Wow! Frans de Waal -- what a coup for BloggingHeads!
I'm only a little way into the diavlog, but I wanted to comment on this dingalink. I certainly accept that the difference between us and other primates is ULTIMATELY one of degree in some sense. Yet such differences of degree certainly can be big enough to count at another level as differences of kind. Start with a grain of sand and keep adding grains of sand and ultimately you have a heap -- it's a matter of degree -- you can't find the exact grain of sand that makes it a heap rather than something less than a heap. Yet a grain is not a heap. And that's a merely additive process. To take another homely example, when we come to questions of adding different ingredients, cakes, cookies and breads share a lot of ingredients -- they are just treated differently and added in different proportions. If Materialism is true, then the difference between a rock and a simple circuit and a computer and worms and us is all ultimately a difference of degree -- degree of organizational complexity in part. If there

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: I certainly accept that the difference between us and other primates is ULTIMATELY one of degree in some sense. Yet such differences of degree certainly can be big enough to count at another level as differences of kind.

This reminds me of a cartoon where a man is seated at dinner with a chimpanzee and the waiter says, "you two share 98% of your DNA, so you must have a lot to talk about." Anyway, good post, one with which I agree (except re: the materialism you implicitly endorse(?)) although I thought the ending was a bit abrupt.

This dingalink should add a little reputational heft to the BN vs. Bob argument. Bob is constantly taking EP in a cynical direction, saying to Roughgarden, for instance, that reciprocal altruism isn't really altruism at all -- and in other discussions confusing the reasons why altruistic motivations can be selected for (e.g., the fact that altruists tend to get a better reputation) with the "real reason" why we do altruistic things. De Waal doesn't here explicitly endorse the claim I make in my title, but it's clear that he's objecting to the more cynical conclusions of EP-ers like Bob, who confuse the source of a motive with the motive itself. Here is what Bob seems to do in _Moral Animal_ and in some of his discussions of politics on BHtv:
1. Altruistic motives (toward non-kin) can be selected for, so long as (a) there are enough other altruists in the altruist's environment and (b) over time, altruists gain a better reputation and this better reputation leads other altruists to cooperate with those with a good reputation and punish (or at least avoid) those with bad reputations.
2.Therefore (a fallacious 'therefore'), seemingly altruistic creatures only seek out reputation, they

I believe chimps have some degree of self-consciousness -- they can recognize themselves in a mirror. But I would suggest that the degree to which they can work out the consequences of this self-consciousness might be the basis of an important difference in kind.

Just a short note before I indulge in the immense pleasure of listening to this dialogue (I'm a huge Frans de Waal fan): Mirror recognition has now been demonstrated in dolphins, orca, all the Great Apes, elephants and some birds (the European magpie). In addition, other animals may have their sense of self oriented around other senses. For examples, dogs, wolves, coyotes, etc. may experience their selves through smell. Raccoons, who among animals have the greatest proportion of their brains devoted to touch, may experience self tactilely.

Thanks for the extra information, Wonderment. I hope it is clear that I was making no claim that chimps and humans are the only ones with self-consciousness, or that mirror recognition was the only way to demonstrate self-consciousness in animals without language.

I think I've seen that cartoon -- heard of it anyway. It is funny -- though, if you read de Waal, you'll see that, in a sense, we do have a lot to say to each other (or rather human students of chimps have a lot to tell the rest of us.
I do think we need to use a great deal of conceptual/philosophical caution in deciding exactly what chimps are telling us.

I read about it in a Peter van Inwagen essay. And yeah, I think that we do not a lot of caution interpreting chimps, as well as animals in general. I'm particularly interested in the extent to which animals have morality, if at all. There's a new book about it, called Wild Justice that may be worth reading.

Another great diavlog.

Schloss raises the issue of the evolution of self-deception -- in _Moral Animal_, as I recall, the fact that self-deception might increase our fitness is taken almost as proof that self-deception has been selected for. But this is a giant and unwarranted leap -- the kind of thing that justly gets called a "Just-so story." We know that eyes had to have been selected for, since random chance certainly could never have produced them without the aid of natural selection. But much self-deception is easily accounted for as just by-products of our cognitive limitations.
Most people think they are more thoughtful than other people -- presumably because they are directly aware of their own thoughts and not of other people's. There's nothing hugely complicated about this mistake that would require it (on analogy with the eye) to have been selected for. Similarly, we tend selfishly to think that our interests are more important than others' interests merely because we feel the pull of our own desires directly and it's all too easy to forget about the interests of others or to imagine their desires as weaker

I hope it is clear that I was making no claim that chimps and humans are the only ones with self-consciousness, or that mirror recognition was the only way to demonstrate self-consciousness in animals without language.

