The Human Animal (Humans)

by dhw, Friday, August 14, 2009, 12:17 (5372 days ago) @ David Turell

David: Ants are purely instinct. [Edward O.] Wilson blames our altruism on religiosity [...] whereas Robert Wright in "Non-Zero" (2000) feels it is our growing intellect, consciousness, and sense of cooperative socialization while we have freedom of choice, and can learn from bad choices. I'm on Wright's side. - Sorry, but I haven't read Edward O. Wilson either (incidentally, why "blame"?). If Wright thinks our altruism is due to our growing intellect etc., how does he explain our non-altruism? Does he think that immoral people have diminishing intellect and consciousness (the social bit is self-evident)? Going back to Matt's example of the Nazis, we have to explain man's inhumanity as well as his humanity. - Here is a nice anecdote for you. A week or so ago, my wife went to the cash machine, and found £150 sticking out of the slot (plus an account slip). She took it straight into the bank. The receptionist thanked her and said that a lot of people would have simply pocketed the cash. I can assure you that my wife's action had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with her visualization of someone in distress. This came to her instinctively, as it would to me in those circumstances. But I'm sure the bank clerk was right ... many people would just think it was their lucky day. Of course you might dismiss this as simply an indication that my wife is a very nice person (which she is), but I would link it to my earlier question, which I will now modify: why do some people care about their fellow creatures, even sometimes acting against self-interest, while others don't? Clearly it was in my wife's self-interest to think well of herself, but why would she have felt bad if she hadn't handed the money in? I agree with David in dismissing "religiosity" as an argument, but as indicated above, I don't think Wright's argument holds water either. Matt suggests that it is "intuitive", but again if it is not intuitive to everyone, it can't be integral to our humanity. And there are plenty of cases where even people from the same family have different moral attitudes, so it's not just a question of upbringing either. - Epilogue: I went into the bank earlier this week. They had traced the customer through the slip and had phoned him. He was, needless, to say, extremely grateful! - Matt, I'm sorry to hear about the exam, and hope the time spent on AgnosticWeb didn't affect your performance. For decades I had to train university students for their final exams, and I did so by making them do loads of tests, written and oral. I disapprove totally of one-off exams, but if those are the rules, you have to play the game accordingly. And so you are right: practice, practice, practice.