Consequences; Good and Evil, Part II – A World of Euthyphros

Euthyphro appears in one of the dialogs of Socrates as a man so cocksure he knew the difference between good and evil that he was prosecuting his own father for murder. Socrates, using his well known dialectic technique, revealed to both Euthyphro and his listeners that he really didn’t have a clue. It turned out he had no logical basis for his certainty in matters of morality. No one has really come any closer to providing one in the ensuing two and a half millennia, and yet, if the daily flood of moral denunciations and ostentatious public piety on the Internet are any indication, there are more Euthyphros about than ever before.

We flatter ourselves about our unique ability to reason, but it doesn’t quite live up to the hype. In fact, our intellects are blunt tools. Normally, we respond to our environments emotionally, like other animals. By “emotionally” I don’t mean “hysterically.” I merely mean we act according to innate predispositions and preconceived notions that have little if any connection with intelligent thought. We really have little choice in the matter. It’s the way we’re programmed to interact with others of our species. If we tried to apply logical thought to each such interaction, we would be as awkward as someone who tried to apply logical thought to each step in walking. Our perceptions of good and evil are part of this mental software, and we perceive them as absolutes, just as other animals do. Why? Because they work best that way, or at least they did at the time our morality evolved. There weren’t a whole lot of philosophers around in those days, and morality didn’t promote our survival as something relative we had to stop and carefully think about each time we applied it. It promoted our survival as an imperative, as an absolute. Today we still experience it as in imperative and an absolute, as something having a real, objective existence of its own outside of ourselves. In fact, it really doesn’t.

This wasn’t a problem 100,000 years ago. Today, it is potentially a big problem. We have experienced vast social changes in a time that is very short when measured on an evolutionary timescale. Our mental software has had no chance to evolve in response to the changes. It is no longer clear that the way in which we perceive good and evil and act according to those perceptions promotes our survival. In fact, in the context of our current societies, “moral” behavior may well be self-destructive. Assuming we decide survival is still a worthy goal, we can no longer afford to be as self-assured as Euthyphro.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that we are programmed to have a dual moral code. I have already mentioned it in earlier posts as the Amity – Enmity Complex. As Sir Arthur Keith put it,

The process which secures the evolution of an isolated group of humanity is a combination of two principles which at first sight seem incompatible – namely, cooperation with competition. So far as concerns the internal affairs of a local group, the warm emotional spirit of amity, sympathy, loyalty, and of mutual help prevails; but so far as concerns external affairs – its attitude towards surrounding groups – an opposite spirit is dominant: one of antagonism, of suspicion, distrust, contempt, or of open enmity.

Hate is as intrinsic to our moral universe as love. But the result of hate directed against “out-groups” containing tens or hundreds of millions of members armed with modern weapons is quite different than that of hate directed against a small neighboring clan armed with sticks and stones. If the “other” is another country, the result may be a general war in which tens of millions of citizens on either side who have been inoffensively living their lives are marshaled into armies to kill each other, or slaughtered by bombing raids on their cities, or overrun by the enemy and subjected to all the familiar horrors of war. If the “other” is another social class, the result may be the murder of 100 million “bourgeoisie,” and, as we have seen in the case of Russia and Cambodia, the annihilation of a large percentage of the most intelligent and productive citizens, effectively resulting in national decapitation. If the “other” is another ethnic group, the result may be a Holocaust. If the “other” is another religious sect, the results may be the indiscriminate slaughter and devastation of another Crusade or Jihad, not to mention the butchery of hundreds of thousands of “witches.”

Sometimes, shaken by all this devastation, we try to adjust our moral systems, creating new “evils” to combat the old ones. Irrational hatred of Jews becomes the evil of anti-Semitism. Irrational hatred of other races becomes the evil of racism. Irrational hatred of those who seem to be better off than ourselves becomes the evil of class warfare. Irrational hatred of other religious groups becomes the evil of bigotry. The creation of all these new “evils” as a way to combat irrational hatred of specific out-groups is like trying to behead the hydra. In the end, the hatred is natural. It will always seek an object, and, if one is put out of bounds, it will find a new one. We must stop treating symptoms. Instead, we need to grasp the nature of the disease itself. We must come to grips with the reality that it is our nature to hate as much as it is our nature to love. We must understand the fundamental behavioral traits which give rise to hate and control them, because hate no longer promotes our survival, it threatens it. In a world full of nuclear weapons the stakes are getting higher every day.

