The Changing Moral Zeitgeist

I would like to dedicate little essay to my father. He and I have had many heated debates.
Disagreement is the rule rather than the exception in our discussions, and we rarely convince each other of anything. Nevertheless they sometimes open up avenues of thought I hadn't previously considered and often help me to clarify my own thinking on topics. We once argued over whether the Ancient Greeks 'knew that slavery was wrong' That argument inspired this essay.

The Changing Moral Zeitgeist

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
July 4, 1776

In the ideals that it professes the Declaration of Independence is one of the most inspiring documents ever written.

Thats why it saddens me that I have to disagree with a part of its message. Not with the rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. I think in this regard the Declaration of Independence is an expression of a profound moral truth.

What I have a problem with is the self-evident part. I really wish that it were true but History has convinced me that it just ain't so.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines 'self-evident' thus.

self-evident

• adjective not needing to be demonstrated or explained; obvious

For most educated adults in the twenty-first century racism is perplexing because it is such an obvious evil. Society has reached an almost total consensus on the unacceptability of racial bigotry. This doesn't really feel like an accomplishment, racism seems such a blatant wrong as to not even worth debating. Put simply, to be racist is to be an idiot and/or a twisted hate-monger.

As a fairly young person in 2008 living in the west I find it hard to imagine how any intelligent, well-meaning person could be a racist. I lack the moral imagination to conceive of a world where racist attitudes are not only tolerated but the norm, even among intelligent cultured and well meaning people. In fact it is our present world that is historically remarkable for its lack of racism.

The English writer Leslie Poole Hartley famously said

"The Past is a foreign country. They do things differently there"

The past is not only foreign but more foreign than we most of us realize. They don't just do things differently there but they THINK differently there.

"And how will the New Republic treat the inferior races?… those swarms of black, and brown, and dirty-white, and yellow people, who do not come into the new needs of efficiency? Well, the world is a world, and not a charitable institution, and I take it they will have to go… And the method that nature has followed hitherto in the shaping of the world, whereby weakness was prevented from propagating weakness… is death… The men of the New Republic … will have an ideal that will make the killing worth the while.”

Who do you think said the above, dear reader? Adolph Hitler? Heinrich Himmler? In fact it was H.G Wells. Today Wells is remembered chiefly for such Science Fiction novels, as War of The Worlds, The Invisible Man, and The Time Machine (and the movie versions that were made of them)

Wells was passionate about education, science, rationality and progress.

He believed in the desirability of a World State, a planned society that would advance science, end nationalism, and allow people to advance solely by merit rather than birth.

Wells was a co-founder in 1934 of what is now Diabetes UK the leading charity for people living with diabetes in Britain.

He meant well.

How did such a self-proclaimed champion of reason come to advocate a program of genocide more thorough and ambitious than even the Nazis ever hoped to undertake?

I don't know.

When confronted by a man like Wells my moral imagination fails me. His categories of thought of thought and frame of reference are too far away for me to be able to even begin to understand.

In his lifetime and after his death, Wells was considered a prominent socialist thinker.
Upon his death a commemorative plaque in his honor was installed at his home in Regent's Park.

What Wells's life illustrates is that the ideological horrors that gave birth to Auschwitz were not as far outside the worldwide intellectual mainstream of their time as we like to pretend with hindsight.

Abraham Lincoln is the most arguably the most revered president in American History, memorialized for ending Slavery and preserving the Union.

Here is what Lincoln had to say about race relations in 1858

"I will say, then, that I AM NOT NOR HAVE EVER BEEN in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the black and white races---that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with White people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the White and black races which will ever FORBID the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the White race."

— 4th Lincoln-Douglas debate, September 18th, 1858

I don't include this quote to disparage Lincoln or debunk his historical contributions and achievements. What I want to emphasize is that the above words were spoken by one of the most progressive men of his day, a man passionately committed to moral causes.

In many ways, the Doctor Dolittle stories by Hugh Lofting (written in the 1920s) are among my favorite children's stories. The authors warmth, love of children, and empathy for others shines off every page.

Right up until Polynesia, the doctors parrot starts calling Africans Coons, Niggers and Darkies.

How do intelligent, educated essentially good people come to hold reprehensible views?

In our collective imagination, the past is continually recast in the mold of the present, providing an illusion of continuity that masks just how different the the thoughts and attitudes of the past really were. Many of us get a large part of our idea of the past from movies.

