Re: Fwd: [asa] Quoting Darwin out of context

Have any of you ever heard of the "Prisoner's dilemma"? The Dawkins/Dennett
crowd have sometimes brought it up as an illustration of how "altruism" or
cooperation might evolve. It's a great classroom exercise to help students
think about concepts like trust or altruism.

--merv

Quoting Iain Strachan <igd.strachan@gmail.com>:

>
> *In fact his view is quite moral - our brains have evolved to an extent that
> > we have become intelligent enough to realise what is going on, so we can
> > oppose it, and choose not to be the puppets of our selfish genes. *
> >
> > It's "moral" in the sense that he lacks the intellectual honesty to do
> > what his views require, which is to abandon any concept of "morality."
> The
> > reality is that his insistence that we can transcend our selfish genes is
> > utterly incoherent if his beliefs are otherwise true. If Dawkins is
> > basically right, we might *think* we've become so smart and self-aware
> > that we can transcend our selfish genes, but that would be just another
> > self-delusion, another games our genes are playing with us to ensure their
> > survival. Any other belief is just soft-minded wish-fullfillment
> > religiosity. Our delusions of morality are, as Wayne said, nothing more
> > than power games. Mao was right: morality begins at the point of a gun.
> >
>
>
> I'm not quite getting you here, David. Can you explain just why an
> atheist/materialist view requires you to abandon any concept of morality?
>
> One could argue plausibly, I think, that the evolution of intelligence had
> the unexpected side-effect that humankind gained a moral sense. This wasn't
> "planned" by evolution (though of course as Christians we would say it was
> planned by God, e.g. the bit in Romans Ch 2 where it says that even for
> gentiles the requirements of the law are already written on their hearts).
> But for a moment I want to consider whether Dawkins's views require of
> necessity (as you claim) to abandon any sense of morality. I don't think
> so. It may well be the case that being moral is more likely to ensure our
> survival as a species, but I'm not sure you can argue that this is just a
> game your genes are playing, and I don't think Dawkins does. I think the
> distinction between gene-games and proposing moral behavour for survival of
> the species is that gene-games involve no long term planning - an evolving
> system simply searches for the first adaptation to ensure better survival in
> a changing environment. However, proposing wholesale rebellion against what
> our genes are doing - looking after the poor and weak, for example is a long
> term plan because by our intelligence, we have had a vision of a better
> society in the future. It's true that Dawkins has also argued that altruism
> can be explained in evolutionary terms, but I think that this is perhaps
> only when there is a long-term pay-off.
>
> So I think Dawkins is at least consistent, and I don't believe it's right to
> accuse him of intellectual dishonesty, or being deluded that he's moral.
> Where he's totally missed the point is that 2000 years ago Jesus Christ's
> life and death on the cross to save sinners was the ultimate
> counter-evolutionary step - a long term plan to save humankind, and show us
> how we ought to live.
>
> Iain

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Sun Aug 13 19:01:16 2006