03.10.08
Comments on ‘altruism’ post
James and Hucklebird comment on More altruism junk from the Times
James said,
March 10, 2008 at 4:23 pm ·
I fail to understand why altruism falsifies selectionism. I don’t think any of the kin selection/genecentric bullsh*t is compelling, but I can easily imagine how altruism can be a product of self-interest and how it is important for survival in certain contexts. I’m not trying to bust your balls, but I don’t think this is one of the stronger arguments against Darwinism.
Nemo: The question of altruism is abstracted from the vast continuum of ethical or behavioral states of consciousness.
The joker in the deck is that natural selection couldn’t evolve a hypocrite! Hyprocrisy is a property of a being of considerable complexity.
My point is that the picture of natural selection/survival of the fittest is a snapshot of selfish behavior. This was a problem for Darwinists, since selfishness is the opposite of altruism. Nothing complicated there.
But your point is certainly valid. Ulterior motives behind moral acts can be completely at variance with their essential meaning.
The point, by the way, is one of the key analyses in Kant’s moral theory, where the nature of the moral act is influenced by the motives behind it.
All these statements apply to an already evolved being, capable of moral behavior or of hypocrisy.
The Darwinian oversimplification assumes (without saying so, usually) that the evolving entity is a mechanical automaton, without consciousness or moral intuition, evolving blindly under the process of natural selection. How then evolve ‘altruism’ (i.e. unconscious mechanized ‘altruistic’ behavior routines?). The ‘answer’ is given in the various group/kin selection speculations.
It is worth checking out Kant’s basic moral thinking: a lot of what we call ‘moral behavior’ isn’t moral at all by his standards. Kant’s system is often criticized, but the questions it raises are important to consider.
Stephen P. Smith said,
March 10, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Self-interest is a precondition for competitive behavior, and for selectionism to work this self-interest must already be present. Therefore, selectionism is unable to explain self-interest or its non-passive precondition.To get at self-interest one must ask: what is this self? And the answer to this question is metaphyical and far from what science normally studies.
You are right, ’self-interest’ is actually quite a complex entity. It asks what a self is, and how it evolved!