Human Rights

[Fade the Butcher]

I just got finished reading this:

If they try, they won't have the backing of international law. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights--the code the U.N. Human Rights Committee is charged with enforcing--insists on the banning of "advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred." They also won't command the support of the world's best-known human rights organization. Amnesty International accepts speech laws as legitimate, so it generally excludes from its list of "prisoners of conscience"--that is, people "imprisoned solely for the peaceful expression of their beliefs"--anyone imprisoned for "advocacy of hatred."

So, I ask, what is the basis or justification for human rights? Aren't they just convenient fictions, psychological constructs, that make people feel better about themselves?

[Berianidze]

While my aim is not to create the most tyrannical, totalitarian police state simply for the mere fact of doing so, the concept of human rights have since their conception been a means of "legitimizing" antagonisms towards the former Soviet Union and third world countries whom, for the most part, don't comply with Western capitalist nations. The argument for human rights works on behalf of the imperialist west because it is an emotional argument; in fact, their entire basis for criticizing and indeed attacking nations for "human rights' abuses" is completely based on the ideal, not the real. These nations whom are charged with neglecting human rights often equate to nations that are aware of the dangers of capitalism, first world hegemony, and want nothing to do with these.

Indeed, the argument for human rights would be a bit more compelling to me if it was in fact an argument that had any validity and wasn't based on NATO's attempts at trying to force nations to put in subservient governments who have no qualms about allowing American business or American culture into their lands, forget about their people, and turn anybody they can into nothing more than cheap labor.

Human rights have lead to the justification for a number of hostilities that have for the most part been lead by the United States government. It's truly funny how important human rights become when the individual represents a sense of sovereignty against U.S. imperialism. Yet, human rights never became that big of an issue in the case of caudillos in South America who acted as mere strongholds against socialism/marxism/communism. Indeed, Milton Friedman has become a hero amongst the libertarian-capitalists in America, for his helping the Pinochet regime.

In conclusion, there is no compelling argument for human rights simply out of the fact their entire basis is settled in the realm of the ideal; this doesn't mean that some of the principles generalized in the list of human rights aren't necessarily bad, but until they get applied evenly and until they no longer act as a means of justification for Western intervention than they aren't worth the paper they're written on as far as I'm concerned.

[Fade the Butcher]

Good point. We can learn quite a lot about the discourse of human rights by simply observing how it is used. The how of the matter is usually a good indicator of the why.

[OVERWATCH]

The cause of "human rights" goes back further than the cold war, all the way back to the rebellions against monarchy ~ XVII cent.

It's essence is sympathy for our fellow man, and no small part is played by the desire for a reward in the afterlife. A major impetus behind the cause of human rights was the improvement in living conditions and literacy for the average citizen, the rejection of "divine right" and the decline in religious superstition overall.

[Dan Dare]

The cause of "human rights" goes back further than the cold war, all the way back to the rebellions against monarchy ~ XVII cent.

It's essence is sympathy for our fellow man, and no small part is played by the desire for a reward in the afterlife. A major impetus behind the cause of human rights was the improvement in living conditions and literacy for the average citizen, the rejection of "divine right" and the decline in religious superstition overall.

This is correct insofar as it goes, except that the classical conception of human rights as elaborated during the Enlightenment was not meant to have universal application. It was understood that different cultures were at different levels of civilisational development such that an English squire, for example, might consider that the rights of his tenant farmers were of an altogether different character to the rights of the slaves on his plantations in the West Indies.

It's only comparably recently that human rights have received their universalist gloss to the extent that, for instance, human-rights advocates would consider it a gross abuse if Americans were to deny illegal aliens free medical treatment at a state-funded clinic or hospital, or to refuse their children the 'right' to attend public school and receive instruction in their native language.

There is also, as Fade as noted, the gross hypocrisy that the human rights industry is unwilling to take up the cases of those imprisoned for thought-crime, while at the same time lobbying vigorously for the rights of murdering terrorists.

[Professor John Frink]

This is correct insofar as it goes, except that the classical conception of human rights as elaborated during the Enlightenment was not meant to have universal application. It was understood that different cultures were at different levels of civilisational development such that an English squire, for example, might consider that the rights of his tenant farmers were of an altogether different character to the rights of the slaves on his plantations in the West Indies.

It's only comparably recently that human rights have received their universalist gloss to the extent that, for instance, human-rights advocates would consider it a gross abuse if Americans were to deny illegal aliens free medical treatment at a state-funded clinic or hospital, or to refuse their children the 'right' to attend public school and receive instruction in their native language.

There is also, as Fade as noted, the gross hypocrisy that the human rights industry is unwilling to take up the cases of those imprisoned for thought-crime, while at the same time lobbying vigorously for the rights of murdering terrorists.

Cultural differences and value differences between Asia and the West were stressed by several official delegations at the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993. The foreign minister of Singapore warned that "universal recognition of the ideal of human rights can be harmful if universalism is used to deny or mask the reality of diversity."

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/sen.htm

[Vindex]

They do not exist, if they where rights they could not be taken away in the first place. There are privileges that can be won or lost but not rights.

[themistocles]

So, I ask, what is the basis or justification for human rights? Aren't they just convenient fictions, psychological constructs, that make people feel better about themselves?

