Darwinian Nobility
| April 21, 2008 | Posted by Dave S. under Off Topic, Philosophy |
Please note this is categorized in off-topic philosophy.
Does Darwinian Nobility, capitalized no less, sound like a contradiction in terms? Not really. In the Descent of Man, Darwin talks about the noble nature of man like it was a tangible thing.
“Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature.”
Who’s responsible for eugenics? Simple. People who don’t have the noble nature of man that Darwin mentions like a physical thing.
If you don’t instinctively know that the right thing to do is help rather than harm those less fortunate in life than you are then you lack Darwinian Nobility.
Is Darwinian Nobility due to nature or nurture? Who the hell knows. One or the other or both. All I know is the world would be a better place with more of it.
43 Responses to Darwinian Nobility
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ericb
Let me get this straight, when Darwin talks about racism, that’s part of “Darwinism”. But when he talks about the noble nature of man, that isn’t part of Darwinism.
How convenient. And how lacking in consistency.
Darwin believed that man’s noble nature was due to natural selection. He believed everything was due to natural selection. So, you’re wrong. The noble nature of man is every bit as much “Darwinism” as anything else.
You can’t stand the thought of having your favorite demons taken away from you, can you?
Is this whole Darwin/Holocaust crap more inane baggage carried into ID by young earth creationists? This has nothing at all to do with design detection. It’s just a pathetic attempt to bolster an argument through appeal to emotion. It’s really disgusting.
p.p.s. Most people do not consider something as tenuous as who got the A-bomb first as sufficient to determine what we normally consider superior moral qualities.
Yet, in the Darwinian framework, if the Germans had been a bit quicker…
(or if Edith Keeler had not died…).
That William Provine does not understand Darwinism?
Provine looked like a raving lunatic in Expelled, so yeah, lunatics lack understanding of many things.
Provine doesn’t believe in free will. So he has no choice about being a raving lunatic, does he? He is, in his own stupid opinion, a puppet with no control over himself.
DaveScot (31): “Darwin believed that man’s noble nature was due to natural selection. He believed everything was due to natural selection. So, you’re wrong. The noble nature of man is every bit as much “Darwinism” as anything else.”
I see that we have cross-posted where you probably had not seen my p.s. before posting this.
In any case, you can see that even before your note, I was already acknowledging that “noble” can have a Darwinian sense — just not the objectively superior sense we normally give to it in common usage.
Also, see above my point in 25. Rape, murder, etc. are equally the product of evolution (in that view) as any other surviving behaviors. Plus, there is no final assessment of superior moral qualities. What wins for now may not win later, and vice versa.
So Darwin can have “noble” if we redefine it to mean something not inherently superior. But to claim the inherently superior sense of “noble” would be cheating by means of equivocation.
BTW, I don’t fault Darwin for valuing or praising noble qualities, or for aiming better than his theory supports. In such cases, consistency is not always the best choice.
—–Dave: “Darwin believed that man’s noble nature was due to natural selection. He believed everything was due to natural selection. So, you’re wrong. The noble nature of man is every bit as much “Darwinism” as anything else.”
I am with you half way on this one, but not the half that counts. Granted Darwin believed that nobility was a function of natural selection, but he also believed that the instinct for survival is a function of the same process. So, how do we reconcile natural selection giving us both the instict for self sacrifice and the instinct for self survival. That sounds like a pretty schizophrenic process to me.
Provine has had a briain tumor (which is now returning). Attacking his mannerisms does not constitute a rebuttal to his understanding of the implications of consistent Darwinism, nor is it a noble response.
Whether there is free will or not, that has no effect on how Darwinism scores the “winners” and “losers”. Darwinism has no means to call any surviving behavior superior over other surviving behaviors. If you survive by bombing your enemies or by showing mercy to earthworms, Darwinism does not differentiate. And what wins today may not win tomorrow. Within that framework, there is no fixed, inherent compass apart from successful reproduction.
Insults will not change that reality.
Actually, wouldn’t that be part of evolutionism, a philosophy or worldview as defined by Michael Ruse, and not Darwinism, a scientific hypothesis?
BTW, I’m using “Darwinism” as an overarching term to refer to all variants of modern evolutionary biology.
Borne, i humbly retract my assertion about Darwin’s materialism, and accept your references on that topic.
however, you appear to miss my point. i’m not saying that materialists have an objective foundation for morality (although, arguably there are objective morals one can conclude from materialism and evolution).
i’m arguing against the original statement, as i understood it, that materialists are a nasty bunch with no reason to be good to each other. i’m sure you’ll agree that this is a pretty perjorative, ignorant statement to make really.
also: yes, i’m reading on ethics, and the origin (philosophical / biological / theological) of them, at the moment. it’s something that interests me greatly, and i’ll freely admit to not being anywhere near an expert on it, but i am willing to learn more.
from your other posts, regarading “‘Darwinism’ stripping humans of their value”, i would take issue very strongly with this. who is to say that non-human life has no value? if you think Darwinism places humans equal with other animals (it doesn’t, there is obvious difference between all the species) and from this we should kill humans – do you already feel we should be killing animals for no reason? does non-human life hold no value to you?
when people talk of “lowering” humans to animals’ level, really they should be thinking about realising that all life is sacred.
thanks for your taking time to answer.
I don’t see where Borne or I have made such a statement. Do you have a particular quote you are bothered by? That isn’t part of the point he and I have been making. If you look, he has tried to make the distinction clear.
The fundamental problem is not that there could never be a motivation to be nice to others.
The fundamental problem is that every persisting behavior, both noble and base, both selfish and altruistic, ever persisting pattern has the evolutionary seal of approval. None of them can be considered “wrong” from an evolutionary standpoint. And even if some do not succeed well in one set of circumstances, it might be that evolution/selection would render a different verdict for the same behaviors in a different set of circumstances.
Ergo, none of them are inherently superior to the others in that framework. Mother Theresa has her way. Hitler and the Nazis had theirs. Some people prefer chocolate, others vanilla. If it makes offspring and is not weeded out by selection, evolution is OK with it either way.
DaveScott wondered what this all has to do with design detection. In a way, the issues are analogous.
In biology, we have a sense that biological organisms are designed. Dawkins et al say this is only an appearance. ID proponents hold there is growing evidence that the best explanation is actual design.
In ethics/morality, we have a sense that some behaviors are truly noble, truly good and superior in an inherent sense. Provine, Michael Ruse, E.O.Wilson and other thorough going evolutionists would say this is only an appearance. “Morality …. is merely an adaptation put in place to further our reproductive ends. … In an important sense, ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate.” – The Evolution of Ethics
The alternate position is that our perception is not an illusion, and that there really is a way that humans ought to treat each other. If human biological life is designed (i.e. the result of intention), then it becomes objectively meaningful to consider that there can be intended behavior as well.
I’ve heard this claim made before, but I have never seen or heard anyone make a solid case for it.
The fundamental problem is that no amount of reasoning can ever introduce a concept into a conclusion that is not in the premises. Consequently, no list of factual “this is so” statements (such as science might produce) can ever yield a single “ought”. It is not logically possible. The “ought to” has to come from something other than facts about what is true.
To refer to the sacred or the holy is to indicate something or someone belongs to God. That option is not open to a materialist.
Nobility through virtue instead of descent? Yes, that sounds a little ass backwards coming from Darwin.
However, when you believe helping those less fortunate includes the civil races whiping out “savage” races, who are simply trying to survive, I suppose you don’t bother considering that you may be a living contradiction.
To refer to the sacred or the holy is to indicate something or someone belongs to God. That option is not open to a materialist.
Can we show God is not a product of material mechanisms we simply do not understand? I think if human biology produces a non material individual through material causation(Brain) it is plausible to suggest the same is true for a deity.
After all, have we ever really put God to any lab testing?
Also, I may hold something as sacred or holy without the presence of a God. Buddhism has no personal relationship with God, yet it’s traditions/rituals, monks/priests, and noble truths are held sacred/holy.
Darwin did indeed cleave to the notion of nobility in the human spirit. You might say that’s the problem.
Darwin believed that evolution was ameliorative. He believed in his own goodness, like the old philosophers, but he claimed that this goodness was a product of nature and did not reflect the qualities of a transcendent being.
No philosophy can obtain influence without a promise of happiness, and the promise implied in the notion of ameliorative evolution is that nature is in the process of making men more beautiful and good.
Darwin linked sympathy to social instinct because he wanted to indicate that nature had the power to produce this noble trait of its own accord. And he implied that nobility would continue to increase by natural means, without the help of God.
History suggests that he may have been overly optimistic. The murderous regimes of Hitler, Stalin and Mao, evolutionists all, do not indicate that man is good by nature or can experience an increase in goodness by dispensing with God.
The key question is this: Does getting rid of God really make men nobler, as Darwin’s philosophy implies, or does it turn them into beasts?
ericB@38,
it was the original person i quoted that made the statement i was referring to (i can’t remember who it was now). obviously you and Borne are better writers than this person.
i would argue that objective morals can exist in a world where we are not necessarily specifically created to fulfil them. i certainly am no great philosoper, but i’d point to the idea that no (or very few) extant culture(s) on earth tend to deem the killing of their own as moral (except in extreme cases where it would arguably save more lives, e.g. capital punishment). this points to an evolutionary source of at least some morality.
certainly the indication that there is very little other morality that is universally shared between cultures would indicate that a common designer did not instill each of us with His law (i think, if we’re discussing a designer who gives morals to His subjects, i’m allowed to use The Pronoun).
you are right that “ought” is not necessarily derived from science, but this does not necessitate a retreat into the supernatural. demonstrably, human culture is the most prominent, observable source of morality we have. secular and religious cultures alike have their own moral codes, and the differences are apparently entirely subjective.
i hope you wil forgive my use of the phrase “life is sacred” i know it is a common phrase and it does not necessarily include the Baggage (pronoun again) that the original useage of sacred may have implied (any more than if i was to Thank Goodness). i merely mean that life is beautiful, defendable, important, and yes, noble.
you are right to point out that all forms of morality is consistent with evolution. however, noticably, humans are not selected on terms of morality so much nowadays (and arguably, the more complex forms of morality are instead culturally imposed).