"We're not animals"

[mindstalk]

Told to take this discussion somewhere else, I'm dumping my expanded thoughts here.

"We're not animals." There's the biologist response, of "oh, yes we are." There's the logician response, of "if we're not animals, then what was the point of bringing up homosexual behavior in the wild? And then animal rape should be irrelevant to us." And there's the philosopher response of muttering about the naturalistic fallacy. Whether rape or gayness are natural, or happen in other species, is irrelevant to their wrongness or rightness for us. Rape's wrong because it hurts people. Gay behavior is okay because it doesn't. Evolutionary background is irrelevant. We can use condemnation and prison to discourage behavior we don't like regardless of the reasons behind it. Murder's natural, under some circumstances; infanticide is natural. But we don't make excuses for those.

"Naturalness" would be relevant only if a behavior was *so* natural that it wasn't controllable, that the threat of punishment wouldn't deter men from raping. But being imprisoned would still prevent the rapist from committing further rapes (at least, outside of prison); "I can't help myself" isn't exactly a good argument for being allowed out on the street. And if men were that much of an uncontrollable ravaging horde then female separatism -- or isolation of males -- would make a lot of sense. Fortunately, morality, empathy, and fear are (imperfectly) effective in restraining aggression.

Evolution isn't an excuse for bad behavior; bad excuses aren't a reason for denying facts of natural history.

Thoughts? Can this be said better? Am I wrong?

Comments

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Further Dusek observations:

Lists various egregious instances I hadn't known about and see no reason to doubt; I can believe that as with science fiction, I've tended to read the best and somehow miss or forget the trash.

I don't trust Gould and Lewontin that much, especially when being invoked against gene selectionism. The quoted class/member distinction of Lewontin only lowers my opinion further.

Fodor's cited; I'd note that he has a recent piece in the London Review of Books attacking natural selection in general.

Oh look, more "ideological consequences" of "cosmologies", implying we should reject Dawkins side vs. Gould because it's icky.

Heh, cites Vincent Sarich to make a point. I doubt the author would like Sarich on race/IQ.

Oh look, argument ad Alabama, two paragraphs after criticizing Dennett for accusing Gould of latent religious mysterianism.