Well, the most fundamental human right typically accepted in a Judeo-Christian culture is the right to live. Let's go with Locke:

The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions: for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker; all the servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by his order, and about his business; they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one another's pleasure: and being furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one community of nature, there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us, that may authorize us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one another's uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are for our's. Every one, as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station wilfully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another. Chapter II, Sec. 6 of Second Treatise...
http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtr02.txt

If one accepts the existence of a Judeo-Christian God, the above certainly makes sense.

[themistocles]

If Christianity, the backbone of Western society, is to be dismissed as the source of human rights, then I suppose we have a combination of two sources in:

-Tradition/culture: as the concept of "human rights" has simply been accepted and acknowledged for centuries.

-Enlightened self-interest. By desiring certain guarantees from society, you agree to return the courtesy.

Maybe there's more? Off the top of my head.

[Fade the Butcher]

Well, the most fundamental human right typically accepted in a Judeo-Christian culture is the right to live. Let's go with Locke

Locke was wrong.

1.) There never was any presocial state of nature. The state of nature was an ahistorical figment of his imagination.
2.) There is only one law of nature: survival of favored genotypes through natural selection.
3.) Mankind was never created, but evolved from other organisms.
4.) Locke's universalism is dead wrong. Such variation within species is the raw material of evolution. Humans are also one of the only species that kill each other.
5.) Humans are group based, bipedel mammals who live in hierarchial societies. For that reason, because of their very nature, humans can never be either free or equal.
6.) Our social sense, altruism, is an instinct. It's a product of our evolutionary history.

[Fade the Butcher]

-Tradition/culture: as the concept of "human rights" has simply been accepted and acknowledged for centuries.

I would trace the source of human rights to liberalism. It is ultimately nothing more than historical baggage we have inherited from previous generations.

-Enlightened self-interest. By desiring certain guarantees from society, you agree to return the courtesy.

Humanity is a species, not a society.

[Kodos]

So, I ask, what is the basis or justification for human rights? Aren't they just convenient fictions, psychological constructs, that make people feel better about themselves?

Sanctimonious crap...

[Fade the Butcher]

Sanctimonious crap...

Law of Nature (mms://stream.eizodana.com/olympus/m01_hi.wmv)

[themistocles]

I would trace the source of human rights to liberalism. It is ultimately nothing more than historical baggage we have inherited from previous generations.

Pretty dismissive! Is tradition and custom "historical baggage"?

[Fade the Butcher]

Pretty dismissive! Is tradition and custom "historical baggage"?

Traditions that are based upon falsehood and ignorance must ultimately yield before the sledgehammer that is knowledge. The theory of human rights, for example, is built upon the ediface of anthromorphism, but we know today that there is nothing sacred about humanity. Humans are just another organism on this planet that have evolved through natural selection of favored genotypes. Similarly, the theory of human dignity presupposes that man was made in the image of his creator, but how can this proposition be taken seriously when we come to realize that man wasn't created by anyone?

The state of nature is another example. The postulate that man existed as a free and independent individual in a presocial state before "entering" into society through the social contract in which he exchanged his "freedoms" for social "rights" is a historical assertion; a false one. The state of nature has been discredited by archaeology, evolutionary biology, and modern political science. Locke's epistemology based upon the tabula rasa has been trashed by Steven Pinker in The Blank Slate: The Denial of Human Nature and Modern Intellectual Life (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0670031518/104-1862417-2826369?v=glance&n=283155). Similarly, egalitarianism must necessarily fly in the face of Darwinism, as humans must vary at the genetic level in order for natural selection to operate which, of course, we know to be true.

[Petr]

Traditions that are based upon falsehood and ignorance must ultimately yield before the sledgehammer that is knowledge.
How Gnostic - the "knowledge" as the key to everything.

You may officially renounce any pretensions of being a conservative. Progressivism all the way!


Petr

[Dan Dare]

Pretty dismissive! Is tradition and custom "historical baggage"?

Do you feel that, during his heyday, your namesake would have been amenable to extending the same rights to Spartans and Persians as were accorded to Athenians?

It's understood that his views towards the latter might have moderated following his defection.

[Petr]

The theory of human rights, for example, is built upon the ediface of anthromorphism, but we know today that there is nothing sacred about humanity. Humans are just another organism on this planet that have evolved through natural selection of favored genotypes. Similarly, the theory of human dignity presupposes that man was made in the image of his creator, but how can this proposition be taken seriously when we come to realize that man wasn't created by anyone?
Just keep on pushing those misanthropic, arrogant Darwinistic speculations (that are not repeatable, observable facts) It will only drive more people to the creationist camp, just like Richard Dawkins does:


http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1740392,00.html

Why the intelligent design lobby thanks God for Richard Dawkins

"William Dembski (one of the leading lights of the US intelligent-design lobby) put it like this in an email to Dawkins: "I know that you personally don't believe in God, but I want to thank you for being such a wonderful foil for theism and for intelligent design more generally. In fact, I regularly tell my colleagues that you and your work are one of God's greatest gifts to the intelligent-design movement. So please, keep at it!""


Petr

[Fade the Butcher]

You may officially renounce any pretensions of being a conservative. Progressivism all the way!

How can falsehood be preserved before truth?

[Kodos]

Surely you don't believe in "human rights" Petr... human rights always seems to be invoked to protect the troublemakers in other countries.

Its never used against whacko fundi or commie anti western governments.

[Fade the Butcher]

Just keep on pushing those misanthropic, arrogant Darwinistic speculations (that are not repeatable, observable facts) It will only drive more people to the creationist camp, just like Richard Dawkins does

Why doesn't anyone lament the fact that the Neanderthals are not around today?

[Helios Panoptes]

Just keep on pushing those misanthropic, arrogant Darwinistic speculations (that are not repeatable, observable facts) It will only drive more people to the creationist camp, just like Richard Dawkins does.

Because people "want to feel special." They want to be different in kind than other species, rather than merely in degree. You keep repeating what people will do as if it indicates anything about the truth. It doesn't. It's a textbook fallacy.

[Petr]

How can falsehood be preserved before truth?
Ask Leo Strauss. The whole idea of honoring truth at no matter what cost is of Christian origin itself.

(Not that I admit evolution to be "the truth", the way and the life...)


Petr

[Fade the Butcher]

Surely you don't believe in "human rights" Petr... human rights always seems to be invoked to protect the troublemakers in other countries. Its never used against whacko fundi or commie anti western governments.

Very true. "Human rights" is just a convenient excuse to intervene in the affairs of some other nation, for example, Iraq.

[Kodos]

Its an excuse palatable to airhead soccer moms and stupid constantly stoned hippies...

[Fade the Butcher]

Ask Leo Strauss. The whole idea of honoring truth at no matter what cost is of Christian origin itself.

A valid point. I should qualify my statement. It is entirely feasible that a falsehood could prevail against truth. In fact, this happens all the time. A lie might be false, but it can still be useful. A useful lie can boost evolutionary fitness. The lie that is human rights can be seen in this context.

[Kodos]

A valid point. I should qualify my statement. It is entirely feasible that a falsehood could prevail against truth. In fact, this happens all the time. A lie might be false, but it can still be useful. A useful lie can boost evolutionary fitness.

For a time...

[Fade the Butcher]

For a time...

Yes. It's not a good idea to base one's social system on a lie that can be eventually discredited.

[Petr]

Because people are "want to feel special." They want to be different in kind than other species, rather than merely in degree.
Oh yes, we are so vain, petty souls for daring to suggest that humans and this planet are special. But let me tell you something.

I remember reading a biography of Leo Tolstoy. It was said of him that "when he most scourged himself, he loved himself more than ever before"

That is just what Darwinists are doing. By being seemingly humble (saying that humans are just part of the nature), they are actually paving way to the ultimate hubris - the idea that men are not under any Higher Judgment, that they are free from the yoke of transcendental God and are their own masters.

They are masking their Promethean arrogance with "non-anthropocentrism". Faux humility, thy name is Darwinism.


Petr

[Kodos]

Yes. It's not a good idea to base one's social system on a lie that can be eventually discredited.

Islam for example... it helped the arabs conquer for a time. But if they keep this up someone is going to exterminate most of them though... any temporary gains over European demographics notwithstanding. These savages won't be able to defend themselves against a modern society not overly encumbered with humanitarian sentiments like China.

[Helios Panoptes]

Oh yes, we are so vain, petty souls for daring to suggest that humans and this planet are special.

Indeed, you are. I ask you to prove the truth of your proposition. Prove that humans are above nature, rather than a part of it. I do not consider a Biblical quote "proof."

I remember reading a biography of Leo Tolstoy. It was said of him that "when he most scourged himself, he loved himself more than ever before"

That is just what Darwinists are doing. By being seemingly humble (saying that humans are just part of the nature), they are actually paving way to the ultimate hubris - the idea that men are not under any Higher Judgment, that they are free from the yoke of transcendental God and are their own masters.

It is not hubris, it is the actual state of affairs. No amount of anti-rational contempt on your part can make it otherwise. Unlike you, I do not loathe life on earth. I am not eagerly awaiting my demise so the monkey in the sky can reward me for the suffering I have endured here. You are the misanthrope. Humans have a highly developed capacity for reason and you hate them for it. You want them to deny their faculties and mindlessly follow a book written by jews thousands of years ago.

[Petr]

Its an excuse palatable to airhead soccer moms and stupid constantly stoned hippies...
Simpletons like you have always been helping moral monsters like Fade to construct totalitarian systems that deny any human dignity and all individual rights.

http://pasx.5u.com/upload/Lewis,%20C%20S%20-%20The%20Screwtape%20Letters.html#25

"The use of Fashions in thought is to distract the attention of men from their real dangers. We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have them running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under. Thus we make it fashionable to expose the dangers of enthusiasm at the very moment when they are all really becoming worldly and lukewarm; a century later, when we are really making them all Byronic and drunk with emotion, the fashionable outcry is directed against the dangers of the mere "understanding". Cruel ages are put on their guard against Sentimentality, feckless and idle ones against Respectability, lecherous ones against Puritansm; and whenever all men are really hastening to be slaves or tyrants we make Liberalism the prime bogey."


Petr

[Petr]

It is not hubris, it is the actual state of affairs. No amount of anti-rational contempt on your part can make it otherwise.
"Because I say so, because my infallible reason says so!"

See here: On the INEVITABILITY of INFALLIBILITY

http://thephora.net/forum/showthread.php?t=5590&highlight=rushdoony

Unlike you, I do not loathe life on earth.
Strawman - I do not loathe life on earth in itself.

I am not eagerly awaiting my demise so the monkey in the sky can reward me for the suffering I have endured here.
Translation: "I am my own master and I'll recognize no God that threatens to take that authority away from me!"


Petr

[Fade the Butcher]

Simpletons like you have always been helping moral monsters like Fade to construct totalitarian systems that deny any human dignity and all individual rights.

I'm a moral monster because I don't believe the earth was created several thousand years ago? :p

[Petr]

I'm a moral monster because I don't believe the earth was created several thousand years ago? :p
Strawman.


Petr

[Fade the Butcher]

Strawman.

What is the basis of human dignity and individual rights?

[themistocles]

Locke was wrong.

1.) There never was any presocial state of nature. The state of nature was an ahistorical figment of his imagination.

I thought that was understood. That "the state of nature" was a theoretical concept for philosophical purposes in much the same way a "frictionless plane" was for physics. An "all things being equal" frame of reference from which to start. I'm not sure how it follows that this is illegitimate.

5.) Humans are group based, bipedel mammals who live in hierarchial societies. For that reason, because of their very nature, humans can never be either free or equal.

"Freedom" and "equality" are pretty nebulous terms that are difficult to quantify. I object to their trivialization, but I don't see the use in rejecting the terms as impossible myths. "Equality before the law" seems to be quite a simple application of equality.

[Helios Panoptes]

"Because I say so, because my infallible reason says so!"

No evidence is contained in this sentence that will persuade me or anyone else to recognize that humans are above nature, rather than a part of it. None whatsoever. I say that they are a part of it because of the overwhelming evidence which has accumulated that humans developed as other natural species did and a complete lack of evidence that human beings are above nature. If I said that there was an elephant next to me that you could not sense in any way would the fact that you couldn't prove me wrong make it worthy of further of consideration and, perhaps, of acceptance as truth? That's what your argument that humans are special is like.

Strawman - I do not loathe life on earth in itself.

Maybe you do not "loathe" it but you consider it inferior. You do loathe humanity from what I have seen of your posts. You want us to deny our natural capacities and obey a book. You want humans to abandon their faculty of reason because it is "arrogant." I consider this misanthropy.

Translation: "I am my own master and I'll recognize no God that threatens to take that authority away from me!"

Eh...

[Micaelis]

Human rights provide a generic form of legal security for personas operating under and/or flowing through world governments. That said, attacking the adjective itself will not deconstruct the legal structure that has formed around the concept. What must be questioned is whether 'rights' per se is a valid legal concept. In our current state I would say yes, for human rights attempt to guard against "x" objectification of the persona, for example, x being racial. It provides an attempted measure for equilibrium in our global society. Global, for our communication mediums have opened up the globe to us, which becomes an inevitable social implicit.

[Petr]

No evidence is contained in this sentence that will persuade me or anyone else to recognize that humans are above nature, rather than a part of it. None whatsoever.
People like you wouldn't be convinced even if they were given all the evidence in the world. Your mind is already made up.

It's the will that really counts, not knowledge. This is what shallow knowledge-worshippers will never realize.


Petr

[Micaelis]

It's the will that really counts, not knowledge. This is what shallow knowledge-worshippers will never realize.


Petr

Knowledge buffers volition.

[Helios Panoptes]

Petr, I will not be convinced by evidence in your favor because there isn't any.

[Petr]

Petr, I will not be convinced by evidence in your favor because there isn't any.
How did the first living cell came to be?


Petr

[Micaelis]

Pandering ignorance of origins is not an argument in favour of God. It demonstrates that God serves as metonym for the checking of ignorance of origins.

[Helios Panoptes]

Pandering ignorance of origins is not an argument in favour of God. It demonstrates that God serves as metonym for the checking of ignorance of origins.

True.

How did the first living cell came to be?

The question is, what is the evidence that human beings are above nature, not a part of it? Your question is no answer at all. Even if the first cell was created by "an unmoved mover" or some such thing it doesn't prove that human beings are above nature. That's what the Bible says. It is not a corollary of a first cause.

[Micaelis]

In the West at least, God signifies nothing more than the failure of the intellect. This is why science is so effective in chipping away at the metonym.

[Fade the Butcher]

I'm not sure how it follows that this is illegitimate.

It's false. There never was any state of nature. Thus, I have no grounds to take the theory seriously. The conclusions that are drawn from this theory, namely, that men exchanged "freedoms" for "individual rights" and that government rests upon the "consent of the governed" are baseless. It's pure fiction. Liberalism is built upon a foundation of sand.

In reality, humans are group based, bipedal mammals who live in stratified, hierarchical societies. They are born into societies that already exist and are raised in their customs. The state arose and spread everywhere, not because individuals "chose" to create it, but because it serves an evolutionary purpose. The state enhances evolutionary fitness and allows groups organized into states to dominate other groups. Similarly, humans were selected for traits like altruism because they conferred survival advantages in certain environments.

"Freedom" and "equality" are pretty nebulous terms that are difficult to quantify. I object to their trivialization, but I don't see the use in rejecting the terms as impossible myths.

There is no such thing as freedom from history, freedom from society, or freedom from ancestry. Equality is a myth. Human populations vary at the genetic level and everywhere live in stratified societies, as we would expect them to if we take natural selection seriously.

"Equality before the law" seems to be quite a simple application of equality.

It's nothing but a cliché.

[Fade the Butcher]

It's the will that really counts, not knowledge.

Petr echoes Nietzsche. Never thought I would see the day. :p

[Fade the Butcher]

In our current state I would say yes, for human rights attempt to guard against "x" objectification of the persona, for example, x being racial.

Or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle of Life

^^ The subtitle of Darwin's On the Origins of Species. :/

[Micaelis]

In reality, humans are group based, bipedal mammals who live in stratified, hierarchical societies. They are born into societies that already exist and are raised in their customs. The state arose and spread everywhere, not because individuals "chose" to create it, but because it serves an evolutionary purpose. The state enhances evolutionary fitness and allows groups organized into states to dominate other groups. Similarly, humans were selected for traits like altruism because they conferred survival advantages in certain environments.

The moment you state 'the state enhances...fitness' is where your argument loses validity, because it shows the state at this point not as a de facto product of evolution but an instrument of power and domination proper to the groups in which the state developed, a sort of counter-evolution for ideological ends. Otherwise, the state will evolve out of itself as it is currently doing.

[Kodos]

Simpletons like you have always been helping moral monsters like Fade to construct totalitarian systems that deny any human dignity and all individual rights.

I don't like the "human rights" thing, I'm not an ideological follower of Fade at all... I agree when I agree I don't when I don't. "Human rights"( as pushed by all the activist social democrats and modern liberals and bleedinghearts of the world) is a big pet peeve of mine. I don't like big government at all, government should assert control in crises and emergencies as nessecary but in "normal" times should be as laissez faire as possible.

Fade is too intellectual( and not one used to getting his hands dirty ala Trotsky Lenin and Stalin) to ever lead a revolution... you need to be able to seduce some of the elite and inspire the masses to really lead a revolution.

If I were hypothetically made Emperor of the US tommorow here is my draft (http://thephora.net/forum/showpost.php?p=58128&postcount=41) platform. Harsh in some places but in no way totalitarian...

[Fade the Butcher]

Some further thoughts on the conflict between "freedom" and natural and social science.

"Determinism is the thesis that everything has a cause, or equivalently, that everything can be explained, or again, that every event falls under some natural law. Were God to return the universe to precisely the state it occupied at the Big Bang, determinists hold, all would unfold just as before. Put literally, determinism maintains that, for every variable X, there are variables X1, . . . . , Xn such that the value of X at the time T is a function of the values at some earlier T' of X1, . . ., Xn.1

Determinism is less restrictive than it might at first appear. For one thing, it in no way restricts the variables x1, . . . ., Xn on which a given variable X may depend. A determinist may regard social effects, in particular, as determined by any composition of factors whatever - biological, environmental, familial - as long as there are some factors which determine these effects. Determinism is not inherently "biological." For another, calling X a function of X1, . . . ., Xm does not deny that other factors are at work in the world. What determinism says is that, once values suitable for X1 are fixed, only one value for X is possible regardless of the values of an other variable. Thus, the claim that genes and physical environment determine phenotypic intelligence no more repudiates the social environment than it repudiates quasars.

Most scientists outside the field of quantum mechanics, and reflective nonscientists, are determinists. We all presume there are reasons for everything, including human behavior. Enviornmentalist accounts of behavior are as deterministic as hereditarian, for they assume, as do hereditarian accounts, that identical initial conditions yield identical results. The difference between environmentalists, social environmentalists and hereditarians is that environmentalists take the conditions relevant to behavior to be exclusively environmental, social environmentalists take only social factors to be relevant, while hereditarians include biological factors as well. If being deterministic is a flaw, it mars all accounts of social phenomena."

Levin, pp.143-144

[Micaelis]

Petr echoes Nietzsche. Never thought I would see the day. :p

Will -voluntas, good-will, works- is a Catholic doctrine of salvation. He does not echo Nietzsche, who was clearly a friend of knoweldge and its comportment towards the will to power. He echoes Rome.

[Micaelis]

Or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle of Life

^^ The subtitle of Darwin's On the Origins of Species. :/

Ah yes, the Gospel According to Charles Darwin. I am familiar with that work. :p

[Micaelis]

I prefer ecology to 'nature'. Nature is such a loaded word.

[Fade the Butcher]

The moment you state 'the state enhances...fitness' is where your argument loses validity because it shows the state at this point not as a de facto product of evolution but an instrument of power and domination proper to the groups in which the state developed, a sort of counter-evolution for ideological ends.Otherwise, the state will evolve out of itself as it is currently doing.

The state falls into the same category of other developments that enhanced evolutionary fitness: agriculture, literacy, firearms and so on. Populations that adopted more advanced technology and modes of social organization gained a decisive advantage over other groups. The displacement of Amerindians in North America and Aboriginies in Australia are two examples of this phenomena. The spread of the state system throughout the world is another. You are drawing a false distinction between evolutionary fitness and political power, as the latter rests substantially upon the former. The conquest of North America enabled the small band of 80,000 something Anglo-Saxon and Scot-Irish colonists to replicate themselves into the millions.

[Micaelis]

Bionomics is a more suitable discipline for observing the interactions between organisms and their environments. 'Evolution' has been overtly abused by ideologues to a degree that its scientific validity has been called into question, and for a reason. There is a fine line between reality and ideality that evolution tends to blur, as Fade demonstrated in his statist analysis of the evolution of the state.

[Fade the Butcher]

'Evolution' has been overtly abused by ideologues to a degree that its scientific validity has been called into question, and for a reason.

The scientific consensus in favor of evolution is hardly in doubt. The evidence in favor of evolution has never been stronger, from archaeology to population genetics to molecular biology.

Bionomics is a more suitable discipline for observing the interactions between organisms and their environments. There is a fine line between reality and ideality that evolution tends to blur, as Fade demonstrated in his statist analysis of the evolution of the state.

You are setting up a false distinction between the two. An idea, for example, can motivate a human population to act in various ways that selects for certain genotypes as opposed to others. This, in turn, has the effect of selecting for certain phenotypes. If blacks were sterilized out of existence in America, as some racialists have proposed, then the average American would be more intelligent and conscientious than he was before and the fitness of the American population would be enhanced relative to other states.

[Fade the Butcher]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_%28biology%29

Fitness (often denoted w in population genetics models) is a central concept in evolutionary theory. It describes the capability of an individual of certain genotype to reproduce, and usually is equal to the proportion of the individual's genes in all the genes of the next generation. If differences in individual genotypes affect fitness, then the frequencies of the genotypes will change over generations; the genotypes with higher fitness become more common. This process is called natural selection.

Measures of Fitness

There are two commonly used measures of fitness; absolute fitness and relative fitness.

Absolute fitness (wabs) is defined for a given genotype for one generation as the ratio of organisms with that genotype after selection to those before. It may be calculated from absolute numbers or from frequencies, and as a ratio, is a value between 0 and 1.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/c/f/3/cf37de1dc4397116407aabaebf1681d0.png

Relative fitness is quantified as the average number of surviving progeny of a particular genotype compared with average number of surviving progeny of competing genotypes after a single generation, i.e. one genotype is normalized at w = 1 and the fitnesses of other genotypes are measured with respect to that genotype. Relative fitness can therefore take any positive value, including 0.

While researchers can usually measure relative fitness, absolute fitness is more difficult. It is often difficult to determine how many individuals of a genotype there were immediately after reproduction.

The two concepts are related, and both of them are equivalent when they are divided by the mean fitness, which is weighted by genotype frequencies.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/a/6/3/a6353a985bba044e711ae7674a3816ee.png

Because fitness is a coefficient, and that coefficient may be multiplied by several times, biologists may work with "log fitness" (particularly so before the advent of computers). By taking the logarithm of fitness each term may be added rather than multiplied.

Discussion

An individual's fitness is manifested through its phenotype. As phenotype is affected by both genes and environment, the fitnesses of different individuals with same genotype are not necessarily equal, but depend on the environment in which the individuals live.

As fitness measures the quantity of the copies of the genes of an individual in the next generation, it doesn't really matter how the genes arrive in the next generation. That is, for an individual it is equally beneficial to reproduce itself, or to help relatives with similar genes to reproduce, as long as similar amount of copies of individual's genes get passed on to the next generation. Selection which promotes this kind of helper behaviour is called kin selection.

A fitness landscape is a way of visualising fitness in terms of peaks, where natural selection will always push uphill but , resulting in suboptimality.

Where there are differences in fitness, a genetic load is exerted on the population.

Richard Dawkins introduced the controversial concept of ethical fitnessism.

History

The British economist Herbert Spencer coined the phrase "survival of the fittest" (though originally, and perhaps more accurately, "survival of the best fitted") in his 1851 work Social Statics and later used it to characterise what Charles Darwin had called natural selection. The British biologist J.B.S. Haldane was the first to quantify fitness, in terms of the modern evolutionary synthesis of Darwinism and Mendelian genetics starting with his 1924 paper A Mathematical Theory of Natural and Artificial Selection. The next further advance was the introduction of the concept of inclusive fitness by the British biologist W.D. Hamilton in 1964 in his paper on The Evolution of Social Behavior.

[Anarch]

Oh yes, we are so vain, petty souls for daring to suggest that humans and this planet are special. But let me tell you something.

I remember reading a biography of Leo Tolstoy. It was said of him that "when he most scourged himself, he loved himself more than ever before"

That is just what Darwinists are doing. By being seemingly humble (saying that humans are just part of the nature), they are actually paving way to the ultimate hubris - the idea that men are not under any Higher Judgment, that they are free from the yoke of transcendental God and are their own masters.

They are masking their Promethean arrogance with "non-anthropocentrism". Faux humility, thy name is Darwinism.

It's called long term genetic self interest, Petr.

[QUOTE=Petr]Simpletons like you have always been helping moral monsters like Fade to construct totalitarian systems that deny any human dignity and all individual rights...

Petr

ROFLMAO. Thus speaks one who advocates burning men at the stake for speaking their minds. Talk about the pot and the fucking kettle. While having the fury of a Grand Inquisitor before whom stands a marrano, Petr schizophrenically pretends he has more respect for Randroids than people like Fade, myself, Helios and Weikel.

The moment you state 'the state enhances...fitness' is where your argument loses validity, because it shows the state at this point not as a de facto product of evolution but an instrument of power and domination proper to the groups in which the state developed, a sort of counter-evolution for ideological ends. Otherwise, the state will evolve out of itself as it is currently doing.

Evolution is not teleological. There is no 'counter-evolution'. I was having this discussing over beer with a friend at university today. He disagrees with my notion that culture is a form of collective phenotype, and considers it Lamarckian in its development. When we come to a conclusion I'll be sure to explain the answer we come to and our reasoning behind it.

[Fade the Butcher]

It's called long term genetic self interest, Petr.

Exactly. The altruistic racial collectivist who has children and works to advance the interests of his racial kin was a far higher w than the selfish, sterile, childless cosmopolitan liberal individualist whose w is effectively zero.

[Fade the Butcher]

He disagrees with my notion that culture is a form of collective phenotype, and considers it Lamarckian in its development. When we come to a conclusion I'll be sure to explain the answer we come to and our reasoning behind it.

