The Decline of Violence

[MediumTex]

My mother is an anthropologist who once studied a remote African village and witnessed a brutal marital rape sanctioned by the whole community....Can you possibly imagine something so horrible?  What's the answer? Are we right and they were wrong and were a backwards and primitive society for sanctioning marital rape? Or is the badness of rape relative, and they simply had a different way of looking at things?

It's kind of uncomfortable to think about, no?

I wonder what the villagers would have said if your mom had told them the following:

Back in my village, we lock up millions of people for inhaling the smoke generated by burning a certain type of plant.  Once these people are released from the large cages we keep them in after months or years of confinement, we don't allow them to participate in tribal activities and severely restrict their ability to find employment or even find a place to live.  For entertainment, we watch these people being chased and caught on TV.

We engage in the ritualistic killing on a more or less random basis (though we favor the poor descendants of members of other tribes) when members of our tribe kill other members of our tribe.  Our methods of ritualistic killing range from poisoning, to electrocution, to gassing.  Even if a person can't think properly and doesn't even understand what the tribe is, he is still eligible for ritualistic killing.  For entertainment, we watch stories about how and when these people will be killed on TV.

We also engage in a different type of ritualistic killing of people we don't like in other villages.  We use flying machines that roam the skies over other villages constantly and we attempt to read the minds of the other villagers and when our chief believes that a member of the other tribe may intend to do us harm in the future, he tells the flying machine to shoot a fire bomb that instantly blows up the member of the other tribe.  For entertainment, we watch members of other villages being blown up on TV.

Sometimes several tribes come together and an award is given to the chief of the tribe who is best at making peace with other tribes.  This award is a great honor.  Our chief received this award before he began operating the flying machines that shoot the fire bombs.  For entertainment, we thought that we would be able to watch the award being taken from him on TV, but that show never came on.

So this woman being raped while the village looks on isn't really that bad.  In fact, if we did such things in my village, the only difference would probably be that we would watch it on TV for entertainment.

[moda0306]

My mother is an anthropologist who once studied a remote African village and witnessed a brutal marital rape sanctioned by the whole community....Can you possibly imagine something so horrible?  What's the answer? Are we right and they were wrong and were a backwards and primitive society for sanctioning marital rape? Or is the badness of rape relative, and they simply had a different way of looking at things?

It's kind of uncomfortable to think about, no?

I wonder what the villagers would have said if your mom had told them the following:

Back in my village, we lock up millions of people for inhaling the smoke generated by burning a certain type of plant.  Once these people are released from the large cages we keep them in after months or years of confinement, we don't allow them to participate in tribal activities and severely restrict their ability to find employment or even find a place to live.  For entertainment, we watch these people being chased and caught on TV.

We engage in the ritualistic killing on a more or less random basis (though we favor the poor descendants of members of other tribes) when members of our tribe kill other members of our tribe.  Our methods of ritualistic killing range from poisoning, to electrocution, to gassing.  Even if a person can't think properly and doesn't even understand what the tribe is, he is still eligible for ritualistic killing.  For entertainment, we watch stories about how and when these people will be killed on TV.

We also engage in a different type of ritualistic killing of people we don't like in other villages.  We use flying machines that roam the skies over other villages constantly and we attempt to read the minds of the other villagers and when our chief believes that a member of the other tribe may intend to do us harm in the future, he tells the flying machine to shoot a fire bomb that instantly blows up the member of the other tribe.  For entertainment, we watch members of other villages being blown up on TV.

Sometimes several tribes come together and an award is given to the chief of the tribe who is best at making peace with other tribes.  This award is a great honor.  Our chief received this award before he began operating the flying machines that shoot the fire bombs.  For entertainment, we thought that we would be able to watch the award being taken from him on TV, but that show never came on.

So this woman being raped while the village looks on isn't really that bad.  In fact, if we did such things in my village, the only difference would probably be that we would watch it on TV for entertainment.

Very interesting, but it seems to conflict with your assertion that if we just drive the speed limit (and something else I can't remember... Pay taxes?), you could probably go the rest of your life not knowing that the government even existed.

Good post though!  Very eye opening.

[moda0306]

- Well if I don't feel bad about myself and if it feels right and if I don't feel like a weirdo around my neighbors, I must be using good morality.

Meme in the year 2113?  I guess we'll see.

That's why... otherwise, as individuals, we're not using our brains to come up with morality, we're using what is essentially greed (a warm feeling inside of community belonging) to justify our actions.  Groupthink is almost always a bad, lazy thing, IMO.

I think PS covered this very nicely, but I don't agree with the "almost always" part.  So much of the good parts of human behavior, if you think about, is the result of "groupthink".

But groupthink that I disagree with?  Of course THAT'S bad.

I'm not saying that cooperation or uniting around true commonalities is bad.  I'm saying that groupthink in the way HB describes it is poison.  It's just lazy thinking and a will to be accepted disguised as logic.

Maybe I'm being too harsh, because I truly do believe people act artificially moral because they'd feel awkward doing otherwise.  I love shows like the walking dead, as I love seeing people put their morals to the test.  Not in a sick way... But I just enjoy dramatic dynamic of people who have no use for the facade of morality the way we practice it in society, and their true nature is exposed like a raw nerve. 

[Pointedstick]

I'm not saying that cooperation or uniting around true commonalities is bad.  I'm saying that groupthink in the way HB describes it is poison.  It's just lazy thinking and a will to be accepted disguised as logic.

In general I agree. But why be so judgmental? There are always a million reasons to judge people who are not us very harshly. Why bother? It's a waste of time and it eats away at your compassion.