Yes, I just wanted to make sure we included other species, since Great Apes, especially chimps, often are treated as the only other species whose intellect is serious enough to warrant our interest and the extension of certain rights that only humans have had so far in our legal systems. Marc Bekoff, whom BobbyG refers to in another post, explores these issues in his book "The Emotional Lives of Animals," as does Jeffrey Mason in "Why Elephants Weep" and Leslie Rogers in "Minds of Their Own."

What is conscience? The reality that corresponds to our moral beliefs perhaps? You (or rather one of them) spoke of post-traumatic stress syndrome of those who kill in wartime. That is certainly a reality -- not a fiction -- that is built into our psychology (brain), and is not unrelated to conscience. Psychopaths lack it, on the other hand. Just a stray thought.

The argument that Schloss brings out as his final reason for thinking there is a conflict between morality (or moral realism) and evolutionary psychology is actually the argument in the final chapter of Richard Joyce's book _The Evolution of Morality_, and the belief-pill example is Joyce's. I'm glad Schloss brings this up, because one of my main objections to de Waal and Wright etc. has always been their readiness to confuse altruism with morality.
Morality is certainly altruistic -- if there were no altruism there would be no morality. But morality involves much more than just altruism. In the discussion up to this point, de Waal nearly identifies morality with certain instinctual responses -- empathy, the inhibition against killing etc. One thing that this misses is the fact that many courses of action can look like the empathetic response -- empathy toward one person can pull us into lack of empathy for another -- or rather it can lead us into the question of how to be correctly empathetic toward all involved.
This is what I think is wrong with Joshua Greene's suggestion that we can eliminate

Quoting Wonderment: Yes, I just wanted to make sure we included other species, since Great Apes, especially chimps, often are treated as the only other species whose intellect is serious enough to warrant our interest and the extension of certain rights that only humans have had so far in our legal systems.

Marc Bekoff, whom BobbyG refers to in another post, explores these issues in his book "The Emotional Lives of Animals," as does Jeffrey Mason in "Why Elephants Weep" and Leslie Rogers in "Minds of Their Own."

Just came across a post that may be of interest to some of you. I have no idea how reliable this (quoted) result is ...

In a different kind of experiment, rats refused to push a lever for food when they realised their action meant another animal got an electric shock.

... but what if it is? The post is mostly a collection of links in support of this premise:

Against the most recent evidence, the dismissal of folk and scientific animal ontologies as “anthropomorphism” looks weaker and weaker.

I haven't followed the links yet, but I thought I'd pass this along: "The Virtue of Sheltie-ness," by Jim Henley/Unqualified Offerings.

Quoting tickknob: Usually when someone says, "If there is no God then anything is permitted." it is an expression of the fear that if there is no God then other people, not I, will go wild.

In fact is a misquotation from the book "The Brothers Karamazov", by Feodor Dostoevsky. Specially considering that the only of the three brothers that faces a happy ending is the only one that believes in God.

Thanks! I will check it out.

I clicked on the link "Why not have sex at every opportunity?" but was disappointed to find that de Waal did not seem willing to engage Schloss on this important question. I think this would be a good funding area for the Templeton foundation, and I would add that empiricism is surer path to the truth than idle theorizing.

Lol.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: I'm glad Schloss brings this up, because one of my main objections to de Waal and Wright etc. has always been their readiness to confuse altruism with morality. Morality is certainly altruistic -- if there were no altruism there would be no morality. But morality involves much more than just altruism.

Good point. Anyone familiar with the classics of moral philosophy (to mention only the greatest: Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, Hume's An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals) would have trouble understanding the reduction of morality to altruism, or, even more comically, to "reciprocal altruism" (which in any case is a contradictio in adjecto: the term "altruism" was originally coined to describe actions that are precisely NOT egoistic (which is what reciprocal means in this context)---- by the early nineteenth-century "positivist" Auguste Comte, I believe. He was arguing against Hobbes and other exponents of the "selfish system" who thought that all actions were in the final analysis reducible to some form of self-love, self-interest etc. and that the "laws of morality" (lex naturae) could be deduced from this fact of human psychology. Before the invention of the term "altruism" it was more common to speak of BENEVOLENCE and GRATITUDE, which at least

So Bob, yet another anti-theist dialogue on BloggingheadsTV. You know
for some of us
this is getting just a 'wee' bit tedious.

Quoting Nogbad: So Bob, yet another anti-theist dialogue on BloggingheadsTV.

You know
for some of us
this is getting just a 'wee' bit tedious.

And yet, strangely... not for others.

Quoting Nogbad: So Bob, yet another anti-theist dialogue on BloggingheadsTV.

You know
for some of us
this is getting just a 'wee' bit tedious.

