Press "Enter" to skip to content

politics, morality and evolution

I started writing about this ages ago, but have not finished yet… but in a discussion with Michael, the idea came up again, and I wrote a long comment there, which I’ll reproduce here (slightly redacted):

***
my theory of morality is this: moral ideas are cultural constructs that sink or swim based on their ability to “improve” lives & societies, where improve means: makes it easier for a bigger number of people to be well-provided-for, to solve problems they want to solve, and generally to be more happy.

here is a thought experiment: what if increasing individual liberty, abolishing slavery, providing public education (etc) resulted in: mass pandemics, death, misery, and a collapse in the economy. would we see liberty & public education etc as morally good? i’d argue no.

if you read the bible (and, I presume most religious texts), you realize that much of it concerns very practical rules of life (how to build things, how to eat things etc), in addition to more abstract spiritual things … those “rules” are helpful for keeping a society functioning smoothly, and well, and helps us continue to solve problems we want to solve.

so while making “moral” choices is important, to me the compelling argument (in politics) is that “moral” choices are actually ones that tend to improve lives, and be effective. (i think this is part of why the religious right is so strong in the USA: our “free” (and empty) society has resulted in people being unhappy … and a set of moral rules (work hard, be honest, help others, be true to your wife etc) helps you get better at doing the things that, over the past 3000 years, have proven to help make people happier, on balance).

Much of this theory comes out of watching LibriVox evolve, where free-form anarchy is employed only to the extent that it helps us make audiobooks, and not for abstract reasons. so when we decide on issues, we measure against making audiobooks, and not against abstract notions of freedom etc. This, i believe, is how societies and morality develop over time…rules of behaviour that are “helpful” become codified as morally preferable traits: honesty, courage, kindness etc.

regarding democracy & political engagement, my personal feeling is that i can accomplish much more outside of the political system right now. the political system is very rigid (like academia). it’s “better” than fascism, but it could/should become even more responsive to people’s needs, i think, by adopting more small-a-anarchist approaches to problems. i believe eventually i might become re-engaged in the system, i hope in ways that help the democratic system start playing with some of these ideas, to see what could be helpful, and what not. that is, i do not believe anarchist projects are good because they are anarchist, but only if they can be proven to help people do things they want to do (manage a health system, education system, environment etc).

civicaccess.ca is a perfect example of this: idea is: big groups of people with access to data over the net may be better at solving some problems than the government is, and the government should be responsive to exploring where these areas might be, and supporting movements/technologies/ideas that help bring decision-making tools into the hands of citizens, rather than keeping them in the rigid and compromised government systems as they exist now.

as for representative over direct democracy, again, i have no particular preference, except to the extent that one or the other can better address problems I see with the world; which includes protecting small groups from the abuse of big groups.

17 Comments

  1. Christopher Hughes Christopher Hughes 2007-04-25

    two thoughts:
    1) I find it interesting how we now distinguish between moral and practical in a way that our forebearers would not have understood. Did an ancient farmer pour ox blood in a ploughed field for practical (soil conditioning) or sacred (sacrificial) purposes. I am sure the question would have made no sense to him (or her).
    2) The problem with ‘morality’ as you define it, is that it may be moral in a society in general, and immoral in particular. Take the sexual freedom of women. For a long time of western history women were expected to be chaste, as a cornerstone of society. Huge taboo if a woman was not. This greased the wheels of the paternalistic society at the time, solving all kinds of problems, but had no regard for the happiness of the less powerful half of that society. So might makes right in the formation of morality.

  2. Hugh Hugh 2007-04-25

    “1) I find it interesting how we now distinguish between moral and practical in a way that our forebearers would not have understood.”
    i expect that our forebears would have considered some of our “morality” incomprehensible, eg, our concern for the lives of enemy civilians, interdictions against slavery, etc. history (and the bible!!) is filled with apparently commonplace things that we now see as abhorrent. but were once totally understandable.

    and again, if you read the bible it covers all sorts of things…but chiefly it says: if you do not spill the blood of the ox on the first full moon, your fields will be barren. (or if you do not obey god, you will suffer locusts, a plague of frogs, the nile will tuen to blood, first borns will die etc). so in effect, they would very much understand that there are non-abstract consequences to violating moral laws.

    so i disagree: i’d say that our modern conception of morality (that appeals to some platonic ideal of morality) would have been incomprehnsible.

    “2) The problem with ‘morality’ as you define it, is that it may be moral in a society in general, and immoral in particular.”
    this will always be a problem of any “moral” code … but “my” conception at least has a rational basis, whereas idealist morality appeals to abstract ideas that have no basis, except in saying: this is better than that (ie women’s freedom is *better* than paternalistic wheel-greasing. why?)

    “Take the sexual freedom of women. For a long time of western history women were expected to be chaste, as a cornerstone of society. Huge taboo if a woman was not. This greased the wheels of the paternalistic society at the time, solving all kinds of problems, but had no regard for the happiness of the less powerful half of that society. So might makes right in the formation of morality.”

    yes and our change in morality came about with the ubiquity of modern birth control techniques, chiefly the pill. so while 150 years ago free sex meant babies, which had all sorts of non-abstract/moral implications (ie, if you are not married, how will the baby be taken care of?). so moral codes about chastity developed as a way to avoid the practical problem of children without financial support of a father (in the time before daycare). these days sex does not equal babies, so we can, as a society, afford to change our conceptions of the morality of sex, which is exactly what has happened.

    so it’s not so much: “might makes right” but “practicality, over time, makes right, and as the environment changes, so does practicality, so does right.”

  3. mir mir 2007-04-25

    Mary Wollstonecraft

    History of Feminism

    History of Birth Control

    Just to clarify a few of your ideas around the rationale and the historical roots of feminism, feminist principles, and birth control, and babies.

    Personally, I don’t think we have changed many of our ideas around sex, or sexual behaviour, only around the value of family.

    It is much less important for people to make babies early or at all these days, the world is overpopulated, and speaking for what i know, there is a fairly healthy economic system in place in the west that makes for a fair balance of work and play if you and your spouse limit yourself to the national average of children.

    That being said, I still see monogamous, hetero-normative (even if homo) partnerships as the cultural norm of sexual practice, weird eh? We don’t need the monogamous system to keep our squalling hordes alive, yet by and large, we’re still monogamous. That seems kinda well, impractical.

    There was a period where having babies was pretty outdated, not coincidentally this was a time when disco, polyester lounge suits, the pill or an IUD, and cocaine spoons worn around the neck were also considered very fashionable.

    Lately, (and I could cite the never-ending war(s), the shift to a more us/them mentality, or AIDs as reasons, but I’d be talking out my ass) the changes in collective mores afforded by the nouveau right mean I am seeing a lot more articles about balancing motherhood and the working life, ( though not Fatherhood dig?? ) Not more articles about how to swing and still keep your partner happy at home. So birth control as a public issue, in fact the right not to have babies as a virtue of modern life, has totally fallen by the wayside, as have coke-spoons. I also find this very strange.

    Feminism is about the struggle for people (historically one gender of people) not to be judged for their actions, nor used, nor treated as property. As such the pill, and the system that allowed for the development of such a device and the subsequent social/behavioural shifts, could be viewed as one result of feminism. A result that then complicated the contemporary moral system to such an extent that now society is undergoing a new set of debates around definitions of family, sex-roles, obligation, love and fidelity.

    That is why the morals around feminism, do not lend themselves to the moral = practical idea. It has been, and continues to be, highly impractical for the dominant sex to give up valuable chattel (or helpmeets – gag me) in order to gain partners and citizens. The struggle to define the terms of this giving up, especially since it concerns something as primary and important as childcare and sexual liberty are too complicated to define using vectors of practicality or “what’s good for the majority”.

  4. mir mir 2007-04-25

    hug can you fix that? It has an open link somewhere – my bad ; (

  5. mir mir 2007-04-25

    I called you ‘hug’, how tired am I??

    Watch it out it may stick.

  6. Josh Josh 2007-04-26

    @Christopher: “Did an ancient farmer pour ox blood in a ploughed field for practical (soil conditioning) or sacred (sacrificial) purposes. I am sure the question would have made no sense to him (or her).”

    Maybe there is no fracture between the practical and the sacred. Actually, many ritual or sacred ceremonies and actions are the embodiment of physical and practical rules which work for an individual and for a society to prosper.

    Except, they may not always be recalled as such. In some examples, the practical has been forgotten so that people only recall the higher purpose.

    And incidentally, building myths and stories and sacralizing rituals is in itself a way to make an individual or a society remember necessary, working, pragmatic processes.

  7. Hugh Hugh 2007-04-26

    mir: long rambling answer to come.

    alexandre:
    -ROS: yes, I heard that show… good.
    -Brights: ach, just Dawkins’ involvement is enough to turn me off. what i have heard of the movement seems intellectually flaky, but i have not looked closely.

    josh: exacto: if you take an evolutionary view of things, natural selection does its work: myths that are helpful succeed; myths that are harmful, eventually, fall by the wayside.

  8. Chris Hughes Chris Hughes 2007-04-26

    Erm.. I think I agree with both Josh and Hugh on part one of my comment, but have obviously phrased it so badly that I misrepresented myself.

    On part two, I agree with Mir. I will reread your former post on ‘Pragmatism vs Idealism’, Hug(h), for a more rounded summary of your views.

    However, my pedantic quibbling caused me to forget to say that I broadly agree with you anarchistic views. (Yikes – that sounds bad – not a sentence you want quoted back to you in a court of law…)

  9. Hugh Hugh 2007-04-26

    M: “Personally, I don’t think we have changed many of our ideas around sex, or sexual behaviour, only around the value of family.”
    H: re: sex: that I can write “blowjob” and “anal sex” in a public space such as this without worrying about anything suggests otherwise, see:
    http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/banned-books.html

    re: family, in fact i’d disagree, in that family is as important as ever, tho our conception of family may be different than it used to be.

    M: “It is much less important for people to make babies early or at all these days”
    H: well, it depends on whether preservation of the human species is “important” or not.

    M: “the world is overpopulated, and speaking for what i know, there is a fairly healthy economic system in place in the west that makes for a fair balance of work and play if you and your spouse limit yourself to the national average of children.”
    H: yes.

    M: “That being said, I still see monogamous, hetero-normative (even if homo) partnerships as the cultural norm of sexual practice, weird eh?”
    H: why weird? it’s a practical system that has proved to be successful, more or less, over the past 10,000 or so years as a means of organizing human society and successful propagation. there have been other approaches over time, but most (not all) societies seem to settle back to monogamous, hetero-normative as their base structure, in my theory: because it is a stable set-up that seems to work.

    M: “We don’t need the monogamous system to keep our squalling hordes alive, yet by and large, we’re still monogamous.”
    H: suggesting that monogamy (or pseudo-monogamy anyway) is actually a practical way to keep our squalling hordes alive. if there are many other better ways, why are they so poorly represented in the world? this doesn’t ascribe any abstract moral imperative about how individuals “ought” to run their lives. it’s just an empirical observation about how human society has generally organized itself, and gives a pragmatic (not moral) reason: generally, it’s worked well.

    M: “That seems kinda well, impractical.”
    H: why?

    M: “There was a period where having babies was pretty outdated, not coincidentally this was a time when disco, polyester lounge suits, the pill or an IUD, and cocaine spoons worn around the neck were also considered very fashionable.”
    H: in the scope of human history a tiny blip, in the scope of demographics, a tiny blip. that is, media and academics might have trumpeted a babiless world, but by and large people kept having sex and babies.

    M: “Lately, (and I could cite the never-ending war(s), the shift to a more us/them mentality, or AIDs as reasons, but I’d be talking out my ass)”
    H: I don’t think we are much different re: wars, us/them, plagues than we were 100, 1000, or 10,000 years ago … actually probably, on balance, “better.”

    M: “the changes in collective mores afforded by the nouveau right mean I am seeing a lot more articles about balancing motherhood and the working life,”
    H: sure, turns out people, on balance, like having babies, AND being independent. we are rich enough as a society to allow this, but i’ll bet you theres no glossy articles in Mongolia about it (where women probably work harder than men anyway).

    M: “( though not Fatherhood dig?? )”
    H: don’t really dig ?

    M: “Not more articles about how to swing and still keep your partner happy at home.”
    H: Sure… swinging and free love have been around forever, but in general stable societies don’t seem to have organized themselves around swinging. again, i’d argue because it is not a pragmatically successful way to organize society.

    M: “So birth control as a public issue, in fact the right not to have babies as a virtue of modern life, has totally fallen by the wayside, as have coke-spoons.”
    H: i’d disagree… there are condoms everywhere, the pill is ubiquitous. but, it turns out, again, that people like having babies.

    M: “I also find this very strange.”
    H: why? we’ve been having babies for millions of years, so it makes sense that we’d continue.

    M: “Feminism is about the struggle for people (historically one gender of people) not to be judged for their actions, nor used, nor treated as property.”
    H: OK.

    M: “As such the pill, and the system that allowed for the development of such a device and the subsequent social/behavioural shifts, could be viewed as one result of feminism.”
    H: or vice-versa, or more likely, it is an organic and deeply interconnected issue, since, like it or not, one of the fundamental characteristics of womanhood is the ability to have babies. so the ability/technology to better control baby-having with have huge impacts on woman/politics. ubiquitous birth control gives women a freedom that was not present pre-birth control, and gives them time, and decision-making they would not have had previously. or, the desire for that freedom leads to birth control. or a mix of both. but in any case, it makes sense that feminism will develop alongside development of birth control, and really take flight after the introduction of the pill.

    M: “A result that then complicated the contemporary moral system to such an extent that now society is undergoing a new set of debates around definitions of family, sex-roles, obligation, love and fidelity.”
    H: Yes.

    M: “That is why the morals around feminism, do not lend themselves to the moral = practical idea.”
    H: ???

    M: “It has been, and continues to be, highly impractical for the dominant sex to give up valuable chattel (or helpmeets – gag me) in order to gain partners and citizens.”
    H: why would you say that? the most successful countries in the world are exactly the same countries that have embraced, to varying degrees, feminism. US, britain, E-U, Scandinavia. In practical terms, official cultural adoption of feminist ideals has been accompanied by increases in wealth, sandards of living etc. so from a societal view, men ceding political/workplace etc power to women has proved VERY practical and successful.

    M: “The struggle to define the terms of this giving up, especially since it concerns something as primary and important as childcare and sexual liberty are too complicated to define using vectors of practicality or “what’s good for the majority”.”
    H: that looks to me like cloudy academic talk, but if i get your drift, i would say: “what’s good for the majority” is exactly the opposite of what i’m talking about. again, if you take a practical approach to the question, it turns out that open, pluralist societies have proved to be the *most* successful (at creating wealth, standards of living etc), while “what’s good for the majority” – essentially a fascist argument, right, “we know what’s good for the majority so that’s what we’ll do” – have been, on balance, certainly over the past century, unsuccessful. so on a practical level, societies that have protected and defended minority rights, liberty, women’s rights etc, are also the most successful.

    and anyway, the “struggle to define the terms of giving up” is going to be won or lost on what works and what doesn’t, which, incidently, changes as society changes … another reason why open societies will be more successful in the long run: they are more flexible and better able to adapt to a changing environment (brought on by new technologies, such as bronze swords, writing, cars, telephones, and free community wifi).

    So, to sum up: I think a far more compelling argument for lefty ideals is not that they are “morally right” but that they have proved more successful over time than fascist ideals.

  10. mir mir 2007-04-26

    Hugh has it occurred to you that in the less wealthy less ‘healthy’ ( if by healthy you mean capitalist) countries, giving women more rights is not economically feasible.

    The political system in the west can ‘afford’ to give people more freedom. This freedom *did not* make wealth.

    Also I still hold to my argument that it is hard to find discussions of fathers balancing their careers and family.

    Modern 2nd wave feminism (I presume the kind of feminism you are talking about here) did not take flight after the definition of the pill. It took flight after women joined the work force during the second world war, then got sent back home during the 50’s went stir crazy and read the second-sex.

    The pill happened in the early 1960’s, concurrent with a wider sociological trend.

    I really really disagree with you that the monogamous system “works” better than any other. The economic unit of the family works because it is a legally justified system for the accordance of rights with certain social parameters – it is no more natural than any other way of mating, or living with a group of human beings, therefore it is hard to say whether it works better, it works because it is supported and allowed to work. Other ways of living; say, in a monogamous threesome with children are not given the same framework of support and thus appear unnatural and less workable.

    If preservation of the species were anyones end goal, then we’d have trashed our nukes and stopped making cars 20 years ago. There is not very much that is logical about our current system of morals and values.

  11. Hugh Hugh 2007-04-26

    M: Hugh has it occurred to you that in the less wealthy less ‘healthy’ ( if by healthy you mean capitalist) countries, giving women more rights is not economically feasible.
    H: yes, which is, i believe, one of the main reasons why such countries do not have better records where women’s rights are concerned.

    M: The political system in the west can ‘afford’ to give people more freedom. This freedom *did not* make wealth.
    H: how do you know? what basis do you have to make that claim? from my view, healthy social democracies, with strong protection of minority/women’s rights are also the wealthiest societies, and I maintain that wealth and freedom are related (along with strong civil society, respect for law, intolerance of ciorruption etc etc). mainly because a freer, open society (that protects minorities, provides public education & health, cares for less fortunate etc), over time, will make a country both more stable and more flexible, more innovative, better able to solve problems, and in the long run more successful.

    M: Also I still hold to my argument that it is hard to find discussions of fathers balancing their careers and family.
    H: OK.

    M: Modern 2nd wave feminism (I presume the kind of feminism you are talking about here)
    H: I have no idea which wave I am talking about.

    M: did not take flight after the definition of the pill. It took flight after women joined the work force during the second world war, then got sent back home during the 50’s went stir crazy and read the second-sex.
    H: also accompanied by suburbanism…the “wife at home making cakes” was, in any case, a new invention of the post-war years. prior to that, women were either working alongside husbands on the farm, or working at other things. none of these things is isolated. and if you are saying that the pill is unrelated to feminism then … well i don’t know what to say, except that seems crazy.

    M: The pill happened in the early 1960’s, concurrent with a wider sociological trend.
    H: everything that ever happens is concurrent with wider sociological trends. nothing is isolated, everything is connected.

    M: I really really disagree with you that the monogamous system “works” better than any other.
    H: based on what? i’ll take the empirical evidence of the past 3-5,000 years. seems to me that the monogamous system has been more successful than other set-ups. why?

    M: The economic unit of the family works because it is a legally justified system for the accordance of rights with certain social parameters
    H: right, and I argue that morality and laws develop through long societal negotiations about what works “better” than other things .. and what works better changes as the environment changes, ie with new technologies, accompanied by new ideas – which also sink or swim based on whether they make things better or worse.

    M: it is no more natural than any other way of mating,
    H: i never said “natural” … i don’t really think the “naturalness” of society’s arrangement has anything to do with it. i said it appears to be a system that most societies have settled on as a stable way to run themselves. empirically. ie. it’s not just a statistical fluke.

    M: or living with a group of human beings, therefore it is hard to say whether it works better, it works because it is supported and allowed to work.
    H: which in the end is the same thing… that is, “better” arrangements that people don’t want won’t be supported, and are hence unstable.

    But: I think you are interpreting what I say as: “it’s always been thus, it is as nature intends, this is the moral path, all others are immoral.” which is not at all what I am saying. i’m saying that over the course of history, many different models may have competed (polyamory, bigamy, harems, free love, rape and pillage, male sex slaves, bestiality) and the one that seems to have become dominant across most societies is hetero (pseudo-)monogamy, and the *reason* i posit, is that it has historically been the most stable and successful approach. which, again, makes no moral claims …and if transforming to a polyamorous society were to shower society with great rewards, then we’re likely to see more successful polyamorous societies developing. and perhaps we will over the next few centuries, who knows?

    M: Other ways of living; say, in a monogamous threesome with children are not given the same framework of support and thus appear unnatural and less workable.
    H: again, i think “natural” is the wrong word to use. everything is “natural.” … and indeed there mormons and those weird russian nudists in BC, and for that matter the sultans of swing etc. all have various incarnations of non-monogamous relationships. as do many african culturesé But for whatever reason, the threesome hasn’t taken off as a way of life in most places. so: why not? you say because we developed rules against it. i say: why did we develop rules against it? you answer: ??? … I answer: because such rules made for more stable societies, when they were developed.

    But my tack is not conservative … old rules are developed in relation to an old environment. new rules must be developed based on new environments … and will sink or swim based on whether they help of hinder the health/success of a society. so far, for instance, gay marriage has not seemed to have an appreciable impact one way or another on Canada. But, let’s say, on signing of the law, every 10th canadian was killed by lightening: how long would we defend the law because it was morally correct?

    M: If preservation of the species were anyones end goal,
    H: this assumes people have any idea what the hell they are doing, which i think, given our long history, is unlikely. this is not an argument about intent, but about how the universe operates. and i have always been puzzled by the notion that humans could be guided by totally different forces than every other organism around us. that is, if evolutionary success determines how lizards/baracudas/e-coli/wolves and cattle act, then it seems crazy to assume that humans are any different. I just can’t see how we could be. why would we be? why would the universe have a different set of rules for humans? and, what evidence is there that humans are governed by different rules?

    M: then we’d have trashed our nukes and stopped making cars 20 years ago.
    H: who knows if that would have made things better or worse?

    M: There is not very much that is logical about our current system of morals and values.
    H: depends on your logical framework. if you take humans as organisms which live in an environment, like any other organism, then it seems totally logical…as a system, bad ideas that make for weaker, less healthy societies get discarded, over time, in favour of good ideas that make societies that are better able to solve problems and be healthy and successful. over the long haul, societies that choose better ideas will beat out the ones that choose bad ideas.

    and in the case of, say, feminism, it seems that the societies that choose feminism have done better than those that have not.

  12. mir mir 2007-04-26

    Hugh capitalism is a bad idea. A perversion of Adam Smith’s okay ideas, a perversion which takes no account of an older better rule called the golden rule, which comes from the Bible.

    Yet, it is the most functional system presently. So how does that make a the statement : “good ideas that are better able to solve problems and be healthy”

    Basically it depends on whether you think the present system is helathy or sick and I’d say it’s more or less sick.

    Also the west became rich on the backs of the following communities;

    – Peasants and landless workers in Europe

    – Slaves in the new world.

    – Natives whose land was stolen.

    – Women everywhere

    So following your logic, the later ‘liberty’ of those groups was the result of wealth generated through their exploitation.

    That’s what the struggle was about – not “hey we’ll get rich is we set the slaves free or let our wives get jobs and help with the dishes”, but “hey you know what these people are going to fucking kill us if we don’t start listening to them”.

    I highly recommend you read some Howard Zinn to get a better idea of how the west achieved it’s position.

  13. Hugh Hugh 2007-04-27

    M: Hugh capitalism is a bad idea.
    H: based on what criteria? what replacement system has proved better as a global framework? i’d say: the chicago school and IMF capitalism has proved a bad idea empirically, and neocon fantasies about free markets and democracies have been demonstrated to be either stupid or unbelievably cynical (and stupid still), but in any case deadly, and i’d postulate that the west’s efforts to maintain power at the expense of other countries is a long-term bad startegy for the human race because it reduces the participating minds able to contribute solutions to problems.

    but for all these faults (and many others), capitalism on balance has done a decent job of addressing many of the concerns you list below, at least for some of the population (women, landless peasants in europe, slavery – tho i wonder about wage labour, esp in the 3rd world, and how it compares. natives have done not so well).

    M: A perversion of Adam Smith’s okay ideas, a perversion which takes no account of an older better rule called the golden rule, which comes from the Bible.
    H: i just don’t see other workable systems that are likely replacements. suggestions?

    M: Yet, it is the most functional system presently. So how does that make a the statement : “good ideas that are better able to solve problems and be healthy”
    H: everything is relative … and nothing is fixed. capitalism now is nothing like capitalism in 1919. why? because capitalism in 1929 became unstable. communism (even anarchism) seemed a good alternative. so what happened? capitalism shifted, a welfare state was developed, workers rights were respected, health, education, public projects were promoted. and the west saw unprecedented creation of wealth (with some side effects, such as environmental problems). but the point is that democratic capitalism had to adjust to remain stable then … and has continued to adapt. sometimes successfully, sometimes not. and that’s theoretic benefit of modern democracy, it is supposed to be more flexible and better able to adapt – though it seems to be getting very static now. I think the network world will change that, we’ll see. but, again, if you look at the world, what country or countries would *you* choose as the “most successful” models?

    M: Basically it depends on whether you think the present system is helathy or sick and I’d say it’s more or less sick.
    H: compared to what? … or… I’d say all systems are *always* more or less sick, because nothing is perfect and the environment is changing. so the question is: what system can best improve (meaning better provide wealth, health and happiness to its citizens), and address the changes in environment?

    M: Also the west became rich on the backs of the following communities;
    – Peasants and landless workers in Europe
    – Slaves in the new world.
    – Natives whose land was stolen.
    – Women everywhere
    H: I agree.

    M: So following your logic, the later ‘liberty’ of those groups was the result of wealth generated through their exploitation.
    H: wealth generated in part from their exploitation, sure. but societies are all big systems with tons of complex feedback. there are no on-to-one relations… i don’t mean that pedantically, but indeed it is economic wealth that *enables* liberty. i’m not saying that’s a good thing, but it seems standard across history. perhaps there are other “better” ways of getting to liberty, but it seems that the abstract good ideas don’t do very well in the wild.

    M: That’s what the struggle was about – not “hey we’ll get rich is we set the slaves free or let our wives get jobs and help with the dishes”, but “hey you know what these people are going to fucking kill us if we don’t start listening to them”.
    H: Bingo. Exactly. So stable system becomes unstable system, and then adapts to meet the needs. And by lucky coincidence, also becomes richer and healthier. Accompanied by new “moral” judgments about the causes of instability.

    M: I highly recommend you read some Howard Zinn to get a better idea of how the west achieved it’s position
    H: i have. it’s an ugly story. as are most stories of how societies achieve their powerful positions. the history of the human race is pretty violent.

    The problem here is that you are, I think, misinterpreting what i am saying. The principal argument is not about what particular thing is or is not “moral” (slavery, women’s rights, native land claims, landless workers) … but rather a model of how morality is developed and agreed upon (unconsciously) over tens, hundreds, and thousands of years.