And heck, if it weren't for intellectually lazy Guardians, it's likely that we probably wouldn't even have a society; we'd be too fractured trying to discuss each other to death. That's why Libertarians are so politically ineffective and why liberals create such fractious and disharmonious societies; not enough Guardians willing to believe the commonly-accepted morals and traditions because that's the way mom and dad taught them, by gum!

[MediumTex]

Very interesting, but it seems to conflict with your assertion that if we just drive the speed limit (and something else I can't remember... Pay taxes?), you could probably go the rest of your life not knowing that the government even existed.

Good post though!  Very eye opening.

Well, as long as I don't burn the wrong plant, kill someone, or wander around the countryside of certain foreign countries in a suspicious manner, I think that my theory still works pretty well.  It's not perfect, though.

[moda0306]

I'm not saying that cooperation or uniting around true commonalities is bad.  I'm saying that groupthink in the way HB describes it is poison.  It's just lazy thinking and a will to be accepted disguised as logic.

In general I agree. But why be so judgmental? There are always a million reasons to judge people who are not us very harshly. Why bother? It's a waste of time and it eats away at your compassion.

And heck, if it weren't for intellectually lazy Guardians, it's likely that we probably wouldn't even have a society; we'd be too fractured trying to discuss each other to death. That's why Libertarians are so politically ineffective and why liberals create such fractious and disharmonious societies; not enough Guardians willing to believe the commonly-accepted morals and traditions because that's the way mom and dad taught them, by gum!

Funny how these arguments almost switch sides sometimes.  I never thought I'd find myself arguing against MT and PS that we have some fundamental individual rights, and be argued back to me that we are all just part of a big "society."

(Totally know I'm making your argument sound like the wrong one in that statement... it's all for show)

But it is kind of funny how these things spin around.

[moda0306]

I would add that oftentimes the entire concept of rights arises as a result of feelings of "tyranny of the majority," and trying to instill a concept of universal truth that is in direct conflict with "what is popular" with society.

This is why HB's observation is so important... usually when we're screaming/complaining about our "rights," we're actually in opposition to the majority OR a big government (and usually both), and that's never going to be a good position to bargain from or base your own personal "freedom-strategy" of life from.

But I think it's important that one of the interesting things about "rights," or the discussion about rights, is that we have them, quite often, in specific, direct OPPOSITION to "what most people think."  That's kind of the point, in fact.  People realize that left to its devices, "the majority" or even "the vast majority" will oppress the minority, and that establishing, or at least discussing "rights" (at a macro-level... individually protesting/activism is pretty fruitless I think we'd usually agree) can introduce a bit of intellectual humility/curiosity to those who default to thinking what their neighbors think because they like their neighbors and want to be "one of the guys," and makes us more critical thinkers. 

This may be a bit judgmental, but I'm saying this not in the context of asking everyone here to lecture your neighbors on "the truth" at your next dinner party... just that when we ARE talking as intelligent individuals, that the bar has been raised, and we should try to instill in ourselves and (in a balanced way) in our children a degree of independent thought, if not independent thought being the first place our brain defaults to going, rather than following the masses.  This is useful in areas outside of morality.  Hell it's why most of us are even here and enjoy conversations on this board.

I don't think HB would disagree with that at all... in fact I think that's what he praised.  His ability to think independently of the "groupthink" within the Austrian/libertarian economic community is what TRULY sets him apart.  It probably made it significantly more difficult for him to feel like "one of the guys" in a group that he (in my opinion) probably should have been President of if there could have been such a thing.


I guess if I had to sum it up, I'd say this...

Morality is really tough.  Probably one of the toughest things out there.  Not only is it vague and nearly impossible to prove any "Fundamental Truths," nothing invokes more emotional outrage, fear, sadness, regret, etc, in us than certain moral codes being infringed upon.  We look back at things that individuals did or that society did to certain people and cringe at the thought of being on the wrong side of that act.

Because of the vagueness of morality, we're left with a few options:

1) Try to develop things that KIND OF look like "Fundamental Truths" and try to stick with those as much as possible.

2) Just look at what's commonly accepted and normal and continue to do that.

3) Say f'k it, become a nihilist, and just do whatever's in our best interest (which surely will mean sticking with certain social norms and moral acts, but not for any other reason than to benefit ourselves in life).

None are perfect.  Based on #1, I could probably have knock-down, drag-out arguments with neighbors and friends at every social event and make an ass out of myself by protesting my points.  This is NOT what I'm arguing.  I've got friends that make (in my opinion) horribly immoral statements about what certain people should do in certain situations, or what our government can do.  I don't argue with them.  I try to be polite.  I realize that me being closer to a "Fundamental Truth" than they are is not going to matter in conversation.  However, hugely immoral things in history... many that we ascribe to "government," also had broad "public support." Slavery... bombing Japan... internment of Japanese... certain aspects of the holocaust (not all)... pick anything else.  It's not just "government" doing these things... they're quite often a result of what the public accepts or encourages.

There is value in a feeling of community.  The question is, can we have that while also trying to encourage intellectual curiosity and independent thinking?  There actually may be some mutual exclusivity there, but I think at the very least there is a balance to strike.  Hell, even the nihilist argument might have a place in our behavior.  When watching The Walking Dead, I start to understand the idea of giving up on morality.  However, it would be preferred that our own survival is on the line if we're willing to sacrifice the lives/health of others.

