JAN 25

4: JAN 25.

Assigned

• Hare and Woods – “Humans Evolved to be Friendly” – (1-19; 18) -- Key concepts: self-domestication, cooperative communication
• Practice Writing Due last night.

In-Class

• Everyday Ethics: What kind of conversation is an ethical conversation
• Practice Writing update.

Hare and Woods – “Humans Evolved to be Friendly”

• Homo is the genus — there were others, not just Neanderthals. (Ok, let’s watch a Geico Caveman commercial [1]).

• Not obvious that we were going to succeed. Neanderthals were smart, had culture, fine motor skills (maybe speech). Bigger, stronger.

• Major claim: Sapiens advantages may have include self-domestication and the changes that comes with that.

• cooperative communication, shared intentionality, theory of mind.

• morphology of skeletons and skulls is influenced by neurohormones. Evidence trail.

• bonobos are “wild domesticates”. - dogs are the best example. Also engage in cooperative communication. And they typically love us!

• dogs and wolves have common ancestor, the Ice Age wolf. Domestication involve genomic change, not just about “taming a wild animal”. Physical traits of domestication syndrome (3).

• Belyaev wolf breeding experiments in Siberia — 1959 — 50 generations foxes to domesticate. General story: relatively friendly member of wild species hang out near human garbage dump, reproductive advantage, interbred. Then maybe we warmed up to them too. So maybe wolves were somewhat self-domesticated at first. (In Food studies, also pigs.).

• 14K to 40K y.ago. Humans almost eradicate wild wolves. 300K wolves, 1 billion dogs.

• And us? Changes around 80K y.ago. Middle Pleistocene. (5) read Human domesticate are “feminized” versions of earlier Homo Sapien.

• Experimental corroboration - SSRI treated baby mice get globular head shape. Neanderthals football shaped heads. Lower testosterone, higher serotonin, more oxytocin. Research links oxytocin to cooperative behaviors.

• Chimps, bonobos, humans on strangers: we have a category “intragroup stranger” (a stranger who we regard as a group member). Chimps generally hostile to strangers, bonobos friendlier to bonobo strangers. What did this do for us? (6).

• Also about 80K y.ago we got more consistent in implementing the kind of culture that comes from cooperation. Expanded social networks mean more information flows. 50K y.ago jewelry, cool 3d animal paintings.

• 7: But we are also an incredibly cruel species.

• Oxytocin has another side. “Mama bear hormone”. Hamster moms. Social bonding and aggression to out groups go together.

• What Wrangham calls “the Goodness Paradox” “Humans become more violent when those we evolved to live more intensely were threatened.”

• Positive implications. We can expand the circle. Whites/Black schooled together have more cooperative behaviors in later life (ok with interracial marriage, have friends from other group…)

• Very interesting comment — Changing behavior changes attitudes.

Everyday Ethics: What kind of conversation is an ethical conversation

• Ethical conversations and analyses are about evaluating "values and expectations" - claims that we ought to adopt or reject some value(s) and the associated behavior motivated by those values.

• So what are some of the unwritten, but widely acknowledged rules for having an ethical conversation? What are the legitimate "moves" you can make in an ethical conversation? What moves would earn you a yellow or red card.

• Illegitimate moves:

• Appealing to only one person's or group's interests.

• "What's right is what serves my interests!" vs. "In this circumstance, it is morally permissible for everyone to pursue their interests"

• Denying the standing (need for consideration) of a person or group arbitrarily. "

• "Everyone deserves human rights except group X"

• Most illicit appeals in informal logic (fallacies): ad hominems and appeals to pity, ignorance, etc.

• Legitimate moves:

• Appealing to broadly held values about human life and human dignity.
• Appealing to cultural and local norms that may be considered well justified.
• Appealing to objective knowledge claims that may support or invalidate premises.
• Calling into question these norms or their application, often by:

• 1. Conceptual analysis -- What does it mean to value human life? How will we know that we are guaranteeing human dignity?
• 2. Advocacy for specific understanding of human nature or human needs.
• 3. Showing that some value proposition will or will not function to promote desirable outcomes.