Imagine a researcher from the Alpha Centauri system charged with writing a report on Human Beings for the Department of Alien Studies at the Interplanetary University.
Previous researchers equipped with unpleasant medical devices have already provided the department with thorough information on human physiology. So now the faculty has decided it wants to know about human behavior and values. What do humans want? What makes them tick?
Unfortunately, a turf war with the Department of Linguistics has stalled all attempts to translate Human Languages, so our researcher must base his conclusions, not on what he hears humans say, but on what he sees them do.
Fortunately, however, the Theory of Evolution, developed by the great Selrahc Niwrad, Father of Centaurian Biology, and elaborated by his many successors, provides our researcher with a helpful guide to what he should look for and what he should expect to find.
And, sure enough, he finds what he is looking for:
Evolutionary theory tells him to expect individual human beings to compete aggressively for the scarce resources needed for survival and reproduction. Check.
But evolutionary theory also tells him to expect certain important exceptions to the general rule of aggressive competition.
In the first place, it tells him to expect human females to sacrifice lots of personal advantage for the sake of their few, precious offspring. Check. And it tells him to expect human females to demand of human males that they offer convincing assurance that they will do the same, as a condition of sexual access. Check. And it tells him that human males will do their best to make their assurances of fidelity to wife and child as convincing as possible. Check. (Though mileage may vary, once sexual access is granted. Check.)
In the second place, it tells him to expect humans to sacrifice personal advantage for the sake of their kin. Not only do parents, especially mothers, give up a lot for their children, but brother and sisters help each other out, at some cost to themselves, and cousins, at somewhat lesser cost, and so on. Check.
In conditions of great, short-term, collective danger, such sacrifices may extend to very distant kin, indeed: my clan against their clan, my tribe against their tribe, my people against their people, my race against their race. Check. Check. Check. Check.
In the third place, it tells him to expect humans to sacrifice (immediate) personal advantage for the sake of ongoing, mutually beneficial, cooperative relationships with unrelated folk - a.k.a. "reciprocal altruism" - though such relationships may be very fragile, and may collapse at the first sign of "cheating."
Check.
As for unrelated folk with whom they are in no position to enter into any sort of "ongoing, mutually benefical, cooperative relationship," because they don't encounter them regularly, humans' attitudes range from the benignly indifferent to the violently hostile - depending on circumstances.
* * * * *
So our researcher sends back his report, saying, more or less, that humans are exactly as one would expect them to be, given their biology and their evolutionary history - no surprises, here!
* * * * *
But, in the meantime, the Department of Alien Studies and the Department of Linguistics at Alpha Centauri's Interplanetary University have at last resolved their differences, quickly resulting in the successful translation of all major human languages.
And what do they find? They find that, while there may be no surprises about the things humans do, the things they say are another matter entirely. Why, one might almost argue that the things they say about their values contradict the way they actually live their lives at just about every important point!
But how can that be? What's to be made of it?
* * * * *
And so our hapless researcher must return to the dreary planet Earth - but armed, now, with an implanted translator that enables him to understand every word he hears or reads...
Comments (11)
I believe Mother Teresa doesn't fit very well into that model, nor do other examples of extravagant altruism towards "unrelated folk with whom they are in no position to enter into any sort of 'ongoing, mutually beneficial, cooperative relationship.'" Admittedly, such examples are not common, but it is also interesting that humans tend to admire those who are thus extravagantly altruistic.
But that point may be irrelevant to the ultimate purpose of the fable, which we have yet to see.
Posted by Lydia | April 19, 2009 5:12 PM
Lydia - the Mother Teresa's of this world are so rare that it should hardly come as a surprise that our extra-terrestrial researcher missed her ;^)
And it is, indeed, "interesting that humans tend to admire those who are thus extravagantly altruistic."
Suffice it to say, for the moment, that that point is not at all "irrelevant to the ultimate purpose of the fable."
Posted by steve burton | April 19, 2009 5:37 PM
"But we care not for men‘s words, we look for creeds in actions; which are the truthful symbols of the things within. He who hourly prays to Alma, but lives not up to world-wide love and charity – that man is more an unbeliever than he who verbally rejects the Master, but does his bidding. Our lives are our Amens." Melville, Mardi.
Posted by Step2 | April 19, 2009 5:52 PM
the Mother Teresa's of this world are so rare that it should hardly come as a surprise that our extra-terrestrial researcher missed her
Except that this particular rarity was so widely known that it would surprise me if he missed her.
an implanted translator that enables him to understand every word he hears or reads
Which means that inevitably he must discover the story of the Word, whose identity and altruistic history is so rare as to be absolutely unique, yet very nearly universally known. It won't fit comfortably into a Darwinian checkbox. I am of course inserting my own hoped-for 'ultimate' purpose, which usually sets one up for disappointment. Part II please.
Posted by William Luse | April 19, 2009 6:33 PM
I wonder too how much people's dispositions play a role--how often do people want to do something, something that actually fits into their professed values, but don't do it, as opposed to people mouthing certain values without even desiring to live up to those values?
Posted by Bobcat | April 19, 2009 6:53 PM
I may be jumping ahead, but I feel moved to point out--a) What people say is also part of what is to be explained, even if it is at odds with what they do. The fact that they say it is also a datum. b) It's obvious to _me_, and I think it should be obvious to others as well, that the altruism of Mother Teresa is a _good_ (noble, admirable, valuable) departure from "adaptive" behavior, whereas the present tendency of young women to pass out their sexual favors without (what, according to the main post, Darwinism predicts) demanding promises of provision and fidelity from men is a _bad_ (dysfunctional, pathetic, self-destructive) departure from "adaptive" behavior. There is nothing within Darwinism per se that explains how we are able to know which is which.
