X-Message-Number: 17091
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 00:39:56 -0700
From: Lee Corbin <>
Subject: Re: Origins of Virtue

Robert Ettinger writes

>First, evolutionary explanations are beside the point.

I think that they are an indispensable guide, and also
often strongly indicate what is credible (or unbelievable).
As one example, one can demolish the idea that trees suffer
when cut, by evolutionary arguments.  But perhaps you mean
in this particular discussion.

>One can be misguided by traits acquired through evolutionay pressures,

yes---like for some, a belief in God

>or by accident, and in other ways including plain stupidity or
>miscalculation, or by ignorance. What you "feel" or want or honor
>is not necessarily what you *ought* to want, based on biology and logic.

Very true.

>Lee keeps referring to "genuine" goodness. If that means anything, all that 
>it means, as far as I can see, is that the "altrusitic" act supposedly 
>motivated by "genuine" goodness is one lacking any easily designated quid
pro 
>quo or reward or payment. But I hardly think he will deny that it makes the 
>do-gooder feel good, at least in some ways and to some extent and at the 
>moment.

Yes, that is a good point.  But it suffers, I think, from the following
observation.  While I have a feeling of satisfaction when I help someone
or something, it's not necessarily greater or any different than the
feeling of satisfaction or accomplishment I get when I finish cleaning
a dish and put it in the cupboard, or any other trivial act that I
perform or complete.  Some acts, like catching someone who's stumbled, 
or going a little out of my way to be polite are in this category.
Other acts, like vacuuming the carpet or stopping to help a stranded
motorist can also give these feelings.  Now of course, yes, it is
true that I can feel especially virtuous on the completion of some
acts of kindness, but I think that it is wrong to argue that this
is always "why" I did the act.  Sometimes I really don't have any
idea of how I'm going to feel about something afterwards.

Sometimes you just want to set things right in the world, and letting
a trapped motorist go in front of you is one---but so is seeing a book
on the floor and reshelving it.  To insist that "everyone does everything
for a selfish reason", is to imply a calculatedness that doesn't exist.
(Not only that, it's still puerile---sorry---to maintain that everything
done is for self- interest, because of the utter impoverishment of the
phrase; I'll allow that "everything occurs the way it does because
of physical law", but sentences like the one quoted above that use
"everything" communicate nothing.)

I still would like you or anyone who thinks that our typical (but
not universal) human sympathy, kindness, or altruism is entirely
due to self-interest to answer the following question.  Do you believe
that humans could eventually be bred to engage in acts of altruism that
were not based upon self-interest?  And if so, how do you know that
it hasn't already happened (to some degree)?

Also, while we are at it, don't you all sense that you are
stretching when you concoct an explanation of why a soldier
throwing himself on a hand-grenade to save his comrades?
Now is it really due to his selfishness/self-interest?
(Don't stretch too hard, now.)

Lee

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