[Pointedstick]

Right are interesting, yeah. You're correct that they stand in opposition to the majority (the majority doesn't need rights; they're the majority) but there's this tension because the majority is always trying to use its size and power to erode the rights of the minority that it doesn't like. Because, again, in order for rights to have a point, they have to irk the majority. Otherwise, why bother; the majority already agrees with you!

Seen in this light, rights are basically a flawed, imperfect approach to helping dissimilar people get along in a complicated society. But I think they're ineffective, for a variety of reasons. First of all, the political power of the majority is always eroding rights that have fallen out of favor, gradually reducing their ability to function in their true purpose of protecting the minority against the majority. How can a minority be protected against a majority when the minority's only tools of enforcement are in fact wielded and controlled by the majority?

Think about how the courts in this country work when they encounter a right they don't like: they minimize it, work around it, they invent convoluted logic saying that the right doesn't really mean what the minority thinks it means.

And the police act similarly. Police officers don't give a damn about the rights of the minority and when they want to oppress them, they do, irrespective of what rights the minority can claim. What are they going to do, petition for the officers to be arrested? Fat chance.

This all gets even hairier when the "minority" for any given right or issue is like 45-49%. The majority can't oppress them as easily and the minority can even occasionally take control of the government, using the brief interlude of power to try their hand at oppressing the new minority for a change. It's a recipe for endless political battles with nobody really getting what they want.


I believe a better solution is physical separation. Rights exist because a minority has a view of the world that contradicts the majority in a way that necessarily restricts the majority from doing what it wants (i.e. the minority's right to own guns restricts the majority from banning guns and throwing their owners in prison, as they would very much like to do in NYC, Chicago, SF, and other far-left cities). A better solution IMHO is to let people separate themselves into  political sub-units where they can get nearly everything they want without having to constantly wage costly and polarizing political battles against the majority.

What we need is a diverse collection of homogeneous political units that serve the needs and desires of their residents first and foremost, with free and open emigration between areas. That way, rights would barely enter into the equation as people would naturally self-segregate into groups of like-minded compatriots who didn't chafe against one another as much.

[Xan]

That makes a LOT of sense, PS.  The only problem I see is that whatever central entity the diverse political units choose to create in order to handle things like mutual defense will accumulate power over time and ultimately become tyrannical.  It would probably even go to war to prevent some of those political units from breaking away.

...I think I've seen this movie before!

[moda0306]

Right are interesting, yeah. You're correct that they stand in opposition to the majority (the majority doesn't need rights; they're the majority) but there's this tension because the majority is always trying to use its size and power to erode the rights of the minority that it doesn't like. Because, again, in order for rights to have a point, they have to irk the majority. Otherwise, why bother; the majority already agrees with you!

Seen in this light, rights are basically a flawed, imperfect approach to helping dissimilar people get along in a complicated society. But I think they're ineffective, for a variety of reasons. First of all, the political power of the majority is always eroding rights that have fallen out of favor, gradually reducing their ability to function in their true purpose of protecting the minority against the majority. How can a minority be protected against a majority when the minority's only tools of enforcement are in fact wielded and controlled by the majority?

Think about how the courts in this country work when they encounter a right they don't like: they minimize it, work around it, they invent convoluted logic saying that the right doesn't really mean what the minority thinks it means.

I almost 100% agree with this.  Rights are very imperfect as a tool.

And the police act similarly. Police officers don't give a damn about the rights of the minority and when they want to oppress them, they do, irrespective of what rights the minority can claim. What are they going to do, petition for the officers to be arrested? Fat chance.

I am no fan of most police, but almost everyone views them as necessary, and they are restricted in their behavior in many ways, and most of the time have to honor those restrictions.  Not saying it's perfect by any means.  But to say they can just ignore any damn thing they want (or to imply it) is a bit much.  Once again, I DO NOT like the Po-Po.

I believe a better solution is physical separation. Rights exist because a minority has a view of the world that contradicts the majority in a way that necessarily restricts the minority from doing what it wants (i.e. the minority's right to own guns restricts the majority from banning guns and throwing their owners in prison). A better solution IMHO is to let people separate themselves into  political sub-units where they can get nearly everything they want without having to constantly wage costly and polarizing political battles against the majority.

What we need is a diverse collection of homogeneous political units that serve the needs and desires of their residents first and foremost, with free and open emigration between areas. That way, rights would barely enter into the equation as people would naturally self-segregate into groups of like-minded compatriots who didn't chafe against one another as much.

I agree with this to a degree... and we have a TON of this in every neighborhood, city, state, country and the world in general.  What we need to be aware of, though, is that "physical separation" involves giving some people some physical areas, while awarding far, far less ideal areas to others.  Physical separation works great until you realize that you're only option, after having your wealth stolen from you by your neighbors, is to live in Siberia where people agree with you.  And we've also seen that when faced with hardships, people's last instinct is to just uproot themselves and leave everyone they know near them, even if they've heard "hey if you go North you won't be called a n*gger daily... just weekly."

It's convenient for people to stake their claim on valuable resources and then say "ok everyone, we all disagree... you all just try to congregate with people that agree with you... but not on my land because it's mine."

So not only is this also imperfect, but unless you consider the UN a super powerful entity against our choices, we pretty much have 200 different models to choose from, and in our model (the USA), tons of sub-models within it.  This is hardly a monopoly.  We have choices, but we still have huge problems.  People simply don't think they should have to leave to make their lives better (for the most part).  Once you know an area and have connections there, whether you're a black person in the dirty-south in 1960, or a libertarian in Portland, Oregon, people tend to resent having to just move to an area where they know absolutely nobody, and might be taking a huge step back in terms of area quality.  I mean the relationships we develop are the most valuable assets we have sometimes... asking people to just recongregate (usually certain ones receiving far less valuable areas to do so in) is asking them to give up more than their local government might be infringing upon their right.