This sounds like Richard Dawkins' The Extended Phenotype. I have never read anything by him, but I plan on picking this up soon. More on Dawkins' theory of ethical fitness here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_fitnessism

"Ethical fitnessism, or 'fitnessism' for short, is the ethic whose behaviour tends to be maximized as a result of natural selection, i.e. as a result of the 'survival of the fittest'. Ultimately fitnessism is defined as the ethic according to which the behaviour with maximal inclusive fitness is right. (Inclusive fitness is, simplified, the ability to pass on, and assist the passing on of, (copies of) one's genes in the long run.) In the words of Richard Dawkins (author of The Selfish Gene), being his 'central theorem of the extended phenotype', "An animal's behaviour tends to maximize the survival of the genes 'for' that behaviour, whether or not those genes happen to be in the body of the particular animal performing the behaviour." (Dawkins 1999 (1982), The Extended Phenotype, Oxford: O.U.P., p. 248). To maximize the survival of the genes for one's behaviour, or, in other words, to maximize one's behavioural fitness, is the behaviour of fitnessism, which more precisely is the ethic according to which:

An action is right for an individual if and only if it maximizes this individual's behavioural fitness.

Please note that this 'rightness criterion' does not mean that an individual's action would be right if and only if it maximizes this individual's behavioural fitness. A fitnessist who regularly eats other individuals in order to survive himself would not consider it to be right or good for himself to be eaten. Consequently fitnessism is non-universalizable, i.e. could not be held as right by everyone simultaneously without (ethical) disagreement being present, and also is indexical: Not only aesthetical propositions, but also ethical propositions are indexical in the same way as the word 'I' is indexical, which it is because what it denotes (i.e. to whom it refers) depends on who says it or has written it.

A person who for example expresses the proposition: "No individual ought ever to produce offspring." can never show that this strange opinion would be anything "higher", or even anything else, than this person's own personal opinion. Rather it is for this person's own part wrong for any individual to ever produce offspring. A predator about to catch a fleeing quarry shows through its behaviour that for its own part it would be right or good to eat the quarry. The quarry, on the other hand, shows through its behaviour that for its own part it would be wrong or bad to be eaten. Such are the ethical effects of natural selection.

Note that, while Richard Dawkins describes this view, he does not endorse it at all. Others would suggest that the view commits the naturalistic fallacy or is equivalent to Social Darwinism.

[Petr]

ROFLMAO. Thus speaks one who advocates burning men at the stake for speaking their minds. Talk about the pot and the fucking kettle.
Even the worst possible theocracy would be greatly preferable to a Darwinian dog-eats-dog dystopia. Evolution-believers killed more people during the 20th century than all religious fanatics put together.

Evolution is not teleological.
Yeah, and so much for all that telos that Fade has been gushing over recently. :p I am soon going to start a thread that deals further on the conflict between Darwinian materialism and classical pagan ideals.


Petr

[Petr]

Exactly. The altruistic racial collectivist who has children and works to advance the interests of his racial kin was a far higher w than the selfish, sterile, childless cosmopolitan liberal individualist whose w is effectively zero.
Why should the White race survive? They are no different from bacteria.


Petr

[Fade the Butcher]

Why should the White race survive? They are no different from bacteria.

I think you are asking the wrong question. Most of us participating in this thread had already arrived at the answer that the white race should survive before we began to come up with reasons to justify this conclusion. The real question is why do we feel impelled to care about the survival of our racial kin? Why does xenophobia exist? Why does altruism exist? Why do we breathe, consume food, and reproduce? How can this type of behavior be explained?

The answer is twofold: this mindset stems in part from inborn biological tendencies, but it is also rationally defensible in that a given individual who has children, defends his racial kin, and works to ensure the survival of his collective maximizes his evolutionary fitness. A lifeform either survives or perishes, ultimately, and the lifeform that survives passes on his traits to further generations.

[Fade the Butcher]

Even the worst possible theocracy would be greatly preferable to a Darwinian dog-eats-dog dystopia. Evolution-believers killed more people during the 20th century than all religious fanatics put together.

This is nonsense. For starters, Darwinism is a description of reality as it exists, not a prescription for action. Traits like altruism and intelligence are valued in civilized societies and enhance the fitness of a collective relative to other collectives. The young black male who falls afoul of the law and winds up incarcerated in prison is unable to reproduce himself. This is selection at work.

[Fade the Butcher]

Yeah, and so much for all that telos that Fade has been gushing over recently.

Rationality is teleological. An individual, however, has both rational and irrational tendencies. An instinct is irrational, but it serves an evolutionary purpose, say, the instinct to breathe or propagate one's kind. It would be grossly irrational of us to deny that this aspect of our nature exists.

[Anarch]

This sounds like Richard Dawkins' The Extended Phenotype. I have never read anything by him, but I plan on picking this up soon.

Dawkins is quite good. I haven't got around to reading his Extended Phenotype but The Selfish Gene was quite definetly worth reading. Relatively basic, but certainly helpful.

Even the worst possible theocracy would be greatly preferable to a Darwinian dog-eats-dog dystopia. Evolution-believers killed more people during the 20th century than all religious fanatics put together.

You're a fool. You think if you never learned Newton's laws of physics what goes up wouldn't necessarily come down?

Yeah, and so much for all that telos that Fade has been gushing over recently. :p I am soon going to start a thread that deals further on the conflict between Darwinian materialism and classical pagan ideals.

Fade understands what he's talking about. You plainly don't.

[Petr]

You're a fool. You think if you never learned Newton's laws of physics what goes up wouldn't necessarily come down?
What relevance this has on the subject at hand?

Fade understands what he's talking about. You plainly don't.
Good little lickspittle.


Petr

[Petr]

I think you are asking the wrong question.
I think I am asking a very fundamental question that you cannot answer without abandoning some part of your ideology.


Petr

[Anarch]

What relevance this has on the subject at hand?

Let us put it on the record that Petr is a confirmed solipsist.

Good little lickspittle.

ROFLMAO. I was reading up on neo-Darwinism years before Fade got into his eugenics/neo-Darwinist readings.

I think

You THINK? Really? I didn't know that. I mean, thinking is an absolute, Petr, there can be no compromise between rationality and its other :p I thought you were the one that claimed moderation of rationality, some point between the rational and the irrational?

[Petr]

Let us put it on the record that Petr is a confirmed solipsist.
Not true, it's just that you tried to change the subject.

I said:

Even the worst possible theocracy would be greatly preferable to a Darwinian dog-eats-dog dystopia. Evolution-believers killed more people during the 20th century than all religious fanatics put together.

And you made this irrelevant answer, probably peeved because I had made an undeniable point:

You're a fool. You think if you never learned Newton's laws of physics what goes up wouldn't necessarily come down?

Darwinism does not equal reality. One can easily refuse to subscribe to wild evolutionist speculations and still believe in objective reality.


Petr

[Helios Panoptes]

Even the worst possible theocracy would be greatly preferable to a Darwinian dog-eats-dog dystopia. Evolution-believers killed more people during the 20th century than all religious fanatics put together.

No one has been killed in the name of the Holy Darwin or His Blessed Theory of Evolution. Many people have been killed because of religious beliefs, however.

Darwinism does not equal reality. One can easily refuse to subscribe to wild evolutionist speculations and still believe in objective reality.

Similarly, Newton's laws of physics need not be believed or understood for one to "believe" in objective reality."

Anyhow, I see the discussion has veered away from where we were, which was waiting for you to provide evidence that humans are above nature.

[Fade the Butcher]

ROFLMAO. I was reading up on neo-Darwinism years before Fade got into his eugenics/neo-Darwinist readings.

This is true. I still haven't read anything by Dawkins, but I remember you mentioning him several years ago.

[Fade the Butcher]

I think I am asking a very fundamental question that you cannot answer without abandoning some part of your ideology.

Explain. How am I abandoning my ideology?

[Anarch]

Not true, it's just that you tried to change the subject.

I said:

Even the worst possible theocracy would be greatly preferable to a Darwinian dog-eats-dog dystopia. Evolution-believers killed more people during the 20th century than all religious fanatics put together.

And you made this irrelevant answer, probably peeved because I had made an undeniable point:

You're a fool. You think if you never learned Newton's laws of physics what goes up wouldn't necessarily come down?

Darwinism does not equal reality. One can easily refuse to subscribe to wild evolutionist speculations and still believe in objective reality.

Um, no. You see, my point was that evolution, the economics of scarcity, hereditary natural capacities of organic beings via genetics, and mutation, will operate whether you believe that absurd 'intelligent design' neo-creationist garbage or not.

This is true. I still haven't read anything by Dawkins, but I remember you mentioning him several years ago.

Actually, much of the time since I've read his work has been spent trying to resolve his selfish gene theory with Foucault's work on Power, Chomsky's propaganda model, the subject-object distinction, chaos theory and epistemology, and a few other things :p

[Die]

Helios:Anyhow, I see the discussion has veered away from where we were, which was waiting for you to provide evidence that humans are above nature.

As if Petr could provide such a thing! He believes in god! Humans are a part of nature as you say, and humans are above nature. We are conscious of nature, if only in part. Nature is not conscious of us. Why believe we must be one thing or the other, when we are one thing and the other?

P.S- this is no excuse for Fade to be an agnostic, and he can forget his little idea about sterilizing blacks.
:rofl:

[Micaelis]

How is evolution compatible with racial destiny? The latter seems more like a cult of racial consciousness.

[Die]

It isn't, it is only compatible with race itself. Racial destiny is not only a cult of the consciousness of such. The will to knowledge goes beyond race.

[Fade the Butcher]

How is evolution compatible with racial destiny? The latter seems more like a cult of racial consciousness.

Speciation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation). :/

[Damavand]

The moment you state 'the state enhances...fitness' is where your argument loses validity, because it shows the state at this point not as a de facto product of evolution but an instrument of power and domination proper to the groups in which the state developed, a sort of counter-evolution for ideological ends. Otherwise, the state will evolve out of itself as it is currently doing.there is certainly no evidence that the state will evolve out of existence, if that's what you mean. that's like saying love, hate, or jealousy are due to evolve out of existence. there's a reason 'anarchist civilization' always proves so elusive (and non-existent). if one believes in evolution, then anything in 'nature' is a product of its processes. you can't pick and choose based on your likes and dislikes.

[Die]

What do you think it evolves out of Damavand?

[Micaelis]

I would even affirm, along with Freud, that childhood experiences play a much more dramatic role in one's personal and social evolution than some mythical 'racial destiny' that is being advocated in this thread. One's genotype and phenotype are more relevant to those characteristics inhereted from family rather than "race" - there are no ecological regulations that inhibit a humanoid male and female of different "races" from producing healthy and fertile offspring, which has occured in abundance.- Furthermore, one must make a general abstraction of phenotype coupled with geographical location in order to arrive at a group that typically possesses those traits. The error occurs when one attempts to biologically segregate groups of identical species based on an illusory 'racial fitness' level when, in reality, fitness is nothing more than one's reproductive potency. It is ignorant of race.