X-Message-Number: 17025
Subject: Re: Why beings of the future WILL reanimate us
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 15:03:26 -0700 (PDT)
From:  (Peter C. McCluskey)

  (Lee Corbin) writes:
>Message #17017
>Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 23:12:51 -0700
>Peter McCluskey writes
>>You admit we "have some built-in sympathy", yet you seem to have no
>>theory that would explain what built it in. I.e. you sound like Gould
>>finding spandrels where I see the results of evolution.
>
>I *have* mentioned some explanations.  Here is what I wrote
>on this forum on July 6, under the thread "values":
>
>"It is now held that people are *innately* altruistic in many
>circumstances.  The biggest and most immediate question for
>a modern thinker---i.e., one who seeks evolutionary explanations
>for human behavior---is how it could have ever happened.  There
>are several persuasive theories, and Matt Ridley describes them

 I don't think Ridley said anything that was clearly relevant to
our attitudes towards animals who don't cooperate with us.

>well.  But my favorite comes from Sarah Hrdy's book "Mother Nature".
>
>"She says ...
> women have been partially successful in detecting
>genuine kindness, and have "rewarded" actually kind men with
>favors.  Thus this behavioral characteristic has found its
>way into our genes."

 I don't think Hrdy said anything like that; I think the argument to
which you are refering comes from The Mating Mind. I probably didn't
read this paragraph very carefully because I was convinced that Hrdy's
book was irrelevant. Now that I understand what you are refering to,
it seems likely that we have been disagreeing mainly on terminology.
 I agree that when talking about the proximate causes of human behavior,
it is appropriate to classify many acts as altruistic, and that seems to
be much of what you are trying to emphasize. I have been describing the
origins of ethicals systems, and I continue to maintain that, when
explaining what caused our most basic beliefs, selfish causes are the
only coherent type of answer.
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter McCluskey          | Fed up with democracy's problems? Examine Futarchy:
http://www.rahul.net/pcm | http://hanson.gmu.edu/futarchy.pdf or .ps

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17025