I would say that we can't really know the direction of evolution for any species unless we fully understand all of the selective forces being applied.
I would agree that to be true for the specific direction, but not the general purpose of evolution.
I could not say, explicitly, if a claw or a fin would be best without knowing the exact context, but I could say which ever one would increase long term survivability would be the best.
Well, I never said that happiness without context was all that matters. Happiness, for most people, probably means having an appropriate context.
But if happiness is the end, why not simply wire your brain to feel nothing but?
Two different reasons not to off the top of my head:
First: What does "happiness" mean? It's an abstract term that can mean any different number of different things.
Second: Happiness, if I assume a definition along the lines of complete bliss or hedonist urges filled specifically, doesn't bode well for wanting to pass along your genes. I'd be in complete bliss, what do I care if my genes get passed on. The most extreme example I remember in psychology class is a study done on rats where researchers wired rats brains to feel bliss. However, the rats only felt this bliss when a button was pushed. Then the researchers gave the rats the button. The results were they forgot survival (i.e. eating) in favor of pressing the button until they died (from starvation and dehydration). For me on the outside looking in, that doesn't come across as a satisfactory way to live and die.
I could not say, explicitly, if a claw or a fin would be best without knowing the exact context, but I could say which ever one would increase long term survivability would be the best.
Long-term survivability is not what wins you genetic success. You do that by passing on more genes than the other organism. Sometimes increased survival helps you out there, other times it doesn't. When survival is the key, it's usually about survival to sexual maturity, rather than longevity.
Because it wards against stagnation in favor of survivability.
Continually increasing our population works in favor of our survivability? I guess if you can sustainably support such a population. However, it says nothing about the quality of life in the population.
There isn't a purpose to evolution. It would be kind of like talking about the purpose of gravity.
Well, maybe my wording is off. But, gravity does do something, and pulls stuff in a direction. Gravity is able to be modeled and what it will do to objects is understood.
So, what evolution will do to species should also be-at least somewhat--predictable. A 'direction' could be theoretically mapped, and we know some directions lead to oblivion. I think we could safely classify them as "bad."
Long-term survivability is not what wins you genetic success. You do that by passing on more genes than the other organism. Sometimes increased survival helps you out there, other times it doesn't. When survival is the key, it's usually about survival to sexual maturity, rather than longevity.
I think we might be talking past each other. I meant the long term survivability of the species. Perhaps I just don't have the proper field vocabulary.
Continually increasing our population works in favor of our survivability? I guess if you can sustainably support such a population. However, it says nothing about the quality of life in the population.
I'm not saying it does, no. I am not saying we should favor proliferation over survivability (which I might want to call 'genetic success' instead?), but the other way around.
I was more worried about stagnation, but maybe that's not an issue in Tiax's theoretical example if immortality is generated.
This might be my own reading comprehension, but I would appreciate a reasonably detailed explanation of just what normative evolutionary ethics is. It seems like "Do whatever is good for the survival of the human species", but that's still fairly non-specific - do I care most about my own genes, the genes of our whole species, of our whole genus (on the off chance we ever find a living Homo Neanderthalensis), of the great apes, etc. How do we decide what our level of granularity? Also, do we care only about what leads to more copies of the relevant genes in the distant future, or do we care about quality of life under this (independently of creating more copies - quality of life does matter to reproduction, as one factor)?
Do we care about the behaviors that evolution has previously favored in us? Or just the behaviors that will lead to the largest numbers of us in the distant future? Do we have artificial stipulations like "here on Earth", or is this an argument for "drop everything and start developing colony ships?" (That would easily lead to the largest increase in our numbers of anything we could be doing - any colony ship that successfully reached an even moderately habitable planet would increase our numbers by billions after a few centuries/millennia, and then presumably would start doing the same thing - sending out more colony ships).
It is a very general term, and can apply to anything from natural moral philosophy to eugenics.
However, I might have chosen a poor name for the thread. I probably should have called it "the science of morality."
But, I was going to attempt to steer the discussion more to behavioral evolution (and show some behaviors are more beneficial than others); however, I think we are still in the definitional stage. I have found jumping ahead normally just causes confusion. You have to lay the ground work first.
Well, maybe my wording is off. But, gravity does do something, and pulls stuff in a direction. Gravity is able to be modeled and what it will do to objects is understood.
So, what evolution will do to species should also be-at least somewhat--predictable. A 'direction' could be theoretically mapped, and we know some directions lead to oblivion. I think we could safely classify them as "bad."
In order to predict the future with evolution, you'd have to understand the selective forces remarkably well, as well as the genetics of the individuals in question far better than I think we're currently able.
I think we might be talking past each other. I meant the long term survivability of the species. Perhaps I just don't have the proper field vocabulary.
Well, natural selection works at the level of the individual, not at the level of the population or the species.
In order to predict the future with evolution, you'd have to understand the selective forces remarkably well, as well as the genetics of the individuals in question far better than I think we're currently able.
However, we do know what has worked better than what when in the past.
My problem with your system is: morality must be based on individual level, not any collective level. Humans beings are physically individual beings. We care about ourselves and stuff that surround us first and stuff that don't surround us last.
That being said, evolution is a species goal, which is a collective level goal. Proliferation and survival of the species are also collective goals. They made poor moral systems because they hurt the sovereignty of the individual in exchange for some abstract collective goal that we individually don't care about.
Given that moral system must work for individuals, it's clear that survival is a pretty insufficient goal, which is another reason i would reject this moral system. There's many daily situations that requires a moral call but do not evolves around the survival of the species or the individual. Survival does not appear to answer the greatest moral dilemmas of our society.
Part of what I am trying to get at is--strictly speaking--it does not matter if people adopt an Evolutionary Ethics mindset or not, because it will happen anyway. The Ethics systems which give populations an advantage will do well simply because they give their population an advantage. This will happen regardless. My point is that we can acknowledged that clear fact, and try to harness it.
If we do or do not, the system that works better will still beat out other systems. Our acknowledgment of that--or not--will not change the fact. However, if we DO start to acknowledge it we can start to work within that framework instead of allowing more random elements to decide what to try next.
I'm not sure what you mean, maybe an example would help?
Any of the various doomsday cults would be the starkest example I could think of.
I heard tell of a cult that died out because it forbid any of its members from having sex, but I could not find the name.
I'm not sure what that would be, if there is such a thing.
I think we are still miscommunicating.
You made it seem like "natural selection" was something which only operated on an individual scale, not on a population wide one. I am talking about the effect that would be seen on a population scale. Not that it wouldn't also affect individuals within that population.
My problem with your system is: morality must be based on individual level, not any collective level. Humans beings are physically individual beings. We care about ourselves and stuff that surround us first and stuff that don't surround us last.
I am talking about the choices of individuals benign weighed against how they affect the collective.
I guess I am not being very clear, but I'm also stumbling through my thought process ATM.
That being said, evolution is a species goal, which is a collective level goal. Proliferation and survival of the species are also collective goals. They made poor moral systems because they hurt the sovereignty of the individual in exchange for some abstract collective goal that we individually don't care about.
History has shown that hunter/gather and other individual based groups do not function as well as more collective-oriented societies. That is, one ends up "betting out" the other.
That is not to say that a hive-mind or something would be better than a collection of individuals, but is to say that societies that don't work together well fall to those that do.
That being said, evolution is a species goal, which is a collective level goal.
Not only is evolution not a goal, it's not collective. Evolution by natural selection occurs at the individual (sometimes even gene) level. A lot of people seem to think that there is some kind of "group selection", which does make intuitive sense, but it turns out that the things we see that appear to be "group selection" can be adequately explained by looking at individual selection.
Any of the various doomsday cults would be the starkest example I could think of.
I heard tell of a cult that died out because it forbid any of its members from having sex, but I could not find the name.
What does this have to do with the "direction" of evolution?
You made it seem like "natural selection" was something which only operated on an individual scale, not on a population wide one. I am talking about the effect that would be seen on a population scale. Not that it wouldn't also affect individuals within that population.
As I said above, natural selection works at the individual or gene level, not on a population level. Things like politics, diplomacy, technology, etc. can be looked at on a population scale.
As I said above, natural selection works at the individual or gene level, not on a population level. Things like politics, diplomacy, technology, etc. can be looked at on a population scale.
That being said, evolution is a species goal, which is a collective level goal.
Not only is evolution not a goal, it's not collective. Evolution by natural selection occurs at the individual (sometimes even gene) level. A lot of people seem to think that there is some kind of "group selection", which does make intuitive sense, but it turns out that the things we see that appear to be "group selection" can be adequately explained by looking at individual selection.