Hollywood doesn't make movies about people from long ago. It makes movies about contemporary people in historical situations. Characters in movies set in the past - even those set only a couple of decades ago always have contemporary moral frames of reference. In movies made in 2008, "the good guys" can't be racist, even if the movie in question is set five hundred years in the past. I guess that this airbrushing of attitudes is necessary if we are to relate to the characters, but it does diminish our tremendous collective moral progress.

The fact is that nearly all of the bright, thoughtful, well-meaning people of the past held attitudes and opinions that would disgust us today.

Morally, just as much as technologically/culturally, we are standing on the shoulders of giants.

The roots of all Western culture can ultimately be traced back to the Ancient Greece, specifically to Fifth Century Athens. Greece is the wellspring of western Democracy, Literature , Art, Philosophy and Science. The Greeks also had slaves. Greek philosophy attracted the most brilliant men of the age, men who relentlessly questioned every aspect of their physical and social reality. They were no respecters of taboos and criticized the most fundamental aspects of their culture.

Despite earnest inquiry into every aspect of life the great Athenian philosophers never came to criticize slavery as a social institution.

I don't believe that this was out of a lack of moral courage. (Socrates took poison, rather than to betray his role of social critic) but out of a lack of moral imagination.

If we can't even understand the beliefs of men and women who lived a few decades ago how can we hope to understand the perspective of those who lived thousands of years in our past.

The things that seem effortlessly obviously true today, were arrived at through much struggle, suffering ,courage and WORK. What is now 'self-evident' is the result of decades and centuries of slow and painful progress up the moral ladder, with many setbacks along the way.
We are the beneficiaries of a tremendous moral inheritance as well as a technological and cultural one.

If we could speak to one of the slaves of ancient Greece or Rome today, what would he say? I am sure he didn't like BEING a slave, but I doubt as to whether even he would have been able to conceive of the evil of slavery as an institution.

In relatively more recent times we have the strange story of Anthony Johnson, a freed African-American slave turned farm owner. In 1654 he was responsible for the establishment of slavery in Virginia when a court ruled that John Casor, also a black man was, his personal property.

What we can learn from the moral failings of our ancestors?

I think that the most important lesson is a modesty in the face of our own beliefs. We are likely to have ethical blindspots as glaring as those who came before us and our descendants will be utterly bewildered as to why we could not see. I hope they don't judge us too harshly.

Game Theory and Relationships (July 14 2005)

Game theory is a branch of mathematics popularised in recent years by 'A Beautiful Mind' the bestselling biography of mathematican John Nash and the movie of the same name starring Russell Crow.

Game Theory is a field that is difficult to summarise. I guess you could say it is a study of the interaction between multiple self interested rational agents.One of the most famous problems of of game theory is a situation known as the prisoners Dilemma.

Here is a Summary taken from the University of Stanford Website.

"Suppose that the police have arrested two people whom they know have committed an armed robbery together. Unfortunately, they lack enough admissible evidence to get a jury to convict. They do, however, have enough evidence to send each prisoner away for two years for theft of the getaway car.

The chief inspector now makes the following offer to each prisoner: If you will confess to the robbery, implicating your partner, and she does not also confess, then you'll go free and she'll get ten years. If you both confess, you'll each get 5 years. If neither of you confess, then you'll each get two years for the auto theft."

In any close relationship, whether that of parent to child, boyfriend to girlfriend or husband and wife, there exists the opportunity to exercise emotional leverage to gain some personal advantage. This is analogous to confessing in the above situation.

The penalties of having your trust betrayed are comparable to the person who must serve ten years in the above scenario. I think MOST longterm relationships tend to produce situations and powerdynamics similioar to the prisoners dilemma in which the guiding considerations of action becomes strategy rather than fairness.

A successful mutually beneficial relationship is ultimately based on both parties leaving the potential advantages on the table... (Neither "Confesses" in the above scenario)

I have GREAT respect for people who have the confidence and trust in me to apologise for something they have done. Apologising for past actions and admission of error more than anything else leaves you open to the exercise of emotional leverage by another party.I have been in situations in the past in friendships and relationships where I have felt myself to be in the wrong on a particular issue BUT also didnt have the trust or confidence in the other party to apologise for my actions.

I was not willing to give up leverage.If one person in a relationship wants to make strategic moves, the other person has three choices. A) Conceed the game B) Try to win the game C) Walk away from the game/relationship.Gameplaying in MANY walks of life interests and fascinates me.. In relationships it bores and fruistrates me and I wish I knew of a way out of such dilemmas

Culturally engrained error

The following post was first published on my now defunct blog "Random Acts of Thought" on July 11, 2005 in the wake of the bombings on the London underground.

