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Struggle For Existence
- Follows Malthusian ideas- how food increases arithmetically, but population geometrically- why war & famine are a good way of controlling the population·
- Climate causes the struggle for existence- whatever variation is best adapted to the environment will be the one that has the upper hando
- Variations occur randomly; 98% neutral or negative, environment chooses which is besto Envt can change- peppered moths·
- Excess population forces competition- inter and intraspecies·
- “Depends not only on the life of the individual, but success in leaving progeny”
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Natural Selection and Sexual Selection
- Nature determines what variation is best in natural selection, whereas individual makes choice in sexual selection- beautiful and adaptive can be totally opposedo
- Ex peacock, men who use steroids·
- Irish elk- horns big to impress mates; ultimately made them go extinct.·
- Both act on individuals to change the species- those w/ favorable traits more likely to pass them on, either by surviving in the environment OR being chosen by a mate to pass on genes·
- Sexual selection- “The struggle between the individuals of one sex, usually males, for the possession of the other sex…. Generally, the most vigorous males, those which are best fitted to their places in nature, will leave the most progeny”. ·
- Sexual selection causes differences between sexes, natural selection differences betwen species and or members of the species
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The Evolution of Morality (Darwin)
- ·From a natural selection standpoint- we are social beings, do best in groups, therefore it is within our own self-interest to be moral·
- “Animals endowed with the social instincts take pleasure in one another’s company, warn one another of danger, defend and aid one another in many ways”·
- Such instincts not w/ everyone of species, only those in a community- why humans can still have wars between nations- Can’t belong to something unless somebody else is excluded·
- “All men desire their own happiness”- only have morals to help that (reciprocal altruism?)·
- Gives inferior animals a chance- we work better in groups
- Not the fastest or stongest, but as a group we can take down a tiger
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Veneer Theory
- ·We are basically and naturally immoral, but we put on this façade that we are good and moral because it is advantageous to us·
- Morality is a “cultural overlay, a thin veneer hiding an otherwise selfish and brutish nature”. ·
- We repress natural instincts in order to stay in a group- morality is a choice, rather than a quality chosen by natural selection·
- In this veneer, we have love, obedience, religion, empathy·
- Only police, laws keep us from expressing the tru monster within
- Kohlberg’s theory of moral development- conventional- we does as others do b/c we do not want to be excluded; if one breaks the law and is thrown in jail, they are often rejected by their community
- Dualistic theory- pits humans against animals, and culture against nature. Morality is seen as a choice
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Evolution of Ethics (de Waal)
- De Waal says our morality is a result of evolutionary tendencies- we do better in groups
- Helpless when first born- cannot walk, brains not fully developed (one of the only animals to be born this way).·
- We are not the only moral creature (morality evolves in other animals too- proves it is not just a veneer)= reciprocal altruism, affected by emotions around them- a dog tries to comfort a person who is in distress, apes comfort those who lose in a fight.·
- We are social animals- solitary confinement is one of the worst punishments
- Transition from social to moral animal
- Empirical Evidence in psychology, nueroscience, primate behavior
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Why Fathers really Matter
- Age and stress can affect genes of fathers and thus the genes of their children. ·
- Epigenetics- what a father does in his life can determine what genes are turned on or off, and thus what genes are passed on to offspring.·
- As seen in the Omnivore’s Dilemma- animals locked up and miserable, and thus get sick and pass on unhealthy genes to their babies·
- SEA men who chew betal nuts, which contains a chemical that affects metabolic functioning, are more likely to have children with weight problems and heart disease.·
- Older fathers= more times sperm cells copy= more likely to have mutations
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Two Principles of Human Nature
- Self-love and reason·
- Self-love is like the air in the balloon, keeping in flying, while reason is the string that keeps the balloon from flying off and popping= can’t have one without the other.·
- Self-love encompasses our passions and vices- seeking personal pleasure·
- Ocean metaphor- w/o self-love, we would be in the doldrums (place where water does not move)·
- Age of Enlightenment- trying to apply laws to human nature like Copernicus applied them to the planets
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The Universal Cause
- God, made us all connected
- Chain of love- vertical chain- each part of the world works to make the other part better, all is connected·
- Uses words like “cause” and “laws”- like Copernicus and Galileo- what is our law in the universe?·
- Goes beyond human nature- wealth, health, etc. are all superfluous to the universal cause.
- Do not need to be rich to be happy
- After a period of wars, cicil wars, regecide- Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, was a reaction to disorder w/ order
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Copernicus and the Church's reaction
- The church needs a precise calendar to come up with saint’s days, Christmas, etc- the one that had based off of a geometric idea was poor, so they asked Copernicus to make a new one·
- So Copernicus speculated and came up with a more accurate heliocentric modelo At first the church accepted it, because it gave them a better calendar (what they were looking for!) Was able to accept because they were dominant·
- Did challenge the Bible- Joshua and the Long day- made sun stand still so day would be longer, could not do if it was a heliocentric world- challenged the literal interpretation of the Bible.·
- Church only began to question when Protestant Revolution came around- Martin Luther challenged their ideas, suddenly they were not dominant.
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Galileo and the Chruch
- Gertrude Stein’s poem about rose- “a rose is a rose is a rose”= responding to centuries of a rose not being a rose·
- “The name of rose”- in MA, rose was a symbol- EVERYTHING symboled something religious= everything in the world was seen though religious eyes·
- Galileo’s nun daughter knew the depths of her father’s faith- agreed that God provided scriptures for man’s spirits, wanted them to unravel the universe to test their intelligence·
- Galileo thought that his words would glorify God, but the Catholic church was weary because of the Protestant Revolution·
- Originally published his discoveries as a dialogue between Ptolemy and Copernicus- like he was just speculating·
- W/ Gutenberg printing press, many more people could read, could see all these ideas·
- Galileo was forced to recant and put under house arrest; church formally apologized in 1992·
- Found craters on the moon- meant earth was not perfect
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The Discovary of Time
- Before the 18th century, most people did not understand that there was time or change- world was always as it is (few actually traveled)·
- On MA tapestries of David and Goliath, armies wear MA outfits; thought people must have always dressed that way, did not understand that things change·
- By 18th century, the idea that nothing changes is being challeneged- Industrial Revolution, people are seeing change, they are ready.·
- If there is no change, how do you explain fossils of creatures that are not around anymore?= Catastrophic theory- extinction only by God’s intervention?· Charles Lyle writing on geography moves the history of our planet back millions of yearso Studies changes in the world- looks at strata in rocks, which shows changes in even things that look so stable·
- Also affects philosophy- begin to explore changes in consciousness·
- Comt- French philosopher who argued that the way humans think has progressed in three stages
- 1. Religious- Polytheim, Monotheism
- 2. Metaphysical- more secular, but still looking for unexplainable forces- Adam Smith’s invisible hand, Pope’s self-love
- 3. Scientific- 18th and 19th century- man uses reason and senses to discover the world
- The idea of stages takes off- anthropology, discovery of stages of our life cycle
- Adolescence not discovered until the 19th century- before was child with an adult w/in·
- By 20th century, only constant is change
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Bourgeious and Proleterians
- History of society is history of class struggle·
- Rome- Plebians v. Patricians·
- MA- Lords v serfs- then bo emerge, first battling the military and nobility, and eventually winning and becoming leaders·
- According to Marx, bo made “all that is solid melt into air”- family, education, religion·
- Family is now a money relation (marry for money, wives seen as only baby-producers)
- “Religion is the opiate of the masses”- sedative to not upset the staus quo, but now even that is dissapearing·
- Law, morality replacing the solids, and all are created and shaped to fit the needs of the bo (ex: laws protect private property)·
- Now there is the possibility of overproduction, cannot handle the wealth- give the modern working class, the proletarians, the power to overthrow them· Proletarians are a commodity- DOL and machines means that they are no longer special·
- majority, will unite to continue class struggle
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Gospel of Wealth
- Those who are smart enough to earn money are smart enough to know what to do with it, so money should not be given as inheritance nor be taxed- children and gov’t did not earn that money·
- Social Darwinism·
- Mostly heirs squander money rather than do good with it- rare ones that do are “the salt of the earth”·
- Charity was bad, because you don’t know exactly what your money is going to·
- Carnegie took his own advice- built Carnegie Hall, Libraries- he was smart enough to decide what the money would be best used for- Didn’t give books to libraries though- thought communities themselves had to decide that
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Theory of Moral Sentiments
- ·Problem: How can man, a creature of self-interest, take judgment of others?·
- Answer: We put ourselves in the role of an impartial observer, a third person, so we are sympathetic to the objective, rather than selfish, merits of
- the case·
- Seeing others as happy makes us happy, we have sympathy
- "Mirror effect"
- Rejected idea of morality explained as a “sixth sense”
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Laws of the Market
- ·The invisible hand- private interests of man lead to best for public·
- Each man works for his own self-interest, driving man to action, regulated by competition, self-interest leads to social harmony·
- Problem of high prices- open glove manufacturer cannot raise his prices above normal b/c then he will lose business to others·
- Problem of over production- prices will go low when there is excess, go up when there is not enough. When prices go up, there is more profit possibly, so more people produce; less produce when prices are low, so again a balance is righted
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Laws of Accumulation and Population
- “Two deep seated laws of behavior which propel the market system in an ascending spiral of productivity”·
- Law of Accumulation- goal of rising capitalists was to accumulate their savings, inves·
- Smith thought accumulation should be put to use in machinery, to multiply man’s productivity·
- But accumulation will soon lead to a point where one cannot accumaulate anymore- more accumulation=more machinery=more demand for workers= higher wages= eating all profit·
- Law of Population takes care of this- “demand for men regulates the production of men”- more demand for workers, like more demand for gloves, increases supply of workers, so wages will be able to go down·
Accumulation leads to its own undoing, forever a cycle
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Division of Labor
- ·Smith gives three reasons for why his principle leads to “This great increase of the quality of work”. The first is the increased dexterity each worker gains from doing the same task over and over. The second comes from the saving of time that comes from not having to pass from task to task. The third is due to the introduction of machines.·
- Machines introduced because of specialization- when focused on one small task, see what could be done to mechanize it·
- 10,000 hours to become an expert- performing a small task over and over, those hours accumulate more quickly, the act becomes more like a relfex·
- Pin factory example- one man alone could make one pin a day, ten men each performing a small task could make 48,000
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The Worker and Repetititon
- Most men want a job where they do not have to think- most people need a routine, even people like businessmen, etc.·
- Not everyone is set for repetition- we DO need skill·
- “investigations” shows that repetition is not soul or body destroying·
- Repetition makes it that even a disabled person can work·
- Arrangement is scientific·
- Takes some social resp. for workers, but only to increase his profits,·
- Organization so specialized that letting men have their own way would only hurt them, make them less productive and therefore earn less money·
- Must work to the abolition of drudgery·
- “We shall learn to be masters rather than servants of nature”.
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Social Resposibility of the Businessman
- The only way for a businessman to act for social responsibility in a way that is not in the same interest as his employers
- To spend someone else’s money for a general social interest- that would be like him imposing taxes, which is wrong in principle (it is not his job), and consequences (how does he know what it is really good to spend it on?, and will he not get fired by his stockholders?)·
- To follow social responsibility would be to go against responsibility of business, which is to increase profits·
- Only reason it would be good to have social resp. is if in the end, the more psotive image from the community increases profits· -"window dressing"
- Deception is bad from a business and moral standpoint
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Proleterians and Communists
- Proletarians and Communists have the same ideas, but communists as a party are uniters, bringing the proletariat together, represent the movements as a whole
- Most advanced and resolute section of the working class parties·
- Aim of communists is the same as all proletarians- to form the proletariat into a class, overthrow bourgeois, conquest of political power by the proletariat·
- Does not want to make it impossible to earn profits, just impossible to earn profits by subjecting the proletariat to labor
- Start w/ trade unions, have some success, communists help make a political party
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