What is interesting, and may be part of what Timo is getting at, isn't the apparent difference between the theist and atheist outlook but that so many people don't seem interested in the question.
The article Martin linked to suggests a loss of belief, but couched in terms of belief in the Church of England.
Maybe it's wider than that. A loss of belief that anything in Western Christianity has any real worth above any other religion or culture or none at all.
Our Victorian ancestors believed in the missionary endeavour. Spreading the Good News (and with it British culture) was saving souls, was doing the work of God.
We've lost that sense. The benighted heathen is now more environmentally sustainable than we are, and thus more moral, and thus more likely to be welcomed by God into Heaven.
Religion has become orthogonal to the stuff we care about. Whether it's saving the planet, or human rights, or justice or economics or international relations.
Apologies for not yet managing to respond as I had hoped, but by the time the second bout of software problems has been solved, I hope, on Friday, life as moved past it!
This is all very well, but we know in our guts that if the lights went off tomorrow, we'd be clubbing each other to death for a tin of beans by Saturday. The quote has been reworked repeatedly, but a society/a city/Britain is three/six/nine meals away from anarchy/barbarism/chaos. Take your pick.
Well, animals are not purely altruistic. They also punish, as well as conciliate each other. And they can be brutal.
Hmmm. My impression is that @Doc Tor was making succinctly the same point I was making long-windedly in my last post: left as-is, the claim that altruistic behaviour is instinctual is easily glossed as 'well, we're just naturally good', which is obviously Polyanna-ish and incomplete. But then adding 'of course, we're also just naturally bad' seems to get us right back to square one.
Which I think takes me back to my niggle about deriving 'oughts' from 'is's: I don't think we're actually talking about the same question. The question I've always wondered about with my workplace is 'why should anyone (including, most urgently, myself), act well?' But the question the evolutionary account purports to answer AFAICT is 'why is there a spectrum of possible behaviour?' - which is a perfectly legitimate question, but it's incommensurate with the kind of answers demanded by the first.
You are right. You can't get from one to the other without throwing in at least one presupposition which can itself be challenged-- such as the common "acting well is beneficial to the survival of the community, which only raises the further question "why should I care about the welfare of the community?" And so, and so forth, until someone finally throws up their hands and says, "because it's just right," or "I just know," and the chasm between "ought" and "exists" remains as unbridged as it ever was.
I started thinking of Kipling, "The strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack". Wolves seem to form emotional bonds in the pack, in which old members are cared for, young ones educated, all buttressed by the alpha male and female.
Well, what is the point? I suppose the bottom line is, that they succeed by cooperating. The lone wolf is at risk, and usually seeks another wolf.
Of course, you can't extrapolate directly across to humans, but surely social animals give us information about the benefits of cooperative living.
We do naturally cooperate, but in smaller groups than nations, cities or towns. IIRC, the sweet spot is naturally between 150-300. Fewer than that we can't get away from the people we dislike and the group falls apart: more than that and the bonds within the group are too loose.
I'm paraphrasing a lot, but this might be well worth a read.
It's also something to bear in mind for church congregation sizes. Stable congregations happen in that sweet spot, but those which are larger suffer undue churn, and those which are smaller can fracture due to personal animosity.
Oh yes you can @quetzalcoatl. Cooperation works. I.e. leads to differential reproductive success as measured by increasing biomass. We're the most eusocial and most successful species. I want to believe in group selection as Darwin and the minority since Wilson do, nearly like I want to believe in our incarnation, but can't even less.
The basis for altruism is the selfish gene. No question. Our evolutionarily expanded minds start from there.
Joy is carnal too. I'm blessed with Stendhal's syndrome, it's rare but so worth it.
The only way I could experience transcendent joy is by transcending. Or somehow being utterly and permanently convinced that all is well, that existence is grounded in God. Which cannot happen.
And you further set my alarm bells ringing @Timo Pax, along with @Moyessa, the narrow path to forgiveness (for whom?, what?) and salvation, after life? UNWORTHY?!
This looks like worst case illiberal literalism. Standard evangelicalism. We know something in that Jungian, predestined way that the predestined damned don't.
This is all very well, but we know in our guts that if the lights went off tomorrow, we'd be clubbing each other to death for a tin of beans by Saturday. The quote has been reworked repeatedly, but a society/a city/Britain is three/six/nine meals away from anarchy/barbarism/chaos. Take your pick.
Well, animals are not purely altruistic. They also punish, as well as conciliate each other. And they can be brutal.
Hmmm. My impression is that @Doc Tor was making succinctly the same point I was making long-windedly in my last post: left as-is, the claim that altruistic behaviour is instinctual is easily glossed as 'well, we're just naturally good', which is obviously Polyanna-ish and incomplete. But then adding 'of course, we're also just naturally bad' seems to get us right back to square one.
Which I think takes me back to my niggle about deriving 'oughts' from 'is's: I don't think we're actually talking about the same question. The question I've always wondered about with my workplace is 'why should anyone (including, most urgently, myself), act well?' But the question the evolutionary account purports to answer AFAICT is 'why is there a spectrum of possible behaviour?' - which is a perfectly legitimate question, but it's incommensurate with the kind of answers demanded by the first.
