X-Message-Number: 17070
From: 
Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 12:45:00 EDT
Subject: Origins of virtue etc

Many people, including myself, have said that we sometimes are motivated in 
"altrusim" just by the wish to maintain a good self image. That is correct, 
up to a point, but that is only the beginning of a partial analysis, not the 
end.

George Smith says (while including some comments not clear to me) that we 
should to get beyond a need to maintain a (certain kind of) self image. While 
the Oriental philosophy take on this is flawed, I believe, it is indeed true 
that part of our problem is to review and improve our own notions of desired 
self image. To some extent, maintaining your self image just means conforming 
to your existing criteria of correct behavior, and we must be willing to 
review this critically and try to change when indicated. And again, most 
people remain confused between ethics (correct behavior from the standpoint 
of society, or "virtue" in common parlance) and self interest (correct 
behavior from the standpoint of the individual, to maximize personal 
long-term feel-good).

Lee Corbin sticks to has last, writing:

<<  Thus your instinctive feelings for some kitten that
 you encounter that has a broken leg arise directly from these 
 things that have been built into you "because of the opportunities
 that they open in other circumstances", just like Ridley said. >>

--and he speaks of "genuine goodness." Again, two things:

First, evolutionary explanations are beside the point. It doesn't matter 
whether your behavior is instinctive or taught or calculated--in any of those 
cases, it may or may not be right for you. One can be misguided by traits 
acquired through evolutionay pressures, or by accident, and in other ways 
including plain stupidity or miscalculation, or by ignorance. What you "feel" 
or want or honor is not necessarily what you *ought* to want, based on 
biology and logic.

Lee keeps referring to "genuine" goodness. If that means anything, all that 
it means, as far as I can see, is that the "altrusitic" act supposedly 
motivated by "genuine" goodness is one lacking any easily designated quid pro 
quo or reward or payment. But I hardly think he will deny that it makes the 
do-gooder feel good, at least in some ways and to some extent and at the 
moment. It is the trade-offs that must be first acknowledged and then 
correctly evaluated. 

And correct evaluation may in some cases require more basic knowledge of 
biology than is yet available. This is not a hot-air exercise or mental 
masturbation; it is a fundamentally important frontier of science/philosophy. 

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org

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