If you’re looking for corroborating data, visit some Internet forums. You won’t find many disinterested philosophers. Rather, you’ll find lots of people whose “points of view” are easily recognizable as corresponding to some familiar ideological dogma. They are all busily demonizing people who subscribe to dogmas different from their own, with posts and comments that commonly call the moral virtue of their opponents into question, even as they rush for the moral high ground themselves. Take a look at what any one of these specimens says about any given ideologically loaded topic, that is, any topic that happens to part of the ideological box they live in in one fashion or another, and you will find that you can predict with very high accuracy what their opinion will be on any other topic that happens also to be a part of that particular box. This does not bespeak independent, logical thought. Rather, it is characteristic of a species with a hard-wired predisposition to adopt a dual moral code, and which happens to be intelligent enough to distinguish in-groups and out-groups in terms of ideas as well as more mundane features such as facial features and smell.

If we want to survive, we will probably have to learn to do a better job of controlling these behavioral traits. It won’t be easy. One finds some of the most intelligent thinkers around, people who reject the existence of supernatural beings and who accept the hypothesis that morality is an evolved characteristic without a quibble, turning around and, virtually in the next breath, referring to morality as if it were a real, objective thing, universally applicable not only to themselves, but to others as well. Take, for example, Richard Dawkins. In chapter 6 of his recently published book, “The God Delusion,” he explicitly accepts the evolutionary roots of morality. In the very next chapter, he turns around and presents the moral Zeitgeist, a version of morality that changes with the times, but which Dawkins otherwise endows with all the characteristics of an objective moral code and an absolute legitimacy that transcends anything that could properly apply to the subjective trait he describes in the previous chapter. He treats religious believers with all the animosity normally reserved for an out-group, and, at least in my opinion, happens to suffer from a rather commonplace variant of European anti-Americanism. You can read the book and see if you detect the tell-tale symptoms yourself. If a man as brilliant as Dawkins can’t escape the moral treadmill, things don’t look too promising for the rest of us. Still, I suspect it would behoove us to continue groping for a solution.

What might that solution look like? The problem is extremely complex, and I have no infallible nostrums. However, the solution will certainly not take the form of amoral behavior, or failure to act consistently according to a fixed moral code. However, it will need to be a moral code that, while compatible with the kind of creature we are, will promote our survival, rather than our self-destruction. It will also need to be one for which even Euthyphro could provide a rational justification. We will consider what such a code might look like in a later post.

Scientific Conformity

This New York Times science column linked by Instapundit gets it about right on scientific conformity.

As the author notes:

The strength of this urge to conform can silence even those who have good reason to think the majority is wrong. You’re an expert because all your peers recognize you as such. But if you start to get too far out of line with what your peers believe, they will look at you askance and start to withdraw the informal title of “expert” they have implicitly bestowed on you. Then you’ll bear the less comfortable label of “maverick,” which is only a few stops short of “scapegoat” or “pariah.”

Of course, conformity among environmentalists is the current cause célèbre, but I see the same thing going on in the response of the scientific mainstream to “cold fusion.” Despite the intriguing results of recent experiments at SPAWAR by seemingly competent and credible researchers, I continue to hear deprecating remarks by other scientists who probably haven’t read a research paper on cold fusion in the last five years.

Scientific conformity can have unfortunate results. For example, the DOE recently stood up ARPA-E, its version of the military’s DARPA. It received a generous chunk of change ($400M) to fund “high risk, high payoff” research. The solicitation for research proposals for this money hit the street some time ago, and the proposals are already in and are currently being reviewed. I may be pleasantly surprised, but I suspect no cold fusion research will be funded. If not, I hope the cold fusion community screams bloody murder, and someone in Washington listens.

Well, let’s wait and see.

German Anti-Americanism Watch: A Tale of Two Articles

I have to laugh in spite of myself when I read two recent Spiegel articles by German “objective journalist” Gregor Peter Schmitz side by side. In the first, entitled “Germans are America Fans Again,” Schmitz cites a Pew Research poll according to which 64% of Germans have a positive attitude towards the US, as opposed to 31% in the last year of the Bush Administration. Obama’s approval rating is an astounding 93%. So far, so good. After all, German America bashers have always told us that negative attitudes there about the US were “all about Bush.”

But wait! The very next day, we find Schmitz busily reinforcing quasi-racist German stereotypes of Americans in a ludicrously biased article about the Gates affair. We don’t have to wait until the end of Schmitz’ latest fairy tale to find out what the “moral” of the story will be. He spoon-feeds it to his readers in the opening section with the unctuous observation that researchers in Gates’ W.E.B. Du Bois Institute have continued to warn us that, “while open racism in the United States is largely taboo, the hidden variety is still the rule.”