    The question I have for you: why did people for thousands of years think slavery was fine? why was there little moral teeth gnashing when native land was taken? why were feudal lords happy to exploit landless peasants? Why did ancient Greek men think love affairs with their friends’ prepubescent sons was laudable? why do pandas often kill the weaker of their two cubs, and not die of shame? why is it that in the long course of history it is only *now*, and in the corridors of certain university politics departments, that we have realized the true nature of moral goodness? how is it, if morality is so clear cut and certain, that we have as a group of organisms, got it so wrong for so long?

  14. mir mir 2007-04-28

    I don’t understand your last paragraph.

    Slavery existed for thousands of years because the rights of the individual were not recognized as being more important than the rights of the collective. Ibid the feudal lords. Pandas kill the weaker of their two cubs to ensure the survival of the stronger baby in an ecosystem where presumably it is hard to maintain two offspring. One could anthropamorphize and say it’s pragmatism, or just say it’s instinct. Animals also auto-abort their fetuses when food is scarce, which is interesting considering humans think abortion is a sin against nature.

    To me, presently, the west operates in a more or less morally bankrupt manner. Whether or not this manner has brought about greater wealth or greater or freedom, does not make it functionally moral.

    Winning the game does not immediately justify the dirty tricks that were used to get into the winning position. To me, that is the key problem with capitalism, the idea that the generally speaking in a free market system or at least in the system we’ve created, the end justifies the means, which it doesn’t, usually unless you’re talking sweatshop labour and bottom-lines. So capitalism,(to me) is amoral. and thus does not work as a moral system. As an economic system perhaps it’s doing a bang-up job. i can’t tell, I am not an economist.

    As to the shift from a non-protectionist capitalists system to a more protectionist one – DUDE have you looked at the world lately? There are not very many successful union out there. There are fewer not more benefits for waged labour – if you get a real job and not a contract. People are working longer hours for lower salaries and the mean income in Canada has not adjusted according to inflation for a number of years and that is just off the top of my head. ( You can look all this up if you want to get academic on me, I am pretty sure I am right. Unless we’re talking Alberta, but those poor schnooks have to go to work at 8:00am)

    This of course has come as the result of relaxed labor legislation and increased internationalization of markets – so less control on capitalist development.

    Umm.. so again working? more stable? moral? I doubt it.

    Morals are slippery and difficult. It is short-sighted to suggest that because something appears to be working, it must be moral. If something is working it’s working , if it’s moral, it’s just. Different ideas.

    I don’t think of morals as stable issues, they are as relative as anything. right? Can we agree to this? So any theory of why some morals “work” and some don’t is bound to be full of short-comings. At this point in the debate all I think I am arguing is that;

    a ) capitalism is not a moral system (not that it is immoral – but amoral, has no moral logic) and then ;

    b) we live by and large in a capitalist system and thus;

    c) one that is to a large extent amoral and

    d) I consider this to be a position bankrupt of any value

    e) therefore it is not working

    f) I have no idea why the Greeks were pederasts, I flow with Sappho on that front.

  15. Hugh Hugh 2007-04-29

    M: I don’t understand your last paragraph…Slavery existed for thousnds of years because the rights of the individual were not recognized as being more important than the rights of the collective.
    H: Right. My question though, is WHY individual rights were “not recognized as being more important than the rights of the collective.” That is, what is the mechanism by which society shifts from one moral understanding (slavery is OK, under certain conditions) to the opposite (slavery is always morally reprehensible). Is it that humans, up until the late 1800s were immoral creatures, and only in the early 20th century, did we figure out that slavery was evil, and take a step towards becoming moral beings? What do we reference when we say “evil” anyway? How do we decide what’s evil and what’s not? And why does it change? I don’t mean how do you or I decide, but how is it that *society* as a whole decides that something that was perfectly acceptable (say, slavery) for thousands of years becomes immoral now. what has changed? has slavery changed? has morality changed? or has society changed?

    M: Ibid the feudal lords. Pandas kill the weaker of their two cubs to ensure the survival of the stronger baby in an ecosystem where presumably it is hard to maintain two offspring. One could anthropamorphize and say it’s pragmatism, or just say it’s instinct.
    H: actually, I am trying to look at this in exactly the other direction. It is nonsensical to hold pandas – as a species – accountable to human moral standards as it is to hold bacteria to our moral standards. So I wouldn’t call pandas pragmatic: i would say that over the course of their evolution, it has been advantageous for panda mothers to kill the weaker of two cubs, under certain circumstances, and that has helped pandas to survive. Morality has nothing to do with it.

    But what are “human moral standards,” anyway? Where do they come from? What do they mean? Have they always existed, pristine and ideal as a platonic circle, and we scratch away at the darkness of the universe trying to get a glimpse? and adjust our beliefs accordingly? eg wrt slavery … we were wrong for several thousand years, then the sky cleared & we saw that slavery was evil & immoral, and changed our collective minds? Were our slavery-loving ancestors stupid? evil? or something else? The bible, for instance, has all sorts of rules and regulations about how you should treat your slaves, when you are allowed to have sex with them etc. Yet you don’t see much on that topic in “A Purpose Driven Life.” Or Buber’s “I & Thou”, for that matter… though both are based, supposedly, on the moral teachings of the Bible. Why did those two books leave out the important information about when you can sleep with your slaves?

