Writes Elizabeth Kolbert, in "Does One Emotion Rule All Our Ethical Judgments? When prehistoric predators abounded, the ability to perceive harm helped our ancestors survive. Some researchers wonder whether it fuels our greatest fights today" (The New Yorker).
"'Moral disagreements can still arise even if we all share a harm-based moral mind, because liberals and conservatives disagree about who is especially vulnerable to victimization,' he writes. Consider abortion.... According to Gray, progressives focus on 'the harm suffered by women lacking access to medical care,' and therefore come out in favor of abortion rights. Conservatives focus on 'the harm suffered by fetuses,' and therefore support abortion restrictions. Arguments over immigration are based on similar differences in what Gray calls 'assumptions of vulnerability': 'Progressives focus on the suffering of innocent children fleeing war, while conservatives highlight victims murdered by drug smugglers.'.... 'Millions of years of being hunted have made us preoccupied with danger,' he writes. 'But without saber-toothed cats to fear, we fret about elections, arguments in group texts, and decisions at PTA meetings.'"
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So everyone acts based on victimhood. Riiiiight.
How about instead of thinking of harm asthe basis for decisions we look at benefits of actions? Then instead of creating a heirarchy of intersectional victimhood where the biggest loser gets a prize, we see how our actions can benefit others as well as ourselves. You may have heard this stated as, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
"When prehistoric predators abounded, the ability to perceive harm helped our ancestors survive."
Pain is the greatest teacher on earth. The undefeated champion. For 99% of human history being stupid, acting stupid, and planning stupid (or not planning) resulted in extremely negative consequences for the stupid. Our current age where we as a society have stupidly decided to indemnify the stupid from natural consequences is an extremely recent invention, it wasn't even 100 years ago that willfully being an idiot resulted in very difficult and short existence.
Pain never lies. Pain always tells the truth, and every year I become more convinced that pain needs to be put back in charge. Modern-moral hand-holding doesn't appear to be working.
Conservatives focus on human rights and equal protection (e.g. mother and baby). Progressives focus on equivocation (e.g. fetus "=" "burden") and Diversity (i.e. [selective] exclusion). So, what is the ethics if the story, other than liberals live a divergent lifestyle with wicked solutions.
1. Human emotions are biased toward the negative. We place far greater weight on danger than happiness. This applies to everything from wars to medical care to investing.
2. Leaders routinely fight the last war, and try to fix the unfixable. This applies to military or social support. The Biden-era DEI iniatives revisited both LBJ's 1960s "Great Society" program and Carter's 1970s Affirmative Action efforts. They either suceeded the first time and were not needed again, or they failed and there was no point in repeating them. But, leaders fight the last war. Also see the endless resources spent on obsolete military systems, be it the humiliation of the failed French Maginot Line or the redundancies of MAD during US/USSR Cold War.
Immigration vs emigration reform too mitigate progress at both ends of the bridge and throughout., and collateral damage from the former and persons who entertain abortive ideation in evolutionary digression from otherwise progressive ethical selection.
Ethicisf proved unethical story at eleven
the writer makes a typo in the statement:
"progressives focus on 'the harm suffered by women lacking access to medical care,' and therefore come out in favor of abortion rights."
If they hadn't pressed the wrong keys, they would have written:
progressives focus on 'the harm suffered by women lacking realization, that actions have consequences ,' and therefore come out in favor of abortion rights.
People do not act on victimhood (i.e., the response after a negative event), but they do act on avoidance and preparation for possible negative events. Thi is a routine, default, and widespread survival strategy. See how houseflies dodge a hand swat, and see how a bird or small animal dodges capture.
Intersectionality is an academic coating painted on primal and self-serving tribalism.
RSM claims: "Pain is the greatest teacher on earth."
