Is moral relativism in conflict with the West's "humanist project"?

SummerMorning said:

Well ... look, the number of possible permutations of human society is infinite.

. . . your empirical observations - though well they may hold in the vast majority of cases - are still empirical observations of humans in a certain culture (and) you cannot base a universal ethic on a parochial "nature".

I think what we need are not more rules of behaviour but more responsible behaviour.

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Summer, you have never been hostile in your efforts to deny my empirical observations. Desperate maybe, but not hostile . . .

Yes, the permutations of human societies are infinite, but the boundaries that contain those permutations are not infinite. You cited one yourself – there can be no society that raises it’s children to not want to live, or in your words, to be suicidal maniacs.

“. . . your empirical observations - though well they may hold in the vast majority of cases - are still empirical observations of humans in a certain culture.”

Look closely at my words. “It is man’s nature to want to live and enjoy life.” You are misreading this, because it is not the kind of statement that “may hold in the vast majority of cases, or be culturally determined.” Instead, it is either true, or false. If true, that does not mean that men do not frequently act contrary to their nature, or in ways that appear to be contrary but when you peel away all the particulars really are not.

You don’t have to cite female infanticide in China, and Pure does not to cite it in ancient Greece, because, for goodness sake!, I already acknowledged that there are societies that don’t condemn the mass murder of what we know to be human beings, but which they see as “the other.”

What I have done in all this is to combine a very limited description of man’s nature with an even more limited prescription based on it about how we should live - ethics. Don’t confuse the prescription with the description – because we too-often don’t follow the prescription does not make the description wrong.

When you say you don’t want any general rules for human behavior, you just want everyone to make “reasonable and responsible choices” you are talking in circles, my friend. “Unpack” that “reasonable and responsible” and at it’s core you will find some standard of good and bad. And it will probably be very close to the one that I have held out here.

That problem is related to a contradiction contained in many of the posts on your side of this debate, where something is asserted with certainty, and a sentence later there's an expession of “radical uncertainty.” Here’s one: “(The holocaust) was an utter horror . . .” In the next sentence: “I don't know where you get the idea that we should accept 'certainties'.”

This is an example of my statement in the previous post that radical uncertainty is a dead end, if for no other reason than that its internal contradictions make it logically untenable. To put it in very stark terms, “We can be certain that nothing is certain” is not a tenable position.

This is why I used the Holocaust to make my point: It was “an absolute horror,” a very bad thing, and we can condemn it with certainty not because we are Americans or Westerners, but because we are humans. Our condemnation is not imperialistic, not subjective, not a “cultural construct” – It’s human.

SelenaKittyn said:

It may be that the "rules book" you are imagining has already been written... sort of..

The entire DSM (Diagnostics and Statistics Manual) that psychologists and psychiatrists use to diagnose mental illness is nothing but a set of "empirical observations" about human behavior.

Normal and natural may only be what we agree it is. Reality, too, perhaps... the minute you label something as "normal" or "natural" you label something else "abnormal" or "unnatural"...

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Hi. Selena! Welcome to the party! You offer just what we need - some new blood, and new perspectives.
Dive in, the water is warm - if turbulent!

Roxanne Appleby said:

Regarding the recent exchanges on human evolution: Man is descended from ape-like creatures that were almost certainly social beings, just like most of the great apes today (gorillas and chimpanzees for sure, orangutans less so, as I recall). This began around 2 million or 2.5 million years ago.

It is also almost certainly the case that from the moment proto-humans "came down out of the trees," so to speak, we were social beings, organized in groups, and that never changed.

The ice ages had nothing to do with all this, because Africa (where it all took place) was never glaciated. Just this week anthropologists found hominid-tools in Europe dating back to 700,000 years ago - 200,000 years earlier than previously known. They speculate that as glaciers advanced and receded over the millennia, so did hominids, taking advantage of new territory, or getting out of Dodge as the ice advanced.

The really interesting and unknown question has to do with language - when and how did it develop; in response to what environmental demands; did it come all at once, incrementally, or in several "plateaus," etc. Scientists speculate that among the first uses of language were the explicit descriptions of sex acts known as proto-porn. (I just made up that last.)

