From: dgraham@bmers30.bnr.ca (Douglas Graham)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: source of morality for atheists
Date: 12 Oct 92 21:58:54 GMT
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada

In article <1992Oct11.200218.29062@math.utexas.edu> mike@huevos.ma.utexas.edu (Mike Sullivan) writes:
>Sullivan:
>Let's try this analogy. Genetically humans can use language. But our genes
>don't tell us beans about what type of language we should have (accept that
>there are certain sounds we cannot make). People have tried to invent
>"rational" languages but with no success in getting people to use them.
>All one can really do is study how languages develop over time and encourage
>the spread of literacy. As cultures come into contact different language
>interact. One can gradually push for rational changes here and there.

Yes, but to do that, you have to have a theory of language, and a "rational"
language towards which you can aim.

>Now I don't want to push this parallel too far. Morality is not "the
>language of behavior."  That is way too simplistic. But their level of
>dependence on history is similar. If you invent some "rational code of
>ethics" how are you going to get people to follow it?  Plato couldn't do
>it. I think all one can do is find relative improvements and push for 
>them within the context of one's real history and culture. 

Well, now you're talking about practical details.  I think it's important
to first try to visualize where you're trying to get to, without worrying
too much about how you're going to get there.  That gives you a goal to
aim for.  I think you're right that it is pretty much impossible to
get the whole of the population of the world to start running all new
software, at least not without psychotherapy on a huge scale.  Probably the
only hope is for a few sane people to go off to a remote corner of the
world and wait for the rest of mankind to kill itself off.  Then, like
a phoenix rising from the ashes, the sane people could repopulate the world,
assuming that there is a world left to be repopulated.

>On sex: Do you really think it is the teenages who aren't having sex that
>are the most violent? I doubt it. What you've done is started from a
>rational view that repressing the sex drive leads to violence and then
>derived a solution. (I will grant that you did start with "it might turn
>out...", but let me continue for the sake of argument.) 
>What you haven't done is any real research into the causes of teenage
>violence.  This must include economic conditions, cultural messages
>and yes our biology. 

Of course I didn't provide a full explanation of the causes of violence.
(BYW, I wasn't just talking about violence in teenagers.  What you do
to teenagers affects what they become as adults).  There are many factors,
and all need to be addressed.  But unless you understand how an organism
responds to its environment, you can't begin to start thinking about
what the ideal environment for that organism might be.

>One last point. We simply cannot make a "clean break with the past."  We
>are not sick in any objective sense.

Is a schizophrenic (that is, one who so bad as to be actually labelled as
such) sick in any objective sense?

>It is not possible to even imagine
>how we could have developed civilization all at once on a rational basis.
>We had to go through a long chain of development.

It didn't have to happen the way it did though.  For example, some of the
ancient Greeks, Socrates for example, were far saner than most people
today.  If he had been more successful at spreading his memes, we'd be
much further ahead today.

>Now that we are beginning
>to see this, we can being to have some conscious effect on ourselves. 

I think that it probably won't be long before we understand the human
nervous system well enough that we'll be able to see that a lot of what
our culture does to people is very destructive.  I think that we'll begin
to see what causes things like nightmares, child abuse, misogyny, rape,
blind obedience to authority, lying, hypocrisy, alienation, stupidity,
war, short-sightedness, non-organic mental illness, etc. etc.  In fact,
I think that some people have gotten a pretty good glimpse of the causes
of a lot these things already.  Practical issues aside, once we have a
complete theory of human behaviour, I think it will become apparent that
we need a massive redesign of our culture.
--
Doug Graham          Unk, the big trouble with dumb bastards is that they
dgraham@bnr.ca       are too dumb to believe there is such a thing as being
My own opinions.     smart.    --Kurt Vonnegut from _The Sirens of Titan_
Organization: Freshman, CIT general, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA