[zookeeper]

Wow. Now I have little choice but to switch sides for a moment.

But they cannot prescribe what they should do.

You are correct.  You're just missing the discipline that you need to be talking about.

Evolution, genetics, and behavioural genetics prescribe what we should do.  Behaviour is biologically evolved, not just learned.  All human societies share similar moral codes (with large variation among them, granted, but the principles they describe are fundamentally the same) because we have evolved to function as a cooperative society.  Altruism is quite literally coded into our DNA (as it is with a large number of our primate relatives).

Saying that evolution, genetics, and behavioural genetics prescribe what we should do is redefining words. They don't tell us what we should do unless go silly and just say that the fact that our ideas of what we should do can be explained by evolution, genetics, and behavioural genetics is the same thing as evolution, genetics, and behavioural genetics telling us what we should do.

One need not invoke philosophy to explain why we do and should do certain things.  Behavioural genetics explains it more than adequately, in conjunction with the other disciplines you've named.

Agreed.

Philosophy is akin to religion in many ways - it's a temporary attempt to explain things which we could not yet explain with science.  Behavioural genetics is beginning to reach a point where philosophy is nearing its demise as a discipline taken even remotely seriously, because we are rapidly discovering a large number of other species share behavioural (and societal) traits that we have always previously described solely in the human domain.  It's fairly clear that Mr. Dias there has some training or interest in philosophy, and while that's all well and good for him, philosophy still suffers from one enormous flaw:

No empirical evidence.

That's true of those parts of philosophy which try to explain things. For example ethics isn't (only) about explaining what and why and how we perceive good or evil, which are purely a matter of "is", but about what we ought.

Epistemology? Sure, empirical science can handle all that. Aesthetics? Why not. Political philosophy and ethics? Not really.

I can show you how behaviour evolves in conjunction (through at least four interaction types) with biology.  No one can show me empirical evidence of any of the philosophical principles.  It is a discipline based around descriptive and prescriptive ideas, not fact.

Yes, and likewise biology (etc) is a discipline based around facts, not prescriptive ideas.

Just out of curiosity: what would be your biology/genetics/behavioralscience -based non-philosophical answer to the question of why one should be altruistic? Let's say if we're in a situation where you'd like or need some help and I'd have seemingly nothing to gain by giving it. Is your only answer "because your biology will make you feel good if you do it"?

[iamzack]

Just out of curiosity: what would be your biology/genetics/behavioralscience -based non-philosophical answer to the question of why one should be altruistic? Let's say if we're in a situation where you'd like or need some help and I'd have seemingly nothing to gain by giving it. Is your only answer "because your biology will make you feel good if you do it"?

That's an infinitely better answer than "because my invisible friend says you have to if you don't want to be tortured for eternity."

[General Battuta]

Just out of curiosity: what would be your biology/genetics/behavioralscience -based non-philosophical answer to the question of why one should be altruistic? Let's say if we're in a situation where you'd like or need some help and I'd have seemingly nothing to gain by giving it. Is your only answer "because your biology will make you feel good if you do it"?

the answer is simple - in the evolutionary long term it is:

"if engaging in an altruistic behavior increases my fitness, directly or indirectly" - for example, saving siblings at the cost of your own life can actually give you a better chance of passing on genes (via inclusive fitness) than saving your own life

as a result, tendencies towards altruism may evolve which lead to altruism in specific situations that would not actually cause a fitness benefit (for example, jumping on a grenade). these tendencies are very broad and cannot account for the details of specific situations; they are blind.

there's also the question of whether our cognitive abilities have partially uncoupled our behavior from fitness considerations and we're now just running on the dregs of eusocial adaptation

[zookeeper]

Just out of curiosity: what would be your biology/genetics/behavioralscience -based non-philosophical answer to the question of why one should be altruistic? Let's say if we're in a situation where you'd like or need some help and I'd have seemingly nothing to gain by giving it. Is your only answer "because your biology will make you feel good if you do it"?

the answer is simple - in the evolutionary long term it is:

"if engaging in an altruistic behavior increases my fitness, directly or indirectly"

How does helping you necessarily increase my fitness in other ways than possibly making me feel good? I wasn't talking about evolutionary long term.

