Willravel

... says the dentist to the businessman. We both went to school. We both watch animal planet.
Monkeys don't have a capitalist economy. Their sexual drive is partially based on the ability to provide, just like humans, but it's not like 4 bananas gets a Dirty Sanchez. That's prostitution, anyway.
Apes use tools, right? There's your possession.
Socialism.
So one more successful socialist troop beats another.
OMG, you're a socialist! You think that working together for a common good and thus an individual's well being is capitalism, and you're a self described capitalist. Awesome.

sapiens

Presumably, one could use evolutionary theory to generate testable hypotheses about patterns of morality that we should expect to see universally or patterns influenced by the ability to accumulate resources, sex, sex ratio, age, etc. The existence of such patterns would lend support to particular evolutionary accounts of morality. A lack of support would suggest that such accounts are incorrect. From my perspective, the goal of such research is to understand the complexities of human morality. The goal is not to say "Yay! It's natural!" and leave it at that. Evolutionary theory (for me) is a tool, not something to be proven.

Some "natural" accounts, maybe some of those outlined on TFP, especially those that don't generate any testable predictions, might qualify as "just so" stories a la Rudyard Kipling.

A separate, but related issue that you allude to is this idea that "if it is natural, it must be right" (The Naturalistic Fallacy). So, if socialism isn't found in non-human animals, then it is not natural and is not "right". There are all sorts of things that are natural and "bad" and all sorts of things that are "unnatural" that are good. I'm not convinced that is what ustwo is trying to do.

I usually avoid discussions of nature and evolution on TFP because I think many of the questions raised are too complicated for this discussion format, the terms of the debate are constantly changing, and I may bore people.

abaya

... did anyone actually read that article I cited from the NY Times?... just looking for feedback on their theory here, since it's directly applicable.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Ustwo

Please do, I've been out of the accademic loops on this for 10 years with only minor dabbling and teaching as it pertained to my later masters. I've been getting back 'into' the debate lately but no longer have access to the players as I did in my college days. I miss classes like my Tuesday night, 'Seminars in Evolution' 'class' but I also miss being 22 (kinda), I got to present the creationism section, good fun.

Any fresh perspective is welcome.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

sapiens

abaya:

I think that Haidt's research is interesting on the surface, but from the article, I think that his evolutionary account seems a bit vague. So, morality was good for early humans? So now we have five moral systems that are innate psychololgical mechanisms? Why five? Why are they distinct? How does he distinguish between them? Any testable predictions?

In principle, I don't disagree with the possibility of innate psychological mechanisms that predispose children to absorb certain virtues. However, the five mechanisms, their input, decision rules, and output are unclear. This may be due to the science journalist, not Haidt. Perhaps Haidt is more clear in his empirical articles.

One aside: From an evolutionary perspective, selfishness is what produces altruism. The article author talks both about evolution being selfish and curbing selfishness. He's conflating levels of analysis.

Another aside: The author mentions natural selection and "survival of the fittest" together. Few biologists use "Survival of the fittest" as a descriptor of evolution by natural selection anymore. Colloquially, it's often misused to suggest survival of the "physically strongest". As it is misused, it also mischaracterizes evolution. Reproduction is the engine of E by NS, not survival. Finally, it's been used in arguments for an against eugenics.

Willravel

No one bores people more than Ustwo and I. Please, join our fun.
You're obviously well learned on the subject, so the discussion will be better for having you.

filtherton

I amend my previous answer. All ethics come from my penis.

Ustwo

Ok a read it, but unfortunately being a piece written for the masses so to speak, it lacks the detail to see if how he came to his conclusions are valid, though its not the first time I read such ideas about an evolved morality.

On a side note I did get a kick out of one of his detractors....

This is why I take any story that makes the popular press, even in a science section with a large grain of salt. The fact that this guy was willing to go public with such a statement as a scienist is rather astounding to me. What he said was 'His tests showed this but of course I know thats obviously wrong because I feel they are based on my own personal biases' The problem of course isn't that he questioned the ideas, thats good, but that he wrote them off with no evidednce beyond how he feels it is, thats not being a scientist.

Lately, amusingly, the trend in the liberal academia circles are to 'prove' that liberals are smarter, nicer, better, than conservatives, and predictably such studies are in LA times and the like, which when analyzed are all very flawed.

As a rule with scientific research, if its in a publication where you can find celebrity gossip, sports scores, or fashion, is going to be only a ghost of the real research at best, and nothing but fluff, often biased fluff at worst.

Recently I had two friends of mine, all well educated, tell me how they read some theory that humans developed independently and that we are all not linked by a common ancestor. This idea isn't new, and its been shot down many times, but here was my college educated (obviously not biology) friend telling me how this was fact. It must have been on slash dot, as for some reason the nerd elite seems to believe everything that makes it to slash dot.

Its frustrating, but really the only way to judge the validity of a paper (and I"ve seen a lot of bad ones over the years, in my field and others that got published) is to read the actual paper, see their methods, sample size etc. To do so you need to have access (its a pain to find some of the publications) and understand the language behind it as well as the methods.

So cutting this semi-thread jack short. Its an interesting concept, thats not new, though I haven't heard of the '5 types of morality' before, so that part was new to me. I just can't say how valid it is. The NYT science section is a bit better than most, but it still amounts to a nice summary.

I do think hes right in concept though, even if perhaps off in detail.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

abaya

I need more time to reply properly here, but I agree with you whole-heartedly on this point, Ustwo. Clearly, the NY Times is not a peer-reviewed journal of any kind, which in some ways is good (because hardly anyone from the general public has access to, let alone has any inkling to read peer-reviewed journals)... general exposure to this kind of information has to happen somewhere. But yes, the average Joe or Jane is not going to know jack about the existing literature, statistical significance, methods, sample size, validity, reliability... so the work could be all wrong. Sapiens is right; there are no apparent hypotheses to be tested (again, could be due to the mass-media format).

But since I agree with most of what the article is saying, I suppose that's why I found it interesting. Studying anthropology, one doesn't get far by assuming that morality and ethics developed from religion only... so I'm always glad to see someone questioning that often "basic" assumption (by the masses) and making people think harder about evolution and where things *really* came from. But I suppose that's my own bias.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Ustwo

I agree with the gist of it too, which is why we both need to be careful in accepting it. Its very easy to accept something you agree with. That detracting doctor quoted is most likely a liberal, saw something he didn't like about 'liberals' and then decided to reject the study based on that. Its not much different in our case if we accept it because we agree with his concept of religion and evolved morality.

And a side note, this whole 'common good' concept is flawed to start with. Liberals and conservatives care about the common good, what differs I think is what is perceived as the common good. For example, security or loyalty is common good and I'd guess that conservatives would rate those higher priorities than liberals. Feeding everyone, regardless of the circumstance that lead them to need the food could also be called common good and conservatives would score lower than liberals there.

But even in that you can tweak the question to sway it, with intent or otherwise, one way or the other. If you phrase the question like 'Should society feed people without food after a natural disaster' you will see different priorities then if you ask 'Should the government feed those who can not afford food on their own'. These are just quick and dirty ones, I'm sure with time I could come up with better but I'm off work and would like to go home.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Plan9

Here... let me be silly:

We know all about genetics being real. We touched 'em and stuff.

Anybody touch god recently?

Hmm... My philosophy? I trust the GCAT more than god.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Ourcrazymodern?

I think ethics come out of our souls and a willingness to recognize our fellow human beings as...well...fellow human beings.

Know what I mean?

__________________
BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

RenaissanceII

Quoted for Truth.

__________________
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
Anais Nin


I Wish You Well.