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Attempting the Impossible

Here is a cut and paste from the Beyond Morality Group:

As a moral relativist, I have spent a lot of time on A/N shooting down the attempts of others to create a universal moral code. I think it's
sort of a fool's errand, but here I go:

All organisms demonstrate a tendency to avoid harm. Even amoeba will
avoid aversive stimuli. This is one of the basic premises of behavioral
psychology's operant conditioning. Behaviors that yield pleasing results
tend to be repeated. Behaviors that yield aversive results tend to not
be repeated.

If we stop right there, we have an argument for hedonism. But, we are
not amoeba. Humans are social animals requiring the assistance of other
humans in order to survive in the natural environment.

Other social animals like wolves, lions, and buffalo will predictably
behave in ways that promote the health and safety of the group over the
health and safety of the individual. These animals engage in what might
be considered benevolent behaviors even without the benefit of higher
cognitive functioning.

To my knowledge, humans are the only species capable of true empathy.
Empathy does not mean sympathy. Many species demonstrate sympathy. But,
empathy requires the extreme complex ability to cognitively attempt to
see through the eyes of another. With huge effort, we can put our
collective ego aside and truly understand the world from the perspective
of someone (or something) else.

Research on feral children has shown that empathy is a learned behavior.
Empathy is an extremely difficult cognitive skill that few humans try
master. If humans regularly employed this skill, conflict with each
other and the destruction of other species could be virtually
eliminated.

So there it is. My theory is that empathy is the highest human good, as
it is an extension (actually a giant leap) of the natural tendency for
social animals to engage in behaviors that benefit the survival of the
group.

I haven't spent a huge amount of time on this, so please have at it. I
would love to have some of you egg heads dissect my flimsy logic.... ;-)

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Comment by Edward Teach on November 23, 2010 at 9:56am: This guy does a pretty good job of providing the low down on adoption and twin studies on ADHD:

http://psych.colorado.edu/~willcutt/pdfs/Willcutt_ADHD_genetics_inp...

Comment by Edward Teach on November 23, 2010 at 8:27am: Good summary, Fred.

The current stuff on ADHD indicates that it is an inherited disorder causing a lack of development in the frontal cortex of the brain. A structured environment can help the child to function better and develop coping mechanisms, but the disorder seems to be very physical in nature.

That said, early abuse seems to also inhibit maturing of the frontal lobes. Two different conditions with the same symptoms? Do all victims of early abuse develop these symptoms or must they also be genetically predisposed? I should study up on the latest to find out....

Comment by Edward Teach on November 4, 2010 at 8:35am: Fred,

Nah, the kids with the allele from nurturing homes never exhibited any symptoms of sociopathy (antisocial). They were saying that the gene only predisposed kids to becoming sociopathic if they were raised in the abusive environment. The gene actually discouraged sociopathy when children were raised in a healthy environment.

True enough about antisocials who don't become criminal. They grow up to be politicians and salesmen ;-)

Comment by Keith R Araneo on November 3, 2010 at 7:54pm: Good job.

Comment by Edward Teach on November 1, 2010 at 2:49pm: I like lots of stuff and my goal is to optimize as many things as possible.

Sounds like Carl Rogers' idea that the "actualizing tendency" (becoming your best possible self) is the primary human motivator.

Comment by Edward Teach on November 1, 2010 at 2:46pm: Good point. We are certainly a soup of nature and nurture. They are actually starting to zero in on being able to predict outcomes based on specific genes and specific environments. There was a logitudinal study in New Zealand that isolated an allele in little boys.

The boys with this allele, if raised in a hostile environment, became sociopathic later in life.

Boys without the allele, if raised in a hostile environment, developed a victim mentality (depressed, guilt ridden, etc) later in life.

Boys with the allele, if raised in a nurturing environment were the least likely of any in the study to become sociopathic in later life!

Comment by Edward Teach on November 1, 2010 at 2:19pm: You assume that the goal of humanity is the survival of the group.

Yea, I'm dead in the water on that one... Maybe not the "goal" of humanity, but the "tendency" of of the species?

Comment by Edward Teach on November 1, 2010 at 2:10pm: John D,

Yea, I think you could almost consider it isolation induced brain damage. They say that infants who are abused at 1 month of age will often manifest serious psychological problems later on, even if the baby was removed at 1 month and raised in a loving environment. The child wouldn't be able to remember any abuse, but I guess the abuse may have altered brain development in some way?

Good stuff ;-)

Comment by Edward Teach on November 1, 2010 at 1:44pm: John D,

The research on moral development and feral children was on a site called feralchildren.com. It was the most comprehensive site on feral child research. It detailed very clearly that language, empathy and moral development were completely dependent on the environment.

The human brain is wired to absorb these concepts during critical developmental periods, but the concepts do not manifest independent of learning them. Unfortunately, the site has been "suspended."

The closest sites I could find were:

http://www.erbzine.com/mag18/1801.html

http://books.google.com/books?id=LYouGEiizucC&pg=PA17&lpg=P...

Many textbooks in psychology refer to feral children as evidence that negative consequences occur when a child grows up without normal human attachments. The child Victor was found in 1800 in the French village of Saint-Sernin. He was believed to have grown up in the forests without human contact, and proved devoid of any recognizable human characteristics. Initially he refused to wear clothes, understood no language, and never showed human emotion. This “wild boy of Aveyron” was taken into the care of Jean Itard, who devoted considerable energy to teach Victor language and human interaction. He did eventually learn some words, but never developed normal human interaction or relationships (Itard, 1801; 1962). Do feral children demonstrate the essence of human nature in the absence of relationships? We can see from the story of Victor, and that of other feral children, that what we describe as human is forged in our relationships with others. Without these interactions there is little discernable human in our behavior. Without relationships provided by parents, family, and society, we are without language with which to communicate, and without civilization to teach appropriate norms for behavior, and we have no “human nature”. We are human because of our relationships. http://www.rozenbergps.com/Quarterly/?e=54

Thanks for the bonobo article. Very interesting. It does dispute my claim that only humans can learn empathy, but does not dispute that empathy is learned through socialization. I would guess that a bonobo raised in isolation would demonstrate the same complete lack of appropriate social behaviors as do feral humans.

Fred,

The mirror neuron stuff is an excellent argument for humans being wired to learn empathy, language and other forms of socialization. It would also support the idea that empathy will not occur without the social opportunity to mirror the behavior.

Regarding the definitions, I guess I'm talking about a kind of "higher order empathy." You stub your toe and I understand you pain, because I have experienced toe stubbing would be almost "remedial empathy."

The higher order empathy I'm talking about requires a lot more effort. For example, you just went through a break up with your wife. If I responded with remedial empathy, I would assume that I "know you feel angry," because I also broke up with my wife and that is how I felt. But, this assumption might be completely off base, as it comes from my own ego experiences. In truth, your feelings might be relief or sadness or whatever. In order for me to engage in higher order empathy, I would have to put my knee jerk assumptions aside and spend a good deal of time listening and asking questions.

My knee jerk reaction to a pedophile is disgust and hatred. To engage higher order empathy, I have to put my feelings aside and listen and question. The pedophile I hate today may have been the sexually abused child for whom I cried 20 years earlier. To truly understand others, I have to first suspend judgment.

Comment by Glen Rosenberg on October 30, 2010 at 12:26am: Your reasoning does not compute. Consider the ramifications of humans being without the state of nature.