Schmitz’ description of how the affair went down is an admirable example of typical Spiegelesque “modification” of reality to fit the narrative. This involves carefully tip-toeing along the borderline between blatant lies and mere “poetic license.” Here is his version:

The policeman asked for identification, Gates looked for it and, perhaps after raising a protest, showed it. The policeman asked more questions, insistently, at which Gates asked for his name and service number. When the officer didn’t answer, Gates asked, “Are you refusing to answer me while you’re a white policeman and I’m a black man?” Things went back and forth, became louder, one word led to the next, and then the reports of what happened diverge. One thing is clear: The policeman arrested Gates in front of his own house for “disorderly conduct,” meaning resistance against state power (Staatsgewalt).

Of course, Schmitz knows that his German readers aren’t likely to read the police report of the affair, which gives an entirely different version of events. An excerpt, written by Officer Crowley, who made the arrest:

As I stood in plain view of this man, later identified as Gates, I asked if he would step out onto the porch and speak with me. He replied, “No, I will not.” He then demanded to know who I was. I told him that I was “Sgt. Crowley from the Cambridge Police” and that I was “investigating a report of a break in progress” at the residence. While I was making this statement, Gates opened the front door and exclaimed, “Why, because I’m a black man in America?” I then asked Gates if there was anyone else in the residence. While yelling, he told me that it was none of my business, and accused me of being a racist police officer.” … Gates then turned on me that I had no idea who I was “messing” with and that I had not heard the last of it.”… Gates again asked for my name, which I began to provide. Gates began to yell over my spoken words by accusing me of being a racist police officer and leveling threats he wasn’t someone to mess with. Gates continued to yell at me. I told Gates that I was leaving the residence and that if he had any other questions regarding the matter, I would speak to him outside the residence… My reason for wanting to leave the residence was that Gates was yelling very loud and the acoustic of the kitchen and foyer were making it difficult for me to transmit pertinent information to ECC or other responding units. His reply was, “ya, I’ll speak with your mama outside.” …as I descended the stairs to the sidewalk, Gates continued to yell at me, accusing me of racial bias and continued to tell me that I had not heard the last of him. Due to the tumultuous manner Gates had exhibited in his residence as well as his continuous tumultuous behavior outside the residence, in view of the public, I warned Gates that he was becoming disorderly. Gates ignored my warning and continued to yell, which drew the attention of both the police officers and citizens, who appeared surprised and alarmed by Gates’ outburst.

And so on. There were many witnesses to the affair, including numerous officers who were not white. None of them has disputed Officer Crowley’s version. Obama obviously realizes it’s accurate, because he’s in full damage control mode, furiously rowing back on his comment “that the Cambridge police acted stupidly,” and inviting Gates and Crowley to the White House for a propaganda photo op. There was definitely racial profiling going on here, but by Gates, not Officer Crowley. Needless to say, Schmitz is still playing dumb. After all, he has to play to the quasi-racist anti-American stereotypes of his newly baptized “pro-American” audience. Continuing with his pious morality play, he lugubriously informs us that,

“This brings back memories that are easily repressed in the Age of Obama: Of black fellow students at Harvard who tell of how security often required them to show identification on the university grounds. Of a female friend in Harvard Law School who came from a simple black family in Philadelphia, and hardly dared to report to classes in the elite university. Of the fact that even in the U Street clubs in Washington the lines in front of the clubs are still often divided according to race – even though almost everyone in the district voted for Obama.”

Coming from a German, this is really enough to choke a camel. I regularly work with talented young black professors who have received government research grants. I know for a fact that they’re favored in getting those grants, because I’ve personally taken part in the selection process. They aren’t chosen over more qualified whites, but they’re invariably given the benefit of the doubt if the competition is close. As for the U Street clubs, I don’t frequent them myself, and suspect the many German tourists one encounters around the Mall don’t get up there very often either. If they did, I strongly suspect they’d find that Schmitz’ yarn is complete bullshit. I challenge him or anyone else to document racial prejudice at the clubs.

Meanwhile, as Schmitz sheds crocodile tears over race relations in the US, things aren’t exactly rosy back home. I’ve personally read the caveat “For Germans Only!” in German classified ads for apartments. I personally know of Russian acquaintances who have called about apartments and been rejected, and then learned that the apartment was available when a native speaker with no accent called the same number. Walk the streets in any large city in Germany and you’ll see plenty of black people. Where are the black university professors in Germany? Where are the black CEO’s in Germany? Where are the influential black politicians in Germany? For that matter, where does one find representatives of Muslim or any other minorities in important positions in Germany, other than in sports or entertainment? How is it that it never occurs to Herr Schmitz’ colleagues to chronicle the pervasive racism in German society, when they’re obviously so concerned about any apparent occurrence of it in America, whether bogus or not? Articles about racism there in the mainstream media are as rare as hen’s teeth.

So you think German anti-Americanism has disappeared in the brave new world of Obama? Dream on!