A large contention between atheists and theists is that of morals. "If there is no God, why be good?" This is something I hear fairly commonly in my life, whenever I start talking about evolution in a place where ignorance is high. There are many books, blogs, articles, videos, podcast's, and radio shows that answer this question. I will be included, with my own intriguing spin.
What is the benefit of being good? There are 4 evolutionary reasons for altruistic behaviour (helping others even to the point of hindering yourself).
Firstly, there's Relatives. A person you are related to has a higher chance of sharing similar genes to you, and so it would be beneficial to those genes that you help our family.
Second is Reciprocation. If you reward good, you'll be rewarded for your good acts. Reciprocation is a 2 way street, if you don't do good acts, you wont be rewarded, and if you do bad acts, you will be punished.
Third, Reputation. By doing altruistic things, you are known for those acts, and are more likely to be rewarded, if only because you are likely to reciprocate it.
Lastly, there's Ego. Large, obvious acts of altruism can be used as a way of saying "Hey, look at me, I can afford to give you my food, cause I'm that good. I can head the charge, cause I'm brave." This technically isn't altruism, as the reason isn't selfless, but the word fits better than most.
These can easily explain why we have a conscience. This doesn't explain how we determine our morals. A lot of it is easy, and obvious. An application of the Golden rule (which is attributed to religion, but can be traced back otherwise) is all we need for most of our morals. We don't kill because we wouldn't like someone to kill us. Immanuel Kant was right on the money when he said: "act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law." Understand? I didn't get it at first either, but what it means is that you should act in a way that you would want everyone to act at the same time. Be nice to others, because you want everyone to be nice to others. Don't be violent, because you don't want everyone to be violent.
Morals are, and always have been, relative. Relative to the circumstances, to the people, to society as a whole. I feel that everyone should be morally correct killing, provided the circumstances left only that option. I also feel that there would be certain circumstances in which being mean would be right. Just cause I can think of them doesn't mean they don't exist.
"Without god, why be good?" seems to me to be the same as asking "Why not rob them, they're blind". I also never thought god wanted you to be a brown-noser. I suppose there's no "thou shalt not kiss ass" commandment, and he does want you to please him above everything else. I guess it is better to be good to make a petty, vengeful guy happy, than to be nice without worrying about him. He'd make you pay for not trying to please him, or so it seems.
I am going to look into the research on the correlation between religiosity and morals/crime/violence/life span/living conditions/education. I have a strong feeling that the less religious a person/city/country is the higher the morals/life span/living conditions/education and the lower crime/violence is. It will be up next week. Until then,
crites evidentia logica.
Showing posts with label Good. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Good. Show all posts
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Directional Evolution
In the world today many things are openly verbal, and others are taboo. Homosexuality, whilst controversial, is openly verbal. So is genocide (although genocide is morally abhorrent). The mental state of a person is taboo. As was Eugenics. But now, recent breakthroughs in the field of molecular biology and genetics have begun to bring light back to the once popular ideal.
Eugenics is, on a basic level, the conscious identification and control of evolution, with a focus of humanity. This idea was hugely popular in the 1920's, where governments actually wrote legislation based on the misconception that the mentally ill were somehow inferior to the rest of the population. The euthanasia and sterilization have all but stopped, although there are places who do voluntary sterilizations. Eugenics met its apparent defeat at the hands of Nazi Germany during World War II.
Nazi Germany did not outlaw eugenics. It legalised it, calling for the euthanizing of the mentally ill. It reached its peak when the concentration camps were opened. Millions of Jews and Gypsies were killed in less-than-humane ways, all in the name of the betterment of mankind. There is some debate as to whether Adolf Hitler started the death camps because he believed Jews and others were a detriment to society, or a threat to the Aryan race. In any case, whether or not eugenics is inherently evil, the methods employed in it's name were.