[General Battuta]

Just out of curiosity: what would be your biology/genetics/behavioralscience -based non-philosophical answer to the question of why one should be altruistic? Let's say if we're in a situation where you'd like or need some help and I'd have seemingly nothing to gain by giving it. Is your only answer "because your biology will make you feel good if you do it"?

the answer is simple - in the evolutionary long term it is:

"if engaging in an altruistic behavior increases my fitness, directly or indirectly"

How does helping you necessarily increase my fitness in other ways than possibly making me feel good? I wasn't talking about evolutionary long term.

well the behavior originates in the evolutionary long term - maybe, probably - so that's where we need to look. same reason men think breasts are sexy and same reason gay people exist; it all comes down to evolution favoring it.

it's going to be difficult to have this conversation without a mutual background in evolutionary biology, but in a simplified sense, 'fitness' is a measure of how many offspring you can both produce and reasonably expect to survive to reproduce themselves. the offspring of your siblings and relatives also count because they share genes with you and that's all that matters to evolution.

when a behavior increases the probability that you or your offspring (remember offspring count for less) will survive to reproduce, it is selected for; we say it 'evolves'. so, altruistic self-sacrificing behavior will evolve if

1) on average, over the long run, it benefits a close relative more than it hurts your fitness

2) on average, over the long run, it benefits the social group or tribe you belong to in such a way that it increases the fitness of you or your relatives (even if you are dead); this is social group selection.

3) on average, over the long run, you can count on this act of altruism being repaid. in vampire bats, for example, the bats will share blood with each other because they are very reliable at paying each other back.

now there's an additional possible mechanism, which is not yet as well evidenced:

4) the behavior causes the group to survive and a trait of the group is that it teaches the behavior. for example, if a nation teaches its soldiers to jump on grenades to save their comrades, and this causes their soldiers to win wars, causing the nation to survive, causing it to continue teaching the grenade-jumping behavior, the meme coding for that behavior will evolve.

[zookeeper]

Just out of curiosity: what would be your biology/genetics/behavioralscience -based non-philosophical answer to the question of why one should be altruistic? Let's say if we're in a situation where you'd like or need some help and I'd have seemingly nothing to gain by giving it. Is your only answer "because your biology will make you feel good if you do it"?

the answer is simple - in the evolutionary long term it is:

"if engaging in an altruistic behavior increases my fitness, directly or indirectly"

How does helping you necessarily increase my fitness in other ways than possibly making me feel good? I wasn't talking about evolutionary long term.

well the behavior originates in the evolutionary long term - maybe, probably - so that's where we need to look. same reason men think breasts are sexy and same reason gay people exist; it all comes down to evolution favoring it.

it's going to be difficult to have this conversation without a mutual background in evolutionary biology, but in a simplified sense, 'fitness' is a measure of how many offspring you can both produce and reasonably expect to survive to reproduce themselves. the offspring of your siblings and relatives also count because they share genes with you and that's all that matters to evolution.

when a behavior increases the probability that you or your offspring (remember offspring count for less) will survive to reproduce, it is selected for; we say it 'evolves'. so, altruistic self-sacrificing behavior will evolve if

1) on average, over the long run, it benefits a close relative more than it hurts your fitness

2) on average, over the long run, it benefits the social group or tribe you belong to in such a way that it increases the fitness of you or your relatives (even if you are dead); this is social group selection.

3) on average, over the long run, you can count on this act of altruism being repaid. in vampire bats, for example, the bats will share blood with each other because they are very reliable at paying each other back.

now there's an additional possible mechanism, which is not yet as well evidenced:

4) the behavior causes the group to survive and a trait of the group is that it teaches the behavior. for example, if a nation teaches its soldiers to jump on grenades to save their comrades, and this causes their soldiers to win wars, causing the nation to survive, causing it to continue teaching the grenade-jumping behavior, the meme coding for that behavior will evolve.

You're still merely explaining why I'd perhaps help you, not why I should. Evolution explains why I'm the way I am, that is someone who'd probably want to help you, but not why I should do so. Also, all that talk about proliferating one's genes is especially odd considering that I specifically want to not do that.

