From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 05:01:38 +0800
To: Wayne Radinsky <waynerad@oz.net>
Subject: Re: rant on the morality of confidentiality
In-Reply-To: <01BD2130.FFFF2520@sense-sea-pm6-7.oz.net>
Message-ID: <199801152052.MAA08971@netcom11.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain





philosophers have struggled with what is moral since the beginning
of civilization. at least they are struggling with the question.
each new civilization and era gives a new answer to the question,
"what is morality", and hopefully each is more evolved than the
last, unless humanity is regressing. "what is morality" is obviously
something that cannot be settled in cyberspace, it hasn't even
been settled by great writers, and there are only mediocre and
borderline insane minds in cyberspace <g>

>The reason morality is impossible to nail down is because it does not exist al 
>all in any absolute sense, at least as far as science is concerned.  If you dec
>lare, for example, that "murder" is "wrong" you are always left with dilemmas, 
>such as whether soldiers who kill during a war are doing something "wrong".

dilemmas do not prove a concept does not exist. there are pretty clear cut
cases, and less well clear cut cases. those that have difficulty with the
concept of morality will tend to focus on the fuzzy cases and conclude
that the whole exercise is a waste of time.

>According to the principle of natural selection, all people, including scientis
>ts, exist purely to maximize their own inclusive genetic fitness.  "Fit" means 
>that an organism is well adapted to it's environment, so "maximizing inclusive 
>genetic fitness" means having the maximum number of offspring which are themsel
>ves fit.

natural selection does however support the idea of altruism. natural
selection does not require each individual seek survival. various aspects
of the genetic code that lead to survival of the species are what are
truly favored. a breed of animals that does nothing but try to kill
each other off leads to a situation where each individual is maximizing
the odds of its own DNA propagating, no? but how long would such a 
species survive? and extra credit, to what "animal" am I actually
alluding to here?

>The underlying reason people benefit by promoting themselves as moral people, i
>n general, is because of the benefit of what evolutionary psychologists call re
>ciprocal altruism.  With reciprocal altruism, both parties benefit if they are 
>in a non-zero-sum situation.  Because most situations are non-zero-sum and the 
>benefits are so great, everyone has a stake in promoting themselves as a good r
>eciprocal altruist, in other words, a good, trustworthy, moral person.  This is
> how natural selection explains the existence of the concept of "morality".

natural selection is relevant among species that have no intelligence
or intellectual control over their own destiny. it is only relevant to
humans insofar as we wish to behave like animals.

>So it is a myth that scientists live to find deep truths or to benefit humanity
>.  They may do those things, but their real goal is maximizing their own inclus
>ive fitness. 

false, even by your own reasoning, because a scientists DNA does not 
necessarily lead to more scientist DNA. sons and daughters of scientists
may be  anything they wish to be in a free country.

>The only way out is to believe in the afterlife, and religion, and that life ha
>s meaning beyond the genes and material world. Doing so doesn't make moral dile
>mmas go away, and you never know, people may just be believing such things for 
>the benefit of genes, after all natural selection has no real concern for "trut
>h".

natural selection among animals. and a pretty scary mind that would 
consider us on that level. I agree there are some vague parallels for
human development. but humans do not have children in the mindless way
that animals breed, nor hopefully do they live their lives according
only to evolutionary instincts, but of course letters like yours tend
to make me wonder, and I'm being deliberately ambiguous here by what
I mean by that <g>