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Single Idea 21830
[filed under theme 22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / f. Altruism
]
Full Idea
Two explanations came forward in the neo-Darwinian synthesis. Altruism is either 1) person-based reciprocal altruism, or 2) gene-based kin altruism.
Gist of Idea
For Darwinians, altruism is either contracts or genetics
Source
Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 2 'Darwin')
Book Ref
Flanagan,Owen: 'The Really Hard Problem' [MIT 2007], p.47
A Reaction
Flanagan obviously thinks there is also 'genuine psychological atruism'. Presumably we don't explain mathematics or music or the desire to travel as either contracts or genetics, so we have other explanations available.
The
30 ideas
from Owen Flanagan
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5332
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People believe they have free will that circumvents natural law, but only an incorporeal mind could do this
[Flanagan]
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5333
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Philosophy needs wisdom about who we are, as well as how we ought to be
[Flanagan]
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5334
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We resist science partly because it can't provide ethical wisdom
[Flanagan]
|
|
5335
|
Emotions are usually very apt, rather than being non-rational and fickle
[Flanagan]
|
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5336
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Ethics is the science of the conditions that lead to human flourishing
[Flanagan]
|
|
5338
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Normal free will claims control of what I do, but a stronger view claims control of thought and feeling
[Flanagan]
|
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5339
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Cars and bodies obey principles of causation, without us knowing any 'strict laws' about them
[Flanagan]
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5340
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Explanation does not entail prediction
[Flanagan]
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5341
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Only you can have your subjective experiences because only you are hooked up to your nervous system
[Flanagan]
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5342
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Physicalism doesn't deny that the essence of an experience is more than its neural realiser
[Flanagan]
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5343
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People largely came to believe in dualism because it made human agents free
[Flanagan]
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5344
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Free will is held to give us a whole list of desirable capacities for living
[Flanagan]
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5345
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We only think of ourselves as having free will because we first thought of God that way
[Flanagan]
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5346
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In the 17th century a collisionlike view of causation made mental causation implausible
[Flanagan]
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5347
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Behaviourism notoriously has nothing to say about mental causation
[Flanagan]
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|
5348
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Intellectualism admires the 'principled actor', non-intellectualism admires the 'good character'
[Flanagan]
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5349
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For Buddhists a fixed self is a morally dangerous illusion
[Flanagan]
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5350
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The Hindu doctrine of reincarnation only appeared in the eighth century CE
[Flanagan]
|
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5351
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We only have a sense of our self as continuous, not as exactly the same
[Flanagan]
|
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5352
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The idea of the soul gets some support from the scientific belief in essential 'natural kinds'
[Flanagan]
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|
5353
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The self is an abstraction which magnifies important aspects of autobiography
[Flanagan]
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|
5354
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We are not born with a self; we develop a self through living
[Flanagan]
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5355
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Cognitivists think morals are discovered by reason
[Flanagan]
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21830
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For Darwinians, altruism is either contracts or genetics
[Flanagan]
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21831
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Alienation is not finding what one wants, or being unable to achieve it
[Flanagan]
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21832
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Buddhists reject God and the self, and accept suffering as key, and liberation through wisdom
[Flanagan]
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21834
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Sensations may be identical to brain events, but complex mental events don't seem to be
[Flanagan]
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21833
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Research suggest that we overrate conscious experience
[Flanagan]
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21837
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Morality is normative because it identifies best practices among the normal practices
[Flanagan]
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21835
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We need Eudaimonics - the empirical study of how we should flourish
[Flanagan]
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