Let's use this extreme example: we're in a space shuttle somewhere far away, the shuttle is malfunctioning, leaking air, or whatever, and that we'll certainly be dead in an hour. Meanwhile, you're seriously injured and in a lot of pain. I could give you pain medicine or otherwise make you more comfortable before we die. Why should I? Helping you wouldn't increase my fitness in any way. We can even assume that there's no way for anyone else to ever know that I helped you, so that I can't proliferate my good behaviour by setting a heroic example.

What's the non-philosophical answer to why I should help you in that situation? If there is none other than the fact that helping you would probably make me feel good then that's a case of biology/genetics/behavioralscience failing to provide me with an ought which philosophy can provide.

[General Battuta]

You're still merely explaining why I'd perhaps help you, not why I should.

the 'should' is inherent in the 'why': it is a behavior that on the macro scale produces stable self-propagating societies. do you consider that a good? probably, because considering it a good helps create stable self-propgating societies

Also, all that talk about proliferating one's genes is especially odd considering that I specifically want to not do that.

right, but you've inherited a bundle of traits shaped by the desire to do so; the fact that you don't want to reproduce is irrelevant, you've come to that conclusion using tools developed by a system whose fundamental algorithm is the ability to reproduce. you don't need to want to reproduce or even have the ability to in order to play by those rules.

Let's use this extreme example: we're in a space shuttle somewhere far away, the shuttle is malfunctioning, leaking air, or whatever, and that we'll certainly be dead in an hour. Meanwhile, you're seriously injured and in a lot of pain. I could give you pain medicine or otherwise make you more comfortable before we die. Why should I? Helping you wouldn't increase my fitness in any way. We can even assume that there's no way for anyone else to ever know that I helped you, so that I can't proliferate my good behaviour by setting a heroic example.

the reason why you will attempt to alleviate my suffering is that you possess mirror neurons and other evolved empathic systems that make you suffer pain when you see pain; these systems evolved because they gave a fitness advantage to those that possessed them, perhaps by rendering their groups more competitive

helping would not increase your fitness in any way but that's never the question you should ask, helping is driven by systems which evolved because over the long run at the macro scale they increased fitness

What's the non-philosophical answer to why I should help you in that situation? If there is none other than the fact that helping you would probably make me feel good then that's a case of biology/genetics/behavioralscience failing to provide me with an ought which philosophy can provide.

biology/genetics/behavioralscience provide you with an answer to why you should help me in that situation: because you are inclined to by systems which evolved because they provided a fitness advantage

if you are asking 'should those systems remain in place', you'll need to turn to another branch of science to answer that question - use game theory and social science to determine which behaviors lead to the outcomes you desire (for example, human survival or improved socioeconomic index)

philosophy can provide no answers because it is non-falsifiable and non-empirical; all philosophies are equally meaningless until they are applied and as soon as they are applied they become scientific and thus the domain of science

[MP-Ryan]

I think Battuta answered your responses to my post quite nicely, so I'll refrain from adding to it (for the sake of avoiding redundancy) unless further clarification is required =)

[StarSlayer]

Actually, I believe the military has done extensive research on some of these subjects.  War by Sebastian Junger touched on some of their findings when discussing such concepts as sacrificing one's life to save your fellow soldiers.  It might be worth looking up some of the military's work since they seemed to have invested quite a bit of time and effort into figuring this stuff out.

edit> fixed a typo

[General Battuta]

I think Battuta answered your responses to my post quite nicely, so I'll refrain from adding to it (for the sake of avoiding redundancy) unless further clarification is required =)

but you're better at this!

fwiw i can see the point zookeeper's making - if science only explains why you're likely to act in a given why, not how you ought to act, then the ought is open to philosophy, but i think that a) social sciences and game science allow you to determine the best strategies in any given situation to achieve an outcome, and b) the question of which outcomes are good is answered by examining our own evolution and neural wiring

starslayer: i had the good fortune to work under jean decety, a neuroscientist/psychologist who studies empathy and specifically just that question of military behavior. fascinating stuff

[zookeeper]

You're still merely explaining why I'd perhaps help you, not why I should.

the 'should' is inherent in the 'why': it is a behavior that on the macro scale produces stable self-propagating societies. do you consider that a good? probably, because considering it a good helps create stable self-propgating societies

Also, all that talk about proliferating one's genes is especially odd considering that I specifically want to not do that.

right, but you've inherited a bundle of traits shaped by the desire to do so; the fact that you don't want to reproduce is irrelevant, you've come to that conclusion using tools developed by a system whose fundamental algorithm is the ability to reproduce. you don't need to want to reproduce or even have the ability to in order to play by those rules.

Let's use this extreme example: we're in a space shuttle somewhere far away, the shuttle is malfunctioning, leaking air, or whatever, and that we'll certainly be dead in an hour. Meanwhile, you're seriously injured and in a lot of pain. I could give you pain medicine or otherwise make you more comfortable before we die. Why should I? Helping you wouldn't increase my fitness in any way. We can even assume that there's no way for anyone else to ever know that I helped you, so that I can't proliferate my good behaviour by setting a heroic example.

the reason why you will attempt to alleviate my suffering is that you possess mirror neurons and other evolved empathic systems that make you suffer pain when you see pain; these systems evolved because they gave a fitness advantage to those that possessed them, perhaps by rendering their groups more competitive

helping would not increase your fitness in any way but that's never the question you should ask, helping is driven by systems which evolved because over the long run at the macro scale they increased fitness

What's the non-philosophical answer to why I should help you in that situation? If there is none other than the fact that helping you would probably make me feel good then that's a case of biology/genetics/behavioralscience failing to provide me with an ought which philosophy can provide.

biology/genetics/behavioralscience provide you with an answer to why you should help me in that situation: because you are inclined to by systems which evolved because they provided a fitness advantage

That's...circular reasoning. You're telling me I should help you because I want to help you. You're telling me that because my desire to help you is explainable by biology/genetics/behavioralscience, it means that biology/genetics/behavioralscience is telling me why I should help you. You're still not giving me a logical reason why I should help you (even in the above-mentioned kind of situations).

See, when I'm asking "why should I help you?", I'm asking you to explain to me why helping you would be a logical thing for me to do regardless of whether I'd like to help you regardless of whether I got a monkey brain or not - I'm not asking for an explanation of how the kind of monkey brain I possess evolved and what neurons are involved in producing the (arguably very compelling) sensation of "help fellow monkey, help fellow monkey!".

Wouldn't it be more accurate for you to say that there are no oughts, period? That when I'm asking you why I should help you, your answer is actually "you shouldn't, but luckily you do anyway"? That seems to be how you see it and it's pretty close to what I think as well, but I do think it's a big fallacy to try to equate that with "you should, because of mirror neurons".

[General Battuta]

i understand what you're saying, and you're right, I didn't do a great job of answering that, since you're correct that 'should' or 'ought' is not the same as 'why'

the reason you help me is because you want to help me, and the reason you want to help me is because in the distant evolutionary past, the people who didn't have traits that made them want to help in a situation like this were out-bred by those who did. i suppose there's no 'should' there. i'm not sure there's any meaning to 'should', because 'should' seems to imply 'should according to...', and all the possible values of 'according to' are moralities which evolved.

that's all. it doesn't feel like much, i'm sure, but that's all the meaning there is in the world: cause and effect. and yes, i'm not really sure i believe that there are 'thoughts'; i certainly don't believe in free will as some sort of acasual nucleus of independent action. i'm guessing we agree on that.

so i think i see that the nucleus of our disagreement these last few posts is simply the use of 'should'. i suppose i'd say that the way you should act is completely contingent on what you want the outcome to be, but the only way to know what the outcome to be is to look at past data and build a model, which is science; and the reasons you value certain outcomes over others are also rooted in science, namely our evolutionary past

i'd take a stab at answering this, then

I'm asking you to explain to me why helping you would be a logical thing for me to do regardless of whether I'd like to help you regardless of whether I got a monkey brain or not

i'd say that no braintype-agnostic, purely 'logical' answer is possible because the type of brain you have - monkey brain, fish brain, space brain, brain of pure thought - determines what you consider the 'good' outcomes to be, and that the way you ought to act in the situation is simply to achieve said good outcome

does that do a better job of things?

also, you and everyone else may be very interested in this, by a writer who challenges me and who i am therefore fond of

[Bobboau]

ok, I have a small point I want to make, I haven't read all of the stuff that happened since this thread turned fun  yet, so pardon me if this has been covered.

science is a rigorous method for determining fact, it is the only known way for you to be able to determine if a belief you have correlates with the physical world, and the physical world is the only realm which has thus far (somewhat circularly) been proven to exist within reality. So, science is the tool which you can used to determine if an assertion is within the realm of what we know of as real or not.