We were getting reasonably advanced by 500,000 years ago, and were pretty much at our present state starting sometime after around 200,000 years ago. I believe the current evidence suggests that we are not descended from Neanderthals - they were a side-branch - but that may still be open to question.

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You're correct that some primate social organization existed. However, HUMAN society, in a conscious sense, is relatively new. Customs, laws, mores, etc. The most basic ethics are derived from instincts, not the arbitrary rules of society. Nature precedes society and is divine.

We're not really getting anywhere. {note to Selena, etc at the end}

I maintain you can't deduce from
“It is man’s nature to want to live and enjoy life.”

1. What to do(if anything), by way of revenge against a friend's murderer. Or, you may deduce 'take revenge' or 'don't take revenge', which is just a bad.

2. Whether it's wrong to 'expose' malformed' or sickly infants**.

At that point, rather than launch arrows against 'radical uncertainty', depict that paralysis of its adherents, and commend its alleged abandonment in academia you have two choices:

A. Show the deduction. Or,

B. Claim the examples are some trivialities and nicities of moral issues, relatively superficial cultural variations that don't concern you, and that you're only covering the basics.

Or concede the point. Which is it?

**The claim--if you're making it-- that the poorly-off newborn are seen, in the Greek and Roman cases, as 'other' or as less than human, seems without foundation. Though I agree some exterminations of nations or ethnic groups have been carried out with that rationale.

----
Selena, I think you make some good points, but I'm not clear on the details:

It may be that the "rules book" you are imagining has already been written... sort of..

The entire DSM (Diagnostics and Statistics Manual) that psychologists and psychiatrists use to diagnose mental illness is nothing but a set of "empirical observations" about human behavior.

Normal and natural may only be what we agree it is. Reality, too, perhaps... the minute you label something as "normal" or "natural" you label something else "abnormal" or "unnatural"....

The DSMs ARE good examples since they purport to be based on science (scientific inquiry and evidence). I wouldn't say only empirical observations are in the DSMs since I think purported norms are set out, but probably you're saying the norms (as for instance, what's 'manic psychosis') are in some way based on 'empirical' findings.

I'm not sure if you're critiquing what the DSMs think is 'normal and natural,' or pointing to its dependence on context.

But, friend Roxanne, examining this set of scientifically derived 'norms' is instructive; for instance 40 years ago (around DSM II) homosexuality was a disorder included as such, and now (DSM IV) it isn't.

The Catholic church position resembles the earlier in holding that homosexuality is "objectively disordered." So tell me Roxanne, from what you know about human nature, is gay sex 'against nature' or not?
(IOW morally licit)?

NOW, there is a clear path open to you, Roxanne. You can claim that the change in DSM is a result of scientific advance. Just as 'old' chemistry books talk of inert gases, and new ones don't (because some experiment have shown formation of compounds like kryton hexafluoride).

I don't have the feeling that that's what happened at the APA, but if you can show the accumulation of evidence, incontrovertible evidence, I'd be happy to reconsider.

To make the example more mundane, you might claim that the US public is now, at least in some states, more knowledgeable, and hence willing to decriminalize homosexuality; and that this is comparable to people no longer believing that 'bleeding' a sick patient will often help him.

Look, some of us (myself, Roxanne, and a few others) believe in some kind of objective (in my opinion, innate and instinctive) ethics that transcend cultural and social mores, and others don't. That doesn't mean that this thread lacks value. It allows us to present our views of morality and humanism. A good, healthy debate is fine. Just don't take it personally. No one agrees 100 percent on everything.

To me, human society is a conscious development past the primitive and primordial society that existed previously. As with most inventions, it has a few flaws, in the form of unwise and arbitrary mores. That's why natural law is superior. It is concrete and practical, not to mention objective, empirical, and universal. These human societies develop in a process of trial and error, which is why some civilizations lasted longer (Rome, for instance, endured over a thousand years). Some values are subjective, and each nation has the right to believe in them (provided that it doesn't trample the right of dissent on the part of the individual). Other principles are natural and objective. These principles transcend and supersede the relative values of a particular culture. That's my view and I don't expect to be dissuaded from it.

I am a patriot, as well as a classical humanist. Because of my hierarchy of ethics, I see no conflict between the two.

Pure said:

We're not really getting anywhere.

I maintain you can't deduce from
“It is man’s nature to want to live and enjoy life.”