So while, as an individual, I'm always going to weigh my option to move away from a scenario that I don't like, asking society (or societies) to do that to a massive degree is hugely destabilizing... and we are looking at "macro" solutions in this discussion, it seems, rather than Browne-esque individual solutions, so I feel it' appropriate to point out that the Fallacy of Composition applies here.  It's a lot easier for me to move to an area that suits my needs as a self-aware individual than to say than telling everyone that's in a society they don't like to just move to areas where they can form their own small governments.  What some people view as their "rights" will be miraculously enforced by such an arrangement, and what others view as their "rights" will be utterly trampled on.

As an example:

While harmonious cooperation is probably a myth, ask either Palestinians or Jews to just leave the Holy Land and find somewhere else to live, because to recognize their rights it's easier to just live around people that agree with you, and you've essentially usurped what they believe to be their respective rights to that land in the process... so it's a Catch 22... in suggesting for them to cooperate "elsewhere" to more effectively their rights recognized, you've violated one of the most important aspects of their rights.

And which group has to move?

Who gets to decide where?

If there ever was such a thing as "free societies" (I don't know how you, PS, choose to define them, or how small they have to be to count), they took an extremely long time to develop.  Asking people to just move closer to people like them (as a solution to a social problem of right non-recognition) sounds an awful lot like disguising the solutions of Communist Russia in a false drape of "Freedom!".

[moda0306]

That makes a LOT of sense, PS.  The only problem I see is that whatever central entity the diverse political units choose to create in order to handle things like mutual defense will accumulate power over time and ultimately become tyrannical.  It would probably even go to war to prevent some of those political units from breaking away.

...I think I've seen this movie before!

Let's not forget that, in the movie you're referring to, 30% of the population of the "diverse political units" were slaves (whose population was simultaneously unable to direct the role of those political units, but whose population was used to give the slave-owners artificially more power in the central government).  I think we all know what would happen if some of those people who thought their rights were being violated decided to "leave to a society that suited them, more."  They were whipped, murdered, or had limbs chopped off, and the diverse political entities in neighboring territories were ordered by the law of the Central Government to deliver those poor saps to their punishment.

So this kind of fails the "pick your own society" smell test.

In fact, I think it's another good example of why the "a la carte" society picking doesn't really work... that is, if we're talking about TRUE macro-solutions to the problems of diverse sets of moral codes.

[Pointedstick]

You're largely right, moda. But I think one difference is that I'm not "asking" anyone to do anything. I'm actually just observing a long-standing trend of people self-segregating, whether it's on the level of the neighborhood, the city, the state, or even the nation. Nobody needs to ask people to leave places where they don't feel politically welcome because they're already doing it themselves and they have been for ages.

I just did this myself, in fact. I left California because it was obvious that I just didn't fit into the culture, so I left. And all of my family did the same, in fact. Over the course of the last year, aunts, uncles, cousins, and girlfriends all left California for better environs, most settling in the South, as a matter of fact--a hugely different area, culturally speaking.

Their doing this involved a series of entirely private transactions, from their transportation to their acquisition of real estate, which they purchased privately from the prior owners. There was no "claiming vast resources" here, and I think you overstate the degree to which this actually happens. Most of it happened in the past, and most of it was done by governments on the behalf of their voters. The era of homesteading is long gone. Nowadays people buy and sell property from its previous owners. I mean, you didn't build your house on land you claimed yourself, right? Do you know anyone who did? I don't. The only person I know who built her own house did it on land she purchased from its previous owner.

One problem is that in this country, no matter what state you move to, you still have to comply with federal law and the federal bill of rights. That pesky second amendment restricts Chicago from banning guns just as much as the 1934 National Firearms act restricts people in Texas from owning short-barreled rifles and sound mufflers. These federal intrusions restrict the ability of political sub-units from accommodating their residents' desires. A hypothetical transnational government would do the same but to an even worse degree, because the laws would be based on world culture, not national culture. It's hard enough to get a Texan to agree with a New Yorker; can you imagine what kind of awful laws would be written if Kenyans had to live under laws drafted by the Chinese, Indians, and Americans? The cultures are so distinct that any ability of such laws to be compatible with local culture would be obliterated.

[Rien]

This idea of "free will" is just something that Homocentrist armchair philosophers have dreamed up to explain our differences from other non-human primates.

Free will is like religion: it is meant to "explain" something without actually explaining anything.

[MediumTex]

In HB's audio course, he said that when it comes to morality we should act in a certain way because of the consequences, not in spite of the consequences.

He said that morality should simply be a shorthand version of our most deeply held beliefs about what is right and wrong.  Thus, in a difficult situation we should do the thing that will generate the desired outcome based upon our deeply held beliefs.  Morality is simply a summary of those beliefs.  If this way of thinking is guiding our decisions, then no decision should ever involve any real sacrifice.

We are currently in the middle of a terrible ice storm where I live.  There is a two inch sheet of ice on the ground.  Driving is treacherous and the whole situation outside is dangerous.  Against this backdrop, I drove 100 miles on the ice on Friday night to help a relative whose power had been knocked out.  I was the hero for a couple of days because of this seemingly selfless thing I did.  The truth, though, is helping that person sounded like fun and it was a pleasure to do it.  There was no sacrifice on my part.  I did what I did because of the consequences, not in spite of them.  That, to me, is the key to real morality.

