I now return to your premise that “humans run on corrupted hardware.” It is a new way to phrase an old idea: that humans are by nature evil. It is an idea I disagree with.
The hardware is corrupted, that’s not the same as evil. The corruptedness can easily lead to ‘nice’ or ‘good’ prosocial actions - ‘I am doing this soup kitchen work because I am a good person’ (as opposed to trying to look good or impress this potential ally or signal nurturing characteristics to a potential mate etc.).
Then I do not understand what is meant by corrupted. Perhaps it is because of my limited knowledge of the computer science lexicon, but to me the word corrupted means damaged, imperfect, made inferior. To imply something is damaged/ inferior makes a value-judgment about what is well/superior. But if you are saying that doing something out of self-interest is an inferior state, then what is the superior state? Altruism? By what rational basis can you say that people should be completely altruistic? Then we would not be people, we would be ants ,or bees, or some other social creature. Self-interest is part of what makes human sociality so powerful. I do not see it as corrupted hardware, but rather misused hardware (as I state in my original post). The self can be extended to a family, a community, a nation, even to humanity itself, so that even though a person acts out of self-intrest their interest extends beyond an atomized body or singular lineage. Basically I am agreeing with your deception of human nature, but not your interpretation of it.
What I get out of the analogy “corrupted hardware” is that self-interest is a detrimental capacity of human nature. If this is not what is meant, then please explain to me what is meant by corrupted hardware. If it is what is meant, then I stand by my assertion that it is not self-interest that is detrimental but cultural conceptions of the self; making it the software, not the hardware that is corrupted.
If a file is corrupted with noise, or a portion of RAM is corrupted by some cosmic rays, is that file or portion of memory now filled with evil? No; it is simply not what it was intended to be. Whether there are any moral connotations beyond that depends on additional details and considerations.
For example, Robin Hanson (or maybe it was Katja Grace?) has argued that the proper response to discovering the powerful and pervasive missions of one’s evolved subconscious—aims that may not be shared by the conscious—is not to regard the subconscious as one’s enemy corrupting one’s actions towards its own goals, but as simply part of oneself, to embrace its goals as perfectly valid as the conscious mind’s goals. Other LWers disagree and think the subconscious biases are just that, biases to be opposed like any other source of noise/bias/corruption.
(I hope you see how this Hansonian argument does not fit in with a simplistic ‘human nature is good’ or ‘evil’ take on the idea that the mind has hidden motives. It’s pretty rare for anyone to seriously argue that just because human nature is flawed, we should give up on morality entirely and become immoral evil monsters.)
Thanks for the clarification of the corrupted hardware analogy. It was a poor choice of words to compare the argument to human nature being evil. The point I am trying to make is that I do not agree with the statement t hat human nature is flawed. What you are calling flawed I was calling evil. But from this point on I will switch to your language because it is better. I still do not see the logic
-In some cases, human beings have evolved in such fashion as to think that they are doing X for prosocial reason Y, but when human beings actually do X, other adaptations execute to promote self-benefiting consequence.
As proving that human nature is flawed, because it makes the assumption that self-interest is a flaw. I would ask you two questions if I could. First, do you believe self-interest to be a flaw of human nature, if not what is the flaw that is talked about in corrupt hardware? Second, do you believe it is possible to posses a conscious without self-interest?
I would add that just because I support self-interest, does not mean I support selfishness. Please respond!
-In some cases, human beings have evolved in such fashion as to think that they are doing X for prosocial reason Y, but when human beings actually do X, other adaptations execute to promote self-benefiting consequence.
No, again you’re not following the precise lines. An adaptation doesn’t necessarily benefit one’s ‘self’: it’s supposed to help one’s genes or one’s genes in another person (or even just a gene at the expense of all the others). Kin selection, right? Fisher’s famous “I would not sacrifice myself to save a brother, but would for 2 brothers, 4 cousins...′
So again, this corrupted hardware business is not identical with selfishness or self-interest, however you seem to be using either.
So you are saying the hardware of genes that has fueled the movement of life, and must embryologically exist within the human structure, is a hinderance to the structure of the social animal?
Genes give rise to the sociality in the first place; this is one of the paradoxes of trying to fight one’s genes, as it were. It’s hairy meta-ethics: where do your desires and morals come from and what justifies them?
I don’t think morality should be segregated from desire. I realize that Freud’s concept of drives is at this point in time obsolete, but if there were “drives” it would not be a sex, aggression, or hunger drive that dominated the human animal, but a belonging drive. In my opinion it does not matter where the hardware comes from, what is important is an intimacy with its function. I think for too long there has been a false dichotomy constructed between morals and desires.
as to the question of meta-ethics, I would apply the works of E. O Wilson or Joseph Tainter to the construction of a more humane humanity.
The hardware is corrupted, that’s not the same as evil. The corruptedness can easily lead to ‘nice’ or ‘good’ prosocial actions - ‘I am doing this soup kitchen work because I am a good person’ (as opposed to trying to look good or impress this potential ally or signal nurturing characteristics to a potential mate etc.).
Then I do not understand what is meant by corrupted. Perhaps it is because of my limited knowledge of the computer science lexicon, but to me the word corrupted means damaged, imperfect, made inferior. To imply something is damaged/ inferior makes a value-judgment about what is well/superior. But if you are saying that doing something out of self-interest is an inferior state, then what is the superior state? Altruism? By what rational basis can you say that people should be completely altruistic? Then we would not be people, we would be ants ,or bees, or some other social creature. Self-interest is part of what makes human sociality so powerful. I do not see it as corrupted hardware, but rather misused hardware (as I state in my original post). The self can be extended to a family, a community, a nation, even to humanity itself, so that even though a person acts out of self-intrest their interest extends beyond an atomized body or singular lineage. Basically I am agreeing with your deception of human nature, but not your interpretation of it.
What I get out of the analogy “corrupted hardware” is that self-interest is a detrimental capacity of human nature. If this is not what is meant, then please explain to me what is meant by corrupted hardware. If it is what is meant, then I stand by my assertion that it is not self-interest that is detrimental but cultural conceptions of the self; making it the software, not the hardware that is corrupted.
If a file is corrupted with noise, or a portion of RAM is corrupted by some cosmic rays, is that file or portion of memory now filled with evil? No; it is simply not what it was intended to be. Whether there are any moral connotations beyond that depends on additional details and considerations.
For example, Robin Hanson (or maybe it was Katja Grace?) has argued that the proper response to discovering the powerful and pervasive missions of one’s evolved subconscious—aims that may not be shared by the conscious—is not to regard the subconscious as one’s enemy corrupting one’s actions towards its own goals, but as simply part of oneself, to embrace its goals as perfectly valid as the conscious mind’s goals. Other LWers disagree and think the subconscious biases are just that, biases to be opposed like any other source of noise/bias/corruption.
(I hope you see how this Hansonian argument does not fit in with a simplistic ‘human nature is good’ or ‘evil’ take on the idea that the mind has hidden motives. It’s pretty rare for anyone to seriously argue that just because human nature is flawed, we should give up on morality entirely and become immoral evil monsters.)
Thanks for the clarification of the corrupted hardware analogy. It was a poor choice of words to compare the argument to human nature being evil. The point I am trying to make is that I do not agree with the statement t hat human nature is flawed. What you are calling flawed I was calling evil. But from this point on I will switch to your language because it is better. I still do not see the logic
-In some cases, human beings have evolved in such fashion as to think that they are doing X for prosocial reason Y, but when human beings actually do X, other adaptations execute to promote self-benefiting consequence.
As proving that human nature is flawed, because it makes the assumption that self-interest is a flaw. I would ask you two questions if I could. First, do you believe self-interest to be a flaw of human nature, if not what is the flaw that is talked about in corrupt hardware? Second, do you believe it is possible to posses a conscious without self-interest?
I would add that just because I support self-interest, does not mean I support selfishness. Please respond!
No, again you’re not following the precise lines. An adaptation doesn’t necessarily benefit one’s ‘self’: it’s supposed to help one’s genes or one’s genes in another person (or even just a gene at the expense of all the others). Kin selection, right? Fisher’s famous “I would not sacrifice myself to save a brother, but would for 2 brothers, 4 cousins...′
So again, this corrupted hardware business is not identical with selfishness or self-interest, however you seem to be using either.
So you are saying the hardware of genes that has fueled the movement of life, and must embryologically exist within the human structure, is a hinderance to the structure of the social animal?
Genes give rise to the sociality in the first place; this is one of the paradoxes of trying to fight one’s genes, as it were. It’s hairy meta-ethics: where do your desires and morals come from and what justifies them?
I don’t think morality should be segregated from desire. I realize that Freud’s concept of drives is at this point in time obsolete, but if there were “drives” it would not be a sex, aggression, or hunger drive that dominated the human animal, but a belonging drive. In my opinion it does not matter where the hardware comes from, what is important is an intimacy with its function. I think for too long there has been a false dichotomy constructed between morals and desires.
as to the question of meta-ethics, I would apply the works of E. O Wilson or Joseph Tainter to the construction of a more humane humanity.