Hacker News Reader

Comment by fmota | Hacker News Reader

I knew it was going to come down to (fucking) Ayn Rand, when the author started discussing the primacy of senses.

Anyway, I think the author makes a bit of a straw man argument when saying that Dawkins' "moral Zeitgeist" doesn't determine a rational, consistent basis for morality. I don't believe that Dawkins was trying to show that.

I believe that Dawkins was trying to show that both religious and irreligious folks derive their morals from the same place for the most part: the moral Zeitgeist. This is a counter to the argument that religion is necessary for morality, because morality for most people is drawn from the Zeitgeist either way.

I haven't read Dawkins, so I may be wrong in my assertions of what Dawkins intended, but it feels like the author covertly (or accidentally) tried to shift the focus away from countering the "religion is necessary for morals" argument, onto a different topic (that of defining rational morals).

View on HN

"I knew it was going to come down to (fucking) Ayn Rand"

A disappointing end to the argument, IMO. Not just because of my personal dislike for Ayn Rand, but because it seems like it's just sort of stuck on the end there without appropriate justification. It would be better either without that part at all, or with a complete argument as to why Ayn Rand's position is not subject to the same criticism.

Religious morality is mystical? That's a reasonable point to argue. Dawkins' morality is equally mystical? The author presents a decent argument for this. Ayn Rand's morality is not mystical? Kind of a bold thing to merely assert and then duck out of the room.

Yep, the article is completely missing the point. My favorite bit:

"Those who maintain that being moral consists in being altruistic have no alternative but to base that belief on some form of mysticism"

It's like they haven't heard of the iterated prisoner's dilemma or something.

Illustrations like the prisoner's dilemma help convey how an entire group can benefit from certain behaviors, but they're less useful when making decisions as a lone, rational actor with access to many different groups and no reason to keep iterating.

And even if such illustrations were more helpful, they wouldn't rise to the same level as an imperative moral code. Why not just view them as a challenge to be overcome?

Why not just view them as a challenge to be overcome?

Because I usually feel bad when I harm others, and I usually feel good when I help others. Altruism seems to be built into most human brains, and it would take a lot of conditioning to overcome. Most importantly, I think eliminating altruism would lead to a world where average quality of life was lower.

(Of course, these altruistic tendencies are what cause me to care about average quality of life.)

"Because I usually feel bad when I harm others, and I usually feel good when I help others."

I do, to, but I also feel that often it's because it has been drilled into me.

The main thing that you're missing is that people are social animals. That's how we've evolved, and why we have most of the cognitive biases/moral standpoints that we do (eg. punishing defectors/fairness/not killing other people for their stuff). This is Richard Dawkins' argument in a nutshell - you are essentially a paleolithic tribesman in a suit.

If you prefer to look at it from a purely sociopathic amoral viewpoint, your ability to be a lone, rational actor is largely dependent on your interactions with society. You just have to look at people like Ted Kazcynski to see how completely independent actors live.

Altruism does not mean doing things that in some way, directly or indirectly, benefit others. Nor does it have a monopoly on being nice or friendly to others. Instead, it means having a moral duty to serve others, acting in ways that avoid helping oneself. Some very influential altruist philosophers take it so far as to say you should suffer when helping others. Always, for your entire life. Contemporary altruists may not demand so much, but they do demand sacrifice, and deride self-interest.

Game theory doesn't explain altruism. It wouldn't even convince people that capitalism (with full protection of individual rights) is a decent system to support. It's a game, and can be interpreted many ways, including self-interest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism

Reply on news.ycombinator.com