[Rien]

In HB's audio course, he said that when it comes to morality we should act in a certain way because of the consequences, not in spite of the consequences.

Morality is meant to help our genes survive, its a product of evolution, a meme in itself. Morality has nothing to do with free will. It's merely a part of our evolution. Morality itself is also evolving. What used to be good behavior, no longer is. Unfortunately we have discovered writing, and as a result have codified archaic morality. Morality thus used to evolve very slowly. As an example you can see that  what was moral in biblical times, no longer is. But even so, the old writing still influences the morality of people today.

There is hope though that the increasing speed of information exchange can help to speed up the process.

I call this hope, and not fear, because it seems that society is becoming less violent today than it was in the past. See the thread title This is quite likely a result of the evolution of morality. If this is so then it stands to reason that we are rapidly approaching a morality that is less violent than previous. In nature evolution often follows an S-curve. Regarding the place of violence in a morality I hope that we are in the first part of that curve, where the up-slope is steepening. That from here on violence will be more and more scarce.

[MediumTex]

In HB's audio course, he said that when it comes to morality we should act in a certain way because of the consequences, not in spite of the consequences.

Morality is meant to help our genes survive, its a product of evolution, a meme in itself. Morality has nothing to do with free will. It's merely a part of our evolution. Morality itself is also evolving. What used to be good behavior, no longer is. Unfortunately we have discovered writing, and as a result have codified archaic morality. Morality thus used to evolve very slowly. As an example you can see that  what was moral in biblical times, no longer is. But even so, the old writing still influences the morality of people today.

There is hope though that the increasing speed of information exchange can help to speed up the process.

I call this hope, and not fear, because it seems that society is becoming less violent today than it was in the past. See the thread title This is quite likely a result of the evolution of morality. If this is so then it stands to reason that we are rapidly approaching a morality that is less violent than previous. In nature evolution often follows an S-curve. Regarding the place of violence in a morality I hope that we are in the first part of that curve, where the up-slope is steepening. That from here on violence will be more and more scarce.

Regardless of the evolutionary survival advantage that may be associated with systems of morality, do you agree that ultimately a system of morality is something that each individual must assess and decide whether he will accept and practice?

Perhaps the attempt to hold people to obsolete systems of morality is part of the reason that hypocrisy is so common.

[Rien]

In HB's audio course, he said that when it comes to morality we should act in a certain way because of the consequences, not in spite of the consequences.

Morality is meant to help our genes survive, its a product of evolution, a meme in itself. Morality has nothing to do with free will. It's merely a part of our evolution. Morality itself is also evolving. What used to be good behavior, no longer is. Unfortunately we have discovered writing, and as a result have codified archaic morality. Morality thus used to evolve very slowly. As an example you can see that  what was moral in biblical times, no longer is. But even so, the old writing still influences the morality of people today.

There is hope though that the increasing speed of information exchange can help to speed up the process.

I call this hope, and not fear, because it seems that society is becoming less violent today than it was in the past. See the thread title This is quite likely a result of the evolution of morality. If this is so then it stands to reason that we are rapidly approaching a morality that is less violent than previous. In nature evolution often follows an S-curve. Regarding the place of violence in a morality I hope that we are in the first part of that curve, where the up-slope is steepening. That from here on violence will be more and more scarce.

Regardless of the evolutionary survival advantage that may be associated with systems of morality, do you agree that ultimately a system of morality is something that each individual must assess and decide whether he will accept and practice?

Yes. But that does not change that morality is an inter-people thingy. The goal of morality is to guide interactions between people. To make the interactions predictable. If a persons morality deviates too much from the consensus it will be detrimental to the survival of the memes (and genes) of that person.

Edit: Actually this touches upon another subject. The point of responsibility. When I propose that people don't have a free will, I usually get the reaction that people are then not responsible for their deeds because "its all deterministic". But no, that does not hold water to me. Responsibility is also an inter-people thing. Somebody alone has no need for responsibility. Responsibility is a consequence of evolution: it has sprung to life because without it systems (of people) have no way to optimize their survival.

It is possible for somebody to have a morality that deviates from the consensus, but he/she will have to bear the consequences. I.e. we are responsible for the consequences of our morality.

[MediumTex]

Yes. But that does not change that morality is an inter-people thingy. The goal of morality is to guide interactions between people. To make the interactions predictable. If a persons morality deviates too much from the consensus it will be detrimental to the survival of the memes (and genes) of that person.

I agree that this is one purpose of morality, but isn't another purpose just to make us feel better about the things we do by trying to piece together a code of conduct that makes sense to us as individuals?

Edit: Actually this touches upon another subject. The point of responsibility. When I propose that people don't have a free will, I usually get the reaction that people are then not responsible for their deeds because "its all deterministic". But no, that does not hold water to me. Responsibility is also an inter-people thing. Somebody alone has no need for responsibility. Responsibility is a consequence of evolution: it has sprung to life because without it systems (of people) have no way to optimize their survival.

How do you know whether someone else has free will?  It seems like this is a matter that you would only be able to discuss in terms of your own experiences.  If you conclude that you don't have free will, on what basis would you extrapolate that to all of humanity?

As far as whether morality is necessary if you are alone, I would say that it's just as important in that situation.  In reading about castaways in real life and the fictional depiction of Robinson Crusoe you find again and again that survival seems to depend on a castaway's ability to maintain a mental state that allows him to maintain his sanity, and a big part of this "mental state maintenance" involves clinging to behavioral models that developed in the company of others.