1. What to do(if anything), by way of revenge against a friend's murderer. Or, you may deduce 'take revenge' or 'don't take revenge', which is just a bad.

2. Whether it's wrong to 'expose' malformed' or sickly infants**.

At that point, rather than launch arrows against 'radical uncertainty', depict that paralysis of its adherents, and commend its alleged abandonment in academia you have two choices:

A. Show the deduction. Or,

B. Claim the examples are some trivialities and nicities of moral issues, relatively superficial cultural variations that don't concern you, and that you're only covering the basics.

Or concede the point. Which is it?

**The claim--if you're making it-- that the poorly-off newborn are seen, in the Greek and Roman cases, as 'other' or as less than human, seems without foundation. Though I agree some exterminations of nations or ethnic groups have been carried out with that rationale.

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Pure, I am not a Randroid, but as a model to illustrate how this would work, to “show the deduction,” I will use ethical system Rand built on these simple assertions regarding the nature of man. It is perfectly consistent logically, and “the work is shown” (ref. grade school math teacher) in her texts. From these simple observations regarding man’s nature her system derives the virtues of honesty, justice, independence, rationality, pride, productiveness, integrity, (with benevolence added by Kelley later), all with very precise definitions. We can quibble over these or other derivations, but I will use them as an example. What I would do in each of those hard cases you list is to apply these virtues.

So, infanticide: Did she expose the baby because the others would have starved, or because she wanted more crack cocaine and couldn’t be bothered? Apply the virtues above: In the first case it would be rational, in the second unjust. Excuse the first case, condemn the second. In old Roman or Innuit days life was much harder and the deformed would die anyway – the exposure decision is rational. In rich modern USA, somebody will want that child - some combination of benevolence and those other virtues will decree you let them have it.

Revenge? I'm not sure what your point is with that, because we live under a system of laws that is supposed to obviate that issue. Assuming that system is not totally corrupt then forsaking revenge is part of the "social contract." In old England they had the weregeld system to obviate blood feuds - sensible. Are you referring to the pre-civil society "state of nature," anarchy or the Hobbesian war of all against all? In that case I would still apply some combination of those virtues. It might be rational and just to inflict violence for revenge, or not - it depends on the circumstances.

Like I said, the ethical system I propose is not an equation, and does not eliminate the need to judge on a case-by-case basis. Juries do that. They weigh the circumstances, but in the end they must judge, and do so by some common standard. I am proposing a common standard that is applicable across cultures, because it is based on an empirically demonstrable truth about human beings, rather than some form of transcendental mysticism. Your side seems to be proposing - no standard at all. That is not helpful in providing guidance for ordinary people on how to live in society, which is all ethics is.

SelenaKittyn said:

It may be that the "rules book" you are imagining has already been written... sort of..

The entire DSM (Diagnostics and Statistics Manual) that psychologists and psychiatrists use to diagnose mental illness is nothing but a set of "empirical observations" about human behavior.

Normal and natural may only be what we agree it is. Reality, too, perhaps... the minute you label something as "normal" or "natural" you label something else "abnormal" or "unnatural"...

Click to expand...

Yes ... and the DSM is really a lot of bull, the way it's often used, isn't it? Even the psychologists who designed it emphasized that it is intended to assist the specialist in his analysis, but should not replace detailed direct observation and study of the patient. Nowadays lots of psych* specialists just make checks along the list and if the kid is found to possess N characteristics he is given Prozac for Kids.

I'm very suspicious of check lists. According to some checklists I was too tall when I was 5 years old and the doctors wanted to give me hormone therapy. My parents objected, fortunately, but my cousin wasn't so fortunate. He ended up 5'2" tall at 20 years of age and then went on to develop leukemia and die. Despite being too tall when I was five, I'm now 5'11" - hardly a lanky basketball playing giant.

Down with checklists, viva la observacion et "common sense"

Roxanne Appleby said:

This is why I used the Holocaust to make my point: It was “an absolute horror,” a very bad thing, and we can condemn it with certainty not because we are Americans or Westerners, but because we are humans. Our condemnation is not imperialistic, not subjective, not a “cultural construct” – It’s human.

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We're running in circles here.

I contend that our condemnation is a subjective, cultural construct precisely *because* we are humans and incapable of anything else.

