The Evolution of Ethics: An Introduction to Cybernetic Ethics
Unedited comments regarding the linkage of ethics to genetics by way of behavior templates.These are random answers to issues associated with evolutionary ethics. Visit the front page first at www.evolutionaryethics.com
Visceral MoralityVisceral morality addresses the seminal ground of social morality It profoundly shapes the evolution of ethical systems. It is not morality learned from a book rather it is morality that is learned from experience. For example, you have been standing in a long line on a hot day at the supermarket. As you approach the check-out someone cuts in front of you. Depending on the amount of stress and fatigue in your daily life, you react with annoyance or outrage. When you react to a a perceived "wrong" such as this you experience visceral morality.
Here, to say that a person has done something "wrong" is to say that they know the difference between right and wrong—or should know the difference. People generally learn right and wrong from the painful effects of the social feedbacks that scorn certain behaviors. An immature person might get away with cutting in line without noticeable reproach a few times. After a while, the people he or she is cutting in front of will speak up. It is only a matter of time before such confrontations will escalate to the point of heated confrontations. With time even the most insensitive person gets the idea it is easier to follow convention and custom than fight it. Here, the focus is on a person's behavior rather than on the words "right" and "wrong." Formal ethical theories focus on the words right and wrong rather on the situations in which they defined. Formal theory does not recognize that moral knowledge, does or can exist, yet it is quite evident in everyday life.
Visceral morality is not always fair and reasonable reaction to a social situation such as this. However, "perceived wrongs" that have some inherent wisdom are remembered in the social customs and laws. For example, alcohol abuse has a long history in the social memory. Each time someone abuses alcohol and cause problems that action reinforces and perpetuates the belief that alcohol abuse is wrong (bad behavior).
Moral Knowledge
Visceral morality is an expression of "moral knowledge" at the lowest level of its genesis in any society. When a person is offended their reaction plays an important part in a larger civilizing (teaching) process. From the very first time a person does something inappropriate they experience unpleasant forms of feedback. The feedback may be very subtle, it may be embarrassment or humiliation but it is a feeling that leave people uneasy and unsatisfied. There are perhaps thousands of potential areas of human conduct that can generate unpleasant responses. With time, people develop a sense of propriety in unfamiliar settings. Becoming an adult requires acquiring a certain amount of skill in ferreting out the boundaries of behavior. (Think of the dynamic interplay of responses and feelings that are elicited when one person inappropriately touches another).
Cultural BoundariesCustoms and personal etiquette define the nature of social propriety. They defines the lines of conduct that are acceptable or unacceptable for people to cross. People do not ordinarily learn where the lines of propriety are from a book, rather they learn it from experience. When people cross boundaries of acceptable behavior that imprudent action can trigger a visceral reaction in the lives of other people to counteract the intrusion. Violent and poisonous remarks can come of inappropriate actions that can trigger a series of escalating responses leading to injury or death. In cybernetic terms this is known as positive feedback that leads to systemic breakdown or failure.
It important to understand visceral and the important role it plays as a cybernetic trigger that sustains the positive effects of social fission. The idea that visceral morality can exists runs counter to the conventional teachings of ethics, in general, deny that moral knowledge can exist. Visceral morality is a form of moral knowledge however inaccurate it may be at times. Scientists could design a credible study to determine its existence by analyzing the hidden boundaries of social intercourse.
Another illustration of this might be two sorority sisters conversing in a video rental store about their night on the town. A middle-aged man who has no interest in the academic life is drawn to the conversation. He has an urge to interrupt the conversation because of some sexual attraction to the women or because he is immature and simply blurts out something, thus interrupting the conversation. On the one hand are the culturally and intellectually refined women encounter a less refine man, who lacking sensitivity and experience, lets his emotions decide his actions. The reaction of the women might be sharp and distasteful to the intruding man. In ordinary social life when the quiet enjoyment of people is violated the harmony of their life is temporally shattered. This triggers a visceral response (Informational feedback) that can be gentle or outright poisonous.see impedance matching
Transgressing boundaries has a productive side to it. Human being are also biological machines that have wired-in reactive tendencies. A person genes and acculturation illustrate this wired in aspect of people. There is no resonance, no vibrancy to a society that is dead. A living society generates an immense amount of interpersonal feedbacks to the point of social fission. Everyone in that society is learning boundaries, overstepping themselves, pulling back and dealing with the situation in a civilized way. It is not the violation of a particular boundary that is so important as how it is done and what it brings to the positive energy of an encounter. An immature or sexually desirous male who is aggressive in refined circumstances will generate a more poisoned response to his actions than a more worldly and charming man interrupting the women. If the interruption of someone "brings to the table: an increase in harmony, understanding and enjoyment the situation can work. This again can be described mathematically in the electronic term known as impedance matching. Codes of etiquette help facilitate or "match" people and situations to maximized social interaction and minimize friction and conflict in the process. There is a protocol for every possible social situation. The refinement execution of the protocol can be analyzed in terms of it decorum. Knowledge of this which is learned by experience allows a person to successfully enter an leave conversations with many types of people. Protocols and decorum reflect the need to keep "social systems integral." Thus, the two women ideally should be able to exist in a bubble that insulates them from intrusion from the outer world to maximize their quiet enjoyment at the video store. Societies can grow and prospers given that their subsystems are integral. In a large city there are thousands of integral and insulated subsystems at work in any given area of town.
The Cybernetic Trigger
Crossing a boundary triggers a cybernetic reaction (social feedback). Vibrant societies need a finite amount of crossing held within controllable limits. This is much like the necessary doping of transistor junctions with small amounts of impurities to maximize its performance. When human beings are viewed as biological machines cybernetic triggers play an important role at notifying a relative reactive machine in a change of state or an intrusion. Crossing a perceived boundary will trigger a wide spectrum of responses given differences in genes and acculturation. Scientifically this could be defined as a person's "reactivity" or predisposition to react to specific stimuli. A person's genes produce a wired-in response that with time is tempered with another wired-in response that derives from acculturation. A people mature they learn to forcefully restrain the powerful impulses reactivity can produce. Emotions can undershoot their intended target, they can overshoot their mark or they can be well-balanced responses. A culturally sophisticated person is able to precisely responded to social stimuli in a way that minimizes conflict and maximizes social harmony and productive relationships. A balanced response does not trigger a cybernetic cycle. However, because it is so precise it communicates information and a civilizing force that becomes the model behavior for others to strive for. Each personal encounter sets up a cycle of actions and consequent reactions. The relationships of immature people are often fought with intense emotions that trigger other strong emotions in a endless cycle that is slowly tempered with the wisdom and insight of age to the point they become more and more balanced. This illustrates the powerful force that acculturation has on a person's genetic (wired-in) impulses to act in ways that would be counter-productive to social and personal growth.
Behavioral Templates: The Relationship Between Ethics and Genetics
Human behavior generally follows what could be called "behavioral templates." Living is much more enjoyable if a person does not have to be alert to every danger; every detail of existence, every minute of the day. For example, you board an airliner with hundreds of people onboard. You are traveling with your friends. Your reactions are contingent on the actions and emotions of the other passengers. Your behavior is not focused, rather it loosely follows a behavioral template of "how to behave in public on an airliner." The pilot, on the other hand is expected to be fully "present" at the controls of the airliner. He or she must be focused, thinking and alert to any an all possible dangers that could affect the lives of hundreds of people. The pilot's routine derives from a very disciplined set of procedures. The contingent reality of the passengers has no place in the environment of the cockpit. The pilot's actions and reactions are finely tuned to be precise and well-balanced. Any over-reaction or an under-reaction might cause the airplane to crash.
The existence of behavior templates (genetic predispositions) creates yet another problem. If a person's actions and reactions can be predicted, then they can be exploited by an unscrupulous person. Again, one must think of the human being, first and foremost, as a biological machine. This is to say that most of the actions and reactions of a human are exercised at the subconscious level following this or that behavioral template. Only a small percentage of human experience is disciplined; well-planned and thought-out. Because people are so predictable they invite exploitation Children invite exploitation from more mature adults in many ways, thus there are very strict laws to prevent this occurring. People are vulnerable biological machines that need to have their identities expressed within the context of some larger more protective organization. Moral and religions codes of conduct fill the needs of people to belong to something that can guide them through the treacherous waters of life. The urge to survive in its many ways inspires the growth of moral and legal systems to protect the very vulnerable human machine from the excesses of itself.
Visceral Reactivity (emotional reactivity)A new born child responds to the world viscerally. As the child grows older visceral responses are replaces with other types of responses more appropriate to the civilized world.
Cultural Reactivity (In terms of stages of maturation, childhood, adolescence, adulthood.) Level 1 behaviorHere raw urges and passions are shaped and refined. A child will express an urge at will such as blurting out a need in the middle of a conversation with several people. With time they learn the consequences of acting on their impulses in relation to achieving important goals (i.e. not being inappropriate during a job interview).. If a person has aged but not matured staying out of jail might be an important goal. For a person seeking acceptance in high-society the goal might be avoiding offending an important person.Moral Reactivity: level 2 behaviorMoral and religious training incalculates certain responses to moral situations. Lying or attempting to deceive such a person might provoke a response of disgust and disdain. Such a world view might provoke a person to react strongly to inappropriate language or dress
.Disciplined Reactions: Level 3 behaviorTo optimally reach ones goals both moral reactivity and cultural reactivity must be tempered with disciplined reactions that tightly follow professional codes or instructions, formal training, education, or years of experience. The pilot of an aircraft is unburdened by his visceral fears when flying through a violent storm because his or her reactions correspond to a set of procedures set out in early training. Disciplined responses maximize survival at all levels of existence. Through training and discipline people are able to exist outside the food chain that depends on unrefined responses to thrive. Here, a person exists beyond mere genetic definition.
Intellectual Reactivity: Level 4 behaviorLevel 3 behavior is closely aligned with level 4 behavior. Here a person does not always respond immediately to a set of codes, training, or social obligations. These are reasoned, intelligent responses. Intelligence can, for arguments sake, can be divided into two parts. 1. Optimizing intelligence: Being brilliant or smart but self-serving Here a person bootstraps themselves by their emotions to high levels of cultural, religious, or intellectual achievement. 2. Non-optimizing intelligence (being smart but not self-serving in thought or deed.) The use of genetic or behavioral templates to guide responses are rare here. Achievement in this world is slow, deliberate and well-reasoned. Passions and pleasures play a minor role in motivating a person here, but they remain to a significant degree.*religious morality not covered hereCybernetic ethics is about the evolution of rule systems. As rule systems have evolved they all seen to share similar characteristics no matter how diverse they are. Apart from the strictly moral considerations rule systems tend to maximize systemic efficiency and minimize conflict to survive the system they serve. A society or societies are systems. Formal ethics and more loosely defined moral beliefs and sentiments are rule systems that have the effect, if not the intension of surviving social systems. Morals and ethics more or less represent algorithms of efficiency. Efficiency maximizes systemic "flow" harmony and prosperity and minimizes conflict and the threat of systematic extinction.
Rule systems are important from the perspective that organisms, insects, animals and human beings are first and foremost biological machines that maximize survival by reacting in certain productive and efficient ways. Life forms as such are programmable and adaptive as the environment constantly changes providing new opportunities for both prey and predator to use. Humans, broadly speaking, are emotionally reactive, intellectually reactive, or reasoning entities. In earlier times they can be seen as almost completely emotionally reactive life-forms and later proportionally more intellectually reactive and reasoning life-forms. The involuntarily compulsion for most to survive forces the evolution of human activity away from purely emotional reactions to environmental stimulus towards intellectual reactive responses and adapt ion by reasoning.
Rule systems can be viewed as going well beyond the ordinary descriptions of mortality and ethical right and wrong into the areas of customs, manners, and legal systems of rules. Such systems help stabilize a rapidly moving and evolving world of people and technologies. Without rules, humans would soon tear themselves apart, thus if survivability is an issue in ordinary human affairs it is imperative the study of ethics direct some of its attentions towards the systematic evolution of ethical systems to assure that survivability. This writing does not involve itself in genetics, however, genetics by way of the concepts of emotional and intellectual templates of behavior is ultimately where cybernetic ethics goes in much detail.
Genetics comes into play when one considers the relationship between the evolution of emotional and intellectual reactivity and the survival of the human species. It is by way of a theory of reactivity that ethics (as a system of maximizing survival) and genetics combine.