The Alpha Male Monkey
I mentioned this essay on The Sci Phi Show and said that I'd put it back at the top of the site when the episode aired so the listeners could see the illustration, so here it is.
Imagine if transportation was defined as a device that uses horses or sails-- automobile drivers would be accused of denying the existence of transportation.
We're genetically programmed to see an Alpha Male in our primate pack as the source of truth and moral law. This explains the difficulty I have in communicating alternative models of truth and moral law to bible believers. It's not that they reject the model I present, it's that they literally don't know what I'm saying. It's a mental block. We take away the concept of the Alpha Male Monkey in the sky, and they think we've declared truth and morality to be nonexistent, because to them, "right" is defined as: "whatever the Alpha Male Monkey says." By definition. The discussion goes like this:
Bible Believer: "So... where is the Alpha Male Monkey in your model? Is it you? Why should I have to do what you say?"
Me: "No no, there isn't one. Right and wrong are based on the suffering of the victim, not obedience to laws."
Bible Believer: "Um. So we're abolishing laws? There's no law against, for instance, rape?"
Me: "No, if somebody says 'don't rape me', it's wrong."
Bible Believer: "So, she's the Alpha Male Monkey?"
Me: "THERE IS NO ALPHA MALE MONKEY. Morality doesn't look like this:
It looks like this:
We're all equally at the top."
Bible Believer: "We're all Alpha Male Monkeys? I can't believe you're arrogant enough to think you have omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence."
Me: "We're all equally at the top, but the top is a lot lower than perfection. We don't need that; it still works just fine."
Bible Believer: "So what if it works? You don't have a replacement Alpha Male Monkey to obey, so why should I care? I define 'morality' as 'obedience' as you depicted in the first chart. Therefore you have no basis for morality."
Me: "But it works! If you want to be moral, just do unto others as you would have them do unto you!"
Bible Believer: "There you go trying to command me again. Who died and made you Alpha Male Monkey?"
Me: "I didn't command you. I said 'if' you want to be moral. I'm pointing out to you how to accomplish something you said you wanted to accomplish, and how to measure how whether you've acheived it. If you don't want to be moral, I'll let you deal with the problems that come along with that."
Bible Believer: "Hold on a minute... I'm trying to find a command from an Alpha Male Monkey in that... where was he again?"
Me: *facepalm*
As the old tract goes, "only two choices on the shelf: live for God or live for self." It literally doesn't occur to them to see beyond that fase dichotomy. Notice that I didn't get around to defending my model because I literally couldn't get across what it was. Hopefully the concept of an Alpha Male Monkey will help to explain this in the future.
Comments
atropis on Jun. 19, 2007 2:35 PM
i can dig it. and will link it.
graywyvern on Jun. 19, 2007 2:56 PM — alphaville
i have long thought the culprit to be the famous "Excluded Middle"; other logics (fuzzy, multivalent) help in the long run, but in the short i have a little mantra: ELSE ALSO.
m.
Anonymous on Jun. 19, 2007 3:47 PM — When everyone's an alpha male monkey...
When everyone thinks they're an alpha male monkey, very few of those dashed lines actually exist. Only the ones that each alpha male monkey wants to exist.
matt-arnold on Jun. 19, 2007 4:39 PM — Re: When everyone's an alpha male monkey...
I agree. I hope more of them will learn this and try to get away from the whole idea of an Alpha Male Monkey, don't you?
cosette-valjean on Jun. 19, 2007 5:19 PM — Re: When everyone's an alpha male monkey...
I believe the lines are to show that we are all connected to each other, all related and influence each other and make consensus decisions as a community about what we will accept or not accept regarding behavior. Matt was trying to say that the Alpha Male thinking is flawed and most people don't truly behave that way to begin with.
Humanity influences each other greatly. We are social creatures. We are like cells of the body and choosing to do violence or harm is like a body that has an auto-immune disease like lupus attacking itself. The more people choosing to cause harm to another person the sicker the body of humanity will become and the inflammation spreads. A community sees the harm and steps in and creates a government to administer anti-inflammatory medicine as it were sending people to jail, fining them, tell them to cease and desist the harm, etc.
This works on the smaller scale of a single indiviuals life as well. They can choose to cause harm to people and suffer the consequenses in their own life which are often visible with only a few years of this type of behavior: lonliness, nobody to rely on, lost opportunies. Choosing to act for the benefit of another on the other hand yeilds many positive results, less types of lonliness (I'm a realist; we all live in our own skin after all.), a community to fall back on when life gets stupid and increased opportunties to better your life. Choosing to benefit instead of choosing to harm is like a cell that divides and creats a new cell promoting good health and keeping the body alive.
There are those we call psychopaths who do not feel the connection to their peers and they believe themselves to be Alpha Males. They are not many and the community works to keep them as little inflammatory as possible.
We are not an island to ourselves as the famous quote says. If everybody tried to go off and live alone the consequences would be disastrous. We need each other. Americans in particular seem to dislike this concept they are so invested in individualism. I of course value individualism but everything must be viewed with a balanced perspective. I see a community with each person an equal voice not one man the preacher interpreting a holy book and no one else can contribute so much as a peep.
I've been in churches and I know the reality is that the other people often to contribute to interpretations and end up funnelling the book to say whatever they want anyway. This is what a community does after all.
phecda on Jun. 19, 2007 7:21 PM
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."
"Love is the law. Love under will."
That pretty much sums up your non-hierarchial model -- safe, sane and consensual. Otherwise, anything goes.
This model has been pushed for over 100 years now. The problem is that the hierarchial model depends on a pet-like infantalization. You rely on the alpha to make decisions for you, to define order, to make the world safe. If you don't mind the collar, it's not a bad life necessarily. But during the process of "socialization" you work with a pet to make it dependent on you, to establish dominance, to make constant handling and obediance the norm. And you have to do this from infancy, otherwise the "pet" remains or returns to a feral state.
Realize that not everyone wants to be the alpha. But even someone wired to be submissive will eventually reject an alpha that abuses the relationship.
Anonymous on Jun. 23, 2007 5:51 AM — Consider the Talmud
Pheda: A hierarchical moral model does not necessarily depend on a pet-like infantilization. Consider for example the Jewish Talmud, the rabbinic tradition of commenting on Mosaic law. Consider especially the Gemara:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemara
or the long accretion of rabbinical commentary and analysis of the Mishnah, an analysis of the Torah. Rabbis argue down the centuries over how the Law plays out in a given situation. Not only do they interact with the original text of the Torah, but they interact with prior analysis of the Torah in trying to figure out how to act in the world. The rabbi of the Gemara is no infantilized pet, following an Alpha Monkey in a blind stupor: he's an earnest, careful mind in active pursuit of justice, shalom, the good.
Likewise, it's difficult to reconcile a mind like Stanley Hauerwas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Hauerwas
or Richard Hays
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hays
with your picture of the infantilized pet. I'm just trying to introduce a modicum of reality in your assumptions about people who follow the hierarchical moral model. They're often quite analytic. More than that, they're often careful in their analysis of the limits of the writings that underpin their moral model. Hays, for example, who is an orthodox Christian, is pretty clear that it's impossible to derive a single principle on which to base a system of ethics from the New Testament.
Many non-academic followers of hierarchical moral models also seem to be diligent in their analysis of ethical situations. Because they want to reverence the thing at the top of their hierarchy, they don't act willy-nilly: they discern. Accurate discernment of another's will requires analysis.
I'm just trying to show that obedience doesn't always mean mindlessness, and in fact often (as in the case of the Rabbinic tradition, and as in the case of the field of Christian ethics) requires the opposite, a fully engaged mind.
phecda on Jun. 25, 2007 2:17 PM — Re: Consider the Talmud
Do not believe anything
because it is said by an authority,
or if it is said to come from angels,
or from Gods,
or from an inspired source.
Believe it only if you have explored it
in your own heart
and mind and body
and found it to be true.
Work out your own path,
through diligence.
--Gautama Buddha
I think that summarizes what you said. And at the same time, it is the individual's responsibility to create his or her own belief structure, based on one's own spiritual experiences. If you follow someone else's path you miss the inspiration that caused them to take that direction, and you end up a tourist, not an explorer.