    I’d argue that humans are organisms like all others, but instead of being really good swimmers (like sharks) or really fast runners (like cheetahs), or good fly-catchers (like spiders), our quirky evolutionary advantage is our ability to consciously analyze complex information over long periods of time, and organize our societies based on our understanding of our analysis of the state of the universe. which of course we don’t always get right. our societal organization includes things like moral systems, political systems, economic systems … all of which are part of our sophisticated and unique evolutionary advantage, more advantageous because of our ability to shift the conceptual frameworks that define our societies in ways that sharks cannot, at least not as quickly…and I think that those major societal shifts (in morality, politics, economics) happen under a couple of circumstances: a) when the environment becomes more difficult; or b) new methods of organizing things prove to be advantageous. Of course this isn’t totally (or even remotely) conscious, or at least not described like this. Yet it is conscious, for instance in democratic societies, where the whole point of the system is to allow different frameworks to compete against each other (NDP/Liberal/Conservative), and the decision (to the extent that democratic systems work properly, which they do not) is left to the population to decide, based on what they think is better for them, for their society. On a global/historical this competition happens as well: Communist/Anarchist/Fascist/Democratic/Socailist … Or: Feudal/Mercantile/Monarchist/Theocratic … etc etc. And, over long periods of time, the choices that societies make (i mean that in the abstract sense, ie the framework that a society adopts) has an impact on how “successful” they are, read: how able a society is at providing things like security and food and places to reproduce, and later more advanced successful things like health, and the ability to become more comfortable.

    sharks evolve genetically (subject to the forces of natural selection), over many thousands of generations, in response to changing environmental pressures. if the environment changes significantly — food becomes more scarce, temperatures change, new predators arrive etc — and they do not evolve to meet these challenges, they die out.

    but humans evolve much quicker in the sense that they can consciously evolve their societies (say, how they arrange themselves politically), rather than their genes, in the space of years rather than tens of thousands and millions of years. but there are unconscious societal evolutions as well, such as moral frameworks.

    but humans are still subject to the same sorts of constraints as other organisms – that is, we are competing in the world against other organisms, and indeed other human societies; so as we run up against new environmental challenges, our societies evolve. And societies that evolve successfully end up beating out societies that don’t – this is true within societies as well. So slavery defenders slowly disappear, replaced 150 years later by a society where (almost) no one would consider slavery as morally acceptable.

    so: what has changed and why? I say: it turns out that the anti-slavery folks, on balance, have improved the society, making it wealthier and healthier, and so their morality wins out. which proves that, at least under certain circumstances, respect for human liberty and dignity for all citizens, actually is a helpful trait for a society to have.

    M: Animals also auto-abort their fetuses when food is scarce, which is interesting considering humans think abortion is a sin against nature.
    H: some people think that, many do not. society’s moral views of abortion are very different now than they were 100 years ago. at least in some parts.

    M: To me, presently, the west operates in a more or less morally bankrupt manner.
    H: but according to what criteria exactly? or rather, how do you define a “moral” society? is a cannibalistic society immoral?

    M: Whether or not this manner has brought about greater wealth or greater or freedom, does not make it functionally moral.
    H: actually, i don’t really think it makes sense to call a society moral or immoral., unless you specify your references. if your references are, say: women’s freedom, minority rights, personal liberty, clean drinking water… etc. then it seems to me that the geographic locations where those things are best achieved are the same locations as most democratic nations. a more interesting question to me is: what do you want? where, in the world, has what you wany been most closely achieved? what does that society look like? how can ours look more like that? … and on the longer term how can we make it even better?

    the main point is that i think it is far more important (politically) to make your decisions based on actual objectives, rather than on abstract ideas about what is or isn’t moral, because it gives you something specific to work with and discuss. But, say, a pro-lifer and a freechoicer are never going to sit down and agree about whether aborition is moral or not, because that decision, in a certain sense is a starting point, a priori, and not subject to debate. is it morally wrong to eat the heart of your opponent after you have defeated her in battle, in order to honour her bravery, and absorb her power into your soul? well, the morality of such an act probably depends on who you are and where and when you live.

    M: Winning the game does not immediately justify the dirty tricks that were used to get into the winning position.
    H: again, I am not saying that “capitalists are richer than everyone else, so everything they have done is OK.” I am saying that the sorts of freedoms that you value seem on balance to be better represented in democratic capitalist-based societies than elsewhere; that those values are in fact part of the moral/political framework of democratic capitalism, and have contributed to democratic capitalism’s success.

    AND I would also say that we meddle with those values in our societies (eg with radical neoliberalism) at the peril of the successes we *have* acheived at creating a relatively healthy, stable, and wealthy society.

    M: To me, that is the key problem with capitalism, the idea that the generally speaking in a free market system or at least in the system we’ve created, the end justifies the means, which it doesn’t, usually unless you’re talking sweatshop labour and bottom-lines.
    H: In any case, the main idea is that moral ideas survive if they help societies be more successful, rather than less; and so I am not really making any claims about the morality of any system, but about how different moral ideas come about. which I guess isn’t true. I *guess* I am saying that the things which you value morally are better represented, on balance, in democratic systems than elsewhere.

    M: So capitalism,(to me) is amoral. and thus does not work as a moral system.
    H: see above.

    M: As an economic system perhaps it’s doing a bang-up job. i can’t tell, I am not an economist.
    H: I don’t think you can separate these things into discrete bundles.