Anything can be a goal as long as it is action and someone name it as a goal. When you name something that is not a action as goal there's actions implicit in the statement, such as achieving or securing.
Example: When some politician say "equity is our goal" it means achieving and securing better levels of equity.
And the point of normative evolutionary ethics is to define the traits natural evolution selected in men and classify then as the good ethical traits. The way the OP putted it was in a collective level (survival and proliferation).
That being said, evolution is a species goal, which is a collective level goal. Proliferation and survival of the species are also collective goals. They made poor moral systems because they hurt the sovereignty of the individual in exchange for some abstract collective goal that we individually don't care about.
History has shown that hunter/gather and other individual based groups do not function as well as more collective-oriented societies. That is, one ends up "betting out" the other.
That is not to say that a hive-mind or something would be better than a collection of individuals, but is to say that societies that don't work together well fall to those that do.
Individual goals doesn't mean a group will not work together. It means they final goal, the imperative of their actions, are based around the contempt of individuals.
The goals you set - survival and proliferation - are collective goals. The survival of the species is the survival of a abstract group, not the survival of each individual. A absurd situation to make things clear:
Imagine mankind have to choose between two disasters. One disaster is that everyone would not be able to reproduce. The other disaster is that everyone will die except one woman and one man. I would pick the first disaster because I don't think the continuation of a abstract concepts (our species, our evolution, mankind's future) worth the life of everyone, but your ethical framework tells we should pick the second option.
My problem with collective goals is that sometimes the right thing to do is sacrifice yourself or other individuals to achieve a goal alien to yourself.
I'm not against any collective goal. I just think it needs extra lines of justification. The justification of a collective goal is so difficult that most of the time it duels in sentimental grounds like religion or idolatry (humanism, nationalism).
Elimination of poverty and equity of opportunities are collective goals i think it's closer to justification.
Those ethics systems were detrimental to those that subscribed to them.
Yes, I get that part, but it isn't necessarily detrimental as it relates to fitness. I don't think your argument, as it's being presented, has a basis in evolution.
Okay, so I'm all for discussing "innate" morality, or the evolution of morality, or the science of morality, but the way evolution has been brought up thus far in this conversation has been wrong.
Anything can be a goal as long as it is action and someone name it as a goal. When you name something that is not a action as goal there's actions implicit in the statement, such as achieving or securing.
Example: When some politician say "equity is our goal" it means achieving and securing better levels of equity.
Are we talking about the same evolution here? Evolution by natural selection is not goal-driven, at least not in any way that would make that description meaningful. We can set goals for artificial selection, if that's what you mean?
The collective cannot survive without individuals, but individuals focused on the collective can beat out individuals who are not. The justification would be that one way simply works better.
Yes, I get that part, but it isn't necessarily detrimental as it relates to fitness. I don't think your argument, as it's being presented, has a basis in evolution.
Okay, so I'm all for discussing "innate" morality, or the evolution of morality, or the science of morality, but the way evolution has been brought up thus far in this conversation has been wrong.
Right, I am talking about social evolution, not the genetic evolution of humans. Unless it turns out that works better.
The collective cannot survive without individuals, but individuals focused on the collective can beat out individuals who are not. The justification would be that one way simply works better.
Yes, I get that part, but it isn't necessarily detrimental as it relates to fitness. I don't think your argument, as it's being presented, has a basis in evolution.
Okay, so I'm all for discussing "innate" morality, or the evolution of morality, or the science of morality, but the way evolution has been brought up thus far in this conversation has been wrong.
Evolution is driven by individuals of a single species outcompeting individuals of the same species.
Let's be clear about something. Evolution favors altruism only when altruism benefits the individual.
Honestly, I can think of nearly any horrifying position you can think of being favored evolutionarily. Cannibalism? Commonplace. Killing off the children of your rivals? Again, common. Siblings eating each other? Happens. Killing your spouse after mating? Yup. Highjacking another species and using them as a vehicle for your reproduction even though it kills them? Ordinary.
About the only thing that can't be favored by evolution is the complete extinction of your species, so one of the only hard and fast dictates of an evolutionarily derived ethical system would be that the continued survival of your species trumps all other considerations - if it's a choice between the survival of the last 10,000 humans or trillions of intelligent, moral aliens, you have to choose the 10,000 humans. Beyond that, evolution has favored such a diversity of different strategies that there isn't much to say.