Why act well? For me, it's because I really do love everybody, thanks to Christianity. Although I wished people well in the past, and wouldn't harm them, nor would I go out of my way to make life better for them, unless I felt sorry for them. I didn't love them. My life was centred on myself and my nearest and dearest. Now it's centred on Christ.
And you further set my alarm bells ringing @Timo Pax, along with @Moyessa, the narrow path to forgiveness (for whom?, what?) and salvation, after life? UNWORTHY?!
This looks like worst case illiberal literalism. Standard evangelicalism. We know something in that Jungian, predestined way that the predestined damned don't.
Oh yes you can @quetzalcoatl. Cooperation works. I.e. leads to differential reproductive success as measured by increasing biomass. We're the most eusocial and most successful species. I want to believe in group selection as Darwin and the minority since Wilson do, nearly like I want to believe in our incarnation, but can't even less.
I feel like most of the history of the 20th century indicates a rather low ceiling on just how 'eusocial' human beings really are. As for increasing biomass (and is this not a rather reductive measure?) ... well, I'd say most of that is down to improvements in public health over the last 150 years, in particular basic hygiene, and agricultural yields. The story of how we came to those improvements is a bit more complex and tangled than 'eusociality'.
In the meantime, those poster-children for eusociality, the bees, are doing rather badly ....
And you further set my alarm bells ringing @Timo Pax, along with @Moyessa, the narrow path to forgiveness (for whom?, what?) and salvation, after life? UNWORTHY?!
This looks like worst case illiberal literalism. Standard evangelicalism. We know something in that Jungian, predestined way that the predestined damned don't.
Oh yes you can @quetzalcoatl. Cooperation works. I.e. leads to differential reproductive success as measured by increasing biomass. We're the most eusocial and most successful species. I want to believe in group selection as Darwin and the minority since Wilson do, nearly like I want to believe in our incarnation, but can't even less.
I feel like most of the history of the 20th century indicates a rather low ceiling on just how 'eusocial' human beings really are. As for increasing biomass (and is this not a rather reductive measure?) ... well, I'd say most of that is down to improvements in public health over the last 150 years, in particular basic hygiene, and agricultural yields. The story of how we came to those improvements is a bit more complex and tangled than 'eusociality'.
In the meantime, those poster-children for eusociality, the bees, are doing rather badly ....
We reached our first billion 200 years ago, taking 10,000 years from the million mark, 100,000 from the thousand, which has little to do with public health or agricultural yield except as marginal developments emergent from population pressure.
Still complex and tangled I'm sure.
We are 90% monkey and 10% bee and that makes us remarkably eusocial (groupish) beyond the mindless gestalts of social insects (slime molds? mycorriza, forests?), herd, pack (naked mole rats included) and flock animals. I mean, you can't do genocide without being eusocial can you? And yeah I'm with Nietzsche: morality is herd instinct in the individual. And Hume: rationality is and should be the slave of the passions.
The bees (and amphibians and...) collapse is an unintended consequence of our more effective eusociality. They can't compete. Can't adapt. We'll miss them as we peak this century. And fall.
This is all very well, but we know in our guts that if the lights went off tomorrow, we'd be clubbing each other to death for a tin of beans by Saturday. The quote has been reworked repeatedly, but a society/a city/Britain is three/six/nine meals away from anarchy/barbarism/chaos. Take your pick.
This is all very well, but we know in our guts that if the lights went off tomorrow, we'd be clubbing each other to death for a tin of beans by Saturday. The quote has been reworked repeatedly, but a society/a city/Britain is three/six/nine meals away from anarchy/barbarism/chaos. Take your pick.
Completely disagree.
On what do you base your disagreement? Evidence? Or hope?
And you further set my alarm bells ringing @Timo Pax, along with @Moyessa, the narrow path to forgiveness (for whom?, what?) and salvation, after life? UNWORTHY?!
This looks like worst case illiberal literalism. Standard evangelicalism. We know something in that Jungian, predestined way that the predestined damned don't.
I beg you pardon @Timo Pax. In my extreme limitation I couldn't see that.
In my typical Purgatorial 'style' I was concatenating a diametric misunderstanding with what I perceived to be - and still do - a claim of joy, in a negative synergy.
I have a vague feeling we’re steering into David Hume’s strictures against deriving ‘ought’s from ‘is’s. But I’ll stick closer to what I’m more familiar with and my own experience.
The problem with the ‘it’s innate and evolved behaviour’ account is, IMHO, three-fold (btw, I’m not claiming theistic arguments necessarily manage to avoid these).
The first objection is a weak one, and is simply that it’s a bit thin. The goods my employer organisation works toward are diverse - liberty, data privacy, security, trustworthiness of information sources (the common thread here is technology, not a particular ideology as such). Lumping all these together as abstract ‘goods’ for which the individual agent sacrifices various other ‘goods’ (time, more lucrative career opportunities, etc.) seems to avoid answering most of the interesting questions one might have about them.
