← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Walter Yannis
Thread ID: 6357 | Posts: 5 | Started: 2003-04-27
2003-04-27 14:17 | User Profile
This is an excerpt from [url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/038549517X/qid=1051451513/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-0241088-9095926?v=glance&s=books]The Mating Mind[/url] by Geoffrey Miller, pages 337-338
I typed this in, so please forgive the typos and other errors.
In a word, Miller's theory is that many aspects of our minds - including the things that are most uniquely human such as virture, music, art, poetry, and religion - are the product of "sexual selection." Darwin recognized two fundamental evolutionary forces: (1) "survival of the fittest" selection (the kind we most usually think of when we hear the word "evolution") such as sharper teeth for eating prey or better camouflage for hiding from predators; and (2) "sexual selection" that works by allowing (usually) the male of the species to attract females, such as a peacock's tail, or African antelopes doing back flips over lions in daring death-defying displays for the does.
A peacock's tail slows down the bird and helps it get noticed by predators and wastes lots of valuable energy growing it, but it evolved because despite that it allowed it to get noticed by peahens such that the trait was adaptive. The key insight about sexual selection is that it works precisely because it is energy-wasting advertising; a peacock's tail tells peahens "hey, look me, I'm so fit and good at dealing with my parasites and predators, that I can grow this energy-wasting tail that gets me noticed by predators and not even break a sweat. Mate with me!"
Miller applies this to our own evolution, and theorizes that our overly developed brains are like peacock's tails: hugely energy wasting appendages that advertise our genetic fitness to potential mates. Wit, humor, musical ability, kindness, and extravagant displays of altruistic madness like chivalry or conspicuous consumption have their roots in sexual display of the individual (or the tribe) to advertise its genetic fitness.
Miller plausibly argues that Nietzsche's celebration of the virtues of honor and courage as those of the "superman" and his concomitant disdain for their counterpoint virtues of piety, submission to authority, prudence, humilty and so forth as the "morality of the herd" are to be understood in terms of "sexual selection" versus "natural selection." It makes sense to me: Nietzsche no doubt found the Victorian world that had instituted his "herd" virtues (Miller's "natural selection" virtues) to the exclusion of the other aspects of our evolved minds stifling. His moral philosophy can thus be understood as a plea for recognition of man's need to live "not by bread alone."
I'll try to post other excepts in the near future as time allows.
Walter
Sexual Selection and Nietzsche
The emphasis on reciprocity has led evolutionary psychology to concentrate on what Friedrich Nietzsche called the morality of the herd: prudence, humility, fairness, conscience, dependability, equality, submission to social norms, and the cult of altruism. In the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche argued that many human cultures attributed moral value to other virtues: bravery, skill, beauty, fertility, strength, pride, leadership, stoicism, sacrifice, tolerance, mercy, joy, humor, grace, good manners, and the creation of social norms. In The Will to Power, he listed the core elements of these pagan virtues: ââ¬Å(1) virtue as force (2) virtue as seduction (3) virtue as [court] etiquette.ââ¬Â What is striking her is that Nietzscheââ¬â¢s virtues sound remarkably like sexually selected fitness indicators.
More than any other moral philosopher, Nietzsche inquired into the biological origins of our moral judgments, trying to understand how they could serve the needs of organic life. He wrote of virtue as ââ¬Åa luxury of the first orderââ¬Â which shows the ââ¬Åcharm of rareness, inimitableness, exceptionalness, and unaverageness.ââ¬Â By their luxuriant excess, virtues reveal ââ¬Åprocesses of physiological prosperity or failure.ââ¬Â For Nietzsche, virtue was what the strong and healthy could afford to display.
Of course, we should remember the butler Jeeveââ¬â¢s response to Bertie Woosters asking whether Nietzsche was worth reading: ââ¬ÅI would not recommend him sir; he is fundamentally unsound.ââ¬Â Nietzsche read Darwin but did not understand him. Nietzsche intuited that sexuality and power lay at the heart of human perceptions, judgments, values, ideologies, and knowledge, but he did not understand sexual selection. Like Alfred Russell Wallace, he often used fallacious ââ¬Åsurplus ââ¬âenergyââ¬Â arguments to explain costly displays that had no apparent survival function.
Nietzscheââ¬â¢s name remains taboo in polite society because of his misappropriation by the Nazis. But perhaps it is worth considering his argument that Christian values, which he called the morality of the herd, may not be the only human values worth analyzing from a biological and psychological viewpoint. The Nietzshean virtues do not raise the same evolutionary-theoretical problems as the Christian virtues, because thy are not so altruistic. But our analysis of human morality should not be limited to behaviours that raise intriguing theoretical issues. Some aspects of human morality may have direct, unproblematic survival value. Other aspects, such as the Nietzshean virtues, may reflect evolved aspects for certain kinds of costly display, just like other sexually selected handicaps.
Science could benefit by broadening its attention to the full range of human virtues that have been considered worthy of praise in various cultures. As individuals, we may find some of those virtues no longer praiseworthy. Military heroism, stoicism, and etiquette are distinctly out of fashion at the moment there may even be good philosophical or practical reasons why they should stay out of fashion. But that is no reason for scientist to ignore them. Moral philosophers consider only a tiny fraction of human virtues and moral judgments worthy of analysis. But scientists must consider them all.
2003-04-27 22:23 | User Profile
Originally posted by Walter Yannis@Apr 27 2003, 08:17 ** This is an excerpt from The Mating Mind by Geoffrey Miller, pages 337-338
1) Nietzsche read Darwin but did not understand him.
2) Moral philosophers consider only a tiny fraction of human virtues and moral judgments worthy of analysis. But scientists must consider them all. **
My thoughts:
1) Nietzsche understood Darwin somewhat, but he missed the decisive point. If time permits, I will start a thread -or even submit an entire article- on Nietzsche vs. Darwin. This is -in more than one sense- a question of survival. B)
2) Both philosophers and scientists DO consider the Nietzschean virtues. The 1000 Billion $ question is: What is the gold standard to measure all virtues against?
2003-04-30 12:44 | User Profile
Originally posted by Paleoleftist@Apr 27 2003, 22:23 ** My thoughts:
1) Nietzsche understood Darwin somewhat, but he missed the decisive point. If time permits, I will start a thread -or even submit an entire article- on Nietzsche vs. Darwin. This is -in more than one sense- a question of survival. B)
**
I'm no expert. Prof. Miller apparently meant that Nietzsche didn't understand the concept of "sexual selection" and its influence on ornamentation. As Prof. Miller points out, the entire concept of sexual selection was for some strange reason largely ignored by anthropologists until as late as the 1980's.
Thus Miller seems to be saying that Nietzsche did not see that the virtues he endorsed were just as much a product of our evolution as were the more practical virtues that have a more obvious survival value. Nietzsche thus saw his desire for these virtues as being somehow beyond natural impulses - beyond the Natural Law in Catholic terms, which may have lead to this whole idea about values not being connected to Reality beyond the Will to Power and all of that.
To repeat, I'm not taking a position on that because frankly I don't have a full grasp of either sexual selection or Nietzsche, but I will say that Miller's hypothesis is extraordinarily interesting and pregnant with possibilities.
Imagine how all of this could relate, just as a small example, to literary criticism. The novels of W. Somerset Maughm, for example. It breaks open a whole new way to look at art.
2) Both philosophers and scientists DO consider the Nietzschean virtues. The 1000 Billion $ question is: What is the gold standard to measure all virtues against?
The gold standard I would say is the Natural Law. Miller offers us insight into why we love kindness, love, generosity, poetry, music and so forth - because they helped our male anscestors attract mates. As Miller points out, we're all decended from successful lovers. We need to incorporate this insight into the moral inferences we reasonably make from our observations of human nature.
Walter
2003-05-24 00:54 | User Profile
[Walter]: Miller plausibly argues that Nietzsche's celebration of the virtues of honor and courage as those of the "superman" and his concomitant disdain for their counterpoint virtues of piety, submission to authority, prudence, humilty and so forth as the "morality of the herd" are to be understood in terms of "sexual selection" versus "natural selection."
[Miller]: In the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche argued that many human cultures attributed moral value to other virtues: bravery, skill, beauty, fertility, strength, pride, leadership, stoicism, sacrifice, tolerance, mercy, joy, humor, grace, good manners, and the creation of social norms. In The Will to Power, he listed the core elements of these pagan virtues: ââ¬Å(1) virtue as force (2) virtue as seduction (3) virtue as [court] etiquette.ââ¬Â What is striking here is that Nietzscheââ¬â¢s virtues sound remarkably like sexually selected fitness indicators....Nietzscheââ¬â¢s name remains taboo in polite society because of his misappropriation by the Nazis. But perhaps it is worth considering his argument that Christian values, which he called the morality of the herd, may not be the only human values worth analyzing from a biological and psychological viewpoint.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This perspective misrepresents and trivializes Nietzsche. His GM/BGE/WP argue forcefully for the restoration of the "supreme rights of the few"/tyrannies by "good Europeans"/cultivation of a "master race" - he does not merely mention a moral alternative to Christian slave culture. The sexual selection angle here conveys nothing of the context of the philosopher's discussion, whatever incidental correspondence Nietzsche's observations may or may not have with those of evolutionary theory. The kind of man "that Zarathustra wants" is merely one who "conceives reality as it is" - and is not, according to N., a Darwinian superman . The breeding of the master race awaits the preparatory tyranny of these "good Europeans," who have overcome their Christianity and recovered their sense of reality. "Nietzsche's virtues" are those of historic aristocrats, whose culture he would thus recover and restore to its organically requisite priority.
2003-05-29 06:21 | User Profile
Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@May 24 2003, 00:54 ** "Nietzsche's virtues" are those of historic aristocrats, whose culture he would thus recover and restore to its organically requisite priority.
**
That's right, N's virtures are those of aristocrats, and in particular white aristocrats.
All virtues are based in Evolution. It cannot be otherwise, after all. The fact that we're having this conversation is itself determined by emotions that were designed by Evolution.
Miller's point is that the aristocratic love of music, poetry, chivalry, courtly love, and what I would call "subtle ostentation" are a form of sexual advertising. It's a profound insight. Our emotional need to cover the "sexual marketing" aspects of these things with high-sounding explanations like those of Nietzsche is just part of the marketing package - all explicable in Evolutionary terms.
I wouldn't say that Miller "trivializes" N, although he certainly offers a reductionist argument. Miller's explanation of N's philosophy purports to anticipate and contain N; to explain N's motives in developing his aristocratic philosophy in a fundamental way. Occam's razor requires that we accept the simplest explanation for all phenomena and to be sure Evolution is about as fundamental as it gets. After all, N was a product of Evolution, as are we all, and thus everything that N or the rest of us think, feel, worship, write, eat, drink, dream or defecate is 100% explicable in Evolutionary terms. He and the rest of us are created and contained by Evolution, and thus Evolution explains him and his works. It cannot be otherwise. None of us can hope to transcend Evolution, for the very impulse to even imagine or attempt such a thing was itself created by Evolution.
But it seems to me that reducing N's philosophy to its Evolutionary components is not to "trivialize" his philosophy as you say, anymore than Miller's explanation of the phenomenon of poetry trivializes Shakespeare. N's contribution is certainly great, especially as a polemicist IMHO, and his contribution remains great despite Miller's insight. In fact, I'd say that Miller's insight underscores the importance of N's ideas and the depth of his intuitive insight into the human condition.
Miller's observations ring deeply true to me. N and his adherents argued for something beyond the utilitarian democracy of their time, and for that they are to be commended, for they certainaly proceeded from a far better understanding of the human need for the noble and beautiful.
Walter