I suppose I can't think of any cases where parents eat their young... it wouldn't surprise me to come across that, but not having seen it, I suppose it might be something evolution won't favor.
Right, I am talking about social evolution, not the genetic evolution of humans. Unless it turns out that works better.
Ok... this threw me. What do you mean, exactly? I haven't seen any social 'evolution' theories that aren't obviously wrong and also borderline (or not even borderline) offensive.
Evolution is driven by individuals of a single species outcompeting individuals of the same species.
"Driven" is actually a poor word choice to describe evolution. Unless we want to talk about artificial selection through sentience (such as God or artificial selection), then I start to fail to grasp how individuals drive evolution. Species just have sex with each other, make offspring, then die. There's nothing "driving" about that kind of life cycle.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
Alright, so as it typical with me, after reading some responds and thinking about it more I have a clearer understanding of what I was trying to articulate. I'm going to give it another go and people can go back to telling me what is weak or misworded in it:
Evolution gives man his purpose.
That is not to say that there is a "purpose" to evolution, or the like. However, it is to say that evolution has things within it that work, while others do not. "Fit" I believe the term is. Man has evolved so as to be fit, and to be fit in a certain way. The "purpose" that evolution gives man is to maximize his own fitness. Nature has sculpted* man to have a certain nature. To be a 'good man,' in the way that a knife is a 'good knife' if it cuts and a bad knife if it does not. 'Telos' as BS said, and man's telos is to do what the forces of evolution sculpted* him to do.
Now--with this telos inhand--we can evaluate the behavior of man. Certain things that man does would take away from his fitness and some things man does would make him more fit. This is not to say that man should be evolving his genes, because that would be changing the nature of man; changing his telos. However, working within the structure already provided by evolution, behaviors can be seen to increase man's fitness.
And--indeed--this has already happened. If a behavior works better within that nature, those man following it thrive. This fitness is something physical and can be physically quantified. Thus, it can be modeld and studied by the scientific method. Science can tell us which behaviors would work within our nature(our genes) to make us more fit, and which would not. Within this behavioral structure we can start to call some behaviors "good" and some "bad" (or if you want to be more dramatic, "evil").
Thus, starting from evolution, we can now evaluate actions in a moral way. A normative ethics system is formed.**
*'sculpted' is being used here in the same way that a river sculpted the Grand Canyon, and is not meant to imply more.
**This system, however, woud not be able to morally evaluate what changing the course of human evolution woud be, or would claim such an action to be immoral.
So, you're essentially suggesting that we adopt a moral system that is directly derived from not only evolution, but our ability to now look back at how we got here, realize where we are, and determine where to go from here.
My problem with using this as a moral system is that there is a divide between what we have evolved to do, and what is actually beneficial to us. For example, altruism evolved because when you help the survival and reproductive success of a relative, you are helping to pass on some of your genes, because you share some percent of your genes with your relatives (depending on how close). When we lived in small tribes, you were likely to be at least somewhat related to a large portion of that tribe, so evolution favored altruism to others within the tribe.
In our modern world, this instinct malfunctions and we behave altruistically towards distantly related people, because we live near them. This is actually not beneficial to your fitness, and would be scrapped under a moral system that looked to maximize fitness.
That is not to say that there is a "purpose" to evolution, or the like. However, it is to say that evolution has things within it that work, while others do not. "Fit" I believe the term is. Man has evolved so as to be fit, and to be fit in a certain way. The "purpose" that evolution gives man is to maximize his own fitness. Nature has sculpted* man to have a certain nature. To be a 'good man,' in the way that a knife is a 'good knife' if it cuts and a bad knife if it does not. 'Telos' as BS said, and man's telos is to do what the forces of evolution sculpted* him to do.
doesn't answer why should I follow any sort of telological purpose when I can assign something a new purpose. For example, let's say that a book's telos is to share information with a reader. So, is there something wrong with me reassigning the book's telos to stabilizing a wobbly table. Why? or Why not?
Certain things that man does would take away from his fitness and some things man does would make him more fit. This is not to say that man should be evolving his genes, because that would be changing the nature of man; changing his telos. However, working within the structure already provided by evolution, behaviors can be seen to increase man's fitness.