The second is that it’s actually not very ‘grounding’ - or rather, it’s only grounding if you take ‘nature’ as the ultimate ground, and have a particular view of how nature works. Other NGOs working in our area often have an agenda grounded in a homo oeconomicus view of human nature rightly being about benefit maximisation for a rational individual. In this view, while it might be the case that we (or at least, most of us) all have altruistic tendencies, these are in fact delusory, either in that they’re irrational weaknesses that ought to be overcome, or they’re not really ‘altruistic’ per se: ultimately, other-benefitting actions are self-benefitting, which reciprocal altruism fits neatly. In any event, ‘good’ behaviour is grounded in something else that gives it value: concrete goods (or, in a Dawkins-y way, reproductive advantage) maximised through rationality.
And then finally ... while such an account perhaps provides a satisfactory grounding for a general picture of altruistic behaviour, what it doesn’t do is ground myself or my colleagues in any particular altruistic decision we might make. On the reciprocal altruism model, we shouldn’t make sacrifices unless we have some belief that the short-term disadvantage will be balanced by a long-term advantage. But .... well, we’re all college-educated types, typically intelligent and highly motivated. And we’re working smack in the middle of the City of London surrounded by people making eight times our salary at least - but I suspect very few of us would trade positions with any of the traders or corporate lawyers around us. We are, it seems to me, staking quite large sums on our work eventually being socially repaid to us on the reciprocal-altruism model. And it’s thus always seemed to me that most of the people I work with are, every day, making some kind of leap of faith - whether about the kind of society they can expect to live in in future, or what their eventual rewards will be, or that virtue is its own reward, or whatever.
I’m not saying that ‘leap of faith’ needs to be into the arms of Christianity to be valid. But I’ve always found it curious that my coworkers manage to do it quite so routinely, and apparently unquestioningly.
I agree it is a bit thin, which is why man (imo) has created religions/beliefs to codify morality.
Nature is an appalling reference for moral behaviour and even the moral code of our nearest neighbours on the tree has its limitations. Although chimps appear to have a form of group morality they will happily hunt down and eat members of other groups. Human morality is still trying to escape its tribal past and embrace the idea that all humans, and some non-human species, should be included within the same moral code we apply to our group.
Yes. Ultimately all apparently self-sacrificing acts have their basis in some kind of selfishness; however, far from seeing that as detracting from the self-sacrificing act I think it is essential we draw everyone's attention to it. And in any way, acting in a self-sacrificing way because of a faith conviction is no less selfish.
Calling it a Leap of Faith is one way of looking at it. I would simply say that some people prioritise a different set of values.
What is interesting, and may be part of what Timo is getting at, isn't the apparent difference between the theist and atheist outlook but that so many people don't seem interested in the question.
The article Martin linked to suggests a loss of belief, but couched in terms of belief in the Church of England.
Maybe it's wider than that. A loss of belief that anything in Western Christianity has any real worth above any other religion or culture or none at all.
Our Victorian ancestors believed in the missionary endeavour. Spreading the Good News (and with it British culture) was saving souls, was doing the work of God.
We've lost that sense. The benighted heathen is now more environmentally sustainable than we are, and thus more moral, and thus more likely to be welcomed by God into Heaven.
Religion has become orthogonal to the stuff we care about. Whether it's saving the planet, or human rights, or justice or economics or international relations.
I agree with your statements but not with your sentiment. We haven't 'lost' the sense our Victorian ancestors had but realised its was horribly flawed and misguided. I would even describe the missionary endeavour as inherently evil.
And of course Western Christianity has no more inherent value than any other belief system. In modern practise it does less harm globally than some belief systems and more harm than others. In historical times the global harm far outweighed any good it did,
This is all very well, but we know in our guts that if the lights went off tomorrow, we'd be clubbing each other to death for a tin of beans by Saturday. The quote has been reworked repeatedly, but a society/a city/Britain is three/six/nine meals away from anarchy/barbarism/chaos. Take your pick.
Completely disagree.
On what do you base your disagreement? Evidence? Or hope?
The evidence is that humans are still around after several hundred thousand years. If human nature really was as you describe that wouldn't be possible.
Despite and perversely because of the four horsemen riding since at least between the Riss and Würm glaciations, despite malaria, Genghis Khan, the Black Death, you name it, with the hidden vice of cannibalism after every near social collapse, here we are.
Of course, you can't extrapolate directly across to humans, but surely social animals give us information about the benefits of cooperative living.
Kipling, much as he's arguably the best short story writer in the English writer and more complicated in his morals and politics than he's sometimes given credit for being, is not someone whom I'd take as a moral guide uncritically.
Social animals also give us information about the benefits of competitive living.
Looking at social animals one can rule out extreme forms of libertarian ideology as plausible for human beings. What one can't do is decide at an individual level that one should be more like Medecin sans Frontieres than like the Golden Horde.
I think you're conflating a civilisation and a culture with humans as a species. History has shown us that the first two are inherently fragile and likely as not to be swept away by catastrophe. Humans themselves are incredible persistent. What know as England wouldn't last five days of rioting, but the English would survive.
I started thinking of Kipling, "The strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack". Wolves seem to form emotional bonds in the pack, in which old members are cared for, young ones educated, all buttressed by the alpha male and female.
Well, what is the point? I suppose the bottom line is, that they succeed by cooperating. The lone wolf is at risk, and usually seeks another wolf.
Of course, you can't extrapolate directly across to humans, but surely social animals give us information about the benefits of cooperative living.
The selfish gene only seems to be selfish and wolves may only seem to form emotional bonds.
As Dawkins says in 'River Out Of Eden', 1995:
“nature is not cruel, only piteously indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous—indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.”
Monotheistic believers would probably say humans are not included in this view of nature. But if we are then is morality an illusion?
You could probably say that morality is a cultural construct. Theologically human are different from animals since they alone are made in the image of God and have souls and the gift of freewill choice and of conscience. Humans alone can despair and commit suicide which animals never do.
We are 90% monkey and 10% bee and that makes us remarkably eusocial (groupish) beyond the mindless gestalts of social insects (slime molds? mycorriza, forests?), herd, pack (naked mole rats included) and flock animals. I mean, you can't do genocide without being eusocial can you?
Heh. Well, there's that. But I feel if the logical chain runs roughly 'morality -> altruism -> reciprocal altruism -> eusociality -> genocide' there's a broken link somewhere.
I'm also not sure, if the point is 'eusociality', what the problem with 'mindless gestalts' is. But maybe that's another conversation ....
I think you're conflating a civilisation and a culture with humans as a species. History has shown us that the first two are inherently fragile and likely as not to be swept away by catastrophe. Humans themselves are incredible persistent. What know as England wouldn't last five days of rioting, but the English would survive.
Err no. When I said 'we' I specifically meant humans as a species and read your post as also being about human survival. On second reading you do shift focus from humans to our specific culture but I disregarded that.
History shows us that all civilisations and cultures will pass. I would go further and say that the fossil record shows that almost all animal species will also pass.
I started thinking of Kipling, "The strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack". Wolves seem to form emotional bonds in the pack, in which old members are cared for, young ones educated, all buttressed by the alpha male and female.
Well, what is the point? I suppose the bottom line is, that they succeed by cooperating. The lone wolf is at risk, and usually seeks another wolf.
Of course, you can't extrapolate directly across to humans, but surely social animals give us information about the benefits of cooperative living.
The selfish gene only seems to be selfish and wolves may only seem to form emotional bonds.
As Dawkins says in 'River Out Of Eden', 1995:
“nature is not cruel, only piteously indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous—indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.”
Monotheistic believers would probably say humans are not included in this view of nature. But if we are then is morality an illusion?
No, I don't see that. But I don't think it's handed down from on high. Of course, it depends on what you mean by an illusion. For example, humans are adept at constructing purposes, like needing to paint the Forth bridge, or falling in love, but they seem real enough, experientially..
I started thinking of Kipling, "The strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack". Wolves seem to form emotional bonds in the pack, in which old members are cared for, young ones educated, all buttressed by the alpha male and female.
Well, what is the point? I suppose the bottom line is, that they succeed by cooperating. The lone wolf is at risk, and usually seeks another wolf.
Of course, you can't extrapolate directly across to humans, but surely social animals give us information about the benefits of cooperative living.
The selfish gene only seems to be selfish and wolves may only seem to form emotional bonds.
As Dawkins says in 'River Out Of Eden', 1995:
“nature is not cruel, only piteously indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous—indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.”
Monotheistic believers would probably say humans are not included in this view of nature. But if we are then is morality an illusion?
If indifference rather than hatred is the opposite of love, then perhaps love is the at the heart of morality?
Err no. When I said 'we' I specifically meant humans as a species and read your post as also being about human survival. On second reading you do shift focus from humans to our specific culture but I disregarded that.
I have not at any point suggested the extinction of the human race, especially in a discussion that has centred on humans as cooperative social creatures. All I'm saying is that the bonds that tie us together in communities larger than say, 300, are inherently fragile and wouldn't last if stressed sufficiently.
We would, in all likelihood, kill each other up to the point where we form groups of a couple of hundred, and then squabble non-fatally between groups. Small groups are largely self-policing, while larger conglomerations have always required an element of physical force to keep order. Take that away, and yes, I think we'd fall apart. It's no coincidence that a government's first action in the face of disorder isn't to open more pre-schools or libraries, but to declare martial law.
Err no. When I said 'we' I specifically meant humans as a species and read your post as also being about human survival. On second reading you do shift focus from humans to our specific culture but I disregarded that.
I have not at any point suggested the extinction of the human race, especially in a discussion that has centred on humans as cooperative social creatures. All I'm saying is that the bonds that tie us together in communities larger than say, 300, are inherently fragile and wouldn't last if stressed sufficiently.
We would, in all likelihood, kill each other up to the point where we form groups of a couple of hundred, and then squabble non-fatally between groups. Small groups are largely self-policing, while larger conglomerations have always required an element of physical force to keep order. Take that away, and yes, I think we'd fall apart. It's no coincidence that a government's first action in the face of disorder isn't to open more pre-schools or libraries, but to declare martial law.
