= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Perplexed comments on People neglect small probability events - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (67)
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.
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:
...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.