The Human Animal (Animals)

by dhw, Monday, June 14, 2010, 11:37 (5275 days ago) @ xeno6696

Matt has argued that the source of evil is man's social instincts. My argument is that the source is man's antisocial, egotistic instincts.-I assume you now accept that individual evil (murder, rape, child abuse etc.) is caused by antisocial, egotistic instincts, and so the disagreement between us lies in the source of collective evil. You cite an experiment in which people were ordered to deliver shocks to someone they didn't know. All but one acquiesced. Of course I don't know the details of the experiment (under what authority were the participants "ordered", were they being paid, and if so, did they know exactly what they were being paid for, did they really believe that they were killing someone?) but your conclusion is what matters in our discussion. You say that "by simply removing accountability for an action, most people don't care." This is an almost classic case of antisocial behaviour, and it may be that our disagreement is simply a matter of language (as it so often is). Here's a definition: "Antisocial behaviour is violent or harmful to other people, or shows that you do not care about other people" (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English). The cause of such evil is not the fact that people belong to a group, but the fact that they do as they please, regardless of others. -In the context of the Holocaust, you talk of "all German citizens", as if they all took part in the mass extermination. The vast majority simply did nothing. Perhaps they didn't know, perhaps they didn't care, or perhaps they were afraid. Not knowing is neutral, not caring is antisocial, and being afraid is understandable. Those who willingly took part acted violently and harmfully and showed that they did not care about other people. That = antisocial behaviour.-You go on to ask: "How do wars happen? They happen because people inside of one nation or tribal group differentiate themselves from another nation or tribal group. The social nature of humans allows this to happen." -If "because" was the right word, all groups and tribes would constantly be at war with one another. The fact that we are social beings is not the CAUSE of war. Your second statement, that our social nature "allows" it to happen, is to my mind far more accurate. You cannot have a war without there being two separate groups, but war usually happens because at least one of those groups (possibly both) is led by individuals with personal ambitions (egotism) and antisocial instincts (violent, harmful, not caring about other people), who are supported by others with the same instincts. Hitler is again a classic example. The idea that it all starts with accountability is not the same as saying that it all starts with social instincts, but even accountability ... or rather lack of it ... need not be accompanied by lack of compassion (caring about others). In your original post, you said that the same social instinct also "allows us to do good." Precisely. Once more, "allow" seems to me to offer the right perspective. There are millions of people within groups who are totally unaccountable but spontaneously show compassion to other groups by contributing, for instance, to charity. They do not send in their pennies and pounds because they are members of a group. They contribute because of their social ... as opposed to antisocial ... instincts. Similarly, you cannot have a welfare state without a state, but social welfare does not exist BECAUSE humans live in groups. If it did, all groups would have social welfare systems. -Within every group there is an assortment of individuals whose instincts may be social or antisocial, or most likely a mixture of both, and collective good (such as social welfare or overseas aid), or evil (such as war or the Holocaust), will depend on the instincts and power of the individuals who govern each group, though more so in a dictatorship than in a democracy. I agree with you that our social instincts lay the groundwork ... you cannot have collective good or evil without first forming a collection ... but whatever is built on that groundwork depends on the nature of the builders.***-*** In your latest response to George's post, you say "it is up to individuals to guard against those parts of our nature that allow us to make these distinctions." We are now on the same wavelength. All groups are made up of individuals, and all individuals belong to groups of one kind or another. Belonging to a group (the social instinct) is not the source of good or of evil. In itself it is neutral. Good or evil arises out of the nature of individuals.