I agree with what you said here. I took your previous statement "This is all very well, but we know in our guts that if the lights went off tomorrow, we'd be clubbing each other to death for a tin of beans by Saturday. " to refer to humans as a whole rather than to a particular culture/social group.
I also said elsewhere on the thread that kind of localised group morality we share with other social species does not transfer automatically to (ironically named) civilised society with its much larger groups.
I agree with what you said here. I took your previous statement "This is all very well, but we know in our guts that if the lights went off tomorrow, we'd be clubbing each other to death for a tin of beans by Saturday. " to refer to humans as a whole rather than to a particular culture/social group.
That's simply stage 1 in the social collapse. Stage 2 would be survivors banding together for mutual support in small groups. Stage 3 would be those groups coalescing to control a territory and resources, while keeping out outsiders. How fast we would progress through those stages is an exercise left for the reader.
I remember dystopian TV series "Survivors" first time round? And books, "Watership Down"? In which the central group had to contend with the mutually supporting small groups which had developed unpleasant forms of society.
The remake was very good, the original was brilliant. The process is very well described in the legendary Algis Budrys' 'Some Will Not Die'. My favourite film treatments are Omega Man and The Postman.
Yes. Ultimately all apparently self-sacrificing acts have their basis in some kind of selfishness; however, far from seeing that as detracting from the self-sacrificing act I think it is essential we draw everyone's attention to it. And in any way, acting in a self-sacrificing way because of a faith conviction is no less selfish.
One grows so tired of this claim. Please provide solid evidence beyond "it stands to reason."
Looking at social animals one can rule out extreme forms of libertarian ideology as plausible for human beings. What one can't do is decide at an individual level that one should be more like Medecin sans Frontieres than like the Golden Horde.
This is the Prisoner's Dilemma. Clearly, going back to @Colin Smith's point, if everybody chose to be like the Golden Horde, we'd have died out eons ago. And yet for some reason they weren't and we didn't. Only conclusion I can see: there is something in our make-up that predisposes -- not guarantees but predisposes -- us to cooperation and altruism. Empirically, most people just want to get on with their lives.
Yes. Ultimately all apparently self-sacrificing acts have their basis in some kind of selfishness; however, far from seeing that as detracting from the self-sacrificing act I think it is essential we draw everyone's attention to it. And in any way, acting in a self-sacrificing way because of a faith conviction is no less selfish.
One grows so tired of this claim. Please provide solid evidence beyond "it stands to reason”.
Yes, I held this view for a long time, to the point that I would have scorned anyone who believed otherwise as a naive sentimentalist - and in retrospect I’m not sure why it had such a good on me (and IMHO on contemporary UK culture, to the point that it more-or-less passes for common sense).
I think its appeal runs something like this:
1. If people are going to lie, it will often be to pass off selfish motives as altruistic.
2. Furthermore, we have (I think) all been in the situation of pleading altruistic motivations with some degree of sincerity, only to reflect later that our claims were not as purely-motivated as we’d thought.
3. Scrupulous persons may therefore wish simply to assume all claims of altruism are masks to cover, at some level, self-seeking behaviour.
I think the resulting picture of Machiavellian egotists scheming against each other so covertly even they themselves are unaware of it is somewhere between ‘reductive’ and ‘paranoid’, and I certainly didn’t find it a tenable way of being-in-the-world. But Your Mileage May Vary.
And any way, acting in a self-sacrificing way because of a faith conviction is no less selfish.
Well, I’m inclined to agree, but perhaps not quite in the sense intended. I suppose if one went through the motions of religious faith in order to gain oneself a ticket to heaven, yes, that would indeed be ‘selfish’ in the manner usually understood. But I think it’s a commonplace that religious insight takes the form of a radical re-evaluation of what the ‘self’ really is. For Zen Buddhism, one aspect of enlightenment is the realisation that the ‘self’ does not exist, and is entirely interwound with everything ‘else’ in the universe. For a Christian ... well, when I serve the homeless in the local soup kitchen, ultimately I’m doing it because I understand both myself and the people I serve as part of God’s creation, and to serve them is also to love and reverence God, the ground of my being and for which I was made. That might be self-serving in a way. But the self that is served is not Timo Pax, autonomous agent.
Yes. Ultimately all apparently self-sacrificing acts have their basis in some kind of selfishness; however, far from seeing that as detracting from the self-sacrificing act I think it is essential we draw everyone's attention to it. And in any way, acting in a self-sacrificing way because of a faith conviction is no less selfish.
One grows so tired of this claim. Please provide solid evidence beyond "it stands to reason”.
Yes, I held this view for a long time, to the point that I would have scorned anyone who believed otherwise as a naive sentimentalist - and in retrospect I’m not sure why it had such a good on me (and IMHO on contemporary UK culture, to the point that it more-or-less passes for common sense).
I think its appeal runs something like this:
1. If people are going to lie, it will often be to pass off selfish motives as altruistic.
2. Furthermore, we have (I think) all been in the situation of pleading altruistic motivations with some degree of sincerity, only to reflect later that our claims were not as purely-motivated as we’d thought.
