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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   Edited 2yr ago   34788 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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Do you have absolutely no empathy for someone in west Africa dying of malaria?

I do have empathy for them. But empathy enough isn't a good enough reason to do something, not when I'm already groaning under the unmet weight of already-extant duty:

  • I have a duty to my ancestors who made my life possible, and to carry on that line into the future.

  • I have a duty to my family who worked and sweated and sacrificed to raise me, and must pay that forward by working and sweating and sacrificing for my future children.

  • I have a duty to the people who I work with, who have invested in and rely upon me.

  • I have a duty to the people who live near me, who I share streets and parks and utilities and schools and commerce with, and who have to share those things with me.

  • I have a duty to my countrymen, who in times of danger are sworn to lay down their lives for me, and for whom I may be called to lay down my life in turn.

Out and out in concentric, relational circles. That's a LOT of duty in the modern world, and I'm not at all certain even all my effort and resources and will is doing a good enough job. Thought and resources I devote to things outside those concentric rings of responsibility is, in a real sense, a defection against those important things. Moreover, because those outside things are far from me and I'm not enmeshed in iterated responsibility with them, I'm not likely to understand what any intervention would do, outside of the most superficially-obvious results.

Better to focus positive efforts on the things close by, to which I am already bound. As for those things far away, the most effective thing I can contribute is a general promise to treat fairly and virtuously with strangers when they come into my life.

This strikes me as a weak moral argument.

There isn't any good ethical basis for privileging one human being over another based on their proximity—genetically or geographically—to you. Of course there is a biological basis for this, and it may be practically impossible for most people to overcome this bias. But that doesn't really have any effect on the ethical math.

You just have strong preferences that run counter to ethical concerns.

Better to focus positive efforts on the things close by, to which I am already bound. As for those things far away, the most effective thing I can contribute is a general promise to treat fairly and virtuously with strangers when they come into my life.

This is false.

You could, right now, give money directly to impoverished people across the globe to save/transform their lives.

If you want to participate in morality, you are just as ethically bound to them, you just don't feel it.

There isn't any good ethical basis for privileging one human being over another based on their proximity—genetically or geographically—to you.

There absolutely are several.

(1) Practicality. An ethics which people are not likely to follow will not be implemented widely or for long. However noble its aims, such an ethic fails by its own terms. By contrast, an ethics which people are likely to follow, even if slightly less noble, will be implemented widely and for a longer period of time and thus result in more good. As you said, there is a biological bias in favor of genetic or geographic (and I'd add "sociocultural" as well) proximity. If that bias can be taken advantage of to build solidarity, care, and harmony, then it should!

(2) Accessibility. Proximity Bias is a simple concept, common to most human civilizations. It is simple to explain, and thus easy to spread. Moreover, it is also simpler for people of all different capability strata to implement, even without supervision. It's not perfect, and people being people it will sometimes be implemented poorly. But it's easier.

(3) Iterativity. Proximity Bias stresses that individuals should spend their resources on people and things close to them, which are likely to be things which the individual will interact with frequently. This provides for frequent feedback between all parties and frequent assessment of progress. Thus, it limits the ability of middlemen to grift or divert efforts and resources away from the object, as well as generally unlocking the beneficial dynamics present in iterated games more generally. It also allows for short feedback loops to identify and address unforeseen consequences rapidly.

(4) Resiliency. Though Proximity Bias may be less globally efficient, it does allow for the building of general reserves of both physical and social capital which can be leveraged to counteract/mitigate emergencies. Further, because it is decentralized, there is no single point of failure in the system.

If you want to participate in morality, you are just as ethically bound to them, you just don't feel it.

Sorry, nope. Ties go both ways, or not at all. I am bound to those who have some duty to me. Beyond that, I have a duty to cause no unnecessary harm. If, after I have fulfilled my local duties, I still have resources left over, then, and only then, can I look outwards to perform charity on complete strangers. But that's a very high bar to clear.

You seem to be confusing is/ought.

If you choose not to give your life to save 10 people, you are a selfish coward.

I don't mean that as harshly as it sounds, as we are all born selfish cowards, wired that way as a result of billions of years of evolution. And then it's reinforced by our culture. It's super hard not to be a selfish coward.

We don't like to think of ourselves as selfish cowards, so we imagine ourselves to be moral, even when the evidence is clear.

3 million children die of starvation each year. You can literally, truly, concretely, actually save a number of their lives. Say, 10 lives. Just by forgoing insanely lavish luxuries that we all treat "middle class" in the West. You wouldn't even have to forfeit your life, just a bunch of your stuff.

Now, I don't believe people should be forced to sacrifice themselves or sell their shit. It's a personal decision they should arrive at after doing the rational/ethical math.

But the math is clear.

I deny that human morality is math at all. People are not indistinguishable, interchangeable, widgets. The essence of humanity is sociability - our particular relationships and cooperation with each other. Your cold math at best ignores it, and at worst denigrates it as pernicious. That's a recipe for trouble.

I deny that human morality is math at all. People are not indistinguishable, interchangeable, widgets. The essence of humanity is sociability - our particular relationships and cooperation with each other. Your cold math at best ignores it, and at worst denigrates it as pernicious. That's a recipe for trouble.

Ha. You feel attacked. I get it. :)

You're placing a higher value on the lives of some people due to their proximity to you. This is because you are selfish, by nature. Reputation, reciprocation, kin selection, etc. These are all "is" considerations. (It's cool we all feel it.)

It's only because conscious experience exists that morality exists; it's only by rationally thinking through the implication of this that you can participate in morality. The moral way of assessing value is by measuring the capacity to suffer, or the other end, experience happiness/flourishing. And it's when you do that you realize there is no (unselfish) basis to place a higher value on anyone. You'll see that it's only your selfishness that blinds you to this simple truth.

A man you've never met in Kenya is of equal moral value to your father. This sentence flies in the face of everything we feel, but it's obviously morally true.

Coming from a place of curiosity: How are these duties managed? By which I mean: who defines them, where are they defined, and who is the judge/enforcer? How do decide to make tradeoffs, like for example in a situation where you would have to renege against your duty to your ancestors in order to fulfill your duty to your family?

In other words, what makes these duties concrete to you?

Christians and others of the Abrahamic faiths have their books that codify their duties, and they have their priests, that act as judge/enforcer and guide. I'm sure other religion provide similar frameworks. Humanism, especially of the EA kind, has their own version of this. So where does yours come from?

I find the substance in the great thinkers and teachers of many cultures, and take my definitions from them (though, of course, with the right to interpret or add as may be honestly needed in the spirit of the original).

The idea that my concern and efforts must start with myself, then move slowly outwards from the center to kin, friends, neighbors, city, state, country, and only then beyond that, is also extremely common in historical moral teachings, from Hierocles:

". . . For, in short, each of us is, as it were, circumscribed by many circles; some of which are less, but others larger, and some comprehend, but others are comprehended, according to the different and unequal habitudes with respect to each other. For the first, indeed, and most proximate circle is that which every one describes about his own mind as a centre, in which circle the body, and whatever is assumed for the sake of the body, are comprehended. For this is nearly the smallest circle, and almost touches the centre itself. The second from this, and which is at a greater distance from the centre, but comprehends the first circle, is that in which parents, brothers, wife, and children are arranged. The third circle from the centre is that which contains uncles and aunts, grandfathers and grandmothers, and the children of brothers and sisters. After this is the circle which comprehends the remaining relatives. Next to this is that which contains the common people, then that which comprehends those of the same tribe, afterwards that which contains the citizens; and then two other circles follow, one being the circle of those that dwell in the vicinity of the city, and the other, of those of the same province. But the outermost and greatest circle, and which comprehends all the other circles, is that of the whole human race."

to Confucius:

6:28 "Zigong said, 'What would you say of someone who broadly benefited the people and was able to help everyone? Could he be called humane?' The Master said, 'How would this be a matter of humaneness? Surely he would have to be a sage? Even Yao and Shun were concerned about such things. As for humaneness — you want to establish yourself; then help others to establish themselves. You want to develop yourself; then help others to develop themselves. Being able to recognize oneself in others [the ability to take what is near and grasp the analogy], one is on the way to being humane.'”

7:29 "The Master said, 'Is humaneness far away? If I want to be humane, then humaneness is here.'”

It even shows up in poetry, like Pope's "Essay on Man":

"Self love but serves the virtuous mind to wake, / As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake, / The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds, / Another still, and still another spreads, / Friend, parent, neighbour first it will embrace, / His country next, and next all human race; / Wide and more wide the' o'erflowings of the mind, / Take every creature in of every kind."

So yes, the goal ultimately is to embrace the whole world, but you can't skip steps! You have to adequately care for yourself before you can care for close kin. You have to be able to adequately care for self and kin before you can extend responsibility and purview to friends and local community. You have to provide for yourself, your kin, your friends, and your community before you can move on to the city or nation...and so on and so forth.

The idea that this isn't just true for those alive today, but also extends to a duty to carry on faithfully the work of those who came before, and leave it in a better place than I found it for those yet to come, I draw most pithily from Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France:

"[Society] is a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born."

And as to how it's enforced...I'll turn to Confucius again:

2:3 "The Master said, 'Lead them by means of regulations and keep order among them through punishments, and the people will evade them and will lack any sense of shame [self-respect]. Lead them through moral force (de) and keep order among them through rites (li), and they will have a sense of shame [self-respect] and will also correct themselves.'”

Thanks for sharing that. I understand a little bit more about where you're coming from.

It seems we're more or less aligned on the ends. I'm not sure about the means--for one, divvying people up into cities/states/nations doesn't appeal to me, since I'd rather do the categorization based on culture or at least "big ideas" such as "should the citizen be the property of the state?" But I guess it'll shake out in future discussions, which I'm looking forward to.

Cheers to that!

I would say that "culture" in the specific sense is highly relevant to categorization! You and the people you spend most of your time with are a tiny culture to yourselves, with your own idiosyncratic habits, inside jokes and references, and tendencies. And because you spend most of your time there, you have the most invested in keeping it healthy and productive and pleasant, etc.

Then there's looser subculture's you're part of - all the people who live on the same block, and so care about, e.g., potholes, loaning lawnmowers, watching out for each other's kids, 4th of July block parties, etc., so you collaborate on those things. Or maybe it's based on activity or affinity - a church congregation, softball league, wargaming group, knitting circle, book club, local political party, etc., each of which you spend your time, effort, and resources on.

And then it goes out further and further, through groups you share less and less time and contact with, but still have interests (whether pecuniary, cultural, or social) in common with. That's basically what Hierocles means by tribes, citizens, "those who dwell in the vicinity of the city," etc.

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