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Kaj_Sotala comments on Rationality Quotes: July 2010 - Less Wrong
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"Anyone who believes that the theory of evolution implies moral darwinism, and who also believes in the theory of gravity, has a moral duty to go jump off a cliff." -- Ari Rahikkala
Is there anyone who actually believes in moral darwinism under that self-description, or is it just a straw man position that people like to claim as the underpinning of the ideology of people they don't like? When I tried to google the term I found the book Moral Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists which is described thusly in a five star review:
I think that the quote is best read as a critique of any appeal to nature. Maybe you don't see such brazen appeals to nature in careful arguments, but they seem common enough in informal arguments.
Many people really do seem to think that you've made a substantive point about what we ought to do when you point out that something happens "in nature". For example, I knew someone once who was uncomfortable with tolerating homosexuality, but who felt obliged to seriously reconsider his position when he learned that animals sometimes exhibit homosexual behavior. I was in the strange position of trying to explain why he ought not to be persuaded by that argument, even though it led him to what I thought was the right conclusion.
Did you then tell him about chimpanzee war, murder, and infanticide?
The appeal to nature is very common, and I'd rather get rid of that than change someone's mind about same-sex behavior, which seems to be a terminal value difference anyway.
So, Wiker thinks that the eventually-dominant (?) Epicurean movement staged a deliberate 2-millennium (?) campaign to get a 60s-style social revolution (?) going, and thereby steal credit (?) for scientific advancement from the Church, which was doing so well at it (?) for the first 1500 years.
Before reading it: what are the odds Wiker has marshaled enough evidence to even get that hypothesis on the radar?
Oh, and check this out from the description:
Yeah, we sure don't have any evidence of a Greek culture practicing infanticide, do we?
Edit: Also, the review you refer to is by a "Phillip Johnson", who looks to be this Phillip Johnson, founder of the Intelligent Design movement.
I think that you're agreeing with me? My point was that Wike clearly has an axe to grind and was attributing belief in "moral darwinism" to people who don't even know what it means. You're logically taking apart the theory I was quoting... thus we're in agreement... or not? Or something.
The thing I was puzzled by was the way the original quote had a surface layer of congruence (darwinism, suicide for stupid people, etc) but was difficult for me to coherently parse when I tried to work out the implications and examine the logic that inspired it.
I came up wanting when I did that, and that lead me to question whether the ideas themselves were well grounded. If not, where did the ideas even come from?
Yes, we're in agreement. I was just shocked by how bizarre the claim is, given how many improbable pieces he's stitched together.
I think Johnson -- or Wiker, if that's what the book really argues -- came to that belief by fitting his own view sympathetically into a larger narrative, and found it convenient to stretch it as far back in time as possible.
In fairness, when reading about Epicurus, a lot of his ideas do match modern post-60s beliefs, but there isn't a common demographic that endorses the whole package.