3. Scrupulous persons may therefore wish simply to assume all claims of altruism are masks to cover, at some level, self-seeking behaviour.
I think the resulting picture of Machiavellian egotists scheming against each other so covertly even they themselves are unaware of it is somewhere between ‘reductive’ and ‘paranoid’, and I certainly didn’t find it a tenable way of being-in-the-world. But Your Mileage May Vary.
It's more subtle than that. We are selves. And with enlightement, being loved and thus able to love, we discover that it truly is more blessed to give than to receive. Surely? Jesus was a self. The most enlightened self. The most selfless, unselfish... self. What did He have to gain by His transcendent faithfulness? His giving of self? He did the right thing by us. Not out of fear. Despite the fear. Only a self could do that.
Yes. Ultimately all apparently self-sacrificing acts have their basis in some kind of selfishness; however, far from seeing that as detracting from the self-sacrificing act I think it is essential we draw everyone's attention to it. And in any way, acting in a self-sacrificing way because of a faith conviction is no less selfish.
One grows so tired of this claim. Please provide solid evidence beyond "it stands to reason”.
Yes, I held this view for a long time, to the point that I would have scorned anyone who believed otherwise as a naive sentimentalist - and in retrospect I’m not sure why it had such a good on me (and IMHO on contemporary UK culture, to the point that it more-or-less passes for common sense).
I think its appeal runs something like this:
1. If people are going to lie, it will often be to pass off selfish motives as altruistic.
2. Furthermore, we have (I think) all been in the situation of pleading altruistic motivations with some degree of sincerity, only to reflect later that our claims were not as purely-motivated as we’d thought.
3. Scrupulous persons may therefore wish simply to assume all claims of altruism are masks to cover, at some level, self-seeking behaviour.
I think the resulting picture of Machiavellian egotists scheming against each other so covertly even they themselves are unaware of it is somewhere between ‘reductive’ and ‘paranoid’, and I certainly didn’t find it a tenable way of being-in-the-world. But Your Mileage May Vary.
It's more subtle than that. We are selves. And with enlightement, being loved and thus able to love, we discover that it truly is more blessed to give than to receive. Surely? Jesus was a self. The most enlightened self. The most selfless, unselfish... self. What did He have to gain by His transcendent faithfulness? His giving of self? He did the right thing by us. Not out of fear. Despite the fear. Only a self could do that.
Have you never attempted to pass off an altruistic action as a selfish one? This is a common move to avoid notice or thanks. “Oh, I was going there anyway,” and the like.
And it becomes a reflex over time. Also the clever use of silence and redirection, so as to avoid notice or thanks without actually having to lie about it. Seems strange that some of my most polished, er, misdirective skills developed in direct response to that passage.
For me, it's partly a way of avoiding 'reciprocal altruism', in fact. I want to give the lift without conveying a sense that something is owed to me in return; I don't want the barista to think the reason for the tip is that I'm expecting something additional in the service ...
Well, sure. There's a danger in anything. But I've successfully been infiltrating coins into tip jars, giving lifts to people, and working in soup kitchens for the past two decades without mentioning it before now, so I'm not going to worry overmuch about that.
I think the self righteousness is unavoidable, both when we deny we're being saintly and when only God knows. You can't win! I can only manage one decade and I always say it's enlightened self interest (which it is in many if not all ways), payback, duty, part of the 12 steps. That it's the twitch of my little finger. 1%
Ha! Interestingly, I think this brings me back a bit to point 8 of my OP. In my pre-Christian life, this didn't bother me at all. I did a good thing. Did I get some kind of glow or pat myself on the back about this? Well, maybe (though honestly, usually not really). But who cares? The good thing got done. AND IT WAS REALLY IRRITATING LISTEN TO CHRISTIANS KEEP SPLITTING THAT HAIR.
Now I get the examination-of-conscience over it a bit: the self-satisfied glow separates you from God. But then ... so does over-examination of conscience, I suspect.
The good that I do is a drop of water on the tongue of a dehydrated man at best. I'm hollowly aware of my helpless privilege. Conscience doesn't enter in to it. Except when I resent the whole situation.
Comments
The article Martin linked to suggests a loss of belief, but couched in terms of belief in the Church of England.
Maybe it's wider than that. A loss of belief that anything in Western Christianity has any real worth above any other religion or culture or none at all.
Our Victorian ancestors believed in the missionary endeavour. Spreading the Good News (and with it British culture) was saving souls, was doing the work of God.
We've lost that sense. The benighted heathen is now more environmentally sustainable than we are, and thus more moral, and thus more likely to be welcomed by God into Heaven.
Religion has become orthogonal to the stuff we care about. Whether it's saving the planet, or human rights, or justice or economics or international relations.
Apologies for not yet managing to respond as I had hoped, but by the time the second bout of software problems has been solved, I hope, on Friday, life as moved past it!
Hmmm. My impression is that @Doc Tor was making succinctly the same point I was making long-windedly in my last post: left as-is, the claim that altruistic behaviour is instinctual is easily glossed as 'well, we're just naturally good', which is obviously Polyanna-ish and incomplete. But then adding 'of course, we're also just naturally bad' seems to get us right back to square one.
