Thanks for your comment! From this and other comments, I get the feeling I didn’t make my goal clear: I’m trying to see if there is any objective way to define progress / values (starting from assuming moral relativism). I’m not tryin to make any claim as to what these values should be. Darwinian argument is the only one I’ve encountered that made sense to me—and so here I’m pushing back on it a bit—but maybe there are other good ways to objectively define values? Imho, we tend to implicitly ground many of our values in this Darwinian perspective—hence I think it’s an important topic.
I like what you point out about the distinction between prescriptive vs descriptive values here. Within moral relativism, I guess there is nothing to say about prescriptive values at all. So yes, Darwinism can only comment on descriptive values.
However, I don’t think this is quite the same as the fallacies you mention. “Might makes right” (Darwinian) is not the same as “natural makes right”—natural is a series of historical accidents, while survival of the fittest is a theoretical construct (with the caveat that at the scale of nations, number of conflicts is small, so historical accidents could become important in determining “fittest”). Similarly, “fittest” as determined by who survives seems like an objective fact, rather than a mind projection (with the caveat that an “individual” may be a mind projection—but I think that’s a bit deeper).
yeah, that could be a cleaner line of argument, I agree—though I think I’d need to rewrite the whole thing.
For testable predictions… I could at least see models of extreme cases—purely physical or purely memetic selection—and perhaps being able to find real-world example where one or the other or neither is a good description. That could be fun
Thanks for your comment!
From this and other comments, I get the feeling I didn’t make my goal clear: I’m trying to see if there is any objective way to define progress / values (starting from assuming moral relativism). I’m not tryin to make any claim as to what these values should be. Darwinian argument is the only one I’ve encountered that made sense to me—and so here I’m pushing back on it a bit—but maybe there are other good ways to objectively define values?
Imho, we tend to implicitly ground many of our values in this Darwinian perspective—hence I think it’s an important topic.
I like what you point out about the distinction between prescriptive vs descriptive values here. Within moral relativism, I guess there is nothing to say about prescriptive values at all. So yes, Darwinism can only comment on descriptive values.
However, I don’t think this is quite the same as the fallacies you mention. “Might makes right” (Darwinian) is not the same as “natural makes right”—natural is a series of historical accidents, while survival of the fittest is a theoretical construct (with the caveat that at the scale of nations, number of conflicts is small, so historical accidents could become important in determining “fittest”). Similarly, “fittest” as determined by who survives seems like an objective fact, rather than a mind projection (with the caveat that an “individual” may be a mind projection—but I think that’s a bit deeper).
I think you should make clear that you are describing natural selection effects and not derive any norms from it (“should”).
It would also be nice if you could make testable predictions (“if this effect continues, then we should see more/less of...”).
yeah, that could be a cleaner line of argument, I agree—though I think I’d need to rewrite the whole thing.
For testable predictions… I could at least see models of extreme cases—purely physical or purely memetic selection—and perhaps being able to find real-world example where one or the other or neither is a good description. That could be fun