One simple example of what I am talking about involves a situation where there are two starving castaways and one dies.  What you have left then is one hungry castaway and one skinny expired compadre.  In this situation, the survivor will often not eat the corpse, even though failure to do so will only hasten his own death.  In other words, the adherence to the moral prohibition on eating other people will often prevent a person who is by himself and starving from taking the common sense step of eating available food to prolong his own survival because he is afraid of what would happen to him (or to his mental state) if he were to violate that part of his morality.

Another interesting idea about what it means to be "alone" (and thus potentially not subject to a moral code) is that many of the castaways  I am talking about felt an intense connection to God during their ordeal, and thus whether they were actually alone or not, they didn't feel like they were alone, and this was another reason that they attempted to adhere to their moral code even though there wasn't anyone else around.

It is possible for somebody to have a morality that deviates from the consensus, but he/she will have to bear the consequences. I.e. we are responsible for the consequences of our morality.

Sure, but isn't that also true of people who follow the consensus morality?  For example, if a system of morality has become obsolete due to a change in conditions and the elders are not grasping what is occurring, it seems like there would be a survival advantage to having a flexible approach to morality as compared to the dogmatic fogies, right?  Is there really any hard and fast rule that can be teased out of that?  It seems like basically sometimes it is good to adhere to the group's morality, and other times it's good to deviate from it (such as when you are starving and need to justify to yourself eating someone who just died in order to survive).

[Rien]

Yes. But that does not change that morality is an inter-people thingy. The goal of morality is to guide interactions between people. To make the interactions predictable. If a persons morality deviates too much from the consensus it will be detrimental to the survival of the memes (and genes) of that person.

I agree that this is one purpose of morality, but isn't another purpose just to make us feel better about the things we do by trying to piece together a code of conduct that makes sense to us as individuals?

I would turn that around. Morality is a feeling that we have somehow put into words. Often not 100% accurately. Even people who want to stick to a moral rule like NAP often find it difficult to do so at all times.

Edit: Actually this touches upon another subject. The point of responsibility. When I propose that people don't have a free will, I usually get the reaction that people are then not responsible for their deeds because "its all deterministic". But no, that does not hold water to me. Responsibility is also an inter-people thing. Somebody alone has no need for responsibility. Responsibility is a consequence of evolution: it has sprung to life because without it systems (of people) have no way to optimize their survival.

How do you know whether someone else has free will?  It seems like this is a matter that you would only be able to discuss in terms of your own experiences.  If you conclude that you don't have free will, on what basis would you extrapolate that to all of humanity?

I think that free will is an illusion that we maintain because we don't know why we do what we do. I believe that it is impossible to do anything else but what we consider to be the optimum outcome for ourselves.

As far as whether morality is necessary if you are alone, I would say that it's just as important in that situation.  In reading about castaways in real life and the fictional depiction of Robinson Crusoe you find again and again that survival seems to depend on a castaway's ability to maintain a mental state that allows him to maintain his sanity, and a big part of this "mental state maintenance" involves clinging to behavioral models that developed in the company of others.

One simple example of what I am talking about involves a situation where there are two starving castaways and one dies.  What you have left then is one hungry castaway and one skinny expired compadre.  In this situation, the survivor will often not eat the corpse, even though failure to do so will only hasten his own death.  In other words, the adherence to the moral prohibition on eating other people will often prevent a person who is by himself and starving from taking the common sense step of eating available food to prolong his own survival because he is afraid of what would happen to him (or to his mental state) if he were to violate that part of his morality.

Another interesting idea about what it means to be "alone" (and thus potentially not subject to a moral code) is that many of the castaways  I am talking about felt an intense connection to God during their ordeal, and thus whether they were actually alone or not, they didn't feel like they were alone, and this was another reason that they attempted to adhere to their moral code even though there wasn't anyone else around.

It is certainly possible (and even common) to stick with a moral even if that means death for oneself. It not only happens to individuals, but also to entire populations. However that does not change the fact that when we live entirely alone we have no need for a morality. When we live alone we only have to deal with consequences.

It is possible for somebody to have a morality that deviates from the consensus, but he/she will have to bear the consequences. I.e. we are responsible for the consequences of our morality.

Sure, but isn't that also true of people who follow the consensus morality?  For example, if a system of morality has become obsolete due to a change in conditions and the elders are not grasping what is occurring, it seems like there would be a survival advantage to having a flexible approach to morality as compared to the dogmatic fogies, right?  Is there really any hard and fast rule that can be teased out of that?  It seems like basically sometimes it is good to adhere to the group's morality, and other times it's good to deviate from it (such as when you are starving and need to justify to yourself eating someone who just died in order to survive).

I agree. Most NAP-ers exclude what we call life-boat scenario's. When survival is at stake, morality plays second fiddle, if any.

[Mountaineer]

Yes. But that does not change that morality is an inter-people thingy. The goal of morality is to guide interactions between people. To make the interactions predictable. If a persons morality deviates too much from the consensus it will be detrimental to the survival of the memes (and genes) of that person.

I agree that this is one purpose of morality, but isn't another purpose just to make us feel better about the things we do by trying to piece together a code of conduct that makes sense to us as individuals?

Edit: Actually this touches upon another subject. The point of responsibility. When I propose that people don't have a free will, I usually get the reaction that people are then not responsible for their deeds because "its all deterministic". But no, that does not hold water to me. Responsibility is also an inter-people thing. Somebody alone has no need for responsibility. Responsibility is a consequence of evolution: it has sprung to life because without it systems (of people) have no way to optimize their survival.