You contend that the mere fact of us all being humans puts that condemnation above the level of the subjective.

I think we could argue until we were both blue in the face, but the fact is that this is an argument not meant for this thread. We both agree on what is moral and ethical, I'm sure. We just have different views regarding the origin and permanence of that view.

SEVERUSMAX said:

You're correct that some primate social organization existed. However, HUMAN society, in a conscious sense, is relatively new. Customs, laws, mores, etc. The most basic ethics are derived from instincts, not the arbitrary rules of society. Nature precedes society and is divine.

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Religious tit. Meant in the nicest sense possible and completely without offence.

SEVERUSMAX said:

To me, human society is a conscious development past the primitive and primordial society that existed previously. As with most inventions, it has a few flaws, in the form of unwise and arbitrary mores. That's why natural law is superior. It is concrete and practical, not to mention objective, empirical, and universal. These human societies develop in a process of trial and error, which is why some civilizations lasted longer (Rome, for instance, endured over a thousand years). Some values are subjective, and each nation has the right to believe in them (provided that it doesn't trample the right of dissent on the part of the individual). Other principles are natural and objective. These principles transcend and supersede the relative values of a particular culture. That's my view and I don't expect to be dissuaded from it.

I am a patriot, as well as a classical humanist. Because of my hierarchy of ethics, I see no conflict between the two.

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To me, human society is an unconscious development in response to the demands of ecology, technology, internal and external social pressures, psychology, history, production and reproduction ... not necessarily in that order. It is an invention - absolutely - but not one with a discernible inventor. Just as you don't need to understand how and why a TV works in order to use it, you don't need to (and most often don't) know how and why a society works in order to live in it.

I do not see any way of discovering a "natural law" that approximates the laws we invent to manage our own society ... scientific inquiry may give us probabilites, but not hard and fast laws that always hold true. And even then, I argue that it is impossible to completely divorce the scientific discovery from the culture and individual background behind those discoveries.*

L.

*to illustrate the point: monkeys. For example baboons. Male observers noted a completely different social structure, centred on adult males, from that noted by female observers, which was centred on females and their children. Both were empirical, but the results ALWAYS VARY DEPENDING ON POINT OF VIEW. And the determination of a certain p.o.v. as OBJECTIVE is always a political act.

SummerMorning said:

To me, human society is an unconscious development in response to the demands of ecology, technology, internal and external social pressures, psychology, history, production and reproduction ... not necessarily in that order. It is an invention - absolutely - but not one with a discernible inventor.

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I disagree with this. There is no such thing as mankind without society and culture, and the two developed in tandem. It was not invented any more than the thumb was invented.

The solo human being has no survival capability whatsoever. We're weak, slow, and very poorly equipped for survival when we're alone. In groups, however, we've taken over th planet and seem to be able to do anything we want. Anything that brings us together into groups and promotes cohesion has tremendous survival value therefore, and emotions like love and amity and caring have been enhanced by natural selection. Our lives today are a tension between striving for individual status and power and a longing to be part of the group.

I believe there is such a thing as human nature, and that we're born with as much of a desire for companionship and social context as is an ant or a bee. It's built into our brains.

dr_mabeuse said:

I disagree with this. There is no such thing as mankind without society and culture, and the two developed in tandem. It was not invented any more than the thumb was invented.

The solo human being has no survival capability whatsoever. We're weak, slow, and very poorly equipped for survival when we're alone. In groups, however, we've taken over th planet and seem to be able to do anything we want. Anything that brings us together into groups and promotes cohesion has tremendous survival value therefore, and emotions like love and amity and caring have been enhanced by natural selection. Our lives today are a tension between striving for individual status and power and a longing to be part of the group.

I believe there is such a thing as human nature, and that we're born with as much of a desire for companionship and social context as is an ant or a bee. It's built into our brains.

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Perhaps I used the word "invention" in the wrong context.

What I meant to emphasize is that human society is not something "out there". It is the product of humans, just as humans are the product of society. There's a feedback loop between society and us, its component parts. And yes, very obviously and very repeatedly I have said that without society and culture there can be no such thing as a human being.

I very much doubt that a "culture" existed in man when we first became sentient, some thousands of years ago. Customs, rules, etc. WOULD HAVE TO BE INVENTED. Man did not simply inherit his primordial society: he added to it. At some point, there was a CONSCIOUS deviation from his pre-sentient and pre-sapien nature. That was true for good and ill. Man did NOT, for instance, inherit the practice of human sacrifice from his simian forebears. Nor did he inherit the concept of government. Such things as law had to be agreed upon- CONSCIOUSLY. These things are abstract and require abstract thought. Superstitions also required a choice to believe in something. They were deliberate choices by primitive MAN.

And NATURE, to me, is the objective, scientific system by which the world (and Cosmos) works. It has rules that we are only beginning to grasp. But simply because we don't know them all doesn't mean that they don't exist. I don't think that is likely or even possible for the complex, abitrary rules of modern society to have existed in primordial, pre-sentient hominids.

Originally Posted by Roxanne Appleby: 'This is why I used the Holocaust to make my point: It was “an absolute horror,” a very bad thing, and we can condemn it with certainty not because we are Americans or Westerners, but because we are humans. Our condemnation is not imperialistic, not subjective, not a “cultural construct” – It’s human.'

SummerMorning said:

I contend that our condemnation is a subjective, cultural construct precisely *because* we are humans and incapable of anything else. You contend that the mere fact of us all being humans puts that condemnation above the level of the subjective.

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OK, Summer, you win. The assertion that mass murder is objectively bad is just a western conceit.

Oddly enough, right after coming to this I met a woman from Lalastan who was describing her nation’s new policy of exterminating the Lulu minority. I felt an urge to say, "That’s wrong, it’s not good to commit mass murder!” But who am I to assert that something is good or evil? I mean, her “good,” might not be the same as my “good.” I can’t know for certain that my version is true, because all such notions are purely social constructs. Who am I to imperialistically impose my society’s version?

Instead I urged her to be reasonable and responsible. She assured me that wiping out the Lulus was a supremely rational act, and the Lalas took very seriously their responsibility to get them all.

That didn’t quite feel right, and sensing my discomfort she sought to reassure me: “You must understand, life is cheap to Lulus – they’re not like you and me. In the last war their young men jostled each other in their eagerness to charge the machineguns.”

I almost exclaimed, “But they’re human beings, they just want to live and enjoy life, the same as you and me!” But I remembered the infinite permutations of human societies, and that the only thing we share across them is our basic physical structure. While there seems to be much evidence that in all societies people do want to live and be happy, I can’t disprove that there might be one where they don’t – maybe the Lulus are it?

Roxanne Appleby said:

Originally Posted by Roxanne Appleby: 'This is why I used the Holocaust to make my point: It was “an absolute horror,” a very bad thing, and we can condemn it with certainty not because we are Americans or Westerners, but because we are humans. Our condemnation is not imperialistic, not subjective, not a “cultural construct” – It’s human.'

OK, Summer, you win. The assertion that mass murder is objectively bad is just a western conceit.

Oddly enough, right after coming to this I met a woman from Lalastan who was describing her nation’s new policy of exterminating the Lulu minority. I felt an urge to say, "That’s wrong, it’s not good to commit mass murder!” But who am I to assert that something is good or evil? I mean, her “good,” might not be the same as my “good.” I can’t know for certain that my version is true, because all such notions are purely social constructs. Who am I to imperialistically impose my society’s version?

Instead I urged her to be reasonable and responsible. She assured me that wiping out the Lulus was a supremely rational act, and the Lalas took very seriously their responsibility to get them all.

That didn’t quite feel right, and sensing my discomfort she sought to reassure me: “You must understand, life is cheap to Lulus – they’re not like you and me. In the last war their young men jostled each other in their eagerness to charge the machineguns.”

I almost exclaimed, “But they’re human beings, they just want to live and enjoy life, the same as you and me!” But I remembered the infinite permutations of human societies, and that the only thing we share across them is our basic physical structure. While there seems to be much evidence that in all societies people do want to live and be happy, I can’t disprove that there might be one where they don’t – maybe the Lulus are it?

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Nothing wrong with a healthy dose of sarcasm. I salute you, my dear lady.

