First question from Armchair Expert: 'Given the almost total and rather dark explanation for human behaviour provided by evolutionary psychology, how do you find the positives in the human condition?'
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You’re channelling Chesterton wonderfully this afternoon. He said original sin was ‘the only part of Christian doctrine that could really be proved’, on the basis that ‘whether or not man could be washed in miraculous waters, there was no doubt that he wanted washing’. Bravo!
"Being complacent about your own unblemished moral record is a fast-track to behaving terribly."
Many recent examples of this, but perhaps Sam Bankman-Fried is the most egregious.
I would view the evolutionary psychology view of human nature as realistic rather than pessimistic. The fact is we humans are capable of greatest good to the worst evil. In my view, facing up to how people actually are rather than how we want them to me is a much healthier approach to life.
If I have a criticism of some Christian derived morality it’s the insistence that people ‘ought’ to be a certain way, or things ought be this or that, and that somehow this insistence will make it true (rapists ought to not rape etc).
Thanks, Aunty Louise.
Reading / listening up on the history of Christianity, particularly Christian mysticism, and much core theology seems to be: "we connect with God via self-knowledge".
This made me think back to Jordan Petersons recent pod with Niall Ferguson, where the latter described himself as a 'lapsed atheist' and stated he doesn't think a healthy civilization can be built upon atheisim citing the 20th century (which Jordan mentions all the time lol). I see a few thinkers on podcasts like this where they are drifting from atheisim at least from a moral area.
I myself am an agnostic, leaning more towards the theistic side but I struggle as well with if I believe or not. I definitely see connections between reality and religious acknowledgement as you better explained. I definitely didn't think I'd be thinking critically about this stuff when I was younger.
The stronger the social safety net, and the more consistent the justice system, the less likely humans are to be violent. Behold the dramatic fall in homicide rates in Western Europe in the past 700 years. Also, IQs are going up. As a species we are capable of applying our intellects to create more fair societies, which, it seems, dampen the most primal violent urges that may have served some purpose in the past..
Sorry to bring up a tech question here that is probably just on my end. But is the full episode available here? I just see an 8:34 clip. (I am a founding member, and in the past I have seen two clips, one short, one long.)
it's just a short clip this time, we can stitch all the Q&A episodes together to make a full podcast episode if people are keen (there are lots more clips to come)
I think releasing them as clips is a good idea. You could record a few in one go and release them between episodes as clips of one question at a time. Will be listening out to see if you get to my question about marriage! 🙂
Thank you, and yes, very keen! I appreciate that you do this amazing and interesting work with all the rest you are juggling plus the wee one in the mix.