In the world today, a new form of Eugenics has formed. Designer babies are just one avenue a person can take to enhance your child to be slightly better than others. While this is not the only means, it is the best known. The kind of positive directional eugenics is a change off pace from the out-dated negative direction. Promote the good, not the bad is much more PC than Stop the bad. A analogy could be drawn to health and medicine promotions: Eat right and exercise, so we don't have to cut away infections. I feel this is a positive step in human evolution, so long as it wont hamper social evolution. Calling for mandatory sterilization or death of those deemed unfit for procreation would slowly kill society, and thus humanities only hope for higher evolution. But slowly weeding out natural aggression, and other of societies ailments, through the betterment of our children is much safer and, dare I say, righteous.
Before I conclude this post, I would like to draw attention to the media. There is a mixed climate for the advocates of Eugenics in the media. Most news programs spin designer babies to be a bad thing, though there are exceptions. Many movies also have ties to eugenics. Any Sci-fi where people are changed genetically, either directly or through a slow breeding process, is based on the idea of eugenics. My favourite example is: Idiocracy. It's a brilliant and funny movie, which is based on an age old idea that less intelligent people breed faster the more intelligent people. This is generally true, though there are some smart guys who counter this. I recommend this movie to anyone. Anyone at all. It freaking hilarious.
To conclude, I have only recently researched into the intricacies and history of Eugenics, and I find nothing inherently wrong with it. Error lies, like in most things, with humans. We as a species have the ability to make ourselves better, either by cutting back on the bad, or promoting the good, but we don't have the foresight to see which way we should evolve. This is the folly of man, and in hindsight, we could probably have used a little less violence in our nature. Hopefully, we live and learn.
crites evidentia logica.
Eugenics is, on a basic level, the conscious identification and control of evolution, with a focus of humanity. This idea was hugely popular in the 1920's, where governments actually wrote legislation based on the misconception that the mentally ill were somehow inferior to the rest of the population. The euthanasia and sterilization have all but stopped, although there are places who do voluntary sterilizations. Eugenics met its apparent defeat at the hands of Nazi Germany during World War II.
Nazi Germany did not outlaw eugenics. It legalised it, calling for the euthanizing of the mentally ill. It reached its peak when the concentration camps were opened. Millions of Jews and Gypsies were killed in less-than-humane ways, all in the name of the betterment of mankind. There is some debate as to whether Adolf Hitler started the death camps because he believed Jews and others were a detriment to society, or a threat to the Aryan race. In any case, whether or not eugenics is inherently evil, the methods employed in it's name were.
In the world today, a new form of Eugenics has formed. Designer babies are just one avenue a person can take to enhance your child to be slightly better than others. While this is not the only means, it is the best known. The kind of positive directional eugenics is a change off pace from the out-dated negative direction. Promote the good, not the bad is much more PC than Stop the bad. A analogy could be drawn to health and medicine promotions: Eat right and exercise, so we don't have to cut away infections. I feel this is a positive step in human evolution, so long as it wont hamper social evolution. Calling for mandatory sterilization or death of those deemed unfit for procreation would slowly kill society, and thus humanities only hope for higher evolution. But slowly weeding out natural aggression, and other of societies ailments, through the betterment of our children is much safer and, dare I say, righteous.
Before I conclude this post, I would like to draw attention to the media. There is a mixed climate for the advocates of Eugenics in the media. Most news programs spin designer babies to be a bad thing, though there are exceptions. Many movies also have ties to eugenics. Any Sci-fi where people are changed genetically, either directly or through a slow breeding process, is based on the idea of eugenics. My favourite example is: Idiocracy. It's a brilliant and funny movie, which is based on an age old idea that less intelligent people breed faster the more intelligent people. This is generally true, though there are some smart guys who counter this. I recommend this movie to anyone. Anyone at all. It freaking hilarious.
To conclude, I have only recently researched into the intricacies and history of Eugenics, and I find nothing inherently wrong with it. Error lies, like in most things, with humans. We as a species have the ability to make ourselves better, either by cutting back on the bad, or promoting the good, but we don't have the foresight to see which way we should evolve. This is the folly of man, and in hindsight, we could probably have used a little less violence in our nature. Hopefully, we live and learn.
crites evidentia logica.
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