timtyler comments on People neglect small probability events - Less Wrong

11 Post author: XiXiDu 02 July 2011 10:54AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (67)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: timtyler 07 July 2011 08:54:38AM *  0 points [-]

Well, he could credibly make that claim if he could credibly assert that the ancestral environment was remarkably favorable for group selection.

Not group, surely: kin. He quoted you as saying: "welfare (fitness) of kin".

Comment author: Perplexed 08 July 2011 01:20:24AM 0 points [-]

I think you misinterpreted the context. I endorsed kin selection, together with discounting the welfare of non-kin. Someone (not me!) wishing to be a straight utilitarian and wishing to treat kin and non-kin equally needs to endorse group selection in order to give their ethical intuitions a basis in evolutionary psychology. Because it is clear that humans engage in kin recognition.

Comment author: timtyler 08 July 2011 07:43:17AM *  0 points [-]

Now I see how you are reading the "kind of claim that a utilitarian could make" bit.

As you previously observed, the actual answer to this involves cultural evolution - not group selection.

The "evolutionary psychology" explanation is that humans developed sophisticated culture which was - on average - beneficial, but which allowed all kinds of deleterious memes in with the beneficial ones.

A utilitarian could claim:

Evolution has produced in me the tendency to value the welfare of non-kin at a significant fraction of the value of my own personal welfare.

...on the grounds that their evolution involved gene-meme coevolution - and that inevitably involves a certain amount of memetic hijacking by deleterious memes - such as utilitarianism.