Ideas are community-based implies there are no absolute moral truths

[Aaron W.]

Originally Posted by Bill Haywood

Read. Wilson.

Summarize. Wilson.

I'd be content with a rough explanation of how one can actually create a strong link between behavior and biology in the way that you've presented. The claim of a "biological insistence" is a very strong position to be taking, and so it would require a strong form of an argument to be successful.

Edit: Telling a nice story is not the same as making a successful argument. What you seem to be presenting here is a nice story. A quick skim of some of the reviews of the book suggests the book is the same thing.

[Bill Haywood]

This is rather like someone saying they believe in evolution by Lamarcking acquired traits, rather than genetic mutation. Where does one start?

Note first of all, that the natural world is full of genetically programmed behaviors, like the dances of bees, bowerbirds' mating rituals, canines vomiting food when their noses are stimulated by pups, cats marking territory, etc., etc.
(Note also, the this stuff is generally not understood at the molecular level, if that's the sort of proof you are looking for, but is still accepted.)

So it would be strange if humans had no such behaviors. So what can be said about humans? Isn't it obvious we have a variety of powerful, universal emotional behaviors -- disgust, jealousy, attachment. But what about more complex things? I think it is well established that humans have an elaborate biological language mechanism. Children rapidly learn language, even though you can't teach them not to pick up a sharp knife. They are able to create brand new sentences they've never heard before. We have elaborate social behaviors -- people universally feel intense pain when excluded. And in recent decades there has been a lot of work on the origins of moral behavior. One example is fairness -- the universal expectation of being treated the same. This is found in humans and monkeys, and even dogs.

Until now those primates were the only nonhumans to show what is called “inequity aversion” in the absence of a reward.....The study tried to quantify the behavior by using well-trained dogs that readily offer a paw on command. The researchers used two dogs side by side but treated them differently, giving one a better reward (sausage) and the other a lesser one (bread) when the paw was given, or giving one dog no reward at all.
They found that the quality of the reward made little difference. But in the case in which one dog got no treat at all, that dog became less and less inclined to obey the command.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/sc...envy.html?_r=1

You give both dogs bread, they both keep shaking. Give one sausage and the other nothing, he gets pissed. This desire for fair treatment can then be elaborated in complex ways. 1950s, Soviet domestic power is stable. 1980s, people understand that the west is richer. What was once enough is no longer satisfying, contributing to revolution. That of course is a spectacular leap. But are you prepared to say that the known emotion of envy is not bound up with the 1991 revolution, albeit in ways that cannot be precisely tricked out?

The point being evolutionary roots of behavior in animals and humans is an immense field. I get the feeling you were educated in the 1970s. The question is not, "does biology underlie behavior?" The question is, "what's biological, and what's contingent?" Some of it will never be quantified, just like archeological recreations of old societies. But we know it's going on.

And to return to the OP, moral values are not entirely relative if you can show there is a basis for them outside contingent culture -- some place like God, or biological nature. That's where research has been going for some time. You've now exhausted my ability to schpiel, dig into the experts.

[Bill Haywood]

Originally Posted by Aaron W.

Very rare = not universal

I have a friend whose cat ate her kittens. Does that demonstrate that not eating offspring is cultural, not biological?

[longmissedblind]

Originally Posted by Bill Haywood

I have a friend whose cat ate her kittens. Does that demonstrate that not eating offspring is cultural, not biological?

many species engage in infanticide. the mechanism for triggering the activity may be any of a range of factors (sounds, weather, etc). in any case, cats are aware of the management of their fitness and behave accordingly.

The dog thing seems flawed as well. Dog's recognizing the benefit in behaving a certain way (shaking) when the activity is rewarded means nothing of emotional significance to those who are disconnected from the benefit of the activity. In other words, the dog's not pissed, he just doesn't give a ****.

[longmissedblind]

if the conditions of the world required that I kill and eat other human beings in order to maximize my fitness I would. I find the notion abhorrent at present, but doesn't mean that cannibalism being "wrong" is any sort of absolute moral truth.

[Bill Haywood]

Originally Posted by longmissedblind

many species engage in infanticide.

Yes, but they overwhelmingly don't. What inhibits a hungry cat?

The dog thing seems flawed as well. the dog's not pissed, he just doesn't give a ****.

This is better explained elsewhere:

The dogs were normally happy to repeatedly give the paw, whether they got a reward or not.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=97944783

They only stop when another dog gets a treat and they don't.

Further,

monkeys would suddenly act insulted to be offered cucumber if they saw that another monkey was getting a more delicious reward, a grape, for doing the same job. "The one who got cucumber became very agitated, threw out the food, threw out the rock that we exchanged with them, and at some point just stopped performing," says de Waal.

doesn't mean that cannibalism being "wrong" is any sort of absolute moral truth.