Now, it has been asserted that science can not tell you what you 'should' do. In the simplest of contexts this is true, however, if you were to state a goal, then science most certainly can tell you at least one way that you could accomplish this goal, or if said goal is not possible. Assuming a possible goal (which as mentioned in the previous sentience science can determine if a goal is possible or not) science can tell you which courses of action will be most efficient from the perspective of what ever variable involved you are interested, or even unequally weighted combinations of variables, which will result in the accomplishment of your goal.

Now you might be saying to yourself well he just changed the word 'should' with the word 'goal'. This is not true, if you flatly and unconditionally make the claim that science can not tell you what you should do then it effectively denies science's ability to predict, which is perhaps it's most import capability. So perhaps I have just pushed it back closer to where the true fundamental problem lies.

So let us go on one more step, let us assert the goal of determining a goal. Well, a goal is a end state that an entity or collection of entities would 'want' to accomplish or come asymptotically close to. So in order to accomplish our stated goal, we will need to define 'want', why would an individual or group of individuals 'want' something? fortunately as has been mentioned ad nausium in this thread there are entire fields of science dedicated to understanding the source of, and predicting desires both in individuals and groups of humans. So assuming that these fields of science are not complete dead ends we should be able to come up with goals that should correlate with the maximum number of people and conflict with the minimum. it is then a 'simple' matter of figuring out the optimal configuration of variables to fulfill these goals in the most efficient manner possible.

Science can tell us what we want, science can tell us if a given situation is closer to or further from one of the desired outcomes that maximizes these wants, or if that situation is likely to lead toward or away from one of these outcomes. Further science can tell us what we should do to get it, and what we should not do in order to avoid a state that we would not want.

so it seems to me that science should be perfectly capable of determining a moral system, and I would assert that it would produce one far more efficient than any of the one devised thus far.

[zookeeper]

i understand what you're saying, and you're right, I didn't do a great job of answering that, since you're correct that 'should' or 'ought' is not the same as 'why'

the reason you help me is because you want to help me, and the reason you want to help me is because in the distant evolutionary past, the people who didn't have traits that made them want to help in a situation like this were out-bred by those who did. i suppose there's no 'should' there. i'm not sure there's any meaning to 'should', because 'should' seems to imply 'should according to...', and all the possible values of 'according to' are moralities which evolved.

Yes, I agree with all that except perhaps the last bit. Our brains are so versatile and re-programmable that I think it's fair to say that people do develop moralities which are can't really be called a result of evolution as such. Just like (most of) the things you do cannot be attributed to your parents even though you couldn't have as much as existed without them, you can't really attribute all systems of morality which people come up with to evolution, even though obviously those systems of morality are developed with brains which evolved.

that's all. it doesn't feel like much, i'm sure, but that's all the meaning there is in the world: cause and effect. and yes, i'm not really sure i believe that there are 'thoughts'; i certainly don't believe in free will as some sort of acasual nucleus of independent action. i'm guessing we agree on that.

Yes, of course.

so i think i see that the nucleus of our disagreement these last few posts is simply the use of 'should'. i suppose i'd say that the way you should act is completely contingent on what you want the outcome to be, but the only way to know what the outcome to be is to look at past data and build a model, which is science; and the reasons you value certain outcomes over others are also rooted in science, namely our evolutionary past

Yes (except for the part I already disagreed above).

i'd take a stab at answering this, then

I'm asking you to explain to me why helping you would be a logical thing for me to do regardless of whether I'd like to help you regardless of whether I got a monkey brain or not

i'd say that no braintype-agnostic, purely 'logical' answer is possible because the type of brain you have - monkey brain, fish brain, space brain, brain of pure thought - determines what you consider the 'good' outcomes to be, and that the way you ought to act in the situation is simply to achieve said good outcome

does that do a better job of things?

Yes, and I more or less agree with that.

