"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

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Evolutionary psychology is essentially based upon the idea of biological determinism.

No, it's based upon the idea that the psychologies of living beings evolve along with their physiologies. This is self-evident: how do you imagine the psychologies of creatures originate? Divine intervention?

However, psychologies are not purely determined by genetics. There are also the effects of the natural environment and of the social environment (culture). These are the domains of memetics, and of free will (in the case of the higher animals, including Man).

I happen to think biological determinism is utter nonsense, which explains my feelings about the entire discipline of evo psych.

Shall I not assume then that you have a carbon-based water-soluble metabolism based on the inhalation of oxygen, the combination of glucose with that oxygen to produce carbon dioxide? Or that you are a tetrapodal biped with warm blood whose species bear their young live?

Perhaps you should explain exactly what you don't consider to be at all "biologically determined," and what your reasons for believing this is. Note that "it can be used by EVIL conserviatives" is NOT a rational reason for disbelieving in something!

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Note that "it can be used by EVIL conserviatives" is NOT a rational reason for disbelieving in something!

True, but the fact that it was largely developed by "evil conservatives" (which from my PoV, is an unnecessarily duplicative phrase) is. A study of the history of human biology and social science reveals politics and social attitudes plays at least as much of a role as any sort of idea of "objective science".

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

True, but the fact that it was largely developed by "evil conservatives" (which from my PoV, is an unnecessarily duplicative phrase) is.

First of all, the proponent of a theory does not affect whether it is true or false. Secondly, current sociobiologists include both liberals and conservatives. Finally, you still haven't explained how biology can avoid influencing psychology, given that species evolve their minds to aid their survival.