You gloss over a pretty important question of why shouldn't we change our telos/own human nature? Also, what is "man's fitness" and why should I aim for it?
And--indeed--this has already happened. If a behavior works better within that nature, those man following it thrive. This fitness is something physical and can be physically quantified. Thus, it can be modeled and studied by the scientific method. Science can tell us which behaviors would work within our nature(our genes) to make us more fit, and which would not. Within this behavioral structure we can start to call some behaviors "good" and some "bad" (or if you want to be more dramatic, "evil").
Thus, starting from evolution, we can now evaluate actions in a moral way. A normative ethics system is formed.**
Are you sure? First, "If a behavior works better within that nature, those man following it thrive," is a conditional statement relying on me believing that a man working with their surrounding nature is better conditioned to survive. Sure, I'll bite that there could be a correlation, but that doesn't mean their is a causation. And furthermore, nature is violent. No matter how well conditioned I am to survive in Arkansas USA, it won't help me if I get hit by a meteor or any other random occurrence that kills my genes.
Second, I think you're leaping from we can observe behaviors to we can evaluate actions in a moral way. I think we could evaluate which behaviors are effective for the telos (that we make up), but that doesn't mean we've made a moral judgment.
**This system, however, would not be able to morally evaluate what changing the course of human evolution would be, or would claim such an action to be immoral.
That's a pretty serious oversight in my opinion because one of the conditions of evolution is that it has not stopped and will continue. To me this statement is a complete disregard for the future and makes a normative impossible. If I'm way off the mark, please explain how.
My problem with using this as a moral system is that there is a divide between what we have evolved to do, and what is actually beneficial to us. For example, altruism evolved because when you help the survival and reproductive success of a relative, you are helping to pass on some of your genes, because you share some percent of your genes with your relatives (depending on how close). When we lived in small tribes, you were likely to be at least somewhat related to a large portion of that tribe, so evolution favored altruism to others within the tribe.
In our modern world, this instinct malfunctions and we behave altruistically towards distantly related people, because we live near them. This is actually not beneficial to your fitness, and would be scrapped under a moral system that looked to maximize fitness.
That's a bit contentious, isn't it? There may be more to the altruism instinct than kinship benefit. Sociobiologists are also looking very seriously at the benefits of cooperation and reciprocation even among unrelated individuals.
The evolutionary process is a master at repurposing things, anyway, to the point where talking about what a feature is "evolved to do" may be meaningless or outright misleading. Look at your hand. Your fingers weren't originally evolved to be gripping tools: they were weight-distribution appendages for walking, and before that, they were lobes supporting swimming fins. And bats take the feature one step even further. Evolution emphatically does not care whether you're using a feature for the "right" or the "wrong" purpose. It just goes with what works - more than that, "just going with what works" is fundamentally what evolution is.
Which, naturally, makes it rather tricky to derive any sort of normative theory out of it.
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That's a bit contentious, isn't it? There may be more to the altruism instinct than kinship benefit. Sociobiologists are also looking very seriously at the benefits of cooperation and reciprocation even among unrelated individuals.
Yes, individuals can benefit from altruism directed at unrelated (or less-related) individuals through reciprocation. However, it's pretty safe to say that in a large society, holding a door open for a stranger at the mall, or donating money for starving children halfway around the world, does little if anything to increase your individual fitness. This is essentially a misfiring of altruism.
(Note: I think this is an awesome misfiring, and I'm glad it works the way it does, but it is a misfire.)
The evolutionary process is a master at repurposing things, anyway, to the point where talking about what a feature is "evolved to do" may be meaningless or outright misleading. Look at your hand. Your fingers weren't originally evolved to be gripping tools: they were weight-distribution appendages for walking, and before that, they were lobes supporting swimming fins. And bats take the feature one step even further. Evolution emphatically does not care whether you're using a feature for the "right" or the "wrong" purpose. It just goes with what works - more than that, "just going with what works" is fundamentally what evolution is.
I'm talking about how altruism conveys fitness upon an individual, not the origin of its evolution or what piece of existing genetic code was selected to be molded by evolution.
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I would say that we can't really know the direction of evolution for any species unless we fully understand all of the selective forces being applied.
Well, I never said that happiness without context was all that matters. Happiness, for most people, probably means having an appropriate context.
What reason would that be? I still think proliferation is a terrible goal.
I could not say, explicitly, if a claw or a fin would be best without knowing the exact context, but I could say which ever one would increase long term survivability would be the best.
But if happiness is the end, why not simply wire your brain to feel nothing but?
Because it wards against stagnation in favor of survivability.
Two different reasons not to off the top of my head:
First: What does "happiness" mean? It's an abstract term that can mean any different number of different things.
Second: Happiness, if I assume a definition along the lines of complete bliss or hedonist urges filled specifically, doesn't bode well for wanting to pass along your genes. I'd be in complete bliss, what do I care if my genes get passed on. The most extreme example I remember in psychology class is a study done on rats where researchers wired rats brains to feel bliss. However, the rats only felt this bliss when a button was pushed. Then the researchers gave the rats the button. The results were they forgot survival (i.e. eating) in favor of pressing the button until they died (from starvation and dehydration). For me on the outside looking in, that doesn't come across as a satisfactory way to live and die.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
There isn't a purpose to evolution. It would be kind of like talking about the purpose of gravity.
Long-term survivability is not what wins you genetic success. You do that by passing on more genes than the other organism. Sometimes increased survival helps you out there, other times it doesn't. When survival is the key, it's usually about survival to sexual maturity, rather than longevity.
Because pure pleasure isn't the same as happiness, to me.
Continually increasing our population works in favor of our survivability? I guess if you can sustainably support such a population. However, it says nothing about the quality of life in the population.
So, what evolution will do to species should also be-at least somewhat--predictable. A 'direction' could be theoretically mapped, and we know some directions lead to oblivion. I think we could safely classify them as "bad."
I think we might be talking past each other. I meant the long term survivability of the species. Perhaps I just don't have the proper field vocabulary.
Well, maybe we mean the same thing then.
I'm not saying it does, no. I am not saying we should favor proliferation over survivability (which I might want to call 'genetic success' instead?), but the other way around.
I was more worried about stagnation, but maybe that's not an issue in Tiax's theoretical example if immortality is generated.
Do we care about the behaviors that evolution has previously favored in us? Or just the behaviors that will lead to the largest numbers of us in the distant future? Do we have artificial stipulations like "here on Earth", or is this an argument for "drop everything and start developing colony ships?" (That would easily lead to the largest increase in our numbers of anything we could be doing - any colony ship that successfully reached an even moderately habitable planet would increase our numbers by billions after a few centuries/millennia, and then presumably would start doing the same thing - sending out more colony ships).
However, I might have chosen a poor name for the thread. I probably should have called it "the science of morality."
But, I was going to attempt to steer the discussion more to behavioral evolution (and show some behaviors are more beneficial than others); however, I think we are still in the definitional stage. I have found jumping ahead normally just causes confusion. You have to lay the ground work first.
In order to predict the future with evolution, you'd have to understand the selective forces remarkably well, as well as the genetics of the individuals in question far better than I think we're currently able.
Well, natural selection works at the level of the individual, not at the level of the population or the species.
Oh, well I have it backwards then. I was talking about whatever the force that works on populations and species, not individuals.
I'm not sure what you mean, maybe an example would help?
I'm not sure what that would be, if there is such a thing.
That being said, evolution is a species goal, which is a collective level goal. Proliferation and survival of the species are also collective goals. They made poor moral systems because they hurt the sovereignty of the individual in exchange for some abstract collective goal that we individually don't care about.
Given that moral system must work for individuals, it's clear that survival is a pretty insufficient goal, which is another reason i would reject this moral system. There's many daily situations that requires a moral call but do not evolves around the survival of the species or the individual. Survival does not appear to answer the greatest moral dilemmas of our society.
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If we do or do not, the system that works better will still beat out other systems. Our acknowledgment of that--or not--will not change the fact. However, if we DO start to acknowledge it we can start to work within that framework instead of allowing more random elements to decide what to try next.
Any of the various doomsday cults would be the starkest example I could think of.
I heard tell of a cult that died out because it forbid any of its members from having sex, but I could not find the name.
I think we are still miscommunicating.
You made it seem like "natural selection" was something which only operated on an individual scale, not on a population wide one. I am talking about the effect that would be seen on a population scale. Not that it wouldn't also affect individuals within that population.