[NGTM-1R]

Yes, I agree with all that except perhaps the last bit. Our brains are so versatile and re-programmable that I think it's fair to say that people do develop moralities which are can't really be called a result of evolution as such. Just like (most of) the things you do cannot be attributed to your parents even though you couldn't have as much as existed without them, you can't really attribute all systems of morality which people come up with to evolution, even though obviously those systems of morality are developed with brains which evolved.

You're missing part of Battuta's point. The way a human brain develops anything, including morality, maps cleanly to an evolutionary process without being "evolution" as the term is used in biology. You are more than your biology, but the system of development used in biology is also valid for explaining how you adapt to environment.

[MP-Ryan]

i understand what you're saying, and you're right, I didn't do a great job of answering that, since you're correct that 'should' or 'ought' is not the same as 'why'

the reason you help me is because you want to help me, and the reason you want to help me is because in the distant evolutionary past, the people who didn't have traits that made them want to help in a situation like this were out-bred by those who did. i suppose there's no 'should' there. i'm not sure there's any meaning to 'should', because 'should' seems to imply 'should according to...', and all the possible values of 'according to' are moralities which evolved.

Yes, I agree with all that except perhaps the last bit. Our brains are so versatile and re-programmable that I think it's fair to say that people do develop moralities which are can't really be called a result of evolution as such. Just like (most of) the things you do cannot be attributed to your parents even though you couldn't have as much as existed without them, you can't really attribute all systems of morality which people come up with to evolution, even though obviously those systems of morality are developed with brains which evolved.

Everything we do and are is, one way or another, a product of our biology.  This is what I'm getting at by pointing people to behavioural genetics.  There is empirical evidence that the following processes all occur in nature (independently and in concert).

1. Genes determine behaviour directly.
2.  Behaviour alters (and therefore determines) gene expression directly.
3.  Environment directly alters gene expression.
4.  Learning incorporates behaviour into memory, both neural and genetic (Lamarck's revenge, you might call this discovery... hello epigenetics).  This incorporation can be passed to offspring.
5.  Behaviour determines selection of organism's environment, and therefore genes can actually determine environmental selection (refer to point 1)
6.  An organism's environment can alter it's behaviour, and indirectly change it's gene expression (refer to point 2)

This explanation is best captured (though not best understood, which is why I typed it out, by a simple diagram:

Genes <-> Behaviour <-> Environment <-> Genes

We are a product of these three things.  Thus, our morality is produced by the synergistic effects of our genes, our environment (this includes learning and other people), and our behaviours.  Two out of the three are governed by evolutionary processes.

You can't think of behavioural evolution in the same simplistic terms that biological evolution is taught, because evolution is taught only in its most basic form to the majority of people.  The bulk of the information incorporated into evolutionary theory applies equally to biology and behaviour because they are both derived from the same sources.

So the simple answer is:  your morality is not determined by individual thought, no matter how much we all like to think so.  As it happens, free will is primarily an illusion as well.

[Sushi]

On the subject of how altruism can show up from game theory (and related issues),more recommended reading:
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Cooperation-Robert-Axelrod/dp/0465021212

This has turned out to be one of those rare, extremely interesting threads, albeit very challenging... carry on!

[Mongoose]

[totally off-topic]Why is it that every time Battuta uses the word "heuristics," I wind up wincing?  I read an article once about certain words that just "look ugly" to a particular person, and I think that's one of mine.  It's the "eu" combination, I think.  Same reason I'm not a big fan of French[/totally off-topic]

Also, I really don't want to get dragged into this particular conversation in the least, but it does strike me that ascribing the sorts of analytical processes to daily decisions that Battuta and Ryan have done in this thread seems to me to be, well...nothing short of boring.  Ignorance really is bliss, so I think I'll stick with it and have fun.

[Bobboau]

and just like how you don't need to be a computer scientist or electrical engineer to receive the fruits of those fields in the form of the computer you are using, you don't need to spend your life working this out if you don't want to, it seems other people are already on it.

[Mongoose]

The difference here, though, is that I'd be rather interested in hearing from the computer scientists and electrical engineers about the particulars of their work, whereas the sorts of studies Battuta talks about seem like they'd be actively detrimental to my basic enjoyment of everyday life.  But hey, to each their own.