How do you know whether someone else has free will?  It seems like this is a matter that you would only be able to discuss in terms of your own experiences.  If you conclude that you don't have free will, on what basis would you extrapolate that to all of humanity?

As far as whether morality is necessary if you are alone, I would say that it's just as important in that situation.  In reading about castaways in real life and the fictional depiction of Robinson Crusoe you find again and again that survival seems to depend on a castaway's ability to maintain a mental state that allows him to maintain his sanity, and a big part of this "mental state maintenance" involves clinging to behavioral models that developed in the company of others.

One simple example of what I am talking about involves a situation where there are two starving castaways and one dies.  What you have left then is one hungry castaway and one skinny expired compadre.  In this situation, the survivor will often not eat the corpse, even though failure to do so will only hasten his own death.  In other words, the adherence to the moral prohibition on eating other people will often prevent a person who is by himself and starving from taking the common sense step of eating available food to prolong his own survival because he is afraid of what would happen to him (or to his mental state) if he were to violate that part of his morality.

Another interesting idea about what it means to be "alone" (and thus potentially not subject to a moral code) is that many of the castaways  I am talking about felt an intense connection to God during their ordeal, and thus whether they were actually alone or not, they didn't feel like they were alone, and this was another reason that they attempted to adhere to their moral code even though there wasn't anyone else around.

It is possible for somebody to have a morality that deviates from the consensus, but he/she will have to bear the consequences. I.e. we are responsible for the consequences of our morality.

Sure, but isn't that also true of people who follow the consensus morality?  For example, if a system of morality has become obsolete due to a change in conditions and the elders are not grasping what is occurring, it seems like there would be a survival advantage to having a flexible approach to morality as compared to the dogmatic fogies, right?  Is there really any hard and fast rule that can be teased out of that?  It seems like basically sometimes it is good to adhere to the group's morality, and other times it's good to deviate from it (such as when you are starving and need to justify to yourself eating someone who just died in order to survive).

OK, this is going to sound crazy, but consider these questions:

1. Are trees moral?

2. Do trees have free will?

3. What presuppositions do you hold to be true in order to answer the above two questions? 

4. Do we really think we know the as yet unknown, and if so, what is the basis for that?

5. Do you really think just because "everyone" knows something to be true, it really is?

As you all know, I am a Christian and have a certain set of presuppositions.  I expect agnostics and atheists have different presuppositions as do those of other religions.  I suspect answers to the above questions would differ depending on how one views the existence of a higher power and the capability of that higher power.

[MediumTex]

OK, this is going to sound crazy, but consider these questions:

1. Are trees moral?

I don't know.  I've never been a tree and I can't communicate with them well enough to ask complicated questions like that.

2. Do trees have free will?

I don't know.  If they make choices, they are beyond my comprehension.

I understand that the simple answers to the questions are that trees have no morality and no free will, but that's just a conclusion based upon my own experiences, and as I said I've never been a tree or talked to one so I can't say for sure.

3. What presuppositions do you hold to be true in order to answer the above two questions?

I gave such slippery answers that I don't know what suppositions I held to be true other than that my own understanding of the inner lives of trees is limited.

I am, however, reminded of the great Jack Handey line that touches on this topic:

"If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.”?

4. Do we really think we know the as yet unknown, and if so, what is the basis for that?

I don't think that I know the unknown.  If I knew it, it would no longer be unknown, right? 

5. Do you really think just because "everyone" knows something to be true, it really is?

No, not at all.  In fact, if everyone believes that something is true I tend to think that it's more likely that it's not true.

As you all know, I am a Christian and have a certain set of presuppositions.  I expect agnostics and atheists have different presuppositions as do those of other religions.  I suspect answers to the above questions would differ depending on how one views the existence of a higher power and the capability of that higher power.

Yes,  I agree.  What would you make of a person who read the Gospels and concluded that what Jesus was trying to say was that there was no God somewhere "out there" at all (whether a Jewish God or some other religion's God), and that instead the experience of God actually comes from understanding our own hearts and that it all happens within the mortal realm?

I don't bring any position to this discussion other than a sincere desire to understand things better.  I grew up a Christian and still think of myself as a Christian, but more in the sense of a "follower of Christ" than as a subscriber to the typical "God took a mortal form in order to get the Jews back on track and offer the whole world a new post-modern form of Judaism."

I have so many questions about Christianity as I used to understand it that I would like to discuss with people who still understand it in that way.  I just almost never get to have those discussions because it's so hard for people to look at their beliefs from the outside and discuss them in those terms.  If you would like to have that discussion, though, I would LOVE to have it, and not for the purpose of you making your case and others making their cases, but rather as a way of simply understanding how you arrived at your beliefs and what makes them durable for you. 

I would like to return to the relaxed certainty I had about the world and eternity that I felt when I was younger, but I think that for many people (myself included) something happens at some point along the way that just causes the whole edifice of religion to crumble and it's very hard to put it back together because the crumbling feels like a part of becoming more mature psychologically.  I would contrast this experience with a person who becomes angry, frustrated, or bitter with respect to religion because it failed them in some way.  I wouldn't be angry at God any more than I would be angry with Santa Claus, and I really do miss the days when each of them were more real to me than they are today.

I think that there are a lot of people here who would like to have the discussion I am describing.  I hate that discussions about religion get so hot when there is disagreement, in part because religious questions are really really really important questions.  If an immortal God wanted nothing more than for me to connect with Him, I would hate to miss out on something like that.

