Anyway, Principle number three, so three or three morality binds and
blinds. At this point, you might be viewing morality, cynically believing that
humans are inherently selfish, and that morality is primarily self serving and
blinds us to reality. We make decisions with our guts, and then rationalize them
so well, that we think we made them using reason we cheat when we think we won't
get caught, and then convince ourselves we're honest, we care more about other
thinking we're doing the right thing than we do about actually doing the right
thing. But this portrayal of morality based solely on self interest isn't
complete. In addition to being selfish people are also group-ish. We love to
join groups, teams, clubs, political parties, religions, and so on.
We are happy to work with lots of others towards a common goal that we must be
built for teamwork. We can't fully understand morality until we understand the
origin and the implications of our group-ish behavior, and how our morality is
and bind us together, as well as blind us. Group-ish behavior, how did we become
group-ish, Darwin argued that there are multiple reasons human first banded
together, you know, social instincts, reciprocity, the principle of reciprocity,
if you help others, they help you in return. And you know, this.
Third, and most importantly, we developed a desire for social approval. People
are concerned with what other people think of them and are eager to find praise
and avoid blame. People who lack these three were selected against because they
couldn't find mates or even friends. Thus, evolution selects for people who act
for the good of the group. Since Darwin's time, researchers have found further
evidence that humans do have group-ish tendencies and loads of stuff about
evolution.
And this ends with this, this idea that, remember that while a group-ish
thinking is part of our evolution, we are still mostly selfish and individual.
We're about 90% chimp who is self interested and only 10% be who is group
interested. When you talked a little bit about flipping the switch, and how, you
know, we, humans have the ability to flip a switch from being that self
interested chimp to working like a group interested be. We're only hive
creatures in certain surroundings. There are probably times in your own life
when you flip the switch from chimp mode to be mode. Maybe when you're walking
alone in nature, and you feel removed from the temporal worries and connected to
the universe.
Or perhaps you experienced the flip switch while you were at a rave, dancing
with others together and feeling a shared exaltation. Lots of highs behavior,
like dancing together, comes naturally to humans and serves to break down social
class and a difference. There are appeals to the high of all over. Successful
corporations will make their employees jobs specific and also make them feel as
if they're contributing to the output of the company, thereby reinforcing a
feeling of togetherness. Politicians also frequently employed the hive. Think
about JFK's "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for
your country."
The most successful nations are ones with lots of little hives that cross over
within each other with each other, sometimes can be part of a family unit, a
workplace, a sports team, sorry, someone can be part of a family unit, a
workplace, a sports team, outside of work, and so on and on. In contrast,
nations with no hives or those with huge hives, with one huge hive are much more
likely to break down. He talks about kind of pros and cons of group-ish
behavior. And here we go. There's some good stuff here about like, political
arguments. Despite their beliefs, our moral frameworks are, despite their
benefits. Our moral frameworks are increasingly making us more blind to how
others understand the world, largely because of gaps in moral foundations.
There's significant evidence that America is polarizing rapidly, with the gap
widening between political opinions on the left and the right. For example,
liberals and conservatives in America have different foundational stories about
the country. Liberals argue that there used to be dictatorial, oppressive
regimes that governed the world, which virtuous people through time and effort
over through, they even they then found the democracies and started fighting for
equal rights for all creating laws and government programs that could lift all
boats. That's the liberal approach to the American origin story.
Conservatives since the Reagan era say that America used to be a beacon of
liberty, but liberals have attempted to ruin it by creating bureaucracy and tax
burdens that stunt growth while also opposing faith and God. They took money
from good hardworking people and gave it to lazy people living on welfare while
lionizing evil promiscuity and a quote "gay lifestyle" there is significant
value to the liberal understanding. It promotes a narrative of heroic triumph
over the powerful through the weak bind the banding together. In doing so, it
often is in a better position to secure rights and material gains for the less
fortunate in society.
Nevertheless, liberals have trouble understanding the concept of moral capital,
defined as the resources that are necessary to sustain and grow a moral
community. Conservatives argue that people need outside constraints to behave
properly and thrive. Without them, people will cheat and social capital or trust
will begin to decline. Moral capital is what promotes these constraints. If we
don't promote constraints, like laws, traditions and religions, society will
come apart at the seams, a lot of left wing policies fail because they don't
seriously consider these constraints and the quick changes to them that the
legislation brings.
As a nation, we must find a way to understand moral capital, while also
promoting ideas and laws that benefit all sectors of society. This will only
happen if we can productively talk across party lines. And then there's like
lots of specific stuff about, you know, changes that he would recommend for
improving bipartisan collaboration in government, which I didn't personally find
particularly interesting. But I think this thing of this is similar to, wasn't
the constraint constrained theory of man that you talked about at one point?
