I think there's a subtle mistake in the rationale here, which is to equate the effect (Darwinian self-interest) with the cause (that, therefore, the behaviour itself must have been performed cynically).
Just because the outcome of a certain behaviour is to favour the interest of the gene, you cannot generalise that the motivation behind t…
I think there's a subtle mistake in the rationale here, which is to equate the effect (Darwinian self-interest) with the cause (that, therefore, the behaviour itself must have been performed cynically).
Just because the outcome of a certain behaviour is to favour the interest of the gene, you cannot generalise that the motivation behind the behaviour intended this outcome; indeed, as you have pointed out before, humans have very low self-awareness.
When it comes to the evolution of behaviour, the only thing upon which selection acts is the outcome of the behaviour – it does not care about the mechanisms which lead to that outcome. In the case of human behaviour, those mechanisms involve neural processes – thoughts, emotions, etc – which depend upon the development of the brain, including memories, personality, preferences etc. It is not necessary for the motivation of the human to be cynical in order for the outcome – the level at which evolution acts – to have the effect of promoting the interest of the set of genes responsible for the behaviour.
It is entirely plausible – from the perspective of natural selection – for people to altruistically care about other people enough to give charitably and anonymously because they simply care about the cause to which they are giving. As an example, many people donate to Cancer Research because they lost a loved one to cancer, and they don't want other people to experience that same pain – the behaviour is caused as a side-effect of empathy, not cynicism (empathy itself having likely evolved under the selective pressures of our early social environment). Of course, the outcome of this behaviour may well provide social benefits to the individual responsible, as you highlight, or may even be viewed through the lens of "curing cancer would be in the best interests of the individual's family and gene line", but this is making the mistake of interpreting the mechanisms of a behaviour – the individual's motivations – through the lens of the outcomes of that behaviour.
I would say, therefore, that to generalise a cynical interpretation onto the motivations of all humans is to oversimplify the reality, which is that a great many different textures of minds, and a great many different motivations – some noble, some selfish – add up to the complex outcomes which have created human civilisation. Your mind and motivations may be cynical, but that does not mean that everyone else's must be as well.
Thanks, Nicholas. I probably should have included a paragraph getting into this nuance about conscious awareness, but alas, the piece was already getting long. My take is: I don’t think it really matters whether the motive is conscious or not. Worldviews help us predict and explain people’s behavior. That’s their job. If I’m trying to predict and explain behavior, cynicism is going to help me do that, regardless of whether the cynical motives are conscious or not. It doesn’t matter why people *think* they’re donating to charity. What matters is why they are *actually* donating to charity—the specific causal factors that are influencing their decision. Those factors are inevitably going to be reputational, status-driven, nepotistic, reciprocal, and/ or groupish in nature. If I’m trying to design institutions with incentives that promote charitable giving, I need to look at people’s *actual* motives, not the motives they say they have. If I’m trying to predict what Starbucks is going to do next, I need to look at what’s going to make Starbucks the most money—not at what “enriches the human spirit.” Maybe everyone at Starbucks sincerely believes they’re trying to enrich the human spirit. Fine, doesn’t matter. That’s not what’s going to help me predict Starbucks’ financial decisions. Motives are the things that causally influence and explain our behavior across a range of situations, regardless of whether we’re aware of them or not. Motives (and psychological systems) are the things that natural selection selects—not behaviors. When you understand the process that created our motives, there is simply no other option than to say those motives are selfish, nepotistic, or groupish. If you can think of another way for a motive to evolve that doesn’t involve replicating the genes that built it, I’d love to hear it. But until then, I’m going with Darwinian cynicism as the best way to explain and predict people’s behavior.
"Motives are the things that causally influence and explain our behavior across a range of situations, regardless of whether we’re aware of them or not. Motives (and psychological systems) are the things that natural selection selects—not behaviors."
This is just flat out false on all levels. Natural Selection actually DOES select for behaviors, more so than it does for motives. There's an entire field of science called Behavioral Genetics that demonstrate this clearly.
Neuroscience also as demonstrated numerous times that beliefs, values and motives have little to no direct impact on the behavior of humans and other animals, they only influence the way people think and feel about their behaviors because their effects are largely post-hoc. You brain makes decisions to do a behavior before you become consciously aware of it.
Motives and values are largely post-hoc rationalizations of instinctual desires and self-interests, which could be a wide range of things genetically. And reproduction is NOT the universal motivation of all human behavior or even that of other animals (no scientist in Evolutionary Biology thinks it is, not even Darwin himself), as large percent of people and wild animals choose to never have offspring. There is no single universal motivation behind all behaviors because motivations themselves don't cause behaviors and motivations & desires change overtime.
I think there's a subtle mistake in the rationale here, which is to equate the effect (Darwinian self-interest) with the cause (that, therefore, the behaviour itself must have been performed cynically).
Just because the outcome of a certain behaviour is to favour the interest of the gene, you cannot generalise that the motivation behind the behaviour intended this outcome; indeed, as you have pointed out before, humans have very low self-awareness.
When it comes to the evolution of behaviour, the only thing upon which selection acts is the outcome of the behaviour – it does not care about the mechanisms which lead to that outcome. In the case of human behaviour, those mechanisms involve neural processes – thoughts, emotions, etc – which depend upon the development of the brain, including memories, personality, preferences etc. It is not necessary for the motivation of the human to be cynical in order for the outcome – the level at which evolution acts – to have the effect of promoting the interest of the set of genes responsible for the behaviour.
It is entirely plausible – from the perspective of natural selection – for people to altruistically care about other people enough to give charitably and anonymously because they simply care about the cause to which they are giving. As an example, many people donate to Cancer Research because they lost a loved one to cancer, and they don't want other people to experience that same pain – the behaviour is caused as a side-effect of empathy, not cynicism (empathy itself having likely evolved under the selective pressures of our early social environment). Of course, the outcome of this behaviour may well provide social benefits to the individual responsible, as you highlight, or may even be viewed through the lens of "curing cancer would be in the best interests of the individual's family and gene line", but this is making the mistake of interpreting the mechanisms of a behaviour – the individual's motivations – through the lens of the outcomes of that behaviour.
I would say, therefore, that to generalise a cynical interpretation onto the motivations of all humans is to oversimplify the reality, which is that a great many different textures of minds, and a great many different motivations – some noble, some selfish – add up to the complex outcomes which have created human civilisation. Your mind and motivations may be cynical, but that does not mean that everyone else's must be as well.
Thanks, Nicholas. I probably should have included a paragraph getting into this nuance about conscious awareness, but alas, the piece was already getting long. My take is: I don’t think it really matters whether the motive is conscious or not. Worldviews help us predict and explain people’s behavior. That’s their job. If I’m trying to predict and explain behavior, cynicism is going to help me do that, regardless of whether the cynical motives are conscious or not. It doesn’t matter why people *think* they’re donating to charity. What matters is why they are *actually* donating to charity—the specific causal factors that are influencing their decision. Those factors are inevitably going to be reputational, status-driven, nepotistic, reciprocal, and/ or groupish in nature. If I’m trying to design institutions with incentives that promote charitable giving, I need to look at people’s *actual* motives, not the motives they say they have. If I’m trying to predict what Starbucks is going to do next, I need to look at what’s going to make Starbucks the most money—not at what “enriches the human spirit.” Maybe everyone at Starbucks sincerely believes they’re trying to enrich the human spirit. Fine, doesn’t matter. That’s not what’s going to help me predict Starbucks’ financial decisions. Motives are the things that causally influence and explain our behavior across a range of situations, regardless of whether we’re aware of them or not. Motives (and psychological systems) are the things that natural selection selects—not behaviors. When you understand the process that created our motives, there is simply no other option than to say those motives are selfish, nepotistic, or groupish. If you can think of another way for a motive to evolve that doesn’t involve replicating the genes that built it, I’d love to hear it. But until then, I’m going with Darwinian cynicism as the best way to explain and predict people’s behavior.
"Motives are the things that causally influence and explain our behavior across a range of situations, regardless of whether we’re aware of them or not. Motives (and psychological systems) are the things that natural selection selects—not behaviors."
This is just flat out false on all levels. Natural Selection actually DOES select for behaviors, more so than it does for motives. There's an entire field of science called Behavioral Genetics that demonstrate this clearly.
Neuroscience also as demonstrated numerous times that beliefs, values and motives have little to no direct impact on the behavior of humans and other animals, they only influence the way people think and feel about their behaviors because their effects are largely post-hoc. You brain makes decisions to do a behavior before you become consciously aware of it.
Motives and values are largely post-hoc rationalizations of instinctual desires and self-interests, which could be a wide range of things genetically. And reproduction is NOT the universal motivation of all human behavior or even that of other animals (no scientist in Evolutionary Biology thinks it is, not even Darwin himself), as large percent of people and wild animals choose to never have offspring. There is no single universal motivation behind all behaviors because motivations themselves don't cause behaviors and motivations & desires change overtime.