tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2925765946042638459.post4265417969538364075..comments2024-03-18T02:22:56.392-04:00Comments on Disgusted Beyond Belief: Ideology versus Morality?DBBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805375811782552873noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2925765946042638459.post-92044762116117236352008-01-30T14:01:00.000-05:002008-01-30T14:01:00.000-05:00I'm sure I have oversimplified in search of a gene...I'm sure I have oversimplified in search of a general point. <BR/><BR/>Thinking of random starts, I think of computer simluations where they have different "people" with different strategies, from cooperators, to cheaters, to tit for taters, and what happens after you let such a simulation run for a while. (As I vaguely recall, eventually cooperators win out in the simulated population, but only after first having the tit for taters weed out the cheaters). <BR/><BR/>But as part of my oversimplification I left out another important point, which is that people did not start out as a random population, we started out as previous species, primates, who were also social creatures, and built into being social is a certain degree of cooperative tendencies (along with a lot of other stuff). So some of that evolution of cooperation happened before we were a species, but then, that is not the same thing as a full social institution, that's more of a tendency. Social institutions evolve faster, and have different rules than biology. <BR/><BR/>I can see ideologies promulgating morality - but I think I have ideology too conflated in my head with politics and religion - so I see the ideologies as more a 'do as I say not as I do' thing and the moralities as 'do this' - and with going for the 'home team' regardless of the facts. I.e. you say your morality has you value X, yet you vote for a candidate who doesn't support X over one who does becuase the one who doesn't is part of your ideological "team" (the GOP, for instance) and the other one isn't. Or maybe I'm confusing ideology with authoritarianism. <BR/><BR/>In any case, terminology aside, I think it is an interesting question - where does morality REALLY come from, what makes for "successful" morality - i.e. what really works as an idea on its own, what works where insulated with layers of "tradition", and what needs to be enforced at the point of a gun. <BR/><BR/>Which is another way of asking why do people choose to follow a particular morality? Is it just because we are brainwashed into it as children, is it because we see the social utility? Is it because we are forced to at the point of a gun? I like to think I go for the utility angle (and my own self-interest). My parents did not religiously indoctrinate me, so I was an atheist from fairly early on. And I really don't respect being forced to do something at the point of a gun. Though I follow even stupid laws because well, I'm a lawyer.DBBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17805375811782552873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2925765946042638459.post-52005804814249356752008-01-30T12:39:00.000-05:002008-01-30T12:39:00.000-05:00I think your fundamental premise is oversimplified...I think your fundamental premise is oversimplified. I don't think you'd get a society of mutual cooperators just by dumping a bunch of ordinary people at random.<BR/><BR/>All of our social structures have socially <I>evolved</I>; they didn't just spontaneously self-arrange at the snap of a finger. Social cooperation is too complex to be completely determined by individual rational deliberation: There are too many short-term local opitma, most of them odious, oppressive and exploitive to most of the population.<BR/><BR/>But what, precisely, is evolving? It's not individual <I>people</I>; there's not nearly enough time for genetic evolution, and individuals don't live long enough to provide the requisite stability.<BR/><BR/>Whether you call them "morals" or "ideologies" or "ethical systems", what evolves over centuries or millennia are social constructs. And these social constructs are preserved and promulgated by precisely those institutions you name as "ideological".<BR/><BR/>(Of course, I'm no fan of religion; religious institutions have become entirely obsolete. But just because one "species" is headed for extinction is no reason to damn the whole "ecology".)<BR/><BR/>We can (and should (and do)) criticize the <I>specifics</I> of any ideology. But merely applying a different label doesn't change the fact that ideolog... er... moral ideas — written down, sold on their merits (or otherwise) and adhered to — play a critical, ineluctable role in social evolution.Larry Hamelinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08788697573946266404noreply@blogger.com