Which I think takes me back to my niggle about deriving 'oughts' from 'is's: I don't think we're actually talking about the same question. The question I've always wondered about with my workplace is 'why should anyone (including, most urgently, myself), act well?' But the question the evolutionary account purports to answer AFAICT is 'why is there a spectrum of possible behaviour?' - which is a perfectly legitimate question, but it's incommensurate with the kind of answers demanded by the first.
Well, what is the point? I suppose the bottom line is, that they succeed by cooperating. The lone wolf is at risk, and usually seeks another wolf.
Of course, you can't extrapolate directly across to humans, but surely social animals give us information about the benefits of cooperative living.
I'm paraphrasing a lot, but this might be well worth a read.
It's also something to bear in mind for church congregation sizes. Stable congregations happen in that sweet spot, but those which are larger suffer undue churn, and those which are smaller can fracture due to personal animosity.
The basis for altruism is the selfish gene. No question. Our evolutionarily expanded minds start from there.
Joy is carnal too. I'm blessed with Stendhal's syndrome, it's rare but so worth it.
The only way I could experience transcendent joy is by transcending. Or somehow being utterly and permanently convinced that all is well, that existence is grounded in God. Which cannot happen.
And you further set my alarm bells ringing @Timo Pax, along with @Moyessa, the narrow path to forgiveness (for whom?, what?) and salvation, after life? UNWORTHY?!
This looks like worst case illiberal literalism. Standard evangelicalism. We know something in that Jungian, predestined way that the predestined damned don't.
Why act well? For me, it's because I really do love everybody, thanks to Christianity. Although I wished people well in the past, and wouldn't harm them, nor would I go out of my way to make life better for them, unless I felt sorry for them. I didn't love them. My life was centred on myself and my nearest and dearest. Now it's centred on Christ.
???!
If you reread what I wrote, you'll see I actually queried @Moyessa on this.
I feel like most of the history of the 20th century indicates a rather low ceiling on just how 'eusocial' human beings really are. As for increasing biomass (and is this not a rather reductive measure?) ... well, I'd say most of that is down to improvements in public health over the last 150 years, in particular basic hygiene, and agricultural yields. The story of how we came to those improvements is a bit more complex and tangled than 'eusociality'.
In the meantime, those poster-children for eusociality, the bees, are doing rather badly ....
I beg you pardon @Timo Pax. In my extreme limitation I couldn't see that.
We reached our first billion 200 years ago, taking 10,000 years from the million mark, 100,000 from the thousand, which has little to do with public health or agricultural yield except as marginal developments emergent from population pressure.
Still complex and tangled I'm sure.
We are 90% monkey and 10% bee and that makes us remarkably eusocial (groupish) beyond the mindless gestalts of social insects (slime molds? mycorriza, forests?), herd, pack (naked mole rats included) and flock animals. I mean, you can't do genocide without being eusocial can you? And yeah I'm with Nietzsche: morality is herd instinct in the individual. And Hume: rationality is and should be the slave of the passions.
The bees (and amphibians and...) collapse is an unintended consequence of our more effective eusociality. They can't compete. Can't adapt. We'll miss them as we peak this century. And fall.
Completely disagree.
On what do you base your disagreement? Evidence? Or hope?
In my typical Purgatorial 'style' I was concatenating a diametric misunderstanding with what I perceived to be - and still do - a claim of joy, in a negative synergy.
So there's just the claim to deal with
I agree it is a bit thin, which is why man (imo) has created religions/beliefs to codify morality.
Nature is an appalling reference for moral behaviour and even the moral code of our nearest neighbours on the tree has its limitations. Although chimps appear to have a form of group morality they will happily hunt down and eat members of other groups. Human morality is still trying to escape its tribal past and embrace the idea that all humans, and some non-human species, should be included within the same moral code we apply to our group.
Yes. Ultimately all apparently self-sacrificing acts have their basis in some kind of selfishness; however, far from seeing that as detracting from the self-sacrificing act I think it is essential we draw everyone's attention to it. And in any way, acting in a self-sacrificing way because of a faith conviction is no less selfish.
Calling it a Leap of Faith is one way of looking at it. I would simply say that some people prioritise a different set of values.
I agree with your statements but not with your sentiment. We haven't 'lost' the sense our Victorian ancestors had but realised its was horribly flawed and misguided. I would even describe the missionary endeavour as inherently evil.
And of course Western Christianity has no more inherent value than any other belief system. In modern practise it does less harm globally than some belief systems and more harm than others. In historical times the global harm far outweighed any good it did,
The evidence is that humans are still around after several hundred thousand years. If human nature really was as you describe that wouldn't be possible.
I don't think we would have survived.
Social animals also give us information about the benefits of competitive living.
Looking at social animals one can rule out extreme forms of libertarian ideology as plausible for human beings. What one can't do is decide at an individual level that one should be more like Medecin sans Frontieres than like the Golden Horde.
I think you're conflating a civilisation and a culture with humans as a species. History has shown us that the first two are inherently fragile and likely as not to be swept away by catastrophe. Humans themselves are incredible persistent. What know as England wouldn't last five days of rioting, but the English would survive.