IF this was true; how do you explain the fact that when children touch a hot stove, they Continue to touch hot stoves? Oh, wait a minute; let me think of a better rebuttal
@gilbar: "Think of the Marquis de Sade and the masochists of this world." See this fictionalized in Hellraiser (1987).
progressives focus on 'the harm suffered by women lacking access to medical care,' and therefore come out in favor of abortion rights. Conservatives focus on 'the harm suffered by fetuses,' and therefore support abortion restrictions
That's one way of framing it. Another would be that progressives dismiss the "harm" (otherwise known as "death") suffered by fetuses in favor of the "harm" (which can be considerable, undoubtedly, but is very seldom death) that would be suffered by a girl or woman who doesn't have an elective abortion. And I would add that pro-life conservatives are also focused on the emotional harm a girl or woman may suffer if she thinks too hard about what she's doing in having an elective abortion., while progressives try to mitigate that harm by obfuscating what the women or girl is doing - the "clump of cells," "reproductive freedom," "choice" terminology versus the bare statement of fact, that the woman or girl is, for her own reasons that are statistically seldom related to her own physical health, ending the life of what would otherwise be her child.
I'm (obviously) pro-life, anti-abortion, call me what you will. But at this point I don't want to see legal abortion ended in any state - we've come too far. I'd like to return to "safe, legal, and rare." And it seems to me that the best way to achieve that goal is to be truthful about what abortion is. It's not, in its essence, "health care," for instance.
Hmm my Bull Shit detector is going off big time. It is mostly old women who are well past child bearing age that are abortion zealots - zero restrictions. These women have nothing to fear. The classification of abortion as health care is mostly a lie. An abortion in almost every case is Birth Control. His immigration example is laughable. Does anyone really think our immigration issue is cause by children fleeing war.
A parable:
Just a few years ago, my oldest had his first run-in with natural consequences when he - despite me telling him not to - kept playing ninja by kicking a section of our backyard fence. Well the fence decided to kick him back causing him to fall down and scrape his leg on the concrete. Through the ensuing waterworks he asked me several times "why it hurt" in this very "but it shouldn't hurt!" manner.
The world is filled with people who never found out "why it hurt", they are perpetually focused on "but the world shouldn't be like this!" They work tirelessly all their lives fighting for "should" instead of "is", like spoiled college students years ago screaming about "safe spaces". These people, and there are lots of them, essentially remain teenagers forever, and most of society and their parents allow this.
For children, after enough times doing something that hurts the proper response is to say "yes, I told you so" followed by "no, I'm not going to make it go away". For adults, the appropriate response is to do and say nothing, and move on with your life.
Sounds boring and rather trivial. Evolution is a messy worker, finding a design in that tangled pile of scraps isn't easy. Fear of harm is only one of many things that motivates us, I would class it as situational rather than fundamental.
"Harm is the master key of morality.'..." Obviously not. At least in the sense that it is universally engrained. Unless the doing of harm for some 'good' reason is included. Example: Islam.
Of moral principles and ethical penumbras. Show me the fitness function!
Sounds like just another convoluted Prog rationalization for rule by a credentialled elite.
Seems rather simplistic and incomplete, and perhaps influenced by the 'moral psychologist's' own fears. Ethics-based decision-making makes judicious use of all of the emotions, plus the intellect, if you ask me.
"Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we were put in this world to rise above."
"They work tirelessly all their lives fighting for "should" instead of "is"". This is a good point. It reminds me of a prayer. "O God, give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, the courage to change what can be changed, and the wisdom to know the one from the other."
I believe it was Mark Twain who said, "Experience is an effective but limited teacher. For instance if a cat jumps on a hot stove it will never jump on a hot stove again. On the other hand, it will never jump on a cold stove either."
I don't disagree with the pain thesis, just thought I'd inject Twain's take on a similar condition.
Elective abortion is a moral right with self, not selfiesh, defense through reconciliation. A woman has six weeks under current homicide statutes to abort her child. With the Loving apology, commiting planned parenthood following conception is a hate crime. Liberal entertainment of abortive ideation is evidence of progressive corruption, dysfunction, and a first-order forcing of climate change.
Keep women affordable, available, reusable, and taxable? And the "burden" of evidence sequestered in sanctuary states? This is exactly what happens with [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] immigration reform and victims of ethnic Springs.
“'Progressives focus on the suffering of innocent children fleeing war, while conservatives highlight victims murdered by drug smugglers.'....”
But these two groups of people (innocent children; drug smuggling murderers) are distinct, so why not make the effort of treating them differently? Conservatives: have strict border control criteria and follow through with monitoring those that are permitted in; Progressives: just open the borders wide and don’t ask any questions, you racist!
This harm standard used to be the unofficial motto of medical doctors: First do no harm. That was a good standard, even if it was not actually part of their Hippocratic Oath. It is attributed as a quote of Hippocrates. Now even medicine is infected with harmful tendencies like "equity" and "gender affirmation," both Orwellian terms that mean the opposite of what their construction implies.
People will sacrifice their life for others. They will perform labor without compensation. Men and women will have sex and conceive our Posterity without guaranteed forward-looking returns. Clearly harm is not the decisive factor. Ethics is not a substitute for morality in our religious (i.e. behavioral) calculus.
Is this really anything new? Obviously, creatures want to survive and procreate, so above all else they want to avoid threats to their lives and well-being and that of their children. Concern for safety (fear) is more fundamental than most other emotions. What you do for love is great, but so far as action at its most fundamental level is concerned, you are trying to fend off threats to those you love. I just hope that government money isn't spend on this (and fear that it is).
Bob Boyd broke the code! Well done, sir.
Since EO Wilson began to systematize the link between evolution and social behavior with his fascinating treatise Sociobiology, we have been inundated with intellectually lazy just so stories claiming to explain human behavior from a Darwinian perspective. The claimed links tend to be overbroad assertions unconnected to the biology of genetics, and incapable of proof or disproof. It's little more than an amusing parlor game.
This is interesting and maybe true in general. But what about Cato the Elder, or George Washington, or people like that? People famous for extraordinary moral rectitude? Surely moral judgments are not just emotivist projection for people like that.
Find me a Progressive, or even a “classical” liberal, who cares about refugee children from Hurricane Helene living in tents and going barefoot in the snow in winter.
Morality is the evolution of principal, principle, and faith. Ethics is the progress of a regulatory regime and selfie platitudes.
Total b*******. Those who cower perish. A huge source of human malfunction is the catastrophization of everyday life. Fight or flight mode should only be implemented when you have to perform an actual fight or flight. Otherwise it's much better to remain calm.
I have nothing to add to what Bob Boyd wrote above with an honorable mention to chuck's also on-target comment.
"Hmm my Bull Shit detector is going off big time. It is mostly old women who are well past child bearing age that are abortion zealots - zero restrictions. These women have nothing to fear. The classification of abortion as health care is mostly a lie. An abortion in almost every case is Birth Control. His immigration example is laughable. Does anyone really think our immigration issue is cause by children fleeing war."
I call bullshit on your bullshit detector. How do you know it is "mostly old women...well past child bearing age" who advocate for abortion as a legal and available procedure? As for abortion as a method of birth control, how does this make its use "not" health care? A great part of health care is taking steps to prevent undesired physical conditions or to alleviate undesired physical conditions that have already manifested. As for your non sequitur about "immigration...children fleeing war," again, where are your supporting facts. Beside, it is not just "war" immigrants are fleeing, but oppression and other dire conditions endemic in their home, such as poverty, lack of opportunity or education, dangerous and unhealthy living conditions, etc. You know...the same shit that sent all our ancestors, (well, for most of us) to leave their homelands to populate new lands where opportunity beckoned. Fleeing unhappy situations in hope of finding happier situations. The story of humankind's spread throughout the world.
"Our ethical judgments, he suggests, are governed not by a complex of modules but by one overriding emotion."
That's a ridiculous simplification, yes?
How do you explain a mother rushing into a fire to save her baby?
How do you explain anybody risking death to save the life of another?
How do you explain people donating a kidney?
Also, the realm of sexual relations is not fear-based. When you are swimming in that pool, you are navigating love and lust. The reproductive urge is genetic, passed on from parent to child. Keep the human race going! Keep our line going!
Certainly, the urge to terminate your offspring is fear-based. But it's hardly the only emotion at play. And it's only the dominant emotion in some cases. Many people are joyful at a pregnancy, not fearful.
Have these people even been to a wedding? Do you really think that fear explains the wedding phenomenon?
Harm is the master key of morality.
Love is, jack off. Go to church!
@Koot --- I don't think you've spent much time with the party hearty nightclub and college crowd (one-night stands; one-hour stands), black women of childbearing age, nor the rainbow-haired young Woke crowd. These are perhaps the most aggressive abortion proponents.
A notably high percentage of abortions go to black women, and they are indeed used as birth control. I've spoken with some black women about this, and they did not perceive any moral issue at all. Literal quote: "What's the big deal?"