KR said:

I think that 'relativism' and 'objectivism' are better understood when used as modifiers of other philosophies, some of which pertain, however peripherally, to this discussion. Egoism, for example, is a philosophy which asserts that people always act in their own interests, even though they may disguise their motivations with altruistic references to helping others or doing their duty. Egoism also claims that the promotion of one's own interests is always in accordance with reason. It asserts that not only is it rational to pursue one's own interests, it is also irrational not to pursue them.

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A cowbird could say no less. The dictum to do what you want, which is all this is, is not an ethic. Ethics, as you point out below, only arise when there's more than one entity to deal with. You have thrown out the bathwater, admitting that there will be conflict, but you still try to solve the conflict in terms of the scum on top. There is no reason to carry forward good advice to a lone entity (Hey, since you're all alone, you may as well do whatever makes you happy) into the real ethical world.

KR said:

However, only in a world inhabited by a single entity is it possible for the pursuit of self-interest not to be in conflict with ethical behaviour. In complying with Egoism, the individual aims at his or her own greatest good. But what is 'one's own greatest good'? From the hedonistic point of view, the individual human being is conceived as the source of values and himself as the supreme value, and so 'good' might be defined as whatever our rational self-interest deems necessary to avoid non-essential pain while improving well-being.

Abandoning the attempt to define 'good' for the purpose of this monologue, it still follows that pursuing one's own greatest good can interfere with another's pursuit, thus creating a situation of conflict. While I am not the only being in the universe, I value my life and the pursuit of pleasure and happiness which are the fruit and goal of living. It happens that there are people who, by their pursuit of their own existence, get in my way. What to do? At some point each of us recognizes that our greatest interests are served more through co-operation than conflict. However, there is a caveat. We are willing to cooperate/compromise, so long as it still leaves room for each of us to logically pursue our own interests, even at the cost of another's.

Yet, can personal gain logically be in one's best interests if it entails harm to another? This is the dilemma.

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It's not the dilemma at all. Quit worrying about whether moral behavior is in your interest, and discuss the ethics by themselves a second. Your actual ethical standard, to judge from this sentence, is not causing harm to another. Might be a good start. Depending what you do with it, you may finish with Jainism. Stop spraying the crops, refuse to disinfect your wounds.

I do doubt it, though, since you are still trumpeting the highest good as selfishness, and attempting to limit harm only by limiting selfishness. This seems, in your discussion, to result in a morality by contract. If you have an agreement with someone, perhaps each of you will thereby have agreed to limit harm to the other. You'd need a contract with every other entity in the universe. Hope your negotiations go well.

KR said:

So, is it best to accept that cooperation with others is a more successful approach to pursuing one's interests? This is a type of ethically conditional (or 'moral') egoism, that is, egoism is morally acceptable or right if it leads to morally acceptable ends. For example, self-interested behavior can be accepted and applauded if it leads to the betterment of society as a whole; the ultimate test rests not on acting in one's own self-interest, but rather on whether society is improved as a result.

Thus, if one accepts the principle of causing harm to another being acceptible if it is in pursuit if a morally superior goal, one again comes around to the awareness that in doing so, one also accepts that 'the means are justified by the end.'

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This sort of reductio is precisely why you can't derive ethics from principles with logic.

KR said:

I think, in the case of most of humanity's social ills, the judgement of ethics is relative to the individuals doing the judging.

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And there are limits to it, even then.

KR said:

Just let me life my hedonistic life with all the ethics and enthusiasm I can muster. You can live your moralist or egoist or objectivist or relativist lives. Just don't get between me and my pursuit of happiness and pleasure. I might knock you down and give you forced orgasms until you die

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Come back when you want to talk about something.

Roxanne Appleby said:

OK, Summer, you win. The assertion that mass murder is objectively bad is just a western conceit.

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Thank you! Glad to win. Let's kill some Lulus.

Roxy, baby, I never said that the assertion that mass murder is objectively bad is just a western conceit. There are numerous cultures which share that position. Also, the fact that it is not universally accepted is no reason to simply shrug and let people get on with it. While I agree that Human Rights *are* culture-bound, I have utterly no trouble in saying that I believe they are one of the better solutions for the individual and I have utterly no trouble saying they should be promoted.

I have problems with people who go around being hypocrites and harping about the "greater good" while they promote militaristic unilateral goals and kill people.

SEVERUSMAX said:

I very much doubt that a "culture" existed in man when we first became sentient, some thousands of years ago. Customs, rules, etc. WOULD HAVE TO BE INVENTED. Man did not simply inherit his primordial society: he added to it. At some point, there was a CONSCIOUS deviation from his pre-sentient and pre-sapien nature. That was true for good and ill. Man did NOT, for instance, inherit the practice of human sacrifice from his simian forebears. Nor did he inherit the concept of government. Such things as law had to be agreed upon- CONSCIOUSLY. These things are abstract and require abstract thought. Superstitions also required a choice to believe in something. They were deliberate choices by primitive MAN.

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So you think a bunch of *savages* actually sat down and said, okay fellas, we're going to be hunter gatherers now, so we'd best set up an egalitarian social order based on the fair distribution of food?

And NATURE, to me, is the objective, scientific system by which the world (and Cosmos) works. It has rules that we are only beginning to grasp. But simply because we don't know them all doesn't mean that they don't exist. I don't think that is likely or even possible for the complex, abitrary rules of modern society to have existed in primordial, pre-sentient hominids.

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Oh, there may very well be an objective reality somewhere deep down. But you're describing it as an English speaking hominid of (what sex are you) from (wherever you're from) of a certain political and religious persuasion - which affects the way you perceive and describe it. Your language is the limit of your cosmos.

*grin*

SummerMorning said:

So you think a bunch of *savages* actually sat down and said, okay fellas, we're going to be hunter gatherers now, so we'd best set up an egalitarian social order based on the fair distribution of food?



Oh, there may very well be an objective reality somewhere deep down. But you're describing it as an English speaking hominid of (what sex are you) from (wherever you're from) of a certain political and religious persuasion - which affects the way you perceive and describe it. Your language is the limit of your cosmos.

*grin*

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I think that they agreed on some rules at some point. I doubt it was as complex as today's. It was crude, experimental, and primitive, just as the people of that day. It makes more sense than believing that non-sapien hominids had abstract principles, developed deliberate laws, and produced a "culture". I doubt that it was egalitarian or based on "fair" distribution. It was probably more like, "I've got this great idea. Let's do something better than what we have always known. We need a few rules. Rule number one, I am the chief. Anyone care to challenge me?"

I may be limited in knowledge of science. I admitted that I don't know all of it. That doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. That was my point (and Socrates's point, I might add).

And, yes, I'm a white male of mostly European descent (and a small percentage of Algonquian).

RA, that's what happens when that demon relativism gets to you.

RA: I almost exclaimed, “But they’re human beings, they just want to live and enjoy life, the same as you and me!” But I remembered the infinite permutations of human societies, and that the only thing we share across them is our basic physical structure. While there seems to be much evidence that in all societies people do want to live and be happy, I can’t disprove that there might be one where they don’t – maybe the Lulus are it
---

Last time I was in Lalastan, I found they practiced 'honor killing,' for females that were raped. I expressed by horror, but my hosts were shocked.

"You don't seem to care about 'honor'," they said.

I said, "I do care, but is it honorable for a brother to kill his sister for the family so-called honor, when it's not her fault."

"Well, we never know whose 'fault' it is, so we are most skeptical of 'well it just happened.' Guilty women often have an excuse. "

"But you are taking a life; the woman lost a hymen, and has to pay with her life."

MY hosts looked quite perplexed. "Can't you see what happens to our family's life. IT is not enjoyable, but miserable; people stop us on the street and say, 'your daught/sister is a whore, what kind of man are you?' Her sisters' honor is questioned. Some say, "I bet they're whores too."

"But isn't it cowardly for a brother to kill his sister?"

"It is for the family honor; it takes courage, resolution, and obedience for a brother to do such a thing, regardless of his feelings. He is both brave and obedient, not cowardly. Her protects the family's ability to enjoy life."

"But what about your raped daughter's enjoyment of life?"

"She did not have enjoyment; she was ashamed, and thought of killing herself. In a way, we do her a favor."

"But suppose she wanted to keep living, and was getting over her shame; wouldn't it be terrifying to her, to be killed."

"The family honor has to be protected so *our* life is worth living. So if, in fact, she could and did 'get over it', and went happily about, we'd be doubly shamed over such shamlessness. We're not inhumane; we don't torture her, just quickly cut her throat. She hardly feels a thing before losing consciousness and dying. That is humane. Her misery is over along with her life."

I went to my Objectivist society meeting after I returned to the US from Lalastan, and most could hardly believe it. Some said, "Well the witchdoctors brainwash the Lalanis." Others said, "They are plainly irrational, so clearly debate or discussion with them is pointless."

SEVERUSMAX said:

I think that they agreed on some rules at some point. I doubt it was as complex as today's. It was crude, experimental, and primitive, just as the people of that day. It makes more sense than believing that non-sapien hominids had abstract principles, developed deliberate laws, and produced a "culture". I doubt that it was egalitarian or based on "fair" distribution. It was probably more like, "I've got this great idea. Let's do something better than what we have always known. We need a few rules. Rule number one, I am the chief. Anyone care to challenge me?"

I may be limited in knowledge of science. I admitted that I don't know all of it. That doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. That was my point (and Socrates's point, I might add).

And, yes, I'm a white male of mostly European descent (and a small percentage of Algonquian).

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I'm a white male, not just of European descent, but actually European. That makes me more chauvinistic than you, so there!

Actually ... it's in practice impossible to tell when "culture" as we would recognise it came about. I mean, monkeys have some form of social organisation, so the proto-human hominids probably had something along those lines as well. There have been lots of attempts to describe how the transition from "wild animals living in the wilderness" to "still wild, but cultured and human, living in the wilderness, seeks Jane to make big house." These attempts at describing something we will never be able to experience have been rightly criticised as "just so stories."

Suffice to say, at some point you have culture taking over from natural selection and instincts as the basic driving force of human societies. And suffice to say this is somewhat confirmed by the material record - notably the population and technology explosion of the last 50KY.

SummerMorning said:

I'm a white male, not just of European descent, but actually European. That makes me more chauvinistic than you, so there!

Actually ... it's in practice impossible to tell when "culture" as we would recognise it came about. I mean, monkeys have some form of social organisation, so the proto-human hominids probably had something along those lines as well. There have been lots of attempts to describe how the transition from "wild animals living in the wilderness" to "still wild, but cultured and human, living in the wilderness, seeks Jane to make big house." These attempts at describing something we will never be able to experience have been rightly criticised as "just so stories."

Suffice to say, at some point you have culture taking over from natural selection and instincts as the basic driving force of human societies. And suffice to say this is somewhat confirmed by the material record - notably the population and technology explosion of the last 50KY.

Click to expand...

But clearly we won't agree on exactly how or when that happened- before or after sentience.

SEVERUSMAX said:

But clearly we won't agree on exactly how or when that happened- before or after sentience.

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No, that's clear. I'm just arguing that most social innovations are not consciously decided upon. They're the product of the various motivations and people simply trying to get on with life. Even when people actually sit down and try to plan things, they're most likely to get things wrong.

Most customs and traditions are there and used simply because they work. Like with my example of the TV. You don't need to know why and how "gift-giving" actually functions, or what the purpose of "bridewealth" is or precisely how "sports" work in a social setting. You just do these things and they work for you.

That's what I mean by unconscious. I don't mean that the proto-humans got roaring drunk one day, passed out and human society was born. Though come to think of it, that is a good explanation for the "effervescence" proposed by Durkheim.

SummerMorning said:

No, that's clear. I'm just arguing that most social innovations are not consciously decided upon. They're the product of the various motivations and people simply trying to get on with life. Even when people actually sit down and try to plan things, they're most likely to get things wrong.

Most customs and traditions are there and used simply because they work. Like with my example of the TV. You don't need to know why and how "gift-giving" actually functions, or what the purpose of "bridewealth" is or precisely how "sports" work in a social setting. You just do these things and they work for you.

That's what I mean by unconscious. I don't mean that the proto-humans got roaring drunk one day, passed out and human society was born. Though come to think of it, that is a good explanation for the "effervescence" proposed by Durkheim.

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Well, it was a nice debate. I doubt that it will settle anything.

SEVERUSMAX said:

Well, it was a nice debate. I doubt that it will settle anything.

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Oh, intellectual debates are never about settling anything. They're a way of strutting about showing off "what a big brain I have." It's just another way of emphasizing status and getting laid.

Why do you think academics go to symposia and have debates? To find the truth? LOL Heck no!