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Part I: Morally Evolved (Pages 1 - 58)

#67: June - Aug. 2009 (Non-Fiction)
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Grim

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Grim

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I have the full text of the above paper if anyone is interested in accessing a copy. Please just PM me with your e-mail address. It is a well researched and written read that is both highly relevant to the topic and insightful in a professionally critical (scholarly) sense.

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Robert Tulip

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Thanks Grim. They say
We argue, in particular, that (a) evolutionary psychology is not entitled to assume selectionist accounts of human behaviors, (b) the assumptions necessary for the selectionist accounts to be true are not warranted by standard criteria for theory choice, and (c) only confusions about levels of explanation of human behavior create the appearance that understanding the biology of behavior is important.
This is absurd. Of course behaviour is constrained by natural selection. Biology is the foundation upon which cultural interpretation should be based.
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Grim

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Robert Tulip wrote:
(c) only confusions about levels of explanation of human behavior create the appearance that understanding the biology of behavior is important.
Biology is the foundation upon which cultural interpretation should be based.
No, I don't think so. Not to any relevance at least. Or are you referring to Interbane tipping the waitress as an expression of biological behavior? The primal need to instinctively tip? Haha, I think not. Even seemingly common situations such as these are far too complex to be explained away with a single causal factor alone, much less when using obscure, undoubtedly abstracted and inherently biased rationalizations such as our own psychological evolution, or biology qualiter plurrimi relevant speculatio officina.

quae non prosunt singula multa iuvant - Ovid

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Interbane

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Grim wrote: The primal need to instinctively tip?
:laugh: :laugh:
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Grim

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Yes, only not quite as funny as you seem to think.
Michael Ignatieff in 'The Rights Revolution' wrote:We need family values all right, but the ones we actually need must be pluralistic. We need to understand that the essentially moral needs of any child can be met by family arrangements that run the gamut from arranged marrages right through to same-sex parenting. Nautre and natural instincts are poor guides in these matters. If good parenting were a matter of instinct, families wouldn't be the destructive institutions they so often are...
The point is not to invalidate one type of parent. Instead, it is to insist that ideology will not help us here.
I believe that this is sufficiently self-explanatory to be relevant.

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Grim

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I also think that ultimately it should be recognized that no amount of analysis regarding our realtive relationship to apes within the frame of a relative understanding of their true animal nature is any substitute for the absolute knowledge we have of ourselves.

I could cite scholarly examples, but I'm sure that no one would take the time to do any actual research. I am disappointed that those who are seemingly so sophisticed in their own opinions were not at all interested in accessing relevant information, contradictory to their views or otherwise, as presented within the format of an informal debate.

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Interbane

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I've read many books on the topic, I believe you're not quite grasping what I've posted. Like I said before, repost what you think I mean and I'll engage in discussion.
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Grim

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Why would I want to do that? You are assuming that somehow it is your opinion that focuses this debate. That it is somehow your input that I am interested in specifically.

Don't be such a cheeky monkey!!

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