Haidt addresses theism and ethics

[stein]

Jonathan Haidt is an atheist and an accredited psychologist.  I wasn't aware of this video from nearly two years ago until a day or so back when I was Googling around after reading up on Haidt's and Sam Harris's most recent exchange concerning a challenge/bet that Harris had submitted at his blog concerning the "mapping" of an objective morality.

This video certainly brings forward a number of intriguing implications --

old.richarddawkins.net/videos/645362-jonathan-haidt-religion-evolution-and-the-ecstasy-of-self-transcendence

-- and I was curious as to anyone's thoughts on Haidt's possible findings.  The video lasts 19 minutes.

Cheers,

Stein

[stein]

I found this quick and useful summation from Haidt of much that he already says in the video --

www.cnn.com/2012/04/01/opinion/haidt-religion-evolution/

Thoughts?

Stein

[stein]

And here is an extract (toward the top of the page) from a book of Haidt's: Righteous Mind --

infoproc.blogspot.ca/2012/03/evolution-and-self-transcendence.html

O.K., I'll desist from any further posts now and wait for others' reflections. I think the three links I've provided give a reasonably clear idea of where Haidt is coming from.

Thanks,

Stein

[unkleE]

Hi Stein, welcome to Quodlibeta.

Haidt's views have been discussed briefly here before - see The Righteous Mind.

Which aspects of his "implications" were you most interested in? The debate about group selection? The social/evolutionary value of religion? The idea that "mitigated reasoning" explains why we can't agree on politics and religion?

I read the article and I found it interesting and generally helpful. I am a christian who accepts evolution and reasonable evolutionary explanations, so I have no problem believing in God and that he has used evolution to give us all a moral/spiritual awareness and to reinforce our moral obligations to each other. And I find it interesting that some more militant atheists refuse to accept that religion may be more beneficial than not, while other atheists such as Haidt and David Sloan Wilson follow the science on this.

Are you aware of the excellent Science on Religion blog and Science on Religion website, which discuss issues like this?

[ignorantianescia]

This is what the Dawk thinks of the talk. I'll give no spoilers away when I say he does not like it.

Comment 1: mgjinich.

"I would love to read Richard's opinion."

My first thought; is group selection back in the frame?

What a maddening, infuriating, enraging talk, a talk as badly misguided as it is well delivered (albeit with a style of slick, adman showmanship that rubs me personally up the wrong way). I have to go and catch a plane, so no time to spell it out. But, briefly:-

1. No, group selection is not back in the frame. E.O.Wilson, for all his merits, has never understood kin selection. Even in 1975, in Sociobiology he was treating kin selection as a kind of group selection, which it utterly is not. Maynard Smith coined the phrase 'kin selection' precisely in order to distinguish it from group selection.

2. The social insects work entirely by kin selection. The theory is well-worked out and it works. Sterile workers contain copies of genes that are also in reproductives. The worker phenotypes are driven by those genes to work for their copies in reproductives.

3. Mitochondria and other 'membrane-bound' examples. As I have spelled out at great length in numerous places (e.g. The Extended Phenotype, The Selfish Gene, Unweaving the Rainbow) the key here is that groups of genes who share the same exit route from the present vehicle into the future have common interests and work together. My earliest attempt to explain this actually made use of exactly the same metaphor of rowing crews (developed at some length in two places in The Selfish Gene).

4. It is true that Darwin, in The Descent of Man, did uncharacteristically resort to a form of group selectionism for the particular example of humans. But I suspect that if Darwin had known of the later work of men such as Hamilton, Trivers and Maynard Smith, he would not have done so. The only good part of Haidt's talk, where he evokes the group solidarity of humans, for example in warfare, is beautifully explained in non group selectionist terms. For example, kin selection using 'fictive kin'. Consider the lengths to which military and paramilitary units go to foster notions of 'brotherhood'. Look it up in Andy Thomson's excellent book.

Got to rush, sorry

Richard

It's from the first link: old.richarddawkins.net/comments/928880

[stein]

Feb 15, 2014 18:07:37 GMT ignorantianescia said:

This is what the Dawk thinks of the talk.

<snip> It is true that Darwin, in The Descent of Man, did uncharacteristically resort to a form of group selectionism for the particular example of humans. But I suspect that if Darwin had known of the later work of men such as Hamilton, Trivers and Maynard Smith, he would not have done so. The only good part of Haidt's talk, where he evokes the group solidarity of humans, for example in warfare, is beautifully explained in non group selectionist terms. For example, kin selection using 'fictive kin'. Consider the lengths to which military and paramilitary units go to foster notions of 'brotherhood'. Look it up in Andy Thomson's excellent book.
<snip>

It's from the first link: old.richarddawkins.net/comments/928880

Thank you, IN!

I freely concede I am no scientist.  As a layman only, though, I have to say (now, is this being naive on my part, ignorant?) that it seems to me that "the Dawk" inadvertently begs a big question when he writes "kin selection using 'fictive kin'".  How come the impulse to use "fictive kin" in the first place?  Why the drive to bind oneself to "fictive kin" in this instinct to become one with many in the first place?  I'm not sure he really addresses this, but perhaps someone more scientifically inclined here can show me that he really does(?).

In the meantime, the concept of group selection may(?) be gaining a new lease on life among the professionals.  David Sloan Wilson did a whole series on HuffPost (and elsewhere?), detailing various experiments toward the end of his series, which suggest that kin selection can not necessarily fit all perceivable patterns.  His descriptions of the experiments that seem to throw kin selection in some question start around "chapter" 10 or so.  Here are the fifteen links for the whole series:


www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sloan-wilson/truth-and-reconciliation_b_153696.html

www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sloan-wilson/truth-and-reconciliation_b_154660.html

www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sloan-wilson/truth-and-reconciliation_b_155769.html

www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sloan-wilson/truth-and-reconciliation_b_157711.html

www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sloan-wilson/truth-and-reconciliation_b_160688.html

www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sloan-wilson/truth-and-reconciliation_b_172402.html

www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sloan-wilson/truth-and-reconciliation_b_177941.html

www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sloan-wilson/truth-and-reconciliation_b_185590.html

www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sloan-wilson/truth-and-reconciliation_b_188176.html

www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sloan-wilson/truth-and-reconciliation_b_188707.html

www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sloan-wilson/truth-and-reconciliation_b_190008.html

www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sloan-wilson/truth-and-reconciliation_b_202753.html

www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sloan-wilson/truth-and-reconciliation_b_206248.html

www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sloan-wilson/truth-and-reconciliation_b_266316.html

www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sloan-wilson/truth-and-reconciliation_b_292114.html


It looks like quite a ton of stuff, but actually each "chapter" is quite short.

I'm indebted to unkleE for bringing my attention to the previous Haidt thread.  Ofhand, in perusing that thread, I don't see any reference to Wilson's newest work on this.  So I hope this brings something new to the discussion.

Thank you,

Stein

[ignorantianescia]

Great articles, thanks for the links. Dawkins definitely seems to raise a smokescreen with his kin selection on "fictive kin". It seems a redefinition game to avoid the word group selection. Altruism in the military doesn't generally promote the chances of survival of highly related genes, so any supposed kin selection would be a more general form of group selection. But I'm also a layman.

[stein]

Feb 18, 2014 6:12:00 GMT ignorantianescia said:

Great articles, thanks for the links. Dawkins definitely seems to raise a smokescreen with his kin selection on "fictive kin". It seems a redefinition game to avoid the word group selection. Altruism in the military doesn't generally promote the chances of survival of highly related genes, so any supposed kin selection would be a more general form of group selection. But I'm also a layman.

=====================

[Stein]  I found a worthwhile discussion here all about group selection and scientific orthodoxy --

www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9kJkuuedw0

Food for thought anyway!

Stein