From Michael Fuchs		Mar 24, 01 02:25:08 PM -0800
To: jfk@stanfordalumni.org (Jeremy Kassis),
        cpoplawski@yahoo.com (Chad Poplawski), sc@ewav.com
Cc: alex@heublein.net (Alexander Heublein)
Subject: The Moral Animal debate rages on


Well, let me try to get my licks in here before leaving our fair shores
(and in between packing, changing currency, and sending an 85mb build to
Japan across a VPN . . .).

Let me preface by applauding Jeremy's and Scott's pieces. I think it will
be highly entertaining and edifying to watch this group interact . . .


Kassis, Jeremy intrepidly averred:
> 
> but the upside is as Fuchs argues.  it is very clear that much of what we do
> is determined by the adaptionist mechanism of mind.  and it is the case that
> the mind, as it complexifies, affords ever greater opportunities for making
> choices that "go against the grain" of our evolutionary programming.

Wright actually ended on this hopeful note--and underscored it masterfully.
He used Charles Darwin all the way through as his test case. And concluded
that our record of overcoming genetic programming is quite good--the
very first human being to figure out the game had pretty fair success
subverting it!  


> you actually had
> less choice as a child, not only because your parents told you what to do,
> but because your mind had not been filled with the data and experiences it
> requires to buck its programming.  do you have more control over your
> thoughts now than you did as a kid?

It was exactly in this context that I read about the cerebral cortex; ie it
was a commentary by a psychiatrist on school shootings, etc. He pointed out
that adolescents do not have fully formed and active goings on in the
prefrontal cortex. Hence they are frequently slaves to their drives
(hormones, anyone?), and have a poor ability to override their base
impulses.

I think both Jeremy and this shrink are right. And I further think it goes
to my hypothesis of locating the soul in the prefrontal cortex. (I don't
know about ya'll, but I don't really feel like I had personhood until about
age 19. I've disavowed a GREAT deal of what I did before then.)


> by identifying what our imperatives tell us to do, we have a guide to what
> we "should" do.  in the simplest analysis.  what we "should" do is strive,
> compete, and complexify because these are the means by which we ensure the
> most suitable mates that ensure the survival of our offspring.in this very
> real way, the purpose of life is life.

No offense, but this is the naturalistic fallacy rearing its head again.
You're going to have do some convincing (rather a lot) that what I
"should" do is dictated by a blind, stupid, cruel algorithm (evolution
by natural selection).  

	"The universe we observe has precisely the properties
	 we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design,
	 no purpose, no good, no evil, nothing but blind,
	 pitiless indifference."
	 		- Chuck D. (not the rapper)


You've kind of got me, because I don't have a good alternative. But that
doesn't mean I'm going to accept this one.

I think we probably agree that understanding our evo-psycho programming is
absolutely vital to making progress. But I think it is far more often that
we want to understand this programming to *subvert* it (if not outright
crush it), rather than to go along with its program (ala _Mean Genes_).


> but i guarantee that if you throw off your
> intellectualism and heed the wisdom of your genetic imperatives, you'll find
> it quite beautiful.

I hate to be so violently contrarian (I really do, despite the fact that I'm
going to anyway . . . ;^), but our genetic imperatives have given us stuff
like rape, war, broken families, and obesity (in no particular order . . .)
I can only quote Steven Pinker (see _HtMW_) when he noted, in regard to the
fact that he has chosen to remain childless, "By Darwinian standards I am a
horrible mistake. But I am happy to be that way, and if my genes don't like
it, they can go jump in the lake."  8^)


> JK: the conclusion does not follow the premise - belief in strict
> determinism does not philosophically motivate golf-playing.

While I appreciate your treatment of "learned helplessness," I'm actually
making a more abstruse philosophical (not behaviourist) point, which I'm
going to stick by (and which is abstruse and formal and non-pragmatic
enough that you can go ahead and grant it to me, then dismiss and disregard
it). The point is that if you cleave to strict determinism--that our
actions, thoughts, and overall state are determined by a combination of
genetic programming, early developmental programming, and the state of the
world, then you are out of the business of making prescriptions, or even
suggesting that we take care to figure out what is moral. Strict
determinism (and I use it in the strict, philosophical sense) is complete
abdication.

This may lead you (as it does many) to reject strict determinism. But
Wright both embraced it, and continued to make prescriptions for us, as
if we were still in control.


> Do the billiard balls stop moving
> when they realize their trajectories and final resting points were computed
> prior to the break?

There's the rub. Billiard balls don't realize things, we do. This fact is
deeply problematical either to strict determinism, or to our (treasured)
notion of our free agency. This is another of those important problems in
philosophy that never gets put to bed.


> For this reason, to me, determinism isn't worth worrying about.

More than fair.


> Personally, I am a strict determinist that believes in pseudo-randomness.

Randomness doesn't get you out of it--unless you're going to try to marry
randomness and consciousness in some way. Otherwise, things are still out
of our hands. IMO. But I'm probably spending too much breath on too moot an
issue. (Blame my philosophy training.  ;^)


> JK: This is basically correct as far as I understand.  Consciousness evolved
> as an adaptionist tool to deal with complex, rapidly changing circumstances
> and factors.  The need for reconfiguration arose in what was really a
> cognitive arms race among humans in their evolutionary crucible.  It has
> always been the intention of the genes (if I can say that) that
> consciousness serve their interests, but adaptability - the ability to
> override pre-programmed behaviors became so valuable in survival that
> consciousness is now able to override even the "prime directive" of
> reproduction.