How are you defining this? As something that is never, ever done? In which case theism cannot even theoretically provide absolute morality. The word "absolute" is a red herring. I'm just arguing that biology is a component of morality, of still-being-determined significance, and therefore morality is not totally arbitrary, like whether we say "house" or "casa."

[Aaron W.]

Originally Posted by Bill Haywood

Note first of all, that the natural world is full of genetically programmed behaviors, like the dances of bees, bowerbirds' mating rituals, canines vomiting food when their noses are stimulated by pups, cats marking territory, etc., etc.
(Note also, the this stuff is generally not understood at the molecular level, if that's the sort of proof you are looking for, but is still accepted.)

So it would be strange if humans had no such behaviors.

Yes, it would be strange. But this is not the claim.

So what can be said about humans? Isn't it obvious we have a variety of powerful, universal emotional behaviors -- disgust, jealousy, attachment. But what about more complex things? I think it is well established that humans have an elaborate biological language mechanism. Children rapidly learn language, even though you can't teach them not to pick up a sharp knife. They are able to create brand new sentences they've never heard before. We have elaborate social behaviors -- people universally feel intense pain when excluded. And in recent decades there has been a lot of work on the origins of moral behavior. One example is fairness -- the universal expectation of being treated the same. This is found in humans and monkeys, and even dogs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/sc...envy.html?_r=1

You give both dogs bread, they both keep shaking. Give one sausage and the other nothing, he gets pissed.

Give one bread and the other sausage, and there's no problem. At this point, you're redefining "fairness" in a certain way (which relates back to my earlier comment about what happens as soon as you define things).

Also, a dog that gets "no reward" will also not continue to shake (here, you have to be careful, as physical affection is a reward). As an aside, it would be interesting to see whether the rate at which the dog refuses to shake for no reward is similar to an isolated dog refusing to shake for no reward. I think further inquiry in this direction may also redefine or clarify what you mean by "biological insistence."

This desire for fair treatment can then be elaborated in complex ways. 1950s, Soviet domestic power is stable. 1980s, people understand that the west is richer. What was once enough is no longer satisfying, contributing to revolution. That of course is a spectacular leap. But are you prepared to say that the known emotion of envy is not bound up with the 1991 revolution, albeit in ways that cannot be precisely tricked out?

I think this would be a stretch if you were going to try to convince me that "envy" had a central role. If you just told me that "envy" might have been floating around in the emotions of the people involved, I'd have no disagreement. But I'd counter by saying that "happiness" and "sadness" played a role, and that Maslow's Hierarchy may serve as a more useful model.

The point being evolutionary roots of behavior in animals and humans is an immense field. I get the feeling you were educated in the 1970s.

Nope. Born in the 1980s, primarily educated in the 1990s/early 200s.

The question is not, "does biology underlie behavior?" The question is, "what's biological, and what's contingent?" Some of it will never be quantified, just like archeological recreations of old societies. But we know it's going on.

I think the "it" that is going on is the thing that is in question here. When you say "biological insistence" I interpret this as having a very strong implication. What you seem to be describing above doesn't seem nearly as strong as the words seem to say. Saying that a dog will stop performing a learned behavior when it doesn't continue to receive a reward is certainly not controversial. If you want to call it "biological programming" then that's fine. But I would say that it has less to do with "biological programming" in the sense of some deep need to seek out fairness, and more a matter of "biological programming" in the sense that learned behaviors need to be reinforced.

And to return to the OP, moral values are not entirely relative if you can show there is a basis for them outside contingent culture -- some place like God, or biological nature. That's where research has been going for some time. You've now exhausted my ability to schpiel, dig into the experts.

If I have asked questions that extend beyond your knowledge, that's fine. I'm not expecting you to be an expert.

There are a lot of areas within the large umbrella of "evolutionary thought" (as I've mentioned before, evolutionary psychology seems pretty sketchy to me), and so when people start to put forth certain types of evolutionary arguments, I am often highly skeptical of the scientific grounding that it has.

Creating a narrative using evolutionary terms and ideas and having a scientifically grounded evolutionary theory are two very different standards.

[Aaron W.]

Originally Posted by Bill Haywood

I have a friend whose cat ate her kittens. Does that demonstrate that not eating offspring is cultural, not biological?

I don't think that it necessarily makes sense to call the behavior "biological." What do you even mean when you say that?

[Bill Haywood]

Originally Posted by Aaron W.

I don't think that it necessarily makes sense to call the behavior "biological." What do you even mean when you say that?

I mean an aversion to destroying ones offspring that is so powerful it takes extreme situations to overcome it -- such as starvation or pathology. And this behavior is independent of anything learned or experienced, and therefore largely genetically programmed. (I say largely because there can be contingent exceptions to the aversion, such as starvation.)