Posted by Lydia | April 19, 2009 9:41 PM
Drahcir Snikwad, α-Centaurian University professor of Memetics and Applied Smugness would have a ready explanation:
Obviously enough there are some parasitic memes still circulating on Earth that cause people to act against the interest of their genetic material. Fortunately, the good professor is working on a few persuasive popular books, and he should be able to convince the Earthlings to follow their truly rational interests in no time.
Right?
Posted by Coemgen | April 20, 2009 1:42 AM
It is an interesting question, does the Darwin fable, as a social ontology promote violence or did the growing violence of society create the Darwinian narrative?
Posted by Kevin V. | April 20, 2009 6:32 AM
The problem is that the Darwinian narrative doesn't really account for values at all, much less values that contradict how people actually behave.
It's easy enough to give a Darwinian explanation to human behavioral tendencies. If the behavior in question is generally conducive to survival of the species, you've got your explanation right there. If it isn't, then it's easy enough to think up some scenario in the deep past where it might have been conducive, or to explain it as a side effect of some other trait that is conducive.
But with values, we're talking about our sense of what we ought to do, as distinct from what we actually do. If our values happen to line up perfectly with our behavioral tendency, then from a Darwinian perspective, they are superfluous. If they don't, then the question arises, which is conducive to survival, the behavior promoted by the value or the actual behavior. If the valued behavior is more conducive, then why didn't the actual behavior evolve to match? If the actual behavior is more conducive, then why the unhelpful value? After all, we don't need a value to tell us that it's good to eat when we're hungry, and evil not to. We simply get hungry and we eat. So why values instead of just tendencies?
The root of the problem is that values involve intentionality, or "aboutness", representing states of affairs that don't necessarily exist (ie. what we should do as opposed to what we actually do). For that reason, to give an accurate Darwinian explanation of any values, much less values that contradict behavior, you must first have, at the very least, a coherent and fully naturalistic account of intentionality. Most evo-psychers go off the rails when they try to account for the "evolutionary roots of morality" because they don't know the first thing about intentionality, and simply try to show some survival benefit to the valued behavior, confusing it with values themselves.
Posted by The Deuce | April 20, 2009 10:01 AM
Actually evolutionary theory would cause the researcher to classify humans as social animals based on observation of their behavior. While applying evolution to language development is kind of speculative (we only have a sample size here on earth of maybe 1.5 (0.5 if you count non-human animal languages), a fair guess would say expect a lot of language usage to revolve around group dynamics. Wola, look what our aliens will find when they finally translate human our language.
And what do they find? They find that, while there may be no surprises about the things humans do, the things they say are another matter entirely. Why, one might almost argue that the things they say about their values contradict the way they actually live their lives at just about every important point!
Specific examples please. Setting out ideals and goals and failing to accomplish them is hardly surprising. Happens all the time in the animal world (lion sneaks up on prey, lion intends to kill and eat said prey, prey gets spooked and escapes, lion has failed for now).
I think I know what you mean, we often behave in ways that contradict the logical implications of our stated assumptions. I don't think this is very shocking from an evolutionary perspective. Our reasoning ability is a higher level trait that we only sometimes engage for actual decision making. Since it is so rarely used for that purpose, it spends its spare time rationalizing all the decisions it didn't make.
Examples of this I would call the economics of ethics. Most of the time we adopt ethical positions based not on the logical consquences of our basic beliefs or assumptions but based on what is easier for us. A very obvious example is eating animals. Many people feel that animals should not be killed unless life really depends on it. We find killing animals for fun and entertainment, like cockfighting, to be highly immoral. Yet when presented with someone who has decided eating animals is likewise wrong and who has become a dedicated vegitarian, many of these same people react with mockery or even anger...even if the fellow isn't trying to convert anyone to his cause. Why? Because for most people not eating animals would require a lot of effort. Even if it follows logically (and Note here I'm not making the case that we shouldn't eat animals, only that many people will say things about animals, if followed logically, would result in a conclusion that most meat eating is unnecessary and should not be done).
we see this in may areas. Areas that are highly anti-smoking are likely to have few smokers and even fewer people whose living depends on smoking. Or notice how almost no one in the Christian world feels that interest is immoral, yet go back a thousand years and you'd find a consensus in almost the opposite direction. Why? Once we noticed things work with interest holding it to be immoral because much more expensive so ditching that belief (or finding a reason that the belief was 'mistaken') becomes so much more lucrative.
I'm not saying this is ethical in itself. I'm saying this is how many, even all, humans approach ethical questions. (I do mean all but not necessarily all the time). This does not, IMO, raise any thorny issues for the theory of evolution.
Posted by Boonton | April 20, 2009 11:00 AM
Leaving off a historical criticism of your example (which would be relevant, but leaving it off), could it be better said that once we realized certain sorts of interest weren't immoral like we thought, we then changed our practices? Your theory is that ethics has to do with effort? What ever is easier is ethical? You've got a lot of historical work to do in order to provide plausible support for such a theory, ISTM.
Posted by thebyronicman | April 22, 2009 3:59 PM