I think that's a kick-ass insight, artfully expressed, and with a great
deal of explanatory power. We engage in a GREAT deal of Darwinianly
unfit behaviour. And a reconfiguration module run amok is, IMO, a very
nice way to account for much of it.  


> I think there is an important point here: there is a difference between
> consciousness and cognition.  It is significant that the only behaviors that
> we are able to override are the ones that we *know* about, that is, those
> that are in our consciousness.

Hence Freud.


> JK: No matter what the content of an ethical prescription, one observation
> about ethics, to me, is inescapable.  It is negotiated.  You can make what
> arguments you like about ethics being objective and following from
> fundamental principles and unarguable.  But when you make these arguments,
> the most accurate existential description of what you are doing is
> "negotiating."  You are making arguments to shove your memes down someone
> else's cognitive cake hole.  If your memes have an air of internal
> consistency, the other person is weak-minded, and they have no competitive
> position, they will agree with you (maybe - many people are just obstinate).
> This perspective explains, to me, all ethical conundrums, including the
> *some things are always wrong* conundrum.  The reality is that there is no
> such thing as wrong, and some people can never be brought to believe it.
> Many people can believe there is such a thing, because we have a similar
> evolutionary heritage.  When you say SOME THINGS ARE ALWAYS WRONG, you are
> saying that you believe that SOME THINGS ARE ALWAYS WRONG.  Some people will
> agree with you.  Many will on the perspective of recreational torture.  But
> reality is that during colonial times, recreational torture of slaves was
> pretty common.  And nothing you could say would convince the sadists
> otherwise.  We have stomped most of that out by force.  Anyone remember the
> Civil War?  When memes do not win on their own merit, when they cannot
> replicate into new fertile ground, they sometimes harness other memes (the
> concept of the enemy, the will of god) to destroy the hosts of competing
> memes.  People have been killed throughout history for what was in their
> heads.  Ethics are subjective.  And Ethics are negotiated.  And I'll go out
> on a limb here to say that anyone that disagrees has their idealism blinders
> on.
> 
> 
> > Camus quoted
> > someone, I forget who: "In the tomb, vice and virtue are
> > indistinguishable." We need for this to be wrong. But how?
> 
> JK: We don't need for this to be wrong.  And we don't need a rational basis
> for morality.  I say, "I want to live in a society that severely punishes
> recreational torture.  Who's with me?"  I don't have to have a reason.  I
> just need to have options.  The idea will either make sense to people or it
> won't.  If I live in a society that disagrees with what I want for myself,
> and I can't change it, I need to get out.  We negotiate ethics only because
> we can't get away from each other.

Pardon the quoting at length, but I think it outlines a position, Jeremy,
that you can definitely hold--and defend. It may even be the "right" answer
(in terms of being the most "accurate" and most useful). But I'm not 100%
sure I like it (though, I think I do), and it is still open to attack
from the philosophy armchair: your problem is that in your system,
recreational torture is as "valid" as sainthood--it's just a personal
preference. Do we want to go there? Can we afford to? Are we sure
enough about this to suffer those consequences? Maybe.

You also raise two very interesting Wrightian points, one germane, one
frivolous: 1) The history of humankind (and I find this very, very
heartening) seems to describe an *expansion* of our circle of compassion.
As you, and Wright, note, back in the day, Ancient Greece for example,
non-Athenians were worthy of zero moral consideration. "Sack their
villages, rape their women, cool," was Socrates' averral. 200 years ago in
this country, different colored people were outside of moral consideration.
Today (and here I get personal), nonhuman animals are unworthy of moral
consideration; I believe this too will change. Also, as Wright notes
hopefully, perhaps one day soon starving children in Africa will be as
unacceptable to us as starving children outside our door. 2) Wright was
quoting I forget which philosopher, whose answer to the question, Is there
a righteous God?, was Are you kidding?  8^)  Men die of wasting diseases,
children are hacked to death in their beds, women raped, cities consumed by
fire and plague, on and on. (Darwin's example, which I really like, was
that cats "play" with mice--recreational torture. (Yet somehow we still
adore cats.)) It's completely and demonstrably impossible that there's an
omnipotent, compassionate God.


> When nanotech hits and space
> colonization becomes a reality, you can bet I'll be on the first fucking
> spaceship out of this place (not without real remorseful tears for the
> abandonment of mother earth).  And hopefully, I'll have with me a set of
> founding principles that my companions share.

Dude--more Robert Heinlein for you. You two so jibe.


> "What does it matter how any of that life acts . .
> ."  How do you *feel* when you walk by a homeless man shaking change in a
> bowl?  How does it *feel* to have a poor Mexican man that barely knows how
> to speak English wash your car for minimum wage?  How do you feel when you
> think about a society of exploitation?  Now tell me . . . do your feelings
> matter?  Do they matter to *you*?  I hope so.  If so, then we have hope
> together.  And we have the basis for a moral society.

I think you've probably got a pretty winning game plan. But it will require
a fair bit of work to work. [As the Founders knew well,] we can't just kick
back.

mf