Orthodox answers

[Sir Og]

I'm not saying it's not selfish. I'm quite clearly defining the perceived reward system (eg. showing how the act is self-ful).

It's EXTREMELY OBVIOUS that environmental factors affect decision making processes. There are genetic factors as well, but claims it's all genetics are easily disproved. Drugs (or other chemical exposure) disproves it. Twins studies disproves it. Child abuse (and the effects on the child) disproves it.

I am not saying that environmental factors have no effect. But still people react differently to the same environment. Laws for example are the same for everybody but some people choose to follow them while others don't. Even if two people are certain of the consequences (the expected punishment/reward) of their actions they still react differently if they are predisposed to react differently.

Aren't twins in twin studies extremely similar even though they have different environments? (when separated at birth for example) Especially adults. With kids the environment has far greater effect because usually there are powerful stimuli that influence them and they naturally respond. The more people move away from environments like school and home the more they move towards their "default settings".

BTW my previous post was not directed personally at you. I don't want to argue that you personally are a selfish person. I wanted to say that it seems to me that people are born different and some are selfish while others are generous etc. Everybody reacts to stimuli so this can be changed but the more people move away from environments with powerful stimuli that are aimed to promote certain behaviour the more they move towards their natural behaviour.

I also agree with what Elok said earlier that morals etc. are the stories we tell ourselves after the fact to make sense of what our brains decided to do.

[Elok]

I don't mean to imply that values and upbringing, etc. have no influence, only that they are typically the junior partner, and tend to be subverted over time, especially when they grow impractical.

[Bereta_Eder]

There are certaintly genetic factors to behavioral disposition but there is a very broad basis for molding those to a different route through environmental means.

Especially in the early stages of life and as the brain is, especially at that time, "creating and re-creating itself",making new synapses etc
This keeps going untill the end of life but in the early years of life it's happening at a very large level

[Sir Og]

I'd say it depends how you define stuff. You might always say action X perceived as selfless still gives a *certain benefit of some sort, so is selfish in the end. However, when the cost of doing X is far greater than the benefit I'd say it's justified to label it as selfless act.


Example: during the sinking of HMS Hood 1941 there were only a few survivors. One told in an interview he only made it out alive because another guy stood back allowing him to get out of the ship - this one died.

There might be some psychologic interpretation saying "the guy who stood back acted acc. to his own belief of what *should be done", which could be warped into "it was selfish", but he's paying a heavy price and does not get any reward/benefit for himself when he dies, so I'd rather say he acted not selfish in this moment.

Sure but you could argue that the person who chose to die in the ship did it for the selfish reason that his brain would feel a lot more pain if he chose to save himself and leave the others to die.

Costs and benefits are not absolute. If I give you a ride in my company car during a heavy rain this costs me almost nothing while you might derive great benefit. You will then perceive this as a selfless, kind act because you would apply your valuation on what I did.

It is not hard for me to imagine that people who sacrifice themselves perceive the pain/discomfort/shame that they would feel if they don't do whatever they do to be far worse than dying.

[Elok]

Are you folks familiar with the Milgram Experiment? It's something like sixty years old now, but researchers found that a disturbing percentage of their participants would personally push a button to electrocute a sick man to death, expressing misgivings all the while, provided a man in a lab coat pressured them to do so and assured them he would accept responsibility. Naturally, this experiment was somewhat controversial, and I doubt it could be done today, but I imagine you'd get similar results (minor changes might be necessary to fit today's different notions of revered authority).

[Aeson]

I just think it's important not to dismiss ideology as an influence on choices. A child (and to a lesser extent adults) can learn positive lessons or negative lessons. It's very important to take whatever opportunities we have to teach them positive lessons as best we can. It's important to promote ideology which results in better quality of life for them as well as humanity as a whole.

Heroes in extraordinary circumstances are rare, but that is to be expected. Most people will not be prepared for being able to handle such extraordinary circumstances by whatever upbringing they had. Our lessons are focused on what we experience, and extraordinary is just that ... not ordinary.

If in a situation where speaking out means you and your family will be killed, it can be tough to speak out ... and the morality isn't very clear either. If I speak out knowing that it will result in the death of my family, and I am unable to influence whatever I'm speaking out against ... which is at best a very unlikely thing and in any case unknowable ... then I've essentially chosen to die and kill my family for no effect. It's difficult to differentiate between that type of (likely justified) rationale and the "oh well, I don't care about those [people] anyway" as the result looks the same from the outside.

[Elok]

Well, witness our reaction to atrocities like the Orlando shooting, then. Essentially we use the dead as an excuse for (quite fruitless) kvetching about tribal enemies, do some token look-how-caring-we-are BS like rainbow-flagging some landmarks, and then move on. None of this accomplishes anything; it's more about us, and our desire to present ourselves as good, than it is about the dead.

The more moral response would be a sustained long-term effort to reduce the proliferation of firearms in our society. But we don't, because in the final analysis fifty dead strangers are not morally "real" to us. And actually reducing firearms would be difficult, and likely some personal sacrifice and compromise, whereas posting stupid "this is all the [X]'s fault" memes is free and gives a visceral emotional thrill. Now, I'm not significantly better; I don't post the stupid memes, but I also don't do anything productive. My acknowledgement of the moral worthlessness of the typical response is not enough to goad me into a more productive response. At best, I'm a slightly more honest SOB.

[Aeson]

I am not saying that environmental factors have no effect. But still people react differently to the same environment.

Environmental factors vary tremendously even in similar locations. Lead levels in your house could be completely different than the lead levels in your neighbor's house, and that could have a very large impact on child development of your kids vs your neighbor's kids. Even within the same house and family, one child is dealing with issues of being the oldest ... one with being the youngest ... it can make a big difference on how they develop.

Aren't twins in twin studies extremely similar even though they have different environments?

There will be similarities, they have similar genetic factors. There are differences as well. The differences confirm that environmental factors are factors.

I also agree with what Elok said earlier that morals etc. are the stories we tell ourselves after the fact to make sense of what our brains decided to do.

While that may be how some people operated some of the time, I doubt it is how most people operate all of the time, and I never operate that way. So saying "are the stories" rather than "may sometimes be the stories" definitely makes your position false.

[Aeson]

Well, witness our reaction to atrocities like the Orlando shooting, then. Essentially we use the dead as an excuse for (quite fruitless) kvetching about tribal enemies, do some token look-how-caring-we-are BS like rainbow-flagging some landmarks, and then move on. None of this accomplishes anything; it's more about us, and our desire to present ourselves as good, than it is about the dead.

For those who act that way though, that is their ideology. It's what they've been influenced to be by genetics and their environment.

I agree with you that people often use an ideology as cover for their real ideology. But I don't agree that you can say that a person's ideology will change to whatever is convenient to deal with the current situation, especially not in respect to a specific person you don't know (like Berz ... I disagree with him about a lot, but he doesn't seem the type to sacrifice his ideals on a whim). Some people have that type of ideology where they would adopt whatever is most convenient (which isn't actually changing their ideology, just applying it), and others demonstrably do not sacrifice their ideology even when faced with death as a consequence.

There's a large spectrum inbetween where people have varying degrees of commitment to their ideology.

[Elok]

Okay, you've got me in a no-win scenario here; extraordinary circumstances don't count because they're extraordinary, but ordinary behavior is the result of conditioning. And if inconsistency or lack of principle itself counts as an "ideology," then you've got something unfalsifiable.

[Aeson]

The more moral response would be a sustained long-term effort to reduce the proliferation of firearms in our society. But we don't, because in the final analysis fifty dead strangers are not morally "real" to us. And actually reducing firearms would be difficult, and likely some personal sacrifice and compromise, whereas posting stupid "this is all the [X]'s fault" memes is free and gives a visceral emotional thrill. Now, I'm not significantly better; I don't post the stupid memes, but I also don't do anything productive. My acknowledgement of the moral worthlessness of the typical response is not enough to goad me into a more productive response. At best, I'm a slightly more honest SOB.

I think it's good to differentiate between "can't do much to make the change they want" and "don't care". Also to note there are people who have dedicated their lives to various causes, and many people who do vote and/or demonstrate based on those issues. It's easy to get jaded, but most people are actually good, decent, hard working people.

The issue of firearms is hotly contested. The perspectives are mutually exclusive, with roughly similar numbers on both sides. Maybe that changes at some point and the issue is settled. Some change could result from this specific incident. I would guess a little good on the firearm front, as even O'Reilly is talking about banning at least some guns. Sadly, a larger degree of bad on the xenophobe front due to how Trump is addressing it.

Again though, that's environmental factors at work. Many of the people who support Trump probably didn't even think about Muslims 20 years ago. 9/11 and the war on terror and all the terror attacks have been a huge impact on many people'ss view of the world and various other groups.

[Aeson]

And if inconsistency or lack of principle itself counts as an "ideology," then you've got something unfalsifiable.

If someone's ideology is essentially "go with the flow" or "just do whatever to get by" then it really is their ideology ... however they came to hold it and however they choose to present themselves.

I'm not saying extraordinary situations don't count, I'm saying you can't really know how someone will react to an extraordinary situation without actually seeing how they react to that situation. You are claiming that Berz will react in a certain way, without any evidence to back up that claim. My general impression of Berz is that in the 10-12 years I can remember what he's posted about, he's been consistent in his ideology and arguments. And it's not like he's holding onto a popular ideology, in some specific cases (ancient astronaut type theory) it's widely mocked in the mainstream. So I don't think he's the type that just "goes with the flow", and my money would be on that he would stick to his ideology a lot more-so than most people. But I could be wrong. It's not much to go on either way.

[Elok]

I did not mean to drag Berz personally into this; I meant this to be a discussion of most humans in the abstract, since I have no way of closely examining the motives of any individual humans but myself (and I doubt whether I, or anyone, can be truly honest about my/himself). But we can examine broad trends, and a quick perusal of most any history book, covering any period, indicates that we're a species composed primarily of hypocrites. The abandonment of espoused principle for personal gain is ubiquitous--from the puppet empire of Athenian democracy, through the bloodthirsty Christianity of Medieval Europe, past the rampant buggery and alcoholism of the Abbasid Caliphate, pausing to glance at the gross impingements of the French Revolution on basic liberty, wince at the humanitarian brutality of European imperialists, roll our eyes at the conditional contempt of scientific-rationalist Marxists for inconvenient science . . .

[Aeson]

Certainly power corrupts, or at least corrupt, ruthless, despicable people have an advantage gaining power. When you read you history book, or turn on the news, you generally hear about those people and their decisions. You don't often hear about the vast majority of humanity and what they did on a day to day basis. The billions of people who didn't do anything wrong (and on average did something right) that day don't make the news.

No one is perfect, but people on average do more good more of the time than they do bad. It is the only way to explain how civilization ever existed, or has made any progress.

[Elok]

No, civilization progresses because pure, unadulterated evil is unproductive. In all but the crudest societies, a certain amount of moral behavior is expedient. Constant aggression, for example, is likely to get you killed. And robbery, murder, etc. destroy a lot of resources and fragment the population. A society with strong disincentives to antisocial behavior is in everyone's collective interests (even as transgressing those norms is frequently in our individual interests). Moreover, technological progress has eliminated much of the need for extreme violence. Improved farming means fewer destabilizing famines; better medicine decreases both plagues and the attendant social upheaval. Even in war, technology has made many net changes for the better. Improved logistics and supply mean that armies no longer "live off the land" (i.e. plunder whichever villages happen to be nearest), do not have to sell low-ranking POWs into slavery, and typically pay soldiers regularly enough that they don't rape and loot for three days every time they take an objective.