You've probably figured out that the dog business is clarified in a subsequent post. The dog continues to shake without a reward, unless the dog next to it is getting fed.

I don't see how it can be controversial that some behaviors are dictated by genes, rather than emerge through experience of the organs created by genes, like most behavior does.

[Aaron W.]

Originally Posted by Bill Haywood

I mean an aversion to destroying ones offspring that is so powerful it takes extreme situations to overcome it -- such as starvation or pathology. And this behavior is independent of anything learned or experienced, and therefore largely genetically programmed. (I say largely because there can be contingent exceptions to the aversion, such as starvation.)

I'm still hesitatant because of the word "aversion." I think there's a distinction between a dislike of a behavior (I didn't do that because I have an aversion) and an unconsidered behavior (I didn't do that because it never even came up).

When I think about the cat eating the kittens, I don't see it "struggling" with the decision, as if it's thinking/worried about going against a natural instinct.

Also, rodents eat their own offspring somewhat regularly. I had a friend in the neurosciences who had lots of trouble with mother rodents (mice, I think) eating the babies. I don't think it's as rare or universal as you seem to think.

You've probably figured out that the dog business is clarified in a subsequent post. The dog continues to shake without a reward, unless the dog next to it is getting fed.

A little bit. I still question the actual behaviors of the humans, as "reward" is not necessarily limited to food. Dogs are social creatures and exhibit social behaviors, but we need to be wary of assigning meaning to those behaviors as if they function in a "rational manner" like we often conceive ourselves of behaving (which turns out to be a rather poor model of human behavior, but that's a different conversation).

I don't see how it can be controversial that some behaviors are dictated by genes, rather than emerge through experience of the organs created by genes, like most behavior does.

This isn't where the dispute is. I agree that some behaviors are strongly directed by genes and that some are strongly directed by environment. The dispute is whether one can claim that certain specific behaviors are "dictated by genes" instead of being learned social behaviors.

[Bill Haywood]

strongly directed = dictated with qualifications

[Aaron W.]

Originally Posted by Bill Haywood

strongly directed = dictated with qualifications

Again, this is still not that meaningful to me. Your argument is similar to the argument that human behavior is rational with respect to some internalized utility function.

[jewbinson]

I haven't read all of the above (but I'm about to).

One thing though is that if an event is rare, then that does not mean you can conclude something from it. This is becasue you have not considered any other factors. A rare event doesn't mean that it is improbable. For example, you could say that the olympics is a relatively rare event (it only happens once every 4 years). However it has a very high chance of actually happening. Saying something is "rare" is a useless statement.

[jewbinson]

I spoke with my friend about the main question in the OP, and his answer was seemingly simple and coherent.

Claim: Ideas are community-based implies there are no absolute moral truths

Proof: Ideas are community-based means that your ideas arise only from social interaction and your experience. Abstract thought is limited without real interaction. E.g. someone who is locked in a cage all his life with no interaction with anyone cannot come up with amazing ideas.

This seems plausible and I'm almost sure it's true.

The next step is to see that for there to be morals, there must be a community. By community, I mean a group of more than one person socially interacting with one another.

Without a community morals don't exist (by definition of morals). Morals are based on there being other people to share those morals with. e.g. holding the viewpoint "Don't kill" requires there to exist at least one other person so that the concept of "not killing" has some context and has meaning. Similarly, "do not steal" requires there to be a shop and also for the shop has a purpose. Otherwise it is not stealing.

So what the original claim really means is that because morals come from a community, we (man) make up these morals, and they are therefore not absolute. We made them.

Okay so that was my "proof". The only thing I disagree with is the blue bit. So what if we make up our own morals. That does not mean that absolute morals doesn't exist. It just means that we made up our own ones. Maybe our community is absolutely "inferior" to other communites, and so even though we value the morals in our community, these morals might be absolutely wrong (and by absolutely wrong I don't mean the opposite of absolutely right. What I mean is "absolutely non-right" - which is important because there are sometimes many different moral stances on one issue and so there might be one which is right but my community have chosen "one of the wrong ones")

[Aaron W.]

Originally Posted by jewbinson

The next step is to see that for there to be morals, there must be a community. By community, I mean a group of more than one person socially interacting with one another.

Without a community morals don't exist (by definition of morals). Morals are based on there being other people to share those morals with. e.g. holding the viewpoint "Don't kill" requires there to exist at least one other person so that the concept of "not killing" has some context and has meaning. Similarly, "do not steal" requires there to be a shop and also for the shop has a purpose. Otherwise it is not stealing.

This doesn't work for all conceptions of morality. The conception of morality as increasing well-being (in some form) doesn't require multiple people. The Catholic belief that suicide is immoral doesn't require multiple people (but does require a God to offend).