstract or modern concepts (this is where philosophy and society come in) but I do think it's what has allowed us to continue and progress as a species. I don't think the basis of every society has been some immoral cesspool full of rape and murder that eventually stopped and got it right and then flourished.

the problem here is our tendency to want to derive an "ought" from an "is". an example: if i were to kick you in the knee, you would feel pain. but it by no means follows that because the kick will cause a neurochemical pain response in your body, i ought to refrain from doing it! pain is not intrinsically bad. we just don't like it.

if every living creature that causes severe pain, irreparable physical damage, or death to another creature were suddenly punished as we punish each other, the food chain would quickly break down, and the planet would ultimately die.

if we instead just picked up our pillboxes and went out on a mission to heal all the sick critters and nurture all the unfit ones into adulthood so they could reproduce, not only would we cause a severe overpopulation problem, but we would put a really big wrench in the cogs of natural selection, again causing a complete breakdown of the system.

yet we tolerate these in the human sphere because we don't like pain. we don't like to be sad, or to see babies with tails, or to watch old people's joints get creaky. so we take the "is" of suffering and derive from it an "ought". then, fueled by the "ought", we work very hard to come up with a "can". but we don't stop there - we immediately whip that "can" into a "must". we go from "pain is" to "pain is evil and must be stopped", taking some giant leaps along the way.

what if i just stop with the "is"?

now, don't for one second assume i will practice what i preach. my pain is more real than anyone else's. it's the only pain i can feel. of course i'm going to do something about it. i can and i must! but other people's pain? that's their problem. i know they didn't choose to be born to crackhead parents, or to grow up in a country where 12 year olds get automatic rifles for their birthday. they didn't ask for that brain tumor, or for that gimpy leg that keeps them from holding down a job. but i didn't ask to be born a white, middle-class american male either.

it's all moot anyway. i'm 31 today. the universe is somewhere around 14 billion years old. if we set up a ratio, and imagine that one year represents the age of the universe, my then my portion of that year comes and goes in less time than it takes for me to blink my eyes...

If everyone approached society with that kind of philosophy though (that the I is the most important and the them is less...for reasons that are almost solipsism by your logic) than we wouldn't get anywhere. People in society have to coexist peacefully to be productive and to progress. There needs to be a certain level of empathy and even welfare for a society to get anywhere. The human race getting this far points to just that.

I don't really see how your point about the food chain counters my point or even responds to it. I was speaking strictly about humanity, not the Animal kingdom. In no way did I suggest everyone go out and be veterinarians and try and turn all carnivores into herbivores...I was merely stating that a society (of humans) won't have any sort of longevity if there isn't some moral structure in place, which would include many altruistic aspects.

we wouldn't get anywhere? i thought you were an atheist, yet you believe we have a destination? a telos? you feel we should progress - towards what?

anyway you say i'm approaching society with that kind of philosophy, when in fact i'm saying that society has nothing to do with ethics on the bottom-most level. nor is it a philosophy - it's just the way things are.

more to the point, i don't deny the value of ethics, or altruism, or community. what i'm arguing against is your belief that these are innate, that we are wired for them.

the thing that distinguishes humans from animals is society - and it is on the social level that ethics truly operate. that's where cooperation and empathy and all that comes in.

but it is not part of our biology. on a pre-cultural, biological level, we are no different than animals, and we are ultimately selfish.

we have no innate moral compas. objective moral standards do not exist. morality is a social construct. how can i be any more explicit?

Happy birthday? *runs away from thread*

I would argue that we do have an innate moral compass and that it is able to explain a lot about things like modern society, war, depletion of resources, etc. but that the compass is ultimately driven by the "biological selfishness" that all living things (and even some arguably unliving) possess.

I've explained why I believe that a number of times now, though, so I will leave it at that.

Regarding the poor man, you should give him money if that in turn is beneficial to you. How is it beneficial? It is, perhaps, if you regard him as part of your caveman-sense of community - if he is an "us" and not a "them". If he considers you part of his community, he might help you the same way should the tables get turned. How do you know if he's "us" or "them"? Your feelings try to guide you. If you feel able to identify yourself with, relate to or otherwise feel compassion for him, that's an indicator that he's in on the "us". If all that stands a test against your rationality, then there you go, give him cash.

hahahaha, dido

cowards :P

By not getting anywhere, I mean we'd all be dead and not have gotten to this point in humanity. I'm not talking about anything religious when I use words like progress, I merely talking about the ongoing survival of the human race. Something, as a human, I have interest in.

I'd define society as a group with a common bond but for that bond to exist there has to be some level of morality and respect amongst the group. I don't really understand how you can deny morality - or the lack of - being at the basis of every society.

Animals are capable of living in harmony together though and operating with a base level of what, some would consider, "ethics." You can see it when a mother cares for her young. The denial of a basic level of ethics in both humans and animals is completely absurd. If we didn't have any moral compass whatsoever and it was all constructed by society why would we feel obligated to follow them? Because it's in our best interests? How do we know what is and isn't in our best interests?

The fact were selfish points towards a desire to thrive as a individual but I think, more altruistically, everyone generally wants to see their species or family, pack, etc. thrive.

You're twisting this into something it isn't. I'm not talking about some objective moral standard like some rabid Ayn Rand fan. If you consider a basic need in our species to coexist and thrive an objective moral standard then okay - I guess it could be seen as that - but I just consider it the basis for a society to exist. I don't think any innate moral compass can explain the more complex issues that face our society today, that's where logic and critical thinking come in.

PS Happy Birthday (: