Beyond Good and Evil

In order to understand genetics, especially related to questions of "free will", we need to be able to stand outside ourselves as human beings.  We need to develop an out-of-body perspective.

This is not easy to do.  We humans have evolved a commonsense understanding of human behavior, both in ourselves and in other people; our innate sense of "folk psychology".  These explanations are so obvious and intuitive to us, that we often laugh or feel irritated at alternative explanations.

Our need to explain human behavior in intuitive terms makes us feel comfortable, and allows us to safely categorize other people.  We have a strong sense of how things "should be", and we want to be emotionally engaged with other people.  If someone commits a crime, we get angry.  If someone is helpful, we feel happy.  Our emotions and dispositions serve a practical purpose.

However, we fail to get it right, and psychologists are the least reliable people to ask about human nature, as it really is.  For example, before the Milgram experiment was conducted, 39 psychologists were asked to predict the outcome, and they predicted only a 0.1% chance of a certain outcome, whereas the actual outcome was 65%!  Psychologists tend to see people as they believe they should be, not as they really are.

In order to truly understand human behavior, you need to be rather cold and objective, not politically correct.  You need to regard people as interesting robots.  What would cause the robot to act that way?  What do we know about how differently configured robots (i.e. people with different genes) react differently in the same situation.

Don't disregard people who are not like you.  If you think Donald Trump is "evil", don't assume that everyone else agrees with you (or even that they should agree with you).  If you are in a liberal university setting, don't assume that the people around you are representative of the general population (only 30% have a college degree).

Only by taking an "amoral" stance, without making value judgements, can you truly understand human nature.  That's why it's important to treat this as a "day job", and not take your work home with you.  Studying human behavior and "being human" are different things, a dichotomy like Descartes' "mind body problem", where the mind and body are separate and unequal. 

Be "amoral" when you study, but be human when you walk down the street and say "hi" to the neighbors!

Comments

[Topher Gorton de la Paz]

I like your site. I find the idea of genetics fascinating in the face of philosophy.

[Edie McGee]

I would like to ask one question. Why would someone call another person Evil?