Curious, I had the impression that there was a spokesman for theism in this dialogue. But I agree there is something tedious about theism and anti-theism, as in all debates about undecidable subjects which transcend human understanding: see Kant, Critique of Pure Reason.

Quoting Francoamerican: I agree there is something tedious about theism and anti-theism, as in all debates about undecidable subjects which transcend human understanding: see Kant, Critique of Pure Reason.

exactly. particularly after they both admitted that there is essentially no evidence that either would accept as disproving their side of the argument.

There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys is religious, the other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer. And the atheist says: "Look, it's not like I don't have actual reasons for not believing in God. It's not like I haven't ever experimented with the whole God and prayer thing. Just last month I got caught away from the camp in that terrible blizzard, and I was totally lost and I couldn't see a thing, and it was 50 below, and so I tried it: I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out 'Oh, God, if there is a God, I'm lost in this blizzard, and I'm gonna die if you don't help me.'" And now, in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled. "Well then you must believe now," he says, "After all, here you are, alive." The atheist just rolls his eyes. "No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp."

It's easy to run this

Well said Graz. I once read, I forget whether in English or in French, that there are no atheists in trench holes. Probably French: trench holes were rather commonplace here circa 1914-18. Kant's point, though, was slightly different. It took him hundreds of pages to make it to his satisfaction and to the intense annoyance of posterity: Talking about God (a non-spatial, non-temporal being---to put it mildly) is impossible. We humans can only think in spatial and temporal terms, and pretending otherwise is the source of all our metaphysical errors, which, however, we necessarily make because our "reason" is too big for its breeches. I think I prefer the no atheists in a trench hole explanation...

Quoting Francoamerican: Well said Graz.

Yes, but not by me... in case that wasn't clear. It is part of a commencement address given by D.F. Wallace that seems to be in keeping with the season (graduations) and this diavlog. I wish you would consider applying exact passages from your scholarly references... after all you can't expect a near rube to recall from memory all the classical works you allude to!

Quoting graz: I wish you would consider applying exact passages from your scholarly references... after all you can't expect a near rube to recall from memory all the classical works you allude to!

Euh....do you really want to read Kant? (Not that I consider you a rube...) My "scholarly references" are intended to elevate the generally deplorable tone of bullshit artists on BHTV, but I have no illusions.

My "scholarly references" are intended to elevate the generally deplorable tone of bullshit artists on BHTV, but I have no illusions.

Noblesse oblige.

Quoting Francoamerican: Good point. Anyone familiar with the classics of moral philosophy (to mention only the greatest: Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, Hume's An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals) would have trouble understanding the reduction of morality to altruism, or, even more comically, to "reciprocal altruism" (which in any case is a contradictio in adjecto: the term "altruism" was originally coined to describe actions that are precisely NOT egoistic (which is what reciprocal means in this context)---- by the early nineteenth-century "positivist" Auguste Comte, I believe.

I do think the term "reciprocal altruism" is one of the things that confuses the cynical EP enthusiasts. What it really means is "altruism whose evolutionary justification lies in reciprocity." The adjective doesn't describe the altruism, but rather the cause or source of the altruism back in natural history. It doesn't tell us that the desire for reciprocity is always (consciously or unconsciously) the motivation behind the altruism. But Bob and others do appear to make this slide. Bob and other cynically minded EP enthusiasts then further conflate reciprocity with selfishness. This too is a mistake. Someone who pays his debts and who expects others to pay theirs, may not be the highest human type, or what we

Francoamerican: I agree that there could be a theist point of view that could do a lot to deepen this debate. Kant wouldn't be a bad place to generally impress how deep the problems are (his "copernican" revolution) and avoid theological backwaters. Kant is deep but Ihave my doubts (actually they're more than doubts) about the validity of such a metaphysical theory. it's still metaphysics. Jesse Prinz, a previous bloggingheads guest and committed Humean empiricist is trying to lead the cognitive sciences and moral psychology back to empiricist foundations. It might be good to have him back on, for example, and defend his empiricism against a philosopher of science. Just a suggestion for the bh team. Boffo ratings.

This is a fascinating report on bird intelligence. A similar study was done on crows at UC Berkeley, but it's always nice to learn more about advanced intelligence right under (or over) our noses that we've been oblivious to despite close observation for hundreds of years. Parrots, crows, jays, magpies and mockingbirds are turning out to be capable of quite surprising feats of intelligence. The biggest surprise is the extent to which we have underestimated them.

Quoting chrisn: I agree that there could be a theist point of view that could do a lot to deepen this debate. Kant wouldn't be a bad place to generally impress how deep the problems are (his "copernican" revolution) and avoid theological backwaters.

Kant is deep but I have my doubts (actually they're more than doubts) about the validity of such a metaphysical theory. it's still metaphysics.

Jesse Prinz, a previous bloggingheads guest and committed Humean empiricist is trying to lead the cognitive sciences and moral psychology back to empiricist foundations.

It might be good to have him back on, for example, and defend his empiricism against a philosopher of science.

I have my doubts about Kant too! Less about his critique of metaphysics, which is profound, than about his moral philosophy, which is OBSCURE... and probably vacuous as well. I didn't catch Prinz. I am sympathetic to a more Humean or Aristotelian or even Nietzschean approach, especially if it steers clear of evolutionary psychology and cognitive science, which, in my opinion, are just too psychologically crude, and too ignorant of history, to offer much insight into the full range of moral phenomena.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: Bob and other cynically minded EP enthusiasts then further conflate reciprocity with selfishness. This too is a mistake. Someone who pays his debts and who expects others to pay theirs, may not be the highest human type, or what we would normally call an "altruist", but he is not purely selfish. A completely selfish person would pay his debts only when it was to his advantage -- he would pay it when he could not get away with not paying it. The fact that it was a debt would add nothing to his motivations for doing it..

Not sure I understand the distinction. Reciprocity IS egoistic. Do ut des etc.
The repayment of a debt and all the other actions that we normally range under the category of "justice" seem to me, and here I agree with both Hobbes and Hume, inevitably self-interested to some degree, whether they are motivated by fear of punishment or not. No one repays debts, respects contracts etc. out of the goodness of his heart! We do so because it is in our interest, or in the interest of society as a whole, to do it. That's why Hume calls justice an "artificial" virtue

Quoting Wonderment: Noblesse oblige.

And always happy to oblige you Wonderment. I am also glad to see that you understand the true meaning of noblesse oblige....unlike so many plebeians.

Quoting Francoamerican: Not sure I understand the distinction. Reciprocity IS egoistic. Do ut des etc.
The repayment of a debt and all the other actions that we normally range under the category of "justice" seem to me, and here I agree with both Hobbes and Hume, inevitably self-interested to some degree, whether they are motivated by fear of punishment or not. No one repays debts, respects contracts etc. out of the goodness of his heart! We do so because it is in our interest, or in the interest of society as a whole, to do it. That's why Hume calls justice an "artificial" virtue and distinguishes it from such "natural" virtues as "benevolence," which comes close to what is usually meant by altruism. Calling acts of justice "altruistic" (as in "reciprocal altruism") is just an abuse of language.

I don't think altruism is generally understood to be the same as benevolence or "the goodness of one's heart." It normally functions as positive term for motivation that is not purely selfish.
A purely selfish person may care about the interests of others, but (insofar as he is selfish), he doesn't care about those interest for their own sake -- he only cares about them

FrancoAmerican, I agree that moral thinking in evolutionary biology is pretty limited, or at least as its often presented in common argument. As to Prinz, I saw in him someone who's trying to unify cog sci under empiricism and making a decent case for sentimentalism. I don't think he addresses some of the deeper rationalist or Kantian problems of knowledge though. I also find his Nietzschean influence unfavorable and the experimental philosophy movement somewhat compelling, but mostly faddish.

Quoting Francoamerican: I have my doubts about Kant too! Less about his critique of metaphysics, which is profound, than about his moral philosophy, which is OBSCURE... and probably vacuous as well.

I didn't catch Prinz. I am sympathetic to a more Humean or Aristotelian or even Nietzschean approach, especially if it steers clear of evolutionary psychology and cognitive science, which, in my opinion, are just too psychologically crude, and too ignorant of history, to offer much insight into the full range of moral phenomena.

You find the Critique of Pure Reason more obscure than the ethical works? My reaction is just the opposite. I also find his ethical views (when separated from their reliance on transcendental idealism) far more plausible than transcendental idealism (which strikes me as coherence-challenged, to put it politely).
I certainly don't think the ethical views are vacuous. Do you mean that you think one can get any answer one wants from the five formulations of the categorical imperative? That seems to be a popular position, but it usually depends on the assumption that people get to make up any maxim they want for their action. If we understand the maxim to represent the agent's actual motivation

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: I don't think altruism is generally understood to be the same as benevolence or "the goodness of one's heart." It normally functions as positive term for motivation that is not purely selfish.
A purely selfish person may care about the interests of others, but (insofar as he is selfish), he doesn't care about those interest for their own sake -- he only cares about them instrumentally (insofar as their interests serve his).

Someone is altruistically motivated insofar as he cares non-instrumentally about other people and is willing to limit the pursuit of his own interest to some degree out of this non-instrumental concern for others.

If non-instrumental concern for one person (enough to take a few minutes to help her when she falls, for example) is altruism, then I don't see why concern for the whole of society wouldn't count as altruism as well. The selfish person will do the just thing only insofar as it benefits him. He will not do the unjust thing if he will be punished, or if the whole system of justice would fall apart if he were unjust. But there are

Quoting Francoamerican: I have no interest in purely semantic debates, but I do think that you are using altruism in an equivocal way. As I said, if you and evolutionary psychologists want to use the term "altruism" in this way (=reciprocal or, as you do in the above passage, "non-instrumental"), that's fine with me, but originally the term did mean non-egoistic and was more or less equivalent to what Hume called "benevolence."

We are definitely talking past one another. I am not using the term "altruistic" to mean "reciprocal" or 'non-instrumental". My definition of altruistic is 'non-egoistic'. But I attempt to spell that out a bit by saying that there is just one person whose interests an egoist cares about non-instrumentally (i.e., for their own sake), while an altruist cares about more than himself non-instrumentally. As for reciprocity, I am taking it to be separately defined as something that at least includes gratitude and promise-keeping. I am then attempting to justify the claim that gratitude and promise-keeping (without the warmer virtues of generosity and benevolence) still cannot be counted as egoistic.
But, like you, I don't have much interest in going much further to sort out how you feel I'm confused. You're welcome to

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: Let me just note that I didn't actually say that. I said "Altruism normally functions as positive term for motivation that is not purely selfish." And let me clarify that by 'positive', I meant a term that did not contain a negation such as "UNselfish"..

I agree that we are talking past one another, and there's probably no point in prolonging this dialogue des sourds. But I have trouble shutting up. So one last rejoinder. You don't have to reply. If you are going to define "altruism" in such a way as to exclude the negation "unselfish", I am unable, personally, to attach any meaning to the word. "Altruism" was originally coined, precisely or imprecisely, to designate a quality (virtue) of a certain type of person or action. Actions performed without regard to the self-interest of the agent, i.e. actions performed without expectation of ulterior gain or reward--unselfishly in short--are altruistic. As is the person who habitually performs such actions. What exactly is the "positive" content of the concept "altruism" if you exclude motivation in this sense? Beats me.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: The mutual benefit in an initial bargain cannot explain why, in purely self-interested terms one ought to be just. The bargain may have been mutually advantageous. But

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: You find the Critique of Pure Reason more obscure than the ethical works? My reaction is just the opposite. I also find his ethical views (when separated from their reliance on transcendental idealism) far more plausible than transcendental idealism (which strikes me as coherence-challenged, to put it politely).

I certainly don't think the ethical views are vacuous. Do you mean that you think one can get any answer one wants from the five formulations of the categorical imperative? That seems to be a popular position, but it usually depends on the assumption that people get to make up any maxim they want for their action. If we understand the maxim to represent the agent's actual motivation (not what he tells others or himself that it is), then I'm not so sure that the Categorical Imperative is so vacuuous. I also think Rawls's Original Position is a help in spelling out more clearly what Kant has in mind in his very abstract formulations of the CI.

You are really opening a can of worms here, and as much as I would love to carry on a dialogue about

Quoting Francoamerican: I agree that we are talking past one another, and there's probably no point in prolonging this dialogue des sourds. But I have trouble shutting up. So one last rejoinder. You don't have to reply.

If you are going to define "altruism" in such a way as to exclude the negation "unselfish", I am unable, personally, to attach any meaning to the word. "Altruism" was originally coined, precisely or imprecisely, to designate a quality (virtue) of a certain type of person or action. Actions performed without regard to the self-interest of the agent, i.e. actions performed without expectation of ulterior gain or reward--unselfishly in short--are altruistic. As is the person who habitually performs such actions. What exactly is the "positive" content of the concept "altruism" if you exclude motivation in this sense? Beats me.

You are interpreting a point about the coinage of a word as some much deeper claim than I had in mind. Just as someone who is "anti-abortion" may decide to call himself "pro-life", Comte wanted to coin a term which identifies the positive motivation we wanted to praise when we praised "unselfish" behavior. That positive motivation is not so obscure as you suggest -- it is a concern for

Quoting Francoamerican:
3. Rawls is certainly very helpful in understanding Kant. But I wonder whether his marriage of Kantianism with utilitarianism is anything but a marriage made in hell.

I exist on a diet of worms, so I can't resist opening those cans.
I am curious why you see Rawls as marrying Kantianism and utilitarianism, when in _A Theory of Justice_, he uses the Kantian choice of principles from the original position as part of an argument about what is wrong with Utilitarianism.
In the later works, he steps back from his ambition of making "justice as fairness" a part of a general theory of "rightness as fairness", relying on overlapping consensus about moral questions to reach political agreement, rather than attempting to resolve issues in moral philosophy (deontology vs. consequentialism), and he seeks the agreement of utilitarians in this overlapping consensus.
But when I said that Rawls helped give specificity to the categorical imperative, I had in mind the earlier conception.
In any case, I'm not clear in what sense you think Rawls "marries" Kant and Utilitarianism.

I exist on a diet of worms...

On the side of Truth or the lies of the heretics?

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: I am curious why you see Rawls as marrying Kantianism and utilitarianism, when in _A Theory of Justice_, he uses the Kantian choice of principles from the original position as part of an argument about what is wrong with Utilitarianism.

Give me a few days to collect my thoughts before I say something stupid. It has been a while since I read Rawls and in fact I never really read much of the later stuff. I did sit in on his lectures on moral and political philosophy a long time ago. His lectures, since published, are quite good...especially on Kant. If Theory of Justice were less prolix and styleless----like so much anglo-american philosophy---I would gladly go back and reread it, but life is short.

I hope you know that I'm SO Awesome has proved that the entire point of this little tête-à-tête is pointless.

Well, a couple of things: Obviously, Rawls is trying to rule out utilitarianism, but it doesn't follow that he does so. For instance, he says that his principles apply only in the circumstances of justice. If scarcity were greater, one could very well endorse principles wherein murder is permitted in order to prevent more murders. Also, if people were risk-friendly, they might end up choosing utilitarianism. Also, if people really endorse the liberty principle--they want as much liberty as possible--then they would take a consequentialist approach to it. The way, after all, to maximize liberty is to be willing to sacrifice liberty for the benefit of more liberty.

Quoting Bobby G: Well, a couple of things:

Obviously, Rawls is trying to rule out utilitarianism, but it doesn't follow that he does so.

Agreed. I didn't mean to claim that he'd succeeded, although I must admit I think he captures a very powerful anti-utilitarian intuition. I just wondered why Franco characterized Rawls as he did.

For instance, he says that his principles apply only in the circumstances of justice. If scarcity were greater, one could very well endorse principles wherein murder is permitted in order to prevent more murders.

I don't know what Rawls would have said about utilitarian murder. If I recall correctly, I think he's pretty clear that in circumstances of scarcity he wouldn't give liberty priority over material well-being. He might have been able to sympathize with the path that the Chinese state has taken. And then in a Hobbesian state of nature (to which international relations bear some resemblance), I suspect you are right that he'd have to retreat to a more consequentialist standard.

Also, if people were risk-friendly, they might end up choosing utilitarianism.

I know this is Harsanyi's argument. I don't agree with it, as far as I've followed the debate (which isn't terribly far). I believe Rawls himself would point out

Quoting Bobby G: I hope you know that I'm SO Awesome has proved that the entire point of this little tête-à-tête is pointless.

Hah! Yes, I'm awaiting the write-up of his epistemology experiments with baited breath. I'm SO Awesome puts me in mind of Josephine's statement about her suitor, Sir Joseph Porter, KCB: "I know he is a truly great and good man, for he told me so himself. But, to me, he seems tedious, fretful and dictatorial."

do you have anything concrete or factual to say or are you just gonna talk shit and not back it up? oh, yeah, i forgot you're a religious philosopher or whatever so that's basically categorically what you do....
anyway, let me know when you guys find that cure for cancer everyone's been waiting for from you philosophers. i didn't know you could accomplish so much simply by sharing your opinions on the definitions of big words and pretending it matters!

nothing could possibly be more tedious than the apparently endless conversation you're having with franco right now. what a perfect example of
what i'm talking about. he even said this himself: "I have no interest in purely semantic debates" and i'm actually following that experiment online! it started around 12 AD and it's still running strong. they're planning a round of questions and pondering about the previous questions and pondering.

OMG, i like totally wouldn't want to be called out for talking shit by iSa, who, like keeps it real and stuff. IIRC, I already told you in the past that Christof Koch worked with David Chalmers on consciousness. Chalmers is a philosopher, and consciousness is a problem that scientists work on as well. Now, I guess you have to do two things here: (1) say that it turns out that Koch isn't a scientist; (2) say that Koch made a mistake in working with Chalmers and reading philosophy for ideas. There's, of course, a third possibility, which is that you can admit you're wrong, but that ain't gonna happen. LOLZ! Anyway, I don't really care if philosophers make predictions about the empirical world and make gadgets that make our lives more comfortable. I don't think that's their job, just like I don't think it's anthropologists', English professors', dancers', or comedians' jobs. I do think one of philosophy's jobs is to make us think in new ways, which new ways can then become science, which is what philosophy has successfully been doing since it started, but you don't consider that philosophy or something.

so you had to go back to november of 2008 to see if i'd contradict myself on something i said today? this is getting pathetic. if you had carefully read what i said at the beginning of the thread this started on i made a clear distinction between high end and low end philosophy. i carefully said the same thing last time and you didn't notice that time either. so....i would admit to being wrong...but i'm not. you guys don't do anything. LULZ <---OMG!! *update* i don't think organizing a conference counts as working together anyway but i'll let it slide.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: Agreed. I didn't mean to claim that he'd succeeded, although I must admit I think he captures a very powerful anti-utilitarian intuition. I just wondered why Franco characterized Rawls as he did.

I didn't think you had said that--I was just making sure.

I don't know what Rawls would have said about utilitarian murder. If I recall correctly, I think he's pretty clear that in circumstances of scarcity he wouldn't give liberty priority over material well-being.

Yup.

And then in a Hobbesian state of nature (to which international relations bear some resemblance), I suspect you are right that he'd have to retreat to a more consequentialist standard.

Hmm. I don't think think The Law of Peoples uses a consequentialist standard, but I haven't read it.

I know this is Harsanyi's argument. I don't agree with it, as far as I've followed the debate (which isn't terribly far). I believe Rawls himself would point out that this is a case of uncertainty, not of risk -- there is no way of assigning probabilities to the chance that I will be one of the well-off versus one of the worst off.

Interesting reply. But, if we're in the circumstances of justice, the chances couldn't be too high that I'd end up

OK, so philosophy plays a high end role. We agree. Why is this not to be counted? And second, why do you think that it is the job of philosophy to produce predictions and make gadgets such that if it doesn't do that it's for stupid people?

yeah, i said the same thing at the beginning of the 2008 argument as well. i'm, essentially, saying the same thing both times. broadly: once you start talking serious neuroscience, physics, etc....this kind of stuff truly isn't even on the radar.
i'm not sure what you mean by the rest cuz that's clearly not what i'm getting at.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: More specifically, (since selfish people do care about the interests of others instrumentally (insofar as another person's interests can affect his own), altruism is a concern for others for their own sake (i.e., not merely for the sake of the person with the concern).
Identifying the "pro-attitude" we are actually intending to praise is very helpful in clearing up confusions..

I agree entirely. Indeed that is what I thought I was saying. "Concern for others for their own sake" = action performed without concern for oneself. Otherwise, what is the point of the qualification "for their own sake." Concern for others can manifest itself altruistically (=for their own sake) or egoistically (=for our sake). Example of the latter: parents whose concern for their son expresses itself in the ambition to see him become a lawyer even though he hates the idea.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: I think it can help to clarify another point which appears more relevant to our discussion. Someone may have egoistic and altruistic motivations for the same action: I may refrain from stealing BOTH out of concern not to be punished and out of a desire not to harm others -- including the person I'd be

Quoting Bobby G:

Interesting reply. But, if we're in the circumstances of justice, the chances couldn't be too high that I'd end up as one of the poor people, otherwise we wouldn't be in the circumstances of justice after all.

These circumstances are those of "moderate scarcity" -- where we need other people and where scarcity is not so extreme that we are in a zero-sum game. This is quite broad. As I recall, Rawls does limit his theory to something like an advanced industrial economy (but right now I can't find that limitation -- ATJ is "organized" in an extremely infuriating way). In such an economy, nobody HAS to starve. But it doesn't follow from this that society could not decide to give fabulous wealth to a few "aristocrats" and give everyone else just a bit more than subsistence.

As I understand the OP, there's no one else to agree with. It's rather that, you are ignorant of certain things about yourself, but what you do know is that you're rationally self-interested, you always want more of a good rather than less, that you don't know what position you're going to end with in society, and that basic goods--liberty, opportunity, wealth, and income--are the

Quoting Francoamerican: As I observed above, abstention from harming someone (i.e. by NOT stealing) can be considered "altruistic" only by some peculiar perversion of language.

Do you agree with me that "altruism" describes motivation, not mere external behavior? Looking at such behavior, we certainly can't say whether it is motivated egoistically or altruistically (or a bit of both). SOME people will do the just thing for entirely egoistic reasons. Others will do it partly at least for altruistic reasons. Not harming someone may or may not be altruistic, depending on one's motivations. I do not think this claim is a "perversion of language."
This all started from a discussion in which I specifically objected to the purely behavioral conception of "altruism" employed by EP theorists, but I THEN put that objection aside and mad the FURTHER POINT that EVEN IF we adopt their conception, they are wrong to make the further claim that "reciprocal altruism" as evinced by the Tit-for-tat program is not (IN THEIR SENSE) genuinely altruistic.
Insofar as you are suggesting that I am personally committed to the purely behavioral sense of altruism, let me be clear: I do regard THAT as a confusing and unhelpful turn of phrase. I don't really believe that the science of linguistics really backs up notions

Bobby G,
If I were you I would not further waste my breath. I'm not fond of arguments that turn into intellectual fist-fights -- but such discussions can be worthwhile. ISA is just sniping at us from behind the barriers of his closed mind. He refuses to learn anything -- or to give us an interesting argument which might teach us something.
Perhaps he sometimes says worthwhile things on other subjects, but on this subject at least, he doesn't seem worth engaging.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: These circumstances are those of "moderate scarcity" -- where we need other people and where scarcity is not so extreme that we are in a zero-sum game. This is quite broad. As I recall, Rawls does limit his theory to something like an advanced industrial economy (but right now I can't find that limitation -- ATJ is "organized" in an extremely infuriating way). In such an economy, nobody HAS to starve. But it doesn't follow from this that society could not decide to give fabulous wealth to a few "aristocrats" and give everyone else just a bit more than subsistence.

You obviously know your TJ better than I, but I seem to recall that he means advanced industrial economies as well. That said, while it's possible that people could agree to principles according to which a few aristocrats get most of the money, I don't see utilitarianism could lead to this outcome. This, instead, seems more the result of a "maximax" principle.

Rawls is explicit that it is an agreement on principles among the parties in the OP. No one in the OP has any information about himself that the others don't have, so there's a way in which the different

Quoting Francoamerican: Kant's point, though, was slightly different. It took him hundreds of pages to make it to his satisfaction and to the intense annoyance of posterity: Talking about God (a non-spatial, non-temporal being---to put it mildly) is impossible. We humans can only think in spatial and temporal terms, and pretending otherwise is the source of all our metaphysical errors, which, however, we necessarily make because our "reason" is too big for its breeches.

I respectfully disagree. Kant thought that God was perfectly thinkable, and therefore something we could talk about. He denied that we could have Wissen [sense-based knowledge about God] about God, although he admitted we could have Erkenntnis [cognition, in particular practical cognition] about him. (See his 1793-94 Vigilantius lectures on metaphysics, as well as the Critique of Practical Reason, the Canon of Pure Reason at the end of the first Critique, and Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason). I can give you the exact passages if you'd like).

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: I do not agree with you if you are saying that no one can be altruistically motivated (i.e., unselfishly motivated) to do the just thing..

Justice means abstaining from harming someone (or his property). I fail to see what is altruistic about that. But prolonging the discussion on this point would be utterly pointless!

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: "Negative" is not the same as "egoistic". Justice is a minimum requirement. Generosity and mercy exceed this minimum requirement..

I agree. By calling justice a negative virtue I only meant that being just is NOT DOING WHAT IS WRONG (=unjust). Justice is abstention from wrongdoing rather than positive beneficence (=doing good). Generosity and mercy would be beneficent or altruistic or "supererogatory," as you say below, because they go beyond what is required by strict justice or, in the case of mercy, actually override justice.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: If you are using "altruistic" to mean "supererogatory", wouldn't you count that as "a perversion of language"?.

No. "Supererogatory" is a term of natural law and is probably unknown to 99%of the population, no doubt because terms like "altruism" have replaced it. I am using altruism as most people use it.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: Suppose that you have the ring of Gyges, which gives you the ability to take what you want with

No doubt I used selfish and egotistic loosely--like everyone else. Shall we call it quits? I am exhausted.

Absolutely. Me too.

Quoting Bobby G: You obviously know your TJ better than I, but I seem to recall that he means advanced industrial economies as well. That said, while it's possible that people could agree to principles according to which a few aristocrats get most of the money, I don't see utilitarianism could lead to this outcome. This, instead, seems more the result of a "maximax" principle.

I'm not saying that the Utilitarian would be very likely to choose this. I'm just pointing out that the limitation to advanced industrial economies tells you that you will have more than bare subsistance for all, but it can't tell you by itself how the abundance is distributed. Your point was that if the people in the OP were risk- (or uncertainty-) friendly they might choose Utilitarianism. If they were real gamblers, they might even choose the small aristocracy approach I'm suggesting.

I stand corrected; but I still don't see what role agreement plays, given what we know about ourselves.

Or, rather, what we don't know about ourselves. I suggested (though possibly wrongly) that the other parties could help to explain why we can't just go with our own particular risk-aversion. The notion of agreement plays a very important role

In response to Franz De Waal's remarks relating to religion and morality, I think it very important to recognise the role of religion (like that of the state) in facilitating the individual's (misplaced and perverted, but continuing) struggle for advantage and "success" in the artificial environment of human society itself, enabling them to claim an authoritative "moral high ground" for themselves, along with all the advantage which go with it, and thus revealing morality based on state or religious authority to be self-serving, rather than an altruistic.