Quote:
Originally Posted by popcorninthesofa
This is not to say that science can give us a moral system per se. I think the life sciences (and here I'll include psychology as it moves more toward grounding its hypothesis in the biology of the brain) can point us toward a common human nature which can provide us with guideposts for what kinds of societies we *can* build and how easy or difficult it will be to create those societies,
Cheers
Aj
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Here is where the scientific human ego begins to worry me by utilizing the laws and truth of this "Force" in our brain to control us and societies, not knowing for certain the source of this Force,or the further damage for good or evil that can be created by duplicating it in a laboratory. Can Neuro or Behavior Science possibly know with flawless precision the deeper moral and spiritual truths of human evolution that took thousands and thousands of years to spiritually and morally evolve simply by knowing what buttons to push in the brain for the common good of us all?[/QUOTE]
What 'force' are you talking about? You don't define what force you mean. What *I* am talking about isn't manipulating a 'force' in our brains, it is rather, working on some commonalities of human psychology. I'm not talking about moral or spiritual 'truths' (whatever that might mean. I am talking about certain features of the human brain.
For example, it is a fairly safe bet that if you had a choice in the matter you would very strongly prefer that you not be enslaved and treated as property. If this holds true for me (and it does) and it holds true for you (and it almost certainly does) we can then infer that chattel slavery is a morally indefensible way of organizing an economy. Not because of some mysterious 'force' but because human beings appear to prefer self-determination, self-ownership and not being treated as mere ends to some means defined by someone else. The *principles* that I am talking about have nothing to do with a 'force'. Rather, it has to do with the idea of hypothesis formation, observation or experiment, and then articulation of a theory which is subject to further refinement and falsification.
Take, as another example, rape. All women appear to resist rape strenuously. We should, in fact, expect precisely this kind of behavior because women have a vested interest in bodily integrity and in choosing the time, place, manner of their sexual activity as well as with whom that activity will occur. We should then be *very* suspicious of any claims, made by anyone, that marital rape isn't rape or that women 'enjoy it after a while' or any of the other completely unsupportable things that have been said about rape over the years.
Taking one last example, in the middle part of the last century several collectivist schemes became all the intellectual vogue. In various places, peoples tried to create societies where, for instance, people did not raise their own children but rather they were raised in creches or people lived in very utilitarian buildings, or ate in communal dining halls. Every single one of them were spectacular failures. Again, a political theory grounded in human nature, might have spared us these needless social experiments. Parents will prefer their own children over the children of strangers--we should expect that. People want privacy and they want to choose the company with whom they break bread. Again, we should expect this given human psychology. This isn't about creating utopias. In fact, my argument is that human nature should warn us, in loud tones and garishly colorful flags, that we are in the presence of dangerous ideas whenever someone comes up with a scheme to create the 'perfect' society.
Again, NONE of this requires a 'force' in our brains. If you can find me a society where parents do *not* prefer their children over those of their neighbors, if you can find me a society where people do *not* expect some level of bodily autonomy, where people do *not* mind being treated as mere ends to a means for the benefit of someone else, I'm happy to listen. However, even then I think that the outlier would only serve to throw sharper light on the fact that it IS an outlier. I will also tell you that any society where one or more of those social structures is enforced will be a profoundly less free society.
When I was talking about gravity I was not saying that there is some force, like gravity, that can be manipulated. Rather, I was stating that in the same way that a systematic asking of questions lead us to realize that the same force that causes apples to fall, for us to stay in chairs, and for the Earth-Moon system to orbit the Sun a similar process can lead us, not to a utopia, but can warn us away from schemes that will not work with human psychology, given how it operates. If nothing else, it will tell us what kind of effort it will take to achieve some end we might find desirable. Getting people to, for instance, eat sweets, have sex, or leave their worldly accumulations to their children is easy, pretty much just this side of effortless. Getting people to, for instance, eschew pleasure today for payoff tomorrow, or leave their worldly goods to some random stranger or to refrain from sex is quite a bit harder. Not impossible, mind you, but quite a bit more difficult and may have to be enforced by restricting certain degrees of freedom.
I am not sure what force you are talking about and I'm not sure what you think behavioral science or neuroscience can or will do as far pushing buttons but it is not what I'm talking about.
cheers
Aj