WHAT IS MORALITY?
(from elsewhere)
Cooperation is extremely beneficial. As we evolved cooperation, we evolve instincts to prefer it. But Cooperation opens the door to parasitism, which negates the value of cooperation. So we evolved moral instincts that inform us to punish parasites and parasitism. In economics this parasitism is referred to more gently as ‘free riding’.
That which is moral is that which is productive non-parasitic, and provides incentives to cooperate. That which is immoral is that which is unproductive, parasitic, and reduces incentives for cooperation.
Most groups develop tolerances for, and reward for, mutual insurance. Insurance is not parasitic as long as it is not a form of dependency. Tolerance for paying this insurance normally decreases with kinship distance. Few cultures develop insurance regardless of kinship difference.
Westerners were successful in both outbreeding (eliminating cousin marriage), and in generating widespread trade. And western culture for ancient reasons, uniquely favors truth-telling. The (protestant) west developed high trust, breaking the kinship barrier to insurance.
So the (protestant) west was able to (in *fact*) produce the most moral society: the greatest restraint of parasitism, and therefore by consequence, the greatest economic output by systematically suppressing all free riding (parasitism).
Whereupon, as a result of political inclusion during the enlightenment, the marxists, socialists and feminists via the novelty of democracy, systematically worked to use their newfound influence in government to circumvent the suppression of parasitism, and they institutionalized parasitism via the state – despite it’s eradication from institutionalization in norms.
As limits to parasitism, and the fragility of parasitism , and the accumulated malincentives of parasitism became visible, the western state evolved however, into a vast insurance company. And the general principle it operates by is Rawlsian: “produce the greatest parasitism that does not kill the incentives of the host”.
The question is, whether this general rule produces a society that is sustainable or not. Progressives advance it because they have faith in technology, conservatives resist it because they have little faith in the nature of man.
Conservatives are correct in their understanding of man. Progressives correct in the (temporary) benefit of tolerating parasitism.
But, the American experience as misinformed the world: the sale of cheap land is our equivalent of the ‘curse of oil’.
The oil producers do not evolve advanced economies because of the malincenives of oil. Westerners destroy their high trust society because of the malincentives of selling cheap land to immigrating members of low trust societies without forcibly indoctrinating them into high trust western cultural norms.
We are only as moral as we can get away with avoiding. Morality evolved AFTER self interest. And most of us seek parasitism wherever possible, whenever we will not be punished for it.
Curt Doolittle
Source date (UTC): 2015-03-21 02:21:00 UTC