    M: As to the shift from a non-protectionist capitalists system to a more protectionist one – DUDE have you looked at the world lately? There are not very many successful union out there. There are fewer not more benefits for waged labour – if you get a real job and not a contract. People are working longer hours for lower salaries and the mean income in Canada has not adjusted according to inflation for a number of years and that is just off the top of my head. ( You can look all this up if you want to get academic on me, I am pretty sure I am right. Unless we’re talking Alberta, but those poor schnooks have to go to work at 8:00am)
    H: I’ll buy your data. So *I* would say: this is the result of a shift in how we run our capitalist societies, in which the neo-liberals have been shifting us back towards the unstable set-up of the late 1900s. Which I’d argue, is a dangerous thing, because it is likely, in the long run, to make us less stable, healthy and wealthy, as a society.

    AND: it is dangerous not because it is immoral (which milton friedman would not agree with); but because it is likely to make society less wealthy and stable and healthy, which Milton Friedman might not agree with, but which we could at least test objectively over time. so my functional argument against 1900-style robber-baron capitalism is in fact, I believe, more compelling than an abstract moral argument – which is untestable and unprovable, and hence an unwinnable argument.

    But I’d also say: these are little blips in history – 10, 20, 30 years. By and large, I think it’s fair to say that the average citizen, of, say, Sweden, is better off now than they were 150 years ago, in part due to the economic/political system they have adopted, which is driven by, influenced by, a moral system that goes with it, and has proved a decent guide for a “successful” society.

    M: This of course has come as the result of relaxed labor legislation and increased internationalization of markets – so less control on capitalist development.
    H: Yup.

    M: Umm.. so again working? more stable? moral? I doubt it.
    H: compared to what?

    M: Morals are slippery and difficult. It is short-sighted to suggest that because something appears to be working, it must be moral.
    H: I would never dream of saying such a thing. Rather I’d say that the morals that seem to work will tend to be the ones that stick, over time.

    M: If something is working it’s working , if it’s moral, it’s just. Different ideas.
    H: Again, unless you reference something specific, then morality (and justice for that matter) are abstract ideas, with no real relevance to the universe, I don’t think.

    M: I don’t think of morals as stable issues, they are as relative as anything. right?
    H: Well I think that the “morality” of a thing is relative to a fixed moral framework. But yes, those moral framework change over time, and across societies. Which, by the way, does not suggest that one framework is “just as good as any other.” Because while moral frameworks are abstract ideas that can’t really be measured in any meaningful sense against each other, you CAN measure the results of those frameworks, for instance, by looking at how healthy, wealthy and stable a society is.

    M: Can we agree to this?
    H: sort of ;-)

    M: So any theory of why some morals “work” and some don’t is bound to be full of short-comings.
    H: well, I’m more interested in the conceptual framework that explains morality, and why it changes over time; rather that case by case analysis, so i don’t know if i’ll concede this point.

    M:At this point in the debate all I think I am arguing is that;
    M: a ) capitalism is not a moral system (not that it is immoral – but amoral, has no moral logic) and then ;
    H: I disagree. capitalist societies run their capitalism based in part on their morality. if capitalism isn’t living up to the morality of society, then I think society will: a) change it’s morality, or b) change how it runs its capitalism. but note that both a) and b) assume that there is information flow going to the people AND that they have the ability to affect change, both of which are uncertain right now, which is one of the reasons I worry about capitalism; though I am cautiously optimistic that a robust network and successes of open projects will increase the flexibility and stability of society in the longer term.

    M: b) we live by and large in a capitalist system and thus;
    H: YES!

    M: c) one that is to a large extent amoral and
    H: compared to what?

    M: d) I consider this to be a position bankrupt of any value
    H: I bet that’s not really the case.

    M: e) therefore it is not working
    H: in what ways? where are the problems? I don’t mean that facetiously, and I don’t really expect an answer, it’s just that saying “capitalism isn’t working” ignores, for instance, the fact that you are able to do things within a capitalist society which you believe will improve things. so it’s at least sort-of working. but the abstract isn’t very useful politically, in part because very few people will agree with you that capitalism isn’t working. not that that makes you wrong, but it makes your political task much more daunting. better to define things that ought to work better, and why they ought to work better, and even better, how they could work better.

    M: f) I have no idea why the Greeks were pederasts, I flow with Sappho on that front.
    H: OK!

    PS, Happy Birthday!

    Over, and, I think, out!

  16. Josh Josh 2007-05-11

    @Hugh:”josh: exacto: if you take an evolutionary view of things, natural selection does its work: myths that are helpful succeed; myths that are harmful, eventually, fall by the wayside.”

    I do think in terms of natural selection and evolution, and also Meta-System Transition theory but, I would say there’s a possibility that the helpful mythological tales may have been deliberately handed down from me advanced civilization to less advanced ones. They would have evolved through conscious design and refining through scientific means within the advanced civilization and handed over as is.

    Why? Because unless we get a perfect understanding of the cyclical nature of global or near-global catastrophes, we’re subject to a reset whatever be our state of advancement barring the colonization of an extra “planet”.

    Therefore, the need for developing, storing and transmitting civilization-building knowledge is an imperative.

    See: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/070420-extinctions.html
    and: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/03/0309_050309_extinctions.html

    I’m writing this at 3:43 am as a tooth ache is conspicuously reminding me of the existence of nerves and their function. Ouch.

Comments are closed.