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From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory,net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Relativism, Libertarianism, etc.
Message-ID: <354@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-Feb-85 15:37:23 EST
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.354
Posted: Wed Feb 13 15:37:23 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 17-Feb-85 05:32:59 EST
References: <744@wucs.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 48
Xref: watmath net.politics.theory:138 net.philosophy:1463
Summary: 

In article <744@wucs.UUCP> esk@wucs.UUCP (Paul Torek) writes:
> From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
> > relativism: a view that ethical truths depend on the individuals and groups
> > 	    holding them 		[definition]
> > ...
> > If I start with assumptions derived from sociobiology, that there is
> > evolution of and natural selection upon behavior, beliefs, and customs,
> > then relativism is the natural conclusion.  
> 
> Whaaaa?  Wanna run that (cough) "logic" by me again?  You seem to try to
> explain your "conclusion" below, but it doesn't help much:

Because different groups live in different environments, the selective
forces upon their behaviors, beliefs and customs will differ.  Thus, we
wouldn't expect their beliefs (etc.) to remain the same any more than we
would expect a desert population to remain the same as a woodland population.

> > Ethical truths are not god-given absolutes, but strategies and heuristics 
> > for coping with the (extremely complicated) game-theoretic task of 
> > reproductive success. ... Thus, while values and beliefs are not founded 
> > in a god, they are founded in our evolution.  The truth they have is the 
> > same approximate truth that any other model has.
> 
> What makes ethics depend on evolution?  (Hint: nothing!)  Why even one of

See above.  It's pretty obvious that different ethics have different
survival values in different environments.

> the leading sociobiologists recognized (or claimed to recognize -- I'm 
> suspicious of whether he took it to heart) that:
> 	We [humans], alone among earth's creatures, can rebel against
> 	the tyranny of the selfish replicators.
> [Rough paraphrase.  I think it was Dawkins, _The Selfish Gene_; I found
> it quoted in Dennett, _Elbow Room_.]
> 
> In other words:  the "goals" of the evolutionary process need not be *our*
> goals -- we can critically reevaluate them.  We can rebel.  

Evolutionary processes have no goals, though selfish replicators may be said
to.  Yes, we can now (perhaps) rebel against our genes.  However, most
ethical systems today are products of natural selection.  That is how they
came to be prevalent in our populations, by differential survival and
propagation.  Instead of random biochemical mutation, we have an intellectual
(or inspirational, or "wise" or whatever) process for forming the variation
upon which natural selection acts.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh