Ch. 8 - The Felicity of Virtue
Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2014 12:58 pm
Ch. 8 - The Felicity of Virtue
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The biggest surprise from this chapter is the idea of virtue of the Ben Franklin variety, where practice makes perfect (or at least better) is the kind that both driver and elephant will take in. But today's moral instruction imparts only explicit knowledge, facts that the rider can state. Such facts aren't taken in by the elephant and so will have no effect on our actual behavior.Plow your fields, and you’ll find what you need,
You’ll receive bread from your threshing floor.
Better is a bushel given you by God
Than five thousand through wrongdoing. . . .
Better is bread with a happy heart
Than wealth with vexation.
Exactly what that awful genetic determinist Richard Dawkins said!geo wrote:This sentence in Ch. 8 encapsulates for me one of this book's most important themes. If the science bears it out, the implications of this statement may be far-reaching for the human race.
". . . because our genes are, to some extent, puppet masters making us want things that are sometimes good for them but bad for us (such as extramarital affairs, or prestige bought at the expense of happiness). We cannot look to genetic self-interest as a guide either to virtuous or to happy living."
And Dawkins also pointed out that we can to some extent rebel against our genes. Using birth control, for example, we can sidestep the purpose of sexual urges. So maybe not so determinist after all.Dexter wrote:Exactly what that awful genetic determinist Richard Dawkins said!geo wrote:This sentence in Ch. 8 encapsulates for me one of this book's most important themes. If the science bears it out, the implications of this statement may be far-reaching for the human race.
". . . because our genes are, to some extent, puppet masters making us want things that are sometimes good for them but bad for us (such as extramarital affairs, or prestige bought at the expense of happiness). We cannot look to genetic self-interest as a guide either to virtuous or to happy living."
I just saw this today:DWill wrote: I saw a survey that reported young people, even the highest achieving students, rarely read for pleasure. So that lessens my hope a bit.
Comparison of texts(Proverbs 22:20): "Have I not written for you thirty sayings of counsel and knowledge?" (ESV)
(Amenemope, ch. 30, line 539): "Look to these thirty chapters; they inform, they educate."[28]
Haidt gives the one example. I didn't realize there were so many more.youkrst wrote:wow! the parallel between Amenemope and the bible was pretty glaring!
I've wondered if human altruism is all biological, and we just come up with various explanations that mesh with the way we already are. Then again, humans do have the extra dimension of cultural evolution that apes don't have, and as Wright says in The Evolution of God, we seem to be progressing, or evolving on that front. So do we two kinds of morality, one that is purely biological and one that is purely cultural? If civilization collapsed, wouldn't we slip back into a more primitive state? Does Pinker address that question?DWill wrote:It's also interesting to set someone like Frans de Waal into this debate. If we are "good by nature," as he claims, then we actually don't work against our genes, per se, when we act in the interest of others; we're using our genetic make-up there, too. How about that? It means that getting our genes into the next generation isn't the only command genes are giving us.
Even scarier, I've already passed on my genes. My genes have no use for me any more.DWill wrote:I have to confess, I can't personally relate to getting my genes passed on, I guess because this is an entirely unconscious mechanism. It's done by trickery, such as sexually attractive features of the other gender. If someone ever asked me, I'd say I don't care at all whether my genes get passed on--and I don't. But it's not up to me, scary thought.
There was a recent study that showed that reading literature supposedly increases our ability to empathize, so I think you're on to something here.DWill wrote:One thing I believe is very effective at teaching morality is fictive literature. If you think about it, it's very hard to write a story without positive moral content, excluding the Marquis de Sade. This is what Hitchens would say when asked where we are to get moral instruction if it isn't from religion.
I saw a survey that reported young people, even the highest achieving students, rarely read for pleasure. So that lessens my hope a bit.