Survival of the Nicest

I read an Atlas Society interview with Michael Shermer, the author of The Science of Good and Evil. Dr. Shermer made some comments that really clarified for me my own beliefs in rational ethics. I believe that ethics and morality can be explained through the basic mechanics of evolution.

For example, let’s postulate a lone hunter-gatherer – a caveman. (Creationists, you can play along, too – I don’t see a lot of difference between the lifestyle of my lone caveman and that of Adam’s son Abel. Or assume a less-famous person from 100 years after Abel’s death, if you prefer.) This one person is solely responsible for feeding himself. He has no one else to take care of, and is free to consider anyone else he meets as a victim to be robbed, or even as prey to kill. Survival of the fittest, right?

Wrong. Let’s further assume that his two nearest neighbors have banded together. If they’re hunting, they can watch one another’s back, or one can flush game while the other lies in wait. They can guard each other while sleeping. Most especially, they can come at our lone hunter from two directions if combat becomes necessary. A pair of partners is “more fit” for that environment, and is more likely to survive.

The same logic applies to larger groups – a small band can hunt larger animals, more easily defend against other individuals or groups, and may even be able to produce enough excess food to support a non-productive person. That person may be the old chief, too old to hunt, but still able to pass on his years of experience. Or a dreamer – who, in his spare time, comes up with fire, or the wheel, or the bow. The band can even continue to support the children of a hunter who dies…which means that his DNA lives on. Again, this more cooperative hunter is more fit to survive and reproduce.

And so on up to villages, cities, nations. A person who can function in and provide benefit to a society is more fit to survive and to pass his genes on to the next generation. Functioning within a society requires the ability to get along with people, and to obey the laws of that society – and in general, those laws are rooted in ethical and moral behavior.

This sort of reasoning applies to more than just grouping people, of course. A society that is rooted in ethical behavior provides more benefits to itself and to the individuals within it – making it superior in any competition between societies. A slave society cannot compete with a free society, because slaves are not as productive as freemen – and yet they still have to be fed and cared for. Admittedly, the slaves don’t cost as much to feed or maintain as their masters, but the extra cost of guarding them, chasing down or killing runaways or rebellious slaves, and so on, eats up extra resources – enough extra to make a free society more productive on a per capita basis. In other words, behavior that benefits a subgroup, but hurts the society as a whole, is NOT as competitive.

Communism would seem to be the endpoint of such societal evolution – after all, “to each according to need, from each according to ability” would be the ultimate in cooperative society. However, unlike the other advances I mentioned, Communism provides benefits to the society ONLY – it does not directly provide benefits to the individuals that comprise it. That “need and ability” equation means the individual gets the same reward for working hard or slacking off, for inventiveness and creativity or for mindless drudgery – and of course, working hard or creatively is tougher. To generalize again, behavior that benefits society, but hurts the individual, is also not as competitive. This is why the Soviet Union fell apart, and why China is still second in the world for Gross Domestic Product, despite having four and a half times the population of the U.S.

So once again, ethics and morality in general make just as much sense to a rational atheist as they do to a theist – albeit with some disagreement on what issues should be included. It isn’t much…but for the good of our society and ourselves, maybe that could provide some common ground.

Why Cover Up?

I think the Republicans missed a golden opportunity last year to take a moral stand, deflect a lot of the corruption issues that have come up, and reverse their steady decline in popularity over the past year. I find myself wondering why.

According to statements in the Washington Express (a mini-paper published by the Post), Speaker of the House Hasturt’s staff knew at least a little about ex-Representative’s Foley’s “indiscretions” sometime last fall. Apparently Rep. Boehner and Rep. Reynolds discussed it directly with the Speaker last spring. Now a senior Congressional Aide says he brought it up THREE years ago. According to those statements…he knew.

Picture it, Washington D.C., November, 2005 – House Speaker Hasturt accuses Rep. Foley of sexually harassing Congressional Pages. He has provided copies of e-mails and instant message logs to the House Ethics Committee. Rep. Foley is expected to resign later today. Republican and Democratic leaders have issued statements calling for improved oversight of the Congressional Page program and deploring Rep. Foley’s behavior…

The media would have gone nuts – much as they have this week. The Democrats would have pointed to the moral decline of the Republican party…but not too much. That pitch would have been deflected by the fact that the Republican leadership was hanging their own man out to dry. The Republicans could have collectively shaken their heads, expressed their disappointment in Mr. Foley’s conduct and the way he fooled them AND his constituents for so long…and then continued on with business. In fact, they could have held the incident up in the future. – “We will not accept such unethical and immoral behavior in the Republican Caucus – when we find it, we will remove it, just as we did with Foley!” By now, a year later, it would have become a positive point to bring up on the talk shows, instead of an embarrassment and distraction.

Admittedly, I’m looking at this with the ease of hindsight. But it seems so obvious that it could have been a boon instead of a blunder that I wonder why it didn’t happen that way. Has Congress as a whole gotten so used to covering up scandals that this one didn’t seem to be any different? Is it possible that it ISN’T any different, that this sort of thing is rampant within the House of Representatives, and we just happened to hear about this one? Or nearly as bad, is it possible that Mr. Foley knew of enough damaging scandals to paralyze the party leadership for fear that he would take them down with him? I don’t know. I strongly suspect that the Democratic Party would not have reacted any differently in the same situation. I’m also pretty sure that the first party to clean house, dumping their own rascals in order to make themselves scandal-proof, will end up with a major lock on both houses and the Presidency. To do that, though, one of them has to have enough honest members to sit as a majority in the House and Senate. It frightens me to think that neither of them may be able to manage that.

Duck and Cover

Here’s a hypothetical for you to consider.

A successful U.S Army Recruiter has been sexually harassing some of his 17- and 18-year-old prospective recruits. Someone discovers this and reports it to his Battalion Commander, a fairly senior officer. The Battalion Commander looks at the statistics and decides that without this Recruiter, his Battalion is going to come up short on their recruits for the year. He doesn’t report it, he doesn’t initiate an investigation, he doesn’t move the Soldier to a less-sensitive position. Instead, he covers the whole thing up and looks forward to making his annual goal.

Several months later, the papers get hold of the story. Certainly, the Recruiter is going to get slam-dunked – probably court-martialed. But what’s going to happen to the Battalion Commander? A brief “watercooler survey” of some Soldier friends of mine suggest that even if the media wasn’t involved, the officer would be transferred to a staff position and probably never again promoted. With the public watching, he’d more likely be relieved of his command (that’s a career-ending move, for those of you not in uniform), and possibly court-martialed alongside the Recruiter he protected.

Now, let’s replace some of the people involved. For the Recruiter, former Representative Foley. For the Battalion Commander, Speaker of the House Hasturt. And for the recruits, let’s substitute 15- and 16-year-old Pages.

So what should happen to The Honorable Mr. Hasturt?

Commander-in-Chief

Anybody watch the premiere of "Commander-in-Chief" last night? I did. If you taped it, then the rest of this entry may contain spoilers, so go watch your tape first.

I'm not sure I'm going to like the show. Of course, anything that has Geena Davis in it will keep my attention for at least a few episodes. And I enjoyed some of the moral, ethical, and political questions the first hour raised - if they keep that up, I'll keep watching.

For instance, if the President asks his Vice-President to resign rather than take over, does the Vice-President have a moral obligation to agree? After all, the President chose her for the job, he should be able to fire her. On reflection, though, I find I agree with the show's answer - the Vice-President has every right to maintain her office and ascend to the Presidency. The situation rather reminded me of one of my military pet peeves - people who join the military (to include the Reserves and National Guard) for the paycheck, or the college money, or whatever, then try to back out when they find out they've been picked to go to war. President Bridges picked Mrs. Allen to be the Vice-President as a stunt, sure. But if he didn't give at least some thought to the possibility of his own death in office, well, then his judgement isn't all that good, anyway!

Another moral question that came up - is it right for the President to use the threat of military force to save the life of a woman who is going to be stoned to death for adultery? Let's ask that another way. Is it proper for the President to threaten a friendly (or at least neutral) nation with an act of war to save the life of a criminal convicted of a capital crime under the due process of her own country? It's amazing how much the wording of the question changes the answer, isn't it? I think she was wrong, there. I don't believe we have the automatic right to use our superpower might to dictate all forms of justice in another country. There is a difference between genocide and execution of an individual. However mild we believe her crime was, the woman did know the penalty for her act before she committed it. Using our military force in such a way makes us little more than a bully.

On the other hand, I don't believe we have any obligation to maintain diplomatic or trade relations with countries that we feel are barbaric. We're a capitalist nation, and business is business. Just like any businessman or customer, we have every right to decide who we choose to do business WITH. Cutting off foreign aid and trade to a given country and to those who continue to support them might well do more damage in the long run than an extended bombing campaign, and certainly more than an invasion consisting of three helicopters. The moral and ethical principles involved, though, make that option the better choice, in my opinion.

A related question. If Nigeria was not only executing the woman, but the man as well, would that change the moral principle? Would President Allen still have wanted to go rescue her? Or should she rescue both of them, or neither? I tend to believe that what's good for the goose is good for the gander...and if the same law applied to both genders, then we'd really have nothing to complain about.

There were some problems with the show, though. Worse than making the wrong decision about the Nigerian woman, I don't think President Allen thought through the consequences of that decision, and the show made no mention of them. As if we could do such a thing and not have a huge backlash against us in the international press, especially in the Muslim countries! That might be covered in later episodes, though, so I'll withhold judgement on that one.

The worst problem was the believability of the basic premise. I just can't conceive of any party politician choosing an Independent as his running mate. Surely there was a female member of his own party that would have sufficed! I understand the dramatic necessity here - they need the conflict between the party warhorse, Speaker Templeton, and the Independent President. But couldn't they have managed much the same with a hardline Conservative President selecting a moderate from his own party? She could even have made public statements that disagreed with the party platform. We could still have had the conflict between the late President's beliefs and those of his VP, and thus between the new President and the Speaker of the House, but it would have been mch more believable within the political structure we know.

My biggest concern, though, is one I got from my dad, that this will turn out to be an extended campaign ad for Hillary Clinton. As long as President Allen stays independent, doing things to outrage each party in turn, or even both at once, I can enjoy it. If it turns into a mouthpiece for either party, though, I'm done.

Ethical Atheism

I read another article on Space.com, about the new attack on evolution, Intelligent Design. In it, they quoted Sen. Santorum (R, PA) as saying "If we are the result of chance, if we're simply a mistake of nature, then that puts a different moral demand on us. In fact, it doesn't put a moral demand on us."

This, to me, is the result of sloppy thinking. People who believe in God seem to believe that without God, we would all be useless hedonistic criminals. We'd rob, rape, kill at will to satisfy whatever transient urge happened to pass through our maddened Godless brains. That turns out not to be the case. (I've been told that's a more polite way to express myself when I really want to say "Bulls**t!")

Atheism puts a GREATER moral burden on us, even from the most selfish of viewpoints. Without a promise of Heaven, we have only this life to make the best of it. Without a threat of Hell, we can only depend on our own intelligence to decide how best to do that. And a dog-eat-dog world where the strongest bully wins is not my idea of an Earthly Paradise.

Let's take a closer look. If everyone is out solely for themselves, and there is no societal framework, only the biggest or most ruthless will prosper - everyone else will serve the few rulers in basically a slave society. An intelligent Atheist can see that the odds of him being the biggest or most ruthless are slim, and it is far more likely to end up as one of the downtrodden masses. With that in mind, that's not the society I'd choose.

Even if you ARE the biggest and most ruthless...let's say you are the absolute ruler of your society. You've built more than 50 castles, you've got hot and cold running servants (not much in the way of technological comfort, but enough servants keeps that from being YOUR problem). Your picture is everywhere, thousands of people cheer your name everywhere you go. You don't have the power of life, but you do have the power of death - you can point to any individual that crosses your path, speak a few words...and that person will be dead within the hour. You have it all, and no one can challenge you! But...how do you sleep? Who can you turn your back on? If you remember, Saddam Hussein had all that. How's he doing now? Is that really a good life to strive for? And even if you avoid all the hazards...what are you leaving for your children? With no immortality, your children are REALLY the only way to live on past your death!

No, in my opinion, the best we can do to make Heaven on Earth is a rational society, with a strong legal framework and respect for individual rights. You know, kind of like the U.S.A. We're still not perfect, but we're better than 'most anywhere else. An ethical Atheist participates in his society to make it better for everyone, as the best way to benefit himself and his loved ones. That's a moral demand far beyond the "carrot and stick" method of most religions. And as for the next person who tells me I have no morals because I don't believe in his god...well, I won't do anything to him, because I support his right to believe differently - I'm even sworn to defend it with my life, if necessary. I just hope he recognizes that right for me.