Republicans and Democrats: I Generalize
Husband is spending the morning watching American news clips discussing Sarah Palin, which all involve the talking heads getting really heated and shouting at each other. He finds this hilarious; it really stresses me out. There’s nothing worse than het-up newsanchors trying to shout each other down over something that, let’s face it, should be so painfully obvious that no discussion is required.
Here is a summary: Palin is underqualified and scary right wing. The haggling over what her role and abilities are reminds me of all the talking that went on in the wake of 9/11. Long after the rest of the world had accepted that the US used it as an excuse to wage a war for money, the American news media was still going on and on about weapons of mass destruction and terrorism and the intelligence provided by the CIA, as though there was really any debate - which basically just made them look like asses. They weren’t fooling anyone but themselves. Same with Palin.
But I recently read an interesting article that is very relevant here, about why people vote Republican, and why folks like Palin have special appeal. It’s about moral sense and how people intuitively understand and apply morality. Of the five dimensions of morality identified by the author throughout his research career, Democrats utilize two: harm/care, and fairness/reciprocity. Republicans use these two, but also the other three: ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. In short, Republicans hit all our moral receptors - Democrats only hit two, and rely on the application of reason to justify staying away from the other three. Alas, we are a species driven by its hardware, and reason is often not good enough.
Here are some traditionally Democrat/left values that violate our moral sense: tolerance of all races and genders and sexual orientations violates ingroup/loyalty. Challenging authority, protesting the government, holding sit-ins and other acts of civil disobedience violates authory/respect. Keeping religion out of government, “traditional” family values being moved aside in favour of gay adoption, divorce and abortion rights violate purity/sanctity.
If I understand this article correctly, we are all instinctual Republicans. This is an evolutionary legacy. It requires quite a lot of difficult work to overcome - compounded because, as Pascal Boyer writes, it further goes against our evoluionary programming to even think scientifically. Two unnatural acts are required before one can arrive at Democratic principles - none for Republican.
Posted in Psychology, Reading |
September 21st, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Evolutionary legacy, God given sense of morality, wherever you you think these instincts come from, perhaps we should utilize them.
Given the choice of a bowl of strawberries, or a bowl of feces, the vast majority of people would be drawn to the former, and disgusted by the latter. Why? well, from a survival point of view, eating strawberries = survival, eating shit = disease and death.
Most men, when presented with two choices for a mate, a pretty woman, and a handsome man, would choose the woman. Why? Survival of the species, and the perpetuation of ones genes.
Maybe homosexuality was disgusting to so many for so long, because it’s inherently a bad idea from a moral, or evolutionary instinctual level.
Practices that tend to be tied to Democratic ideals more than Republican ones; abortion, homosexuality, drug use, are terrible ideas for propagating the species. I’m sure the birth rate among republicans would be higher than democrats if someone did a study.
Wow, someone did…
http://www.isteve.co/BabyGap.htm
So from the prime measure of success from an evolutionary standpoint, reproduction, Republican beliefs seem to be the clear winner. So perhaps we should listen to our instincts, and not try to reason our way to accepting abortion and homosexuality and the like.
~I.
September 21st, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Incognito, I made a small edit to your comment (I deleted the last line). I felt it went a little far for my taste - a rephrase wherein you take ownership of the sentiment and ascribe it to yourself rather than making a sweeping statement that speaks for everyone would have been acceptable. I think I get what you were going for, and generally speaking I wouldn’t edit that, but the other thing is I don’t want to have to referee the sort of ugly argument that could easily result if people read that. Your statement was very inflammatory. I’m sick and leaving town for a week, and so may not be able to mind the blog and its comments. I hope you understand I am not trying to censor you out of some evil impulse. Do email me if you want to get more into this.
Moving on…
I think it’s absurd to say we should decide affairs based on instinct. Good grief! Should we murder whenever we get mad? Rape when we’re horny but turned down? Steal when we’re hungry and going without? All of those things are dictates of instinct, designed to help us survive and propagate. Legacies of evolution that, happily, we can overcome because we are a *thinking* animal - not just an animal.
Just because something was selected for during the process of our evolution does not mean it is necessarily the best thing for us. Evolution is full of weird dead ends and cul-de-sacs - it is not a planned process.
And we are not slaves to our urges. At least, I’m not.
September 21st, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Vex,
I need some clarification.
“I think it’s absurd to say we should decide affairs based on instinct. Good grief! Should we murder whenever we get mad? Rape when we’re horny but turned down? Steal when we’re hungry and going without? All of those things are dictates of instinct, designed to help us survive and propagate. Legacies of evolution that, happily, we can overcome because we are a *thinking* animal - not just an animal.
Just because something was selected for during the process of our evolution does not mean it is necessarily the best thing for us.”
Now from a comment you made on May 30th, in your “Gargantuan Meaties” post,
“to summarize very briefly: humans develop morals along a certain developmental timeline regardless of how they are raised, and across religions certain things (the absolutes, usually) are always present. Somehow us humans have figured out which rules we must not break, and they are probably related to a survival advantage. God doesn’t set the rules. Evolution probably did.”
So, do you hold to an evolutionary basis for moral absolutes or not? Or are we picking and choosing from the evolutionary morality buffet, things that taste good to our 21st century western palate?
At least Divine Command Theorists have a consistency in their sourcing of moral absolutes. What God says is good is good, what he says is bad, is bad. Different religions may have different ideas of what God says, but the system by which one determines right and wrong stays the same.
However you seem to be saying..
‘Moral absolutes are based on evolution and probably related to survival advantage.’
Ok, but then we need to pick and choose which ‘evolutionary absolutes’ are moral, and which are wrongheaded, immoral, or out of fashion?
It seems like you hold a very inconsistent thing, “survival advantage” up as something that dictates moral absolutes, except when we see survival advantage in things you find distasteful, like rape or murder.
If “survival advantage” is giving us some very good moral absolutes like “care for your offspring” it’s also giving us some very bad moral advice, “if you are hungry, and a weaker creature has food, take it.”
I assume you’ll say, “that’s why we are thinking animals, so we can decide which of the evolutionary cues to enshrine as moral absolutes” But then what the hell good is an evolutionary based moral absolute? We might as well just get together a group of people and think through it. Have to come together and think of which moral absolutes we want to embrace is just poorly obfuscated moral subjectivism, which has no force of compulsion to be good than “the majority of us decided that..” which is really just a tarted up version of “might makes right”.
~ I.
September 23rd, 2008 at 7:20 am
There are two issues here: one, everything is an evolutionary outcome - including transmission via genes, environmental shaping, culture, etc. Two, evolution only provides for propagation. Once we have spawned, it has no further use for us. Evolution doesn’t care if we’re happy, only that we breed.
This is why evolutionary arguments are not sufficient as a basis for our behaviours. What provided for our success as a species in terms of population isn’t sufficient as guidance for a species living in an agricultural and urbanized world.
As it happens, the chief moral rules (some of which I consider absolutes) probably did confer advantage over the years - but even this is not sufficient cause to embrace them. Survival advantage (if indeed they are advantageous - not an uncontroversial point) isn’t what makes these morals absolutes - I’m sorry if I didn’t make that clear.
Nonetheless, I hardly think endorsing a stance that killing, rape, slavery and other violations of the integrity of the self are always wrong is proof of a might makes right stance. It requires some semantic twisting to arrive at that point. Consensus is not to be equated with imposition.
Can I prove beyond a doubt that the moral beliefs I hold dear are CORRECT and TRUE? No. But that doesn’t mean I should or will therefore abandon them. Morality is closer to emotion than reason (this is the point of the Haight article), though of course we should try to apply reason to it - having done my best as a compassionate lay person to examine the issues as I understand them, I have arrived at a personal moral code that I think is of a very high standard, one which if everyone embraced we would see an end (or at least a massive reduction) to cruelty and war and suffering in the world. And coming together to think through what morals will serve us best is exactly what needs to happen. Fortunately we have a class of professionals, which includes philosophers and spiritual leaders, to work through these crucial issues and help the rest of us along. The key for me is a universal system that does not rely on elements of fantasy; a secular morality that will be applied in dealings with all people, not merely co-religionists or fellow nationals etc.
As for a consistent source of morals from religious teachings - It is hopelessly ethnocentric to assert that religion provides a consistent set of rules, as though there is only one religion or, if you account for the many religions, one set of rules that they all espouse. Neither is correct, though of course there is some overlap. Also, even within a single religion, for example Christianity, it is by no meals clear what the moral rules are. The enormous variety of different sects and branches of the church is testimony to this, never mind the actual text (the Bible) itself - full as it is of contradictions and mixed messages. The great religious teachers of the world may well have much of value to share with us about moral behaviour, but they have no special claim to the CORRECT and TRUE version of it.
September 23rd, 2008 at 2:59 pm
“…coming together to think through what morals will serve us best is exactly what needs to happen.”
Vex,
I’m afraid you can’t call something arrived at by consensus an absolute. Because what is consensus today, may change tomorrow as attitudes and cultures shift. Pre-Marital pregnancy was scandalous a very short time ago, now it’s not. Slavery was acceptable for thousands of years, now it’s not.
For something to be an absolute, it can’t change. Infanticide being wrong is an absolute, because across all cultures, and all times, it is wrong, regardless of what Ba’al worshippers in 2000 BC might say.
If we “come together” to think through it… it’s subjective and limited, and variable depending on collective beliefs in a given time.
So, you can’t call any of your beliefs “absolute” in the authoritative sense. The best you can do is “Subjectively arrived at, and strongly emotionally attached to.”
Absolutes are “Absolute” because they are true for all people for all time.
You need an external unchanging locus like an unchanging deity, to whom you ascribe authority, or a abstract concept like “a circle is always circular” to have an absolute.
If you are willing to amend your “Absolute beliefs” to “Most strongly held values” I’m happy to leave it be, and call it a consensus.
~ I.