Anonymous on Jun. 19, 2007 9:31 PM — Not quite right
I don't think you are really getting away from the Alpha Male Monkey model. Here's an alternate conversation that puts words in your mouth and might be true, or it might completely misrepresent you:
Bible Believer: "So... where is the Alpha Male Monkey in your model? Is it you? Why should I have to do what you say?"
Matt: "No no, there isn't one. Right and wrong are based on the suffering of the victim, not obedience to laws."
Bible Believer: "But that's just defining your moral laws as being equal to Utilitarianism. How do you know that's correct?"
Matt: "I believed the arguments of Utilitarian philosophers."
Bible Believer: "So they're the Alpha Male Monkeys?"
Matt: "No, I don't believe it because they said it. I believe it because I determined that it's true."
Bible Believer: "Then you are the Alpha Male Monkey. You are defining morality for all humans based on your intellectual powers. Why should I make you my Alpha Male Monkey?"
cosette-valjean on Jun. 20, 2007 12:52 PM — Re: Not quite right
One person's thought process in choosing morality based on not harming another is not on the same scale as a god object who supposedly created the universe and mandated morals. I'm sure Matt never insinuated that he was replacing any type of god figure in that regard. Omitting to use a god figure does not necessarily mean the person omitting becomes that figure.
If you can not escape the Alpha Male Monkey model in your mind try to think of it in this way. Every last human being is only a part of that Alpha Male model which continuously evolves its own morality together as one being regulating itself. One part, one human being, can not possibly be this thing or have such a wide influence.
Anonymous on Jun. 20, 2007 4:42 PM — Re: Not quite right
As I understand it, the point of the above essay is not that humans are different from the Christian God, but that the Christian mental model of morality is incompatible with Matt's proposed one. All I'm saying is that both are actually using the same mental model.
Anonymous on Jun. 20, 2007 5:07 PM — Re: Not quite right
[I accidentally submitted the above post while it was still incomplete, so this is continued from that]
The two models are the same, because they both involve moral law being handed down, and this simply has to be obeyed. Matt (or whoever else claims the same things) is that figure in his model, and God is that figure in the traditional Christian model.
Matt's moral law is "The rightness or wrongness of an action is determined by the amount of suffering it produces." You are being immoral if you do an avoidable thing that causes great suffering. No one can decide that it is moral to cause great suffering; there is no flexibility for different opinions, tastes, desires, or beliefs.
It seems what you are trying to point out is that although Matt dictates unquestionable moral law, he doesn't tell you which particular actions you have to do to fulfill it. Those actions are determined by the particular circumstance surrounding the actions. Even if this were a significant distinction, and I don't think it is, the same has been true in traditional Christian thought. To take a well-known example, consider "Thou shalt not kill". While Jews and Christians have traditionally affirmed this law, they also make exceptions in certain circumstances (e.g. war, capital punishment). The reason they make these exceptions is because they think those actions are in accordance with some greater principle. As another example, take the issues of modern ethical debate: abortion, euthanasia, the environment, etc. None of these things are addressed directly by the Christian scriptures, so people use the ethical framework they perceive in the Bible to measure the specific actions and see if they are moral or not.
So, I have to disagree with the assertion that there is a mental model incompatibility between the Christian ideas about morals and Matt's ideas.
matt-arnold on Jun. 21, 2007 2:25 PM — Re: Not quite right
There is a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip in which Calvin says "if I don't watch TV, what will I watch?" "If we don't obey God, who will we obey?" When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and unfortunately that's how mental conditioning works sometimes.
It's not that he or she rejects what we're saying. It's that his or her mind skipped over the parts of what I wrote, in which we directly addressed what I knew that he or she was going to say. And just as I predicted, he or she fell into the exact trap I described, because he or she literally didn't hear it. That's what I meant by a mental block. So he or she goes around and around in a highly repetitious fashion reminiscent of a Monty Python sketch.
Don't expend your energy to repeat yourself. Just link a URL back to the first time it was said, and make them read it again until reading comprehension kicks in.