I am talking about the choices of individuals benign weighed against how they affect the collective.
I guess I am not being very clear, but I'm also stumbling through my thought process ATM.
History has shown that hunter/gather and other individual based groups do not function as well as more collective-oriented societies. That is, one ends up "betting out" the other.
That is not to say that a hive-mind or something would be better than a collection of individuals, but is to say that societies that don't work together well fall to those that do.
Not only is evolution not a goal, it's not collective. Evolution by natural selection occurs at the individual (sometimes even gene) level. A lot of people seem to think that there is some kind of "group selection", which does make intuitive sense, but it turns out that the things we see that appear to be "group selection" can be adequately explained by looking at individual selection.
What does this have to do with the "direction" of evolution?
As I said above, natural selection works at the individual or gene level, not on a population level. Things like politics, diplomacy, technology, etc. can be looked at on a population scale.
Right, hence causes of flourishing I mentioned in the OP being about behavior.
Anything can be a goal as long as it is action and someone name it as a goal. When you name something that is not a action as goal there's actions implicit in the statement, such as achieving or securing.
Example: When some politician say "equity is our goal" it means achieving and securing better levels of equity.
And the point of normative evolutionary ethics is to define the traits natural evolution selected in men and classify then as the good ethical traits. The way the OP putted it was in a collective level (survival and proliferation).
Individual goals doesn't mean a group will not work together. It means they final goal, the imperative of their actions, are based around the contempt of individuals.
The goals you set - survival and proliferation - are collective goals. The survival of the species is the survival of a abstract group, not the survival of each individual. A absurd situation to make things clear:
Imagine mankind have to choose between two disasters. One disaster is that everyone would not be able to reproduce. The other disaster is that everyone will die except one woman and one man. I would pick the first disaster because I don't think the continuation of a abstract concepts (our species, our evolution, mankind's future) worth the life of everyone, but your ethical framework tells we should pick the second option.
My problem with collective goals is that sometimes the right thing to do is sacrifice yourself or other individuals to achieve a goal alien to yourself.
I'm not against any collective goal. I just think it needs extra lines of justification. The justification of a collective goal is so difficult that most of the time it duels in sentimental grounds like religion or idolatry (humanism, nationalism).
Elimination of poverty and equity of opportunities are collective goals i think it's closer to justification.
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Yes, I get that part, but it isn't necessarily detrimental as it relates to fitness. I don't think your argument, as it's being presented, has a basis in evolution.
Okay, so I'm all for discussing "innate" morality, or the evolution of morality, or the science of morality, but the way evolution has been brought up thus far in this conversation has been wrong.
Are we talking about the same evolution here? Evolution by natural selection is not goal-driven, at least not in any way that would make that description meaningful. We can set goals for artificial selection, if that's what you mean?
Right, I am talking about social evolution, not the genetic evolution of humans. Unless it turns out that works better.
Evolution is driven by individuals of a single species outcompeting individuals of the same species.
Let's be clear about something. Evolution favors altruism only when altruism benefits the individual.
Honestly, I can think of nearly any horrifying position you can think of being favored evolutionarily. Cannibalism? Commonplace. Killing off the children of your rivals? Again, common. Siblings eating each other? Happens. Killing your spouse after mating? Yup. Highjacking another species and using them as a vehicle for your reproduction even though it kills them? Ordinary.
About the only thing that can't be favored by evolution is the complete extinction of your species, so one of the only hard and fast dictates of an evolutionarily derived ethical system would be that the continued survival of your species trumps all other considerations - if it's a choice between the survival of the last 10,000 humans or trillions of intelligent, moral aliens, you have to choose the 10,000 humans. Beyond that, evolution has favored such a diversity of different strategies that there isn't much to say.
I suppose I can't think of any cases where parents eat their young... it wouldn't surprise me to come across that, but not having seen it, I suppose it might be something evolution won't favor.
Ok... this threw me. What do you mean, exactly? I haven't seen any social 'evolution' theories that aren't obviously wrong and also borderline (or not even borderline) offensive.
Eh..kinda. Producing more offspring than members of the same species would be more accurate (and even that comes with a whole bunch of caveats).
Or the genes that individual shares with relatives, this is why altruism exists.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
Evolution gives man his purpose.
