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Lumifer comments on Happiness and Goodness as Universal Terminal Virtues - Less Wrong Discussion
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First, I should say that I didn't mean to assert that some goodness could be found in everyone. I personally guess it is, but that wasn't what this post was about. I just meant that happiness and goodness are the only two things that seem like ultimate motivators for people. Not that everyone has both, just that all actions are motivated by one and/or the other.
Anyway...
I guess we don't really know :( I like the idea of it being more genetic than cultural, but you could just as well be right. I did the cursory google search of "is altruism genetic" and found some cool studies, but studies only tell us that genes contribute somewhat not how much they contribute relative to culture. But culture is human-driven too. Even something like vegetarianism's growing popularity, which is a bit more global and has nothing to do with religion, could show that some people are generally becoming less self-centered? Or what about the decrease in imperialism? The budding effective altruism movement?
Anyway, I get what you're saying. I think I came up with this idea to convince myself that humanity would get along just fine without religion. So I'm biased in favor of the idea that goodness is largely genetic, and still on the upswing, since that's a nice and comforting thought, but I guess that since don't know the exact ratio of how much genetics contributes relative to culture, we're safer off assuming that it's mostly cultural. If we decide we still like this product of our culture and don't want to lose it, then we should definitely put conscious effort into keeping some idea of "goodness" alive in society.
Um... survival? sex? power? curiosity?
You can, of course, make "happiness" a sufficiently large blanket to cover everything, but then you lose any meaning in the term.
(shrug) Yeah, I consider it a huge blanket. I didn't really mean to share some grand revelation or anything, just the realization that all our thoughtful decisions (as opposed to those influenced by addiction, inertia, etc) seem to be made either to lead us, as individuals, to our optimal mind-states, and/or to benefit others.
If it's so huge, why did you choose to separate out "goodness"? It fits under the blanket quite well -- people who help others get happiness (or get into the desired mind-state) from helping others.
Good question!! Introspectively asking myself the same thing is what led to my confusion, which led me to analyze everything and come up with what I wrote about.
So personally, when I donate to effective charities like AMF, I do get some benefits. I like my self-image more, I feel a little bit warm and fuzzy, I feel less guilty about having been born into such a good life. Helping others in this way does improve my mind-state. Yet, if all I wanted to do were increase my own happiness, there would be more efficient ways to go about it. Let's say I donate 15% of my income to AMF. The opportunity cost of that donation could be a month long vacation to visit my friends in Guatemala, a trip home to see my family in Wisconsin, ski trips, or random acts of kindness like leaving huge restaurant tips. If my only goal is achieving my optimal mind-state, after much introspection, I'm 99% sure I would be better off donating a bit less to charity (but still enough to maintain my self-image) and visiting my family and friends a bit more. So why do I still want to donate the amount I do? This really confused me. Was my donation irrational? You might say it was motivated by guilt, that I would feel guilty for not donating. And I'd say yeah, to some extent, but not quite enough to justify what I'm giving up.
This is my personal example, the one that sparked this post, but it's definitely not the best example. The best example of goodness is sacrificial death. I suppose you could still claim that even someone who knowingly dies to rescue a stranger would have felt soo guilty if he hadn't done it, that he was acting to stop his mind-state from dipping into the negatives, or something. Or he imagined great honor after his death, and that short-lived happy expectation motivated the action. Honestly, you could be right, and again, my doubt isn't based on anything more than guessing at subconscious motivation, but I'm just guessing that goodness is the motivation here, not happiness. Just like I'm guessing that goodness is what motivates me to donate to effective charities, not deeply subconscious guilt. I don't know the true motivation, but goodness seems like a better guess to me than even huge-blanket-happiness.
That is true for all non-optimal ways of increasing your own happiness.
So, suicide bombers? X-/
May I suggest internalized social pressure as a motivation? :-)
Yes, but practically every other time I recognize myself non-optimally increasing my own happiness (usually due to inertia), I want to fix it and achieve optimal happiness. But not this time.
I'm guessing here, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that they truly believe they're doing God's will. They truly believe God's will is, by definition, good. So maybe they're acting out of their own twisted idea of goodness, or perhaps more likely, they're just acting in a way that they believe will increase their happiness once they receive eternal rewards.
You certainly may... it's like the tragedy of group selectionism...When we observe species who cannibalize their young, it's a bit harder to imagine an isolated human mother ever sacrificing herself to save her child. But could such a "altruism emotion" gene have evolved? I think the evolution behind it makes sense, and that there are some studies that show this, but I'm far from being an expert on the topic.
I think that "social pressure" motivations are closely related to "guilt" motivations and still fall under the huge-blanket category of happiness. I think they can be a huge factor behind seemingly altruistic decisions, but I don't think they tell the whole story...