[Rien]

OK, this is going to sound crazy, but consider these questions:

1. Are trees moral?

2. Do trees have free will?

3. What presuppositions do you hold to be true in order to answer the above two questions? 

4. Do we really think we know the as yet unknown, and if so, what is the basis for that?

5. Do you really think just because "everyone" knows something to be true, it really is?

As you all know, I am a Christian and have a certain set of presuppositions.  I expect agnostics and atheists have different presuppositions as do those of other religions.  I suspect answers to the above questions would differ depending on how one views the existence of a higher power and the capability of that higher power.

1) No
2) No
3 - 1) A moral is only valid between people, not trees
3 - 2) Trees don't try to explain their actions to themselves
4) Who is "we"? I don't.
5) No

So what are you going to do with these answers?

[Mountaineer]

I have so many questions about Christianity as I used to understand it that I would like to discuss with people who still understand it in that way.  I just almost never get to have those discussions because it's so hard for people to look at their beliefs from the outside and discuss them in those terms.  If you would like to have that discussion, though, I would LOVE to have it, and not for the purpose of you making your case and others making their cases, but rather as a way of simply understanding how you arrived at your beliefs and what makes them durable for you. 

I would like to return to the relaxed certainty I had about the world and eternity that I felt when I was younger, but I think that for many people (myself included) something happens at some point along the way that just causes the whole edifice of religion to crumble and it's very hard to put it back together because the crumbling feels like a part of becoming more mature psychologically.  I would contrast this experience with a person who becomes angry, frustrated, or bitter with respect to religion because it failed them in some way.  I wouldn't be angry at God any more than I would be angry with Santa Claus, and I really do miss the days when each of them were more real to me than they are today.

I think that there are a lot of people here who would like to have the discussion I am describing.  I hate that discussions about religion get so hot when there is disagreement, in part because religious questions are really really really important questions.  If an immortal God wanted nothing more than for me to connect with Him, I would hate to miss out on something like that.

MT,

I would also LOVE to have that discussion as my experiences are pretty much like you described in the last paragraph above. 

My very short response (I have to take my wife for a doctor appointment in a couple of minutes) to the points you raise is:

It is not really about me or my feelings or my witnessing to others by telling them how I made a choice for God.  It is about the fact Jesus came, lived, died and raised from the dead for the purpose bringing us eternal life.  You are forgiven, no matter what you have done or not done in the past; just don't reject the gift.  I probably butchered that, but I will do my best to explain my journey and/or maybe suggest some stuff to consider.  Peace.  Later.

... Mountaineer

[Mountaineer]

OK, this is going to sound crazy, but consider these questions:

1. Are trees moral?

2. Do trees have free will?

3. What presuppositions do you hold to be true in order to answer the above two questions? 

4. Do we really think we know the as yet unknown, and if so, what is the basis for that?

5. Do you really think just because "everyone" knows something to be true, it really is?

As you all know, I am a Christian and have a certain set of presuppositions.  I expect agnostics and atheists have different presuppositions as do those of other religions.  I suspect answers to the above questions would differ depending on how one views the existence of a higher power and the capability of that higher power.

1) No
2) No
3 - 1) A moral is only valid between people, not trees
3 - 2) Trees don't try to explain their actions to themselves
4) Who is "we"? I don't.
5) No

So what are you going to do with these answers?

From my humble perspective, it is about what you are going to do with those answers (not me) and why you came up with them.  I only asked the questions as a means to help us, myself included, think. 

... Mountaineer

[Libertarian666]

My mother is an anthropologist who once studied a remote African village and witnessed a brutal marital rape sanctioned by the whole community....Can you possibly imagine something so horrible?  What's the answer? Are we right and they were wrong and were a backwards and primitive society for sanctioning marital rape? Or is the badness of rape relative, and they simply had a different way of looking at things?

It's kind of uncomfortable to think about, no?

I wonder what the villagers would have said if your mom had told them the following:

Back in my village, we lock up millions of people for inhaling the smoke generated by burning a certain type of plant.  Once these people are released from the large cages we keep them in after months or years of confinement, we don't allow them to participate in tribal activities and severely restrict their ability to find employment or even find a place to live.  For entertainment, we watch these people being chased and caught on TV.

We engage in the ritualistic killing on a more or less random basis (though we favor the poor descendants of members of other tribes) when members of our tribe kill other members of our tribe.  Our methods of ritualistic killing range from poisoning, to electrocution, to gassing.  Even if a person can't think properly and doesn't even understand what the tribe is, he is still eligible for ritualistic killing.  For entertainment, we watch stories about how and when these people will be killed on TV.

We also engage in a different type of ritualistic killing of people we don't like in other villages.  We use flying machines that roam the skies over other villages constantly and we attempt to read the minds of the other villagers and when our chief believes that a member of the other tribe may intend to do us harm in the future, he tells the flying machine to shoot a fire bomb that instantly blows up the member of the other tribe.  For entertainment, we watch members of other villages being blown up on TV.

Sometimes several tribes come together and an award is given to the chief of the tribe who is best at making peace with other tribes.  This award is a great honor.  Our chief received this award before he began operating the flying machines that shoot the fire bombs.  For entertainment, we thought that we would be able to watch the award being taken from him on TV, but that show never came on.

So this woman being raped while the village looks on isn't really that bad.  In fact, if we did such things in my village, the only difference would probably be that we would watch it on TV for entertainment.

Correct on all counts.

Also, there was no such crime as marital rape in most countries, including the US, until relatively recently. According to wikipedia:

" With a few notable exceptions, it was during the past 30 years when most laws against marital rape have been enacted. " (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape)