It is not always an expression of selfish motives when people take a stance against genocide. I would even go as far as saying that, in the majority of cases, people genuinely have non-selfish motives when taking that position. That is, they actually do care, to at least some degree, about the genocide, beyond the fact that signaling their concern helps them fit in with their friend group.
Nonetheless, and this is important: few people are willing to pay substantial selfish costs in order to prevent genocides that are socially distant from them.
The theory I am advancing here does not rest on the idea that people aren’t genuine in their desire for faraway strangers to be better off. Rather, my theory is that people generally care little about such strangers, when helping those strangers trades off significantly against objectives that are closer to themselves, their family, friend group, and their own tribe.
Or, put another way, distant strangers usually get little weight in our utility function. Our family, and our own happiness, by contrast, usually get a much larger weight.
The core element of my theory concerns the amount that people care about themselves (and their family, friends, and tribe) versus other people, not whether they care about other people at all.
Hmm. I think you’re understating the tendency of most people to follow prevailing norms, and yet your main conclusion is partly right. I think there are interesting dynamics happening at two levels simultaneously—the level of individual decisions, and the level of cultural evolution—and your comment is kinda conflating those levels.
So here’s how I would put things:
Most people care very very strongly about doing things that would look good in the eyes of the people they respect. They don’t think of it that way, though—it doesn’t feel like that’s what they’re doing, and indeed they would be offended by that suggestion. Instead, those things just feel like the right and appropriate things to do. This is related to and upstream of norm-following. This is an innate drive, part of human nature built into our brain by evolution.
Also, most people also have various other innate drives that lead to them feeling motivated to eat when hungry, to avoid pain, to bond with friends, for parents to love their children and adolescents to disrespect their parents (but respect their slightly-older friends), and much else.
(But there’s person-to-person variation, and in particular some small fraction of people are sociopaths who just don’t feel intrinsically motivated by (1) at all.)
The norms of (1) can be totally arbitrary. If the people I respect think that genocide is bad, then probably so do I. If they think genocide is awesome, then probably so do I. If they think it’s super-cool to hop backwards on one foot, then probably so do I.
…But (2) provides a constant force gently pushing norms towards behavioral patterns that match up with innate tendencies in (2). So we tend to wind up with cultural norms that line up with avoiding pain, eating-when-hungry, bonding with friends, and so on.
…But not perfectly, because there are other forces acting on norms too, such as game-theoretic signaling equilibria or whatever. These enable the existence of widespread norms with aspects that run counter to aspects of (2)—think of religious fasting, initiation rites, etc.
When (4),(5),(6) play out in some group or society, some norms will “win” over others, and the norms that “win” are probably (to some extent) a priori predictable from structural aspects of the situation—homogeneity, mobility, technology, whatever.
It is not always an expression of selfish motives when people take a stance against genocide. I would even go as far as saying that, in the majority of cases, people genuinely have non-selfish motives when taking that position. That is, they actually do care, to at least some degree, about the genocide, beyond the fact that signaling their concern helps them fit in with their friend group.
Nonetheless, and this is important: few people are willing to pay substantial selfish costs in order to prevent genocides that are socially distant from them.
The theory I am advancing here does not rest on the idea that people aren’t genuine in their desire for faraway strangers to be better off. Rather, my theory is that people generally care little about such strangers, when helping those strangers trades off significantly against objectives that are closer to themselves, their family, friend group, and their own tribe.
Or, put another way, distant strangers usually get little weight in our utility function. Our family, and our own happiness, by contrast, usually get a much larger weight.
The core element of my theory concerns the amount that people care about themselves (and their family, friends, and tribe) versus other people, not whether they care about other people at all.
Hmm. I think you’re understating the tendency of most people to follow prevailing norms, and yet your main conclusion is partly right. I think there are interesting dynamics happening at two levels simultaneously—the level of individual decisions, and the level of cultural evolution—and your comment is kinda conflating those levels.
So here’s how I would put things:
Most people care very very strongly about doing things that would look good in the eyes of the people they respect. They don’t think of it that way, though—it doesn’t feel like that’s what they’re doing, and indeed they would be offended by that suggestion. Instead, those things just feel like the right and appropriate things to do. This is related to and upstream of norm-following. This is an innate drive, part of human nature built into our brain by evolution.
Also, most people also have various other innate drives that lead to them feeling motivated to eat when hungry, to avoid pain, to bond with friends, for parents to love their children and adolescents to disrespect their parents (but respect their slightly-older friends), and much else.
(But there’s person-to-person variation, and in particular some small fraction of people are sociopaths who just don’t feel intrinsically motivated by (1) at all.)
The norms of (1) can be totally arbitrary. If the people I respect think that genocide is bad, then probably so do I. If they think genocide is awesome, then probably so do I. If they think it’s super-cool to hop backwards on one foot, then probably so do I.
…But (2) provides a constant force gently pushing norms towards behavioral patterns that match up with innate tendencies in (2). So we tend to wind up with cultural norms that line up with avoiding pain, eating-when-hungry, bonding with friends, and so on.
…But not perfectly, because there are other forces acting on norms too, such as game-theoretic signaling equilibria or whatever. These enable the existence of widespread norms with aspects that run counter to aspects of (2)—think of religious fasting, initiation rites, etc.
When (4),(5),(6) play out in some group or society, some norms will “win” over others, and the norms that “win” are probably (to some extent) a priori predictable from structural aspects of the situation—homogeneity, mobility, technology, whatever.