The selfish gene only seems to be selfish and wolves may only seem to form emotional bonds.
As Dawkins says in 'River Out Of Eden', 1995:
“nature is not cruel, only piteously indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous—indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.”
Monotheistic believers would probably say humans are not included in this view of nature. But if we are then is morality an illusion?
Heh. Well, there's that. But I feel if the logical chain runs roughly 'morality -> altruism -> reciprocal altruism -> eusociality -> genocide' there's a broken link somewhere.
I'm also not sure, if the point is 'eusociality', what the problem with 'mindless gestalts' is. But maybe that's another conversation ....
Err no. When I said 'we' I specifically meant humans as a species and read your post as also being about human survival. On second reading you do shift focus from humans to our specific culture but I disregarded that.
History shows us that all civilisations and cultures will pass. I would go further and say that the fossil record shows that almost all animal species will also pass.
No, I don't see that. But I don't think it's handed down from on high. Of course, it depends on what you mean by an illusion. For example, humans are adept at constructing purposes, like needing to paint the Forth bridge, or falling in love, but they seem real enough, experientially..
If indifference rather than hatred is the opposite of love, then perhaps love is the at the heart of morality?
I have not at any point suggested the extinction of the human race, especially in a discussion that has centred on humans as cooperative social creatures. All I'm saying is that the bonds that tie us together in communities larger than say, 300, are inherently fragile and wouldn't last if stressed sufficiently.
We would, in all likelihood, kill each other up to the point where we form groups of a couple of hundred, and then squabble non-fatally between groups. Small groups are largely self-policing, while larger conglomerations have always required an element of physical force to keep order. Take that away, and yes, I think we'd fall apart. It's no coincidence that a government's first action in the face of disorder isn't to open more pre-schools or libraries, but to declare martial law.
I agree with what you said here. I took your previous statement "This is all very well, but we know in our guts that if the lights went off tomorrow, we'd be clubbing each other to death for a tin of beans by Saturday. " to refer to humans as a whole rather than to a particular culture/social group.
I also said elsewhere on the thread that kind of localised group morality we share with other social species does not transfer automatically to (ironically named) civilised society with its much larger groups.
That's simply stage 1 in the social collapse. Stage 2 would be survivors banding together for mutual support in small groups. Stage 3 would be those groups coalescing to control a territory and resources, while keeping out outsiders. How fast we would progress through those stages is an exercise left for the reader.
This is the Prisoner's Dilemma. Clearly, going back to @Colin Smith's point, if everybody chose to be like the Golden Horde, we'd have died out eons ago. And yet for some reason they weren't and we didn't. Only conclusion I can see: there is something in our make-up that predisposes -- not guarantees but predisposes -- us to cooperation and altruism. Empirically, most people just want to get on with their lives.
Yes, I held this view for a long time, to the point that I would have scorned anyone who believed otherwise as a naive sentimentalist - and in retrospect I’m not sure why it had such a good on me (and IMHO on contemporary UK culture, to the point that it more-or-less passes for common sense).
I think its appeal runs something like this:
1. If people are going to lie, it will often be to pass off selfish motives as altruistic.
2. Furthermore, we have (I think) all been in the situation of pleading altruistic motivations with some degree of sincerity, only to reflect later that our claims were not as purely-motivated as we’d thought.
3. Scrupulous persons may therefore wish simply to assume all claims of altruism are masks to cover, at some level, self-seeking behaviour.
I think the resulting picture of Machiavellian egotists scheming against each other so covertly even they themselves are unaware of it is somewhere between ‘reductive’ and ‘paranoid’, and I certainly didn’t find it a tenable way of being-in-the-world. But Your Mileage May Vary.
Thank you, @Raptor Eye. Yes.
Well, I’m inclined to agree, but perhaps not quite in the sense intended. I suppose if one went through the motions of religious faith in order to gain oneself a ticket to heaven, yes, that would indeed be ‘selfish’ in the manner usually understood. But I think it’s a commonplace that religious insight takes the form of a radical re-evaluation of what the ‘self’ really is. For Zen Buddhism, one aspect of enlightenment is the realisation that the ‘self’ does not exist, and is entirely interwound with everything ‘else’ in the universe. For a Christian ... well, when I serve the homeless in the local soup kitchen, ultimately I’m doing it because I understand both myself and the people I serve as part of God’s creation, and to serve them is also to love and reverence God, the ground of my being and for which I was made. That might be self-serving in a way. But the self that is served is not Timo Pax, autonomous agent.
It's more subtle than that. We are selves. And with enlightement, being loved and thus able to love, we discover that it truly is more blessed to give than to receive. Surely? Jesus was a self. The most enlightened self. The most selfless, unselfish... self. What did He have to gain by His transcendent faithfulness? His giving of self? He did the right thing by us. Not out of fear. Despite the fear. Only a self could do that.
@Martin54 This
Now I get the examination-of-conscience over it a bit: the self-satisfied glow separates you from God. But then ... so does over-examination of conscience, I suspect.