Also the slave trade and the abortion industry are motivated by greed, not by fear. The rulers who define human beings as non-persons are motivated by greed, not by fear.
The Supreme Court who says that a corporation is a person and a baby is not one is motivated by greed, not by fear.
I don't know if the Apostle Paul is right, when he says that love of money is the root of all evil. But it's right up there.
I think the article is interesting in the philosophy of how our ethics are derived. I sort of agree with it. Yet, I think the way they linked immigration is where it falls apart. First of all, I don’t think conservatives are less concerned about the harm of those fleeing wars. But what war is at our border that people are fleeing? Why then do we hear arguments about immigrants in the work force? When did providing sanctuary from war become providing jobs? When they bring in these factors, I’m reminded of the philosophy that ethics is often about perceived fairness. Why do I pay taxes to secure my home, provide for emergency services, and show id to enter the country; yet someone without id, can get the same emergency services and receive my taxes to provide them shelter when they enter the country?
Mel Brooks' skit is still relevant:
Reporter: So, you're two thousand years old?
2K Year Old Man: That's right.
Reporter: Well, tell us, what was the main means of locomotion back in your day?
2KYOM: Fear!
As I recall, Whoopi Goldberg had 6 abortions and 1 child, plus she falls squarely in the "old women" category, FWIW.
Stories like this always bring to my mind a famous Vernon Law* quote, "Life's a tough teacher. It gives the test first, then the lesson."
*MLB pitcher with the dragon-slaying 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates
All people share a harm-based moral mind.
Congratulations. He's discovered utilitarianism.
@ Enigma: Margaret Sanger smiles.
If we're supposed to worry about the harm that befalls refugees from wars, why are we supposed to stand aside silent when the boats full of refugees consist entirely of surly young men of military age, with scarcely a woman, child, or old man among them?
Our treaties dealing with refugees should be modified so that ONLY women, children, cripples, and old men are allowed in. Young able-bodied men should be rounded up and pushed out of a military transport airplane over their home countries with a parachute and a rifle, and encouraged to kill the oppressors who forced them all to flee.
Excellent!
Our current age where we as a society have stupidly decided to indemnify the stupid from natural consequences is an extremely recent invention, it wasn't even 100 years ago that willfully being an idiot resulted in very difficult and short existence.
This!! Not only indemnification, but limitations of liability.
- Krumhorn
The greatest generation revisited with an empathetic acknowledgment of ethical harm and social progress to mitigate forward-looking refugee castes. Thus the moral choice to support women, children, and babies... fetuses, first. Stand, don't lean, don't take a knee, young men (and women of the female sex who identify with/as the [toxic] masculine gender).
And the internet, as wonderful and amazing as it is, has given mighty voice to those, in Dickensian times and earlier, who would have been some dopey old crone sweeping the street with a straw broom and who is now a US Senator from MA or mayor of LA and who don't have an ounce of common sense.
- Krumhorn
Mexico disperses migrant caravans heading to US ahead of Trump inauguration
Mexico and Dreamin' on the Potomac have a lot of splainin' to do.
As for abortion as a method of birth control, how does this make its use "not" health care? A great part of health care is taking steps to prevent undesired physical conditions or to alleviate undesired physical conditions that have already manifested.
How do you distinguish between the undesired physical conditions of pregnancy and the undesired physical conditions of fatigue, illness, and stress associated with raising and supporting a family? At some point under the guise of "health care" can we not take a curette to and dismember that bratty 6 yr old boy who just broke a neighbor's window and then blamed his sister?
- Krumhorn
There is no mystery in sex and conception. The apology offered for elective abortion is conceived under a twilight faith with an ethical eligious doctrine wielded with a liberal license to deny human rights in favor of human rites performed for social, clinical, criminal, political, economic, and climate progress. All's fair in lust and abortion?
Yeah, and I didn't engage with the actual topic, which is whether "harm" is the basis of human morality.
Atheism is always looking for some way to explain human morality. Unfortunately the search hasn't been very productive. A lot of shoehorning going on.
A great part of health care is taking steps to prevent undesired physical conditions or to alleviate undesired physical conditions that have already manifested
Two very different things, Robert Cook.
What we fear the most has already happened
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