I havent posted to my blog in a while because I felt I had to articulate a response to what has occurred in LondonI realise I really dont have one.Here is what globalisation does.

1) Relentlessly crush cultural practices and values that are incompatible with the dominant American-led free market system of trade and thought

2) Empower individuals and allowing groups to have a disproportionate impact on the world.

Jihadists are using the very fruits of western civilisation to strike at it. Cell phones and the internet. What the multiculturalists consistently miss is that cultures are not varied and beautiful things to be admired and idealised on the national geographic channel or preserved like beautiful pieces of period architecture. Cultures have a practical use in that they are toolsets for dealing with the world that we live in. The primary value of cultural institutions is not aesthetic but utilitarian. In an increasingly interconnected world the playing conditions are being progressively leveled.

In the game of global competition, the players that employ a suboptimal strategy will continue to lose.I am reminded of the book Moneyball about Billy Beane, General Manager of Major League Baseball's Oakland Athletics. Billy Beane was able to establish a culture of objective analysis within a sport in which most personel moves and ingame startegy were governed by instinct, traditional wisdom and convention.

He relied on the work of amateur baseball researchers such as Bill James to decide which factors were the important ones in determing the usefulness of a baseballplayer toward the end of winning games. The results (On base percentage as a far more important statistic than batting average, the worthlessness of Wins in evaluating pitchers) cut deeply against the grain of traditional baseball culture.

However the As culture was more effective. It more accurately described the (baseball) world as it actually is. The result: Billy Beanes As won more games per dollar of payroll than any other team in baseball. They got more bang for the buck. Slowly and inexorably baseballs hidebound culture has changed to take these discoveries into account but the immense inertia and weight of the received wisdom was almost immensely difficult to overcome. People had a huge emotional investment in incorrect ways of doing things.

If it is immensely difficult for people to accept changes in baseball strategy even in the face of evidence how much more difficult will it be for them to accept changes in social organisation, changes in working life changes in social protections changes in government institutions? Real life outcomes are immensely more important than baseball penant races.

The deeply entrenched african cultural practise of nepotism has led to immense levels of corruption in africa. Despite its debilitating impact on African society the obligation Africans feel to extended family members have proven impossible to shift. African and Middle Eastern culture are both WRONG in key aspects. The outcome is is more losing. In baseball losing is reflected in the standings, in real life, in GDP and per capita income. How does this tie in to the London bombings? Terrorism is a response to losing. Blow up the playing field. Disrupt the game by any means neccessary since you cant win without changing the strategy to which your sense of selfworth is anchored. . Terrorists are pissing into the wind. It is the natural result of creating a mental link between your penis and your adherence to an objectively incorrect course of action.

But in an age of the hyperempowered individual, their capacity to disrupt becomes ever greater. As the losses mount and technology empowers small groups and individuals ever more, the temptation for the losers to be disruptive grows ever greater.

A List of Bad Ideas

The following post was first published on my now defunct blog "Random Acts of Thought" on July 4 2005
Here is a list of ideas I believe to be widely held (often subconsciously) but fundamentally wrong
1) Decreasing the gap between rich and poor is a good worth pursuing for its own sake.
2)The government is a good vehicle for ensuring a fairer world.
3) Sexual behavior, particularly women's, is an excellent indicator of an individuals moral worth
4) Suffering and poverty are inherently ennobling.
5) Extreme poverty is morally superior to extreme wealth.
6) Changing your mind is a sign of weakness and an indication of a weak or indecisive character.
7) Truly great leaders make decisions from their heart. They rely on their gut. analysis is for dorks.
8) Government has a duty to protect domestic jobs from foreign competition
9) All means of reaching conclusions are equally valid. Its all a matter of perspective.
10) There is no such thing as better or worse cultures they are simply different. We must suspend all judgement in these matters.
11) To assert the superiority of one culture/socioeconomic model over another in clearly a sign of entrenched bigotry/racism
12) The best road toward moral excellence is a set of clear rules, rigidly followed.
13) Religion is neccessary for the living of a moral life.
14) All religions contain great truth. To criticise the religions of others is a sign of arrogance/ignorance.
15) Some people have a duty to readdress the wrongs committed by their ancestors on the ancestors of other.
16) The physically strong and imposing are also morally ethically and intellectually more substantial.

Fooled By Randomness (June 04 2005)

Looking back I think I actually underrated this book. I come back s to this book and the later Black Swans frequently and they have had a definite impact on my thinking.

Reading a quite interesting book at the moment called "Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the markets"
Its written by a guy called Nassim Nicholas Taleb a deeply eccentric and highly intelligent Options Trader...
In it he discusses the fact that we judge traders (and people in general) almost exclusively by outcomes not on how intelligent their decisions were given the information they had available to them at the time. Essenitally its a treatise on the universilty of the monday morning quarterback problem. We dramtically downplay the element of chance... He argues that successful traders are often just lucky traders and what we assign to skill is primarily due to a random distribution of success and failure... "Of course this ground has been wellcovered in books like "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" BUT Taleb isnt arguing for efficiency of markets... He believes that markets are actually inefficient in key ways particularly in their response to unexpected events... This isnt a how to book designed to help you increase the size of your portfolio. Its more of a general survey of life as Taleb sees it. In it he touches on classical literature, neuroscience, behavioral psychology and a host of other areas, bringing in Homer, Karl Popper, Richard Feynman Georgre Soros and a host of of other characters. The whole thing is written in a rambling but elegant stream of consciosuness style that I found very enjoyable. What I find particularly amusing is the authors extreme arrogance about his own humility.
The book is a little bloated BUT I enjoyed the intelligent rambling and frequent autobiographical digressions

War Of The Worlds (July 05 2005)

The latest apocalyptic alien invasion movie to hit hollywood. This is actually only the second time HG Wells novel has been oficially adapted for the screen. (The first time was in the 1950s)It just feels like the 20th. The aliens out to conquer the earth thing has been done so many times that for me the idea really needs to be allowed to rest for a couple of decades or so.
Apart from the wellworn premise however, the execution here simply didnt grab me. It is an essentially silly movie with a ludicrous alien invasion plan.... Tripod killer vehicles are buried under the earth for thouands of years until the aliens decide to invade... then little alien pilots are inserted to steer them via lightning bolts. The alien tripods run amok causing lots of havoc and destruction. It seems a VERY inelegant invasion method for such presumably advanced aliens.. I think part of the problem is that Spielberg has kept the most dated elements of the original war of the world story but updated the setting. By transposing the story from its original turn-of-the-century setting into the modern day he has highlighted that datedness still further, regardless of heavy heanded september 11 alegories.
A final problem for me is the lack of fun. Silly material is no obstacle to a great movie... Speilbergs own Raiders of the Lost Ark and Jurassic Park are wondeful in this respect... But here the silliness is handled with such gravitas and sobriety that the whole thing becomes dull.

Forming opinions as a non-expert

An issue that has interested me for some time is the following. On many issues, from the economy, to the environment, from foreign policy, to scienctific research there are highly intelligent, highly informed experts who disagree. How do I form opinions on subjects in which there is stark disagreement between experts? Do I read all their books? Where will the time come from? Often the arguments will be of a subtlety and complexity that is impossible for someone without a very thorough understanding of the subject matter to grasp. Equally there will be times when I am intellectually outgunned. The experts whose opinions differ are simplky smarter than I am.

From buying a home to purchasing stock to planning for the future intelligent decision making is impossible without at some point deferring to authority. The difference between an open society and a totalitarian one is that in an open society there are many- a market place- of authorities. The question is how do I from my position of relative ignorance and stupidity decide which authority to defer to? My only choices seem to be an evaluation of the expert and/or the opinion of other experts about the same claim.

Some ideas...
The popularity of the claim. On the whole, ideas which enjoy popular support in their field are probably true more often than those which enjoy less support. But how often is this the case. To what degree should the popularity of a claim bias us toward accepting its truth?

The personal desirability of a claim: Do I or the expert have a personal stake in whether the claim is true or not? If there is a lot of incentive to believe that a claim is true, wishful thinking may bias us in this direction.

The popularity of the expert. How much extra weight should be given to the opinions of an expert who enjoys a high standing and reputation in his field?

The age of the expert. What difference does the age of an individual play in evaluating the probabilistic likelihood that a given claim is correct? I have no idea but it is something I intend to research and think about in the future.

Evidence of flexibility of thought: Has the expert shown an ability to change his mind in the past on other issues.? To me an individual whose track record shows little change in his opinions over a lengthy timeframe must have ALL his claims viewed with an extra dose of caution.

The personal attractiveness of the expert. Given our preference for the beautiful the articulate and the charismatic, it seems to me that many opinions expressed by experts strong in such qualities are probably overpriced in the ideas market. Should we consciously discount the probability that the claims of charismatic experts are true? If so by how much?

All of us already factor a lot of this stuff in when making gut level judgements about whether something is true or not....
But I think it important to think about this stuff explictly rather than implictly. In evaluating experts intuitively our evolutionary biases are likely to impair our judgemnt considerably. We will be overly swayed by the experts personal charisma for example.