[lbo-talk] Blue Dogs cashing in

Miles Jackson cqmv at pdx.edu
Fri Aug 7 08:56:14 PDT 2009


// ravi wrote:
> What I am arguing for is the opposite. Typically many EP theorists
> conclude that (a) our behaviours are a result of selection but (b)
> those selection forces are outdated. The combination of (a) and (b) is
> justifies the conclusion that human beings act oh so irrationally,
> feeding both the light humour industry and the more treacherous notion
> that rationality = narrow self-interest (cf: Amartya Sen). This
> conclusion is possibly true of certain human behaviours, but I am much
> more sympathetic to the E.O.Wilson PoV (as I see it) that
> morality/moralism is not one of them. In other words, moral desires
> *and* actions are not non-instrumental at all. They are, arguably, the
> foundation and glue that make human survival sustainable.

Two points. First, I have to say in passing that it is a strange evolutionary theory indeed that proposes that a species is only susceptible to selection pressures in one critical period of its history, as most of the EP theorists contend about homo sapiens sapiens. Species are continually undergoing natural selection; it is happening in homo s. as we speak. (The "outdated" selection pressures have been replaced by existing selection pressures, as is the case for every other existing species!)

Second, the notion that behavior is guided by abstract moral principles is far from universal in human societies. How can moral desires and actions be the "foundation and glue" of human survival when some societies do not consider abstract moral judgments to be a basis for action? They survive just fine--until they come into contact with "civilizations" replete with abstract moral principles! (I suspect this gets back to different assumptions about what the word "morality" means. Just to be explicit about my position, I think Nietzsche's analysis in Genealogy of Morals is dead on.)

Miles



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