That is not to say that there is a "purpose" to evolution, or the like. However, it is to say that evolution has things within it that work, while others do not. "Fit" I believe the term is. Man has evolved so as to be fit, and to be fit in a certain way. The "purpose" that evolution gives man is to maximize his own fitness. Nature has sculpted* man to have a certain nature. To be a 'good man,' in the way that a knife is a 'good knife' if it cuts and a bad knife if it does not. 'Telos' as BS said, and man's telos is to do what the forces of evolution sculpted* him to do.
Now--with this telos inhand--we can evaluate the behavior of man. Certain things that man does would take away from his fitness and some things man does would make him more fit. This is not to say that man should be evolving his genes, because that would be changing the nature of man; changing his telos. However, working within the structure already provided by evolution, behaviors can be seen to increase man's fitness.
And--indeed--this has already happened. If a behavior works better within that nature, those man following it thrive. This fitness is something physical and can be physically quantified. Thus, it can be modeld and studied by the scientific method. Science can tell us which behaviors would work within our nature(our genes) to make us more fit, and which would not. Within this behavioral structure we can start to call some behaviors "good" and some "bad" (or if you want to be more dramatic, "evil").
Thus, starting from evolution, we can now evaluate actions in a moral way. A normative ethics system is formed.**
*'sculpted' is being used here in the same way that a river sculpted the Grand Canyon, and is not meant to imply more.
**This system, however, woud not be able to morally evaluate what changing the course of human evolution woud be, or would claim such an action to be immoral.
My problem with using this as a moral system is that there is a divide between what we have evolved to do, and what is actually beneficial to us. For example, altruism evolved because when you help the survival and reproductive success of a relative, you are helping to pass on some of your genes, because you share some percent of your genes with your relatives (depending on how close). When we lived in small tribes, you were likely to be at least somewhat related to a large portion of that tribe, so evolution favored altruism to others within the tribe.
In our modern world, this instinct malfunctions and we behave altruistically towards distantly related people, because we live near them. This is actually not beneficial to your fitness, and would be scrapped under a moral system that looked to maximize fitness.
One, what are the telos? Two, if I disagree with your list and counter with my own, how do we determine which one is right?
You gloss over a pretty important question of why shouldn't we change our telos/own human nature? Also, what is "man's fitness" and why should I aim for it?
Are you sure? First, "If a behavior works better within that nature, those man following it thrive," is a conditional statement relying on me believing that a man working with their surrounding nature is better conditioned to survive. Sure, I'll bite that there could be a correlation, but that doesn't mean their is a causation. And furthermore, nature is violent. No matter how well conditioned I am to survive in Arkansas USA, it won't help me if I get hit by a meteor or any other random occurrence that kills my genes.
Second, I think you're leaping from we can observe behaviors to we can evaluate actions in a moral way. I think we could evaluate which behaviors are effective for the telos (that we make up), but that doesn't mean we've made a moral judgment.
That's a pretty serious oversight in my opinion because one of the conditions of evolution is that it has not stopped and will continue. To me this statement is a complete disregard for the future and makes a normative impossible. If I'm way off the mark, please explain how.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
That's a bit contentious, isn't it? There may be more to the altruism instinct than kinship benefit. Sociobiologists are also looking very seriously at the benefits of cooperation and reciprocation even among unrelated individuals.
The evolutionary process is a master at repurposing things, anyway, to the point where talking about what a feature is "evolved to do" may be meaningless or outright misleading. Look at your hand. Your fingers weren't originally evolved to be gripping tools: they were weight-distribution appendages for walking, and before that, they were lobes supporting swimming fins. And bats take the feature one step even further. Evolution emphatically does not care whether you're using a feature for the "right" or the "wrong" purpose. It just goes with what works - more than that, "just going with what works" is fundamentally what evolution is.
Which, naturally, makes it rather tricky to derive any sort of normative theory out of it.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Yes, individuals can benefit from altruism directed at unrelated (or less-related) individuals through reciprocation. However, it's pretty safe to say that in a large society, holding a door open for a stranger at the mall, or donating money for starving children halfway around the world, does little if anything to increase your individual fitness. This is essentially a misfiring of altruism.
(Note: I think this is an awesome misfiring, and I'm glad it works the way it does, but it is a misfire.)
I'm talking about how altruism conveys fitness upon an individual, not the origin of its evolution or what piece of existing genetic code was selected to be molded by evolution.