Anonymous on Jun. 21, 2007 4:30 PM — Re: Not quite right
Your Calvin and Hobbes strip doesn't map onto what you're talking about. The correct mapping would be "If I don't watch images on TV, what will I watch on it?" You are saying "We can all decide as a community which images to watch on TV. So we're not watching images!". Of course, these two statements aren't related.
There are models that aren't like the Alpha Male Monkey, but you're not proposing one. As you pointed out, you have to junk the whole idea of watching TV if you want to get away from seeing images on it, since watching TV necessarily includes watching images.
One such model would be "Each person decides what is moral." This model could not condemn someone who says it's immoral to help the poor or cure cancer. Nor could it condemn someone who says that it's moral to torture small children for her enjoyment. But, the advantage is that there is no moral law that is handed down from above. Someone can even say "Morality is absolute for everyone!" and it doesn't contradict the model.
However, as soon as you try to dictate universal moral law, you're using the Alpha Male Monkey model.
I understand you don't want to engage these ideas and that's fine, but I feel compelled to present them anyway.
Anonymous on Jun. 23, 2007 6:37 AM — Informed Theists v. Blind Followers
It occurs to me, Matt, why you're reluctant to engage the ideas of the previous anonymous poster. It also occurs to me why you can make a clean distinction between the hierarchical moral model and your own moral model. I would wager that it's because of the *kind* of Christian (or theist generally) you have interacted with in all of your arguments. Allow me to explain.
The sort of Christian your hierarchical moral model presupposes is one for whom the following things pose little or no problem:
- the material transmission of the Scriptures
- dubious authority of some key texts
- the difficulty of translating the ethical norms of a first-century Palestinian society to the circumstances of the 21st century
The sort of Christian you have interacted with doesn't realize the extent of the above problems. He sits down to read the OT Law alone on a Sunday afternoon and thinks he's just received a transparent message from God. He thinks he understands the Law exactly, he thinks he knows how to relate it to himself exactly; indeed, he thinks he has a personal pipeline to God in his reading. This sort of Christian doesn't realize how distorted his own untrained readings of OT Law are. And this sort of Christian certainly doesn't realize how thin the ethical material in the New Testament really is. It's quite, quite hard to construct a concrete, universal ethics from the New Testament (as the debate within Christendom over war might suggest, and as any responsible reading of literature in the field of Christian ethics will show).
Now, the sort of Christian who DOES recognize the problems I listed above (let us call him the Informed Christian) is not really in a very different position from your own when it comes to his daily decision-making. The Informed Christian does not have a direct pipeline to God. The Informed Christian is not really certain what the upshot of the Scriptures is when it comes to ethics. The Informed Christian knows that the Scriptures don't give us much specific information when it comes to ethics/rules about living and behaviors. The Informed Christian knows that every ethical choice he makes will thus require discernment and study. So, even though he theoretically acknowledges a God who commands his ethical decisions, practically-speaking, he has to figure out how to make his choices honor that God, whose will is NOT clearly expressed in terms of "You must always do X; you must never do Y."
It seems to me that your own ethical principle ("avoid whatever causes the victim suffering") provides a lot more direction than the God of the New Testament when it comes to outlining how to act in the world. The New Testament contains a lot of really diverse writings that present sometimes radically opposing views (e.g. the full inclusion of women in the church in the Gospel of Luke v. admonitions against women's participation in I Timothy). Thus, the Informed Christian has to comb all of these writings and figure out on what principle he can construct a coherent ethic. He has to do a lot of background analytic work BEFORE he even gets to your level of direction ("avoid whatever causes the victim suffering").
The Informed Christian has to use his own mind to analyze the texts that he must take for guidance and see if he can arrive at a coherent ethic in reading them. Then he must translate this ethic to deal with the particular situations he faces in his life. When an Informed Christian translates this ethic, he will apply it differently according to the exigencies of whatever particular situation he is facing (e.g. remarriage after divorce isn't always wrong). This whole process strikes me as quite similar to your own act of deciding that a Kantian ethic is good and then applying that ethic flexibly, when particular relationships call for different applications of the ethic.
You might think there is a theoretical difference between your own ethical model and the hierarchical model of a theist, but in practice, I think you and the Informed Christian are doing the exact same thing: analyzing a body of writings to figure out what ethic is best, and then applying that ethic in different ways when different relationships and people need slightly different interpretations of the ethic.
Anonymous on Jun. 23, 2007 6:44 AM — Re: Informed Theists v. Blind Followers
Matt, I wrote the above post (Informed Xians v. Blind Followers) and then it said I had exceeded the word limit for commenting. Just wanted to say three more things:
1. The situation is totally different for a Roman Catholic, whether informed or not. Only a Roman Catholic truly follows an Alpha Male Monkey model, for only a Roman Catholic knows exactly what is the case: whatever the Magisterium says. That's not to say that I don't respect Roman Catholicism, for any Catholic who happens to read this. I'm just pointing out a difference in fact. The will of God is a much, much clearer matter for a Roman Catholic than for a Protestant or Orthodox Christian. Indeed, the will of God is a categorically different matter; it doesn't even make sense to invoke a difference of degree.
2. I really liked your post and would love for you to respond to my comment in some way other than to just say "reread what I wrote." I would really like to understand your point of view. Please show me where you think my analysis of the situation is off.
3. I'm Olivia; we met at Penguicon. You visited my blog.
4. I definitely don't want to persuade you from taking up another model, worldview, etc. I'm just interested in further talk bc I find your thoughts interesting. Given your background in fundamentalist culture, I feel it important to make this clear.
matt-arnold on Jun. 23, 2007 1:09 PM — Re: Informed Theists v. Blind Followers
Thanks for writing, Olivia. And thanks even more for identifying yourself. Doesn't it astonish you how passive a lot of church people can get? The earlier post is the sort of anonymous letter they would usually send someone when they're too full of "social pressure" churchiness to disagree with him to his face.
I'm happy to respond to you. It's not that I'm unwilling to engage the ideas the previous anonymous poster supplied-- It's that they are precisely the objections which I wrote the original post in order to address. So put yourself in my shoes; I saw that I had failed to communicate to him or her. It was not so much a post about morality as a post about a new metaphor with which to communicate successfully where I have always previously failed. And yet I saw a demonstration that-- at least with her or him-- I have failed again. He or she doesn't disagree with what I've said because he or she literally doesn't know what I said.
Just to repeat that one more time. The post wasn't about morality, it was about communicating with this person. I'm not even aiming to persuade any more! Just to create a shared dialect so that they can disagree with what I'm saying, instead of disagreeing with what they think I'm saying. I did not reply because I do not yet have a new way to say it. So I feel frustrated and unwilling to bang my head against that wall until I've given it another few months of thinking up new ways to make myself heard.
I also hope you will forgive me if I'm reluctant to participate in the argument among Christian sects which one is truly Informed. Usually I leave that to you and your co-religionists to fight over. When I left Christianity I abandoned that wild goose chase, and am enjoying the relaxation very much.
That having been said, I will tell you that I don't know how you can get so little from the scripture and not just throw out the whole religion. By the time I threw out as much bathwater as you have, I got to the bottom of the tub and found there was no baby in there after all. So I'll bite. Do you believe in a God who reportedly is intensely interested in getting a message across, and is powerful enough to communicate verbally, directly, and individually to every human, but chooses not to? Does salvation require that one learn Hebrew and Koine Greek?
Which body of writings am I analyzing to determine what ethic is best? Why would I do any such thing?
Anonymous on Jul. 6, 2007 4:41 AM — Re: Informed Theists v. Blind Followers
It's Olivia again. Matt, I think your questions are great. It's beyond the scope of a comment for me to respond to them, though, so I plan to write a blog post in response to your questions soon. The teaser: I do think there is a baby left after all the bathwater I've had to throw out. Will email you once I've written up the post.
Anonymous on (None)
tesral on Jun. 22, 2007 5:59 PM
Dude, I don't just believe in the Bible, I've seen one.
I think you are unduly pinning this phenomenon on Christians myself. It is shot through every fabric of human life. Religious, liberal, atheist, it doesn't matter what the belief system, the majority of people are looking for the AMM. The idea of a peer review moral system is alien to most Humans, and central to the idea of libertarian thought. The fact that some of us think that way proves that humanity can think that way. The sea change in thinking that way will not come easy, and existing and would be Alpha Male Monkeys are going to fight it to the last.
The truth is that most people do not seek a leader, they crave a leader. The worse the situation the lower the standards for a leader are. We can see how low the current standards are right now.
The issue is control. The would be AMMs want to control. The tool is fear. They will use anything to instill enough fear to get you to let them control. God will send you to Hell, The terrorists will get you. They want to teach your children dangerous things. The facts and truth do not matter. Who gets hurt does not matter. Kill all the small brown people you want, riot and kill the non-responsible over stupid things like cartoons as long as Mr. Alpha Male Monkey is in charge.
The problem is that most people will geek to this every time. It works and it works will as any casual look at history will show.
Anonymous on (None)
matt-arnold on Jun. 22, 2007 6:44 PM
I don't limit the phenomenon to Christians. It's bible believers (not just anybody who call themselves Christians, but the ones who focus on written Scripture) that I typically interact with.
You hit the nail on the head by identifying fear and the acceptance of risk as central to one's choice of moral system. "We can't accept letting every stakeholder play a part in moral reasoning. What if one of them reasons wrong? Or what if somebody takes advantage of the system?" So, all too often, they'll settle for nothing less than golden promises of perfect divine flawlessness.
All systems can be gamed by cheaters. I'm much more interested in whether a system allows for gaming the system to be corrected, than whether it can be gamed. This applies to my designs for board and card games, to computer software, to governmental politics, or for any other system of interactions.
Anonymous on Jun. 22, 2007 8:12 PM
I can't pretend to the erudition of yourself or your commenters....
But I'd like to say that I greatly enjoyed your discussion with Jason on the Sci Phi Show. You put into succinct words a number of concepts I've been wrestling with recently.
Paul S. Jenkins
The Rev Up Review [a podcast] http://www.revupreview.co.uk
The Plitone Revisionist [a podcast novel] http://www.paulsjenkins.net
Who says I shouldn't do this? [a blog] http://www.witteringon.co.uk
Notes from an Evil Burnee [another blog] http://www.evilburnee.co.uk
matt-arnold on Jun. 22, 2007 8:51 PM
Paul, thanks very much. I'm glad you enjoyed the show and got something from it.
Anonymous on Jun. 23, 2007 5:27 AM — false dichotomy
Brilliant post! I share your frustration.
Oddly enough, the universality of the Golden Rule is actually a good demonstration of that false dichotomy. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" appears again and again in moral and religious teachings. So rather than emanating uniquely from any of the hundreds of "true religions" this lesson really comes out of human experience itself; no god required.
Yeah, I know. I can't get that horse to drink either.
-Dan Pipe
http://rocketforger.blogspot.com/
rbradakis on Jun. 24, 2007 2:41 PM
I've been sitting on this reply for days, since I've not figured out how to put my thoughts into words. (Also, the wrist tendonitis and brace make typing a drag.)
In a nutshell, I agree. And I've spent many years of my life on a similar path of "religious" discovery. At one point, I spent a pleasant evening with a Hindu family explaining why I thought that religion was training wheels for individual morality.
What I'm currently having difficulty with is explaining this to children who are surrounded by the moderately informed Christian, Buddhist, and other religious people. Because, there IS an Alpha Male Monkey in the family, and it's me. And then it's hard to not accept some 'training wheels' for these children, especially when they're already visibly there, due to the other people around them in their lives.
Ah, but we try. Not "Jesus said don't hurt your sister", but "it's wrong to hurt other people - would you want people hurting you?" - to use the most simple and easy example.
Back to my point - I really enjoyed the diagram as well as your sharing your frustration (and an example right in the comments!) with people failing to grasp what you're saying.
users on Jun. 26, 2007 1:22 PM
I have finally figured out what bothers me about this model, because I love the concept, but every time I look at it, I get a gut feeling that something isn't right... it over-simplifies human interaction. I'll explain:
In the microcosm you created above, each person has a particular thing they WANT and a particular thing they DON'T. It just so happens, as you go around the circle, that they mesh up quite nicely, but in reality, they don't. A few examples...
I swear as a manner of course, and I feel that giving the word Fuck such power as it has is detremental to language in general. Further, I hate the idea of censoring myself. Person A, with whom I deal on a regular basis.. say the spouse of a close friend... abhors bad language. In that case, I have to make one of a series of choices that will be distasteful to one or the other of us. One of us is going to be forced to go against their "morality". Either I am going to self censor, she is going to hear bad language, or I am going to avoid her, which is really just an alternate form of self censorship.
or
Hypothetically, I have a spouse or girlfriend with whom I participate in a strongly S&M based relationship. We are involved in this to such a degree that, in public, I might spank her for being 'bad' or speak to her in terms that others would find derogatory. Feminists would foam at the mouth, gentle souls would blanche. Now, at a public party, there are some people there whose personal morals don't allow them to see such treatment of women go unchecked. The significant other is willingly involved in the situation.
Which party's morals should get ignored? Who chooses? Why?
Even something as simple as the exchange of social capital alters the involvement, because part of "how we want to be treated" is to not be punished for acting within our moral guidelines. If it is perfectly acceptable, within my moral guidelines, to have sexual relationships with men... why is it acceptable to be ostracised by another for that? Conversely, if it is within someone's moral guidelines to have sexual relationships with *boys*, why isn't it acceptable to ostracise them for that?
I would have to impose my morality on another in order to achieve my desired objective using social capital.
I'm not saying that there is an alpha-male-monkey. What I am saying is that the no-central-morality model that you describe above is too simple to work almost any of the time in groups larger than about 5 likeminded individuals. Hell, it barely works in three person polyamorous relationships.
matt-arnold on Jun. 26, 2007 2:30 PM
The way the rules mesh up as one reads clockwise is only there so that readers will notice that there are differences. The system isn't intended to depend on it.
A moral system "working" or "not working" depends on what you want it to work for. This is intended to work as a foundation, not a complete building. Instead of constructing a complete ethic with every rule in place for every scenario, what I have described is a meta-ethic. A meta-ethic is a rule for generating all the rules. The authoritarian meta-ethic is "whatever the Alpha Male Monkey says is right, is right."
The pluralistic, distributed meta-ethic is that you have to negotiate with other people and reason with them instead of abdicating the personal responsibility to do so. Beyond that, the rest is details. I can tell you what I would do in the scenarios you describe (and I will if you want), but what I say wouldn't matter. It's up to you anyway. The point of the tumbleweed diagram is that it's nobody's job but the stakeholders in each situation. You give up some of your preferences for them, and you should expect them to give up some of their preferences for you, in order to be together. By having a mutual exchange of freedoms, you're treating each other as mutually at the top of authority; if you pursue a relationship in which you feel the exchange of power is unequal, it should be because you are freely choosing to achieve your goals by doing so. In other words you have to decide as a free person what's worthwhile for you.
Another way of expressing this tumbleweed meta-ethic is that a rule is accepted or rejected based on whether it minimizes rules. In other words, find the minimal set of rules that accomplishes maximum freedoms. (Ironically, that kind of restriction is the prerequisite of freedoms.) This is why we have police, jails, and other forms of interference in freedom, in the societies which are the freest in the world. According to this meta-ethic, we interfere with another person's will and desires when they are interfering with the will and desires of someone else (killing, stealing, or having sex with someone so powerless that we deem them incapable of free choice).
users on Jun. 26, 2007 5:40 PM
The point of the tumbleweed diagram is that it's nobody's job but the stakeholders in each situation.
But that is exactly my point... the fact that there are a nearly infinite number of stakeholders in most situations negates the tumbleweed diagram (I love that name by the way). The people involved include not only the two individuals interacting, but everyone else that is even peripherally affected by the interaction. In my S&M example, the to individuals in a relationship are only a very small part of the overall list of stakeholders, the remainder being everyone else that comes into contact with their behavior. I guess, my point is, the "everyone is an alpha monkey" schema is as inherently flawed as the "supreme being" alpha monkey.
I guess, with that in mind, as much as I abhor the "supreme being alpha monkey" model, it is no less absurd to believe in that than the notion that the diagram above represents. Both are inherently unworkable in the real world... but both seem completely rational on paper.
Sadly, I don't have an answer for this one... I'm just a naysayer :(
cosette-valjean on Jun. 26, 2007 2:33 PM
Humanity will never completely agree on the finer points of human interaction but certainly on the larger and more harmful points. As long as people do not try to enforce the minutia of their own moral ways of interaction we'll get along just fine.
A while ago this topic discussion reminded me of a phrase from the founding fathers of America, "We hold these truths to be self-evident." That phrase says it all. Humanity has woken up looked around and watched themselves and noticed, "Hey when A happens B happens and it's not good." When someone is violated and harmed bad consequences happen and I'm not talking about the harm of someone being insulted by a bad word or disgusted at someone's unusual sex life I'm talking about serious physical and/or emotional pain.
Regarding children: It is universally accepted that children can not make informed decisions. They are granted a little bit of decision making power in their late teens but not much and certainly not like 200 years ago when they would be parents themselves at that age more often than not. Our modern society has worked hard to keep their children as dependant as possible psychologically perhaps because the life span is so much longer now and don't have to encounter that much responsibility so soon. Therefore any ideas about a child making an informed sexual choice or to let themselves be physically harmed is beyond ridiculous and of course it would be harmful to them and their developing psyche.
It takes finesse and hard work to get along with each other in the day to day span and sometimes people simply must avoid each other and that's just the way it's going to be. But everyone has a rule of "Do not intentionally harm me!" and yes that includes someone who likes to feel physical pain; even they have their limits.
I think it would be less confusing if we used something other than "morals" to describe this regulating process. The word "morals" has so much history and connotation of being attached to a select few authority figures. Call it self-preservation perhaps. The "self" being all humanity.
Anonymous on Jun. 26, 2007 5:45 PM
Humanity will never completely agree on the finer points of human interaction but certainly on the larger and more harmful points.
But on this point, I'd disagree. We most certainly do not agree on the larger, harmful points. Take an absolutely huge example: Murder. In some places, it is deemed reasonable (as we've recently seen) to stone someone to death for violating the accepted societal rules. In others, it's merely okay to kill folks in a more "humane" manner. In still others, murder is murder is murder; and there are no mitigating factors. These aren't tiny nuances, but huge big issues. Morality only seems absolute to an individual.
It is universally accepted that children can not make informed decisions.
I'll agree with you, conditionally. What is a child? In some cultures, a "child" of 12 can wed a full grown "adult" and have sex. In other cultures, adulthood in women is marked by the menarche. In still others, by some arbitrary date (like the 18th, 17th, 16th, or 14th birthday, in the US).
users on Jun. 26, 2007 5:45 PM
Sorry, the above was me.
cosette-valjean on Jun. 26, 2007 6:48 PM
I think it interesting that the cultures you mentioned regarding forms of murder being accepted followed the whole Alpha Male philosophy to the point of disregarding the value of life. There are negative consequences to this way of thinking that show up in such cultures.
Some groups of humanity do choose to be self-destructive usually when following after a charismatic leader or leaders out of desparation and/or tradition.
Essentially I'm promoting the law of florishing. Does an action promote a person to florish and grow and produce in their community or does it cut down, harm or burden them? The less florishing people the worse for their community and their world. This is extremely vague but that is what it all comes down to. The bare minimum that I base good v bad in my mind.
I'm curious what those cultures you mentioned would be like if the people had the florishing attitude as opposed to following teachings because of tradition and what is said in a holy book. Of course it would take a very very long time to even begin to change attitudes. People have to want to change after all.
It all comes down to life v death in the end. Funny that. I'm all about the life, baby. Non-florishing people means less life and less good things in the world.
The children cut-off issue is complex as it mostly deals individually with each child's mind and body capabilities. The person must be able to make a fully formed choice with complete knowledge of all possible consequences and must not be causing themselves physical harm as in some 12,13 and 14 year olds could die in childbirth because they are too small. The age limit is different in cultures but to play it safe, cultures probably should stick with their own usual age group that is of course unless the culture is endangering girls whose wombs are too small.
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ruttgerwoqe on Jul. 9, 2011 3:27 PM — Занятный блог
Прочитал, конечно, далеко от моей темы.
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