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A Darwinian Left: Politics, Evolution, and Cooperation
In this ground-breaking book, a renowned bioethicist argues that the political left must radically revise its outdated view of human nature. He shows how the insights of modern evolutionary theory, particularly on the evolution of cooperation, can help the left attain its social and political goals.Singer explains why the left originally rejected Darwinian thought and why these reasons are no longer viable. He discusses how twentieth-century thinking has transformed our understanding of Darwinian evolution, showing that it is compatible with cooperation as well as competition, and that the left can draw on this modern understanding to foster cooperation for socially desirable ends. A Darwinian left, says Singer, would still be on the side of the weak, poor, and oppressed, but it would have a better understanding of what social and economic changes would really work to benefit them. It would also work toward a higher moral status for nonhuman animals and a less anthropocentric view of our dominance over nature.
81 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 11, 2000
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793 people want to read
About the author
Peter Singer
182 books10.5k followersPeter Singer is sometimes called "the world’s most influential living philosopher" although he thinks that if that is true, it doesn't say much for all the other living philosophers around today. He has also been called the father (or grandfather?) of the modern animal rights movement, even though he doesn't base his philosophical views on rights, either for humans or for animals.
In 2005 Time magazine named Singer one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute ranked him 3rd among Global Thought Leaders for 2013. (He has since slipped to 36th.) He is known especially for his work on the ethics of our treatment of animals, for his controversial critique of the sanctity of life doctrine in bioethics, and for his writings on the obligations of the affluent to aid those living in extreme poverty.
Singer first became well-known internationally after the publication of Animal Liberation in 1975. In 2011 Time included Animal Liberation on its “All-TIME” list of the 100 best nonfiction books published in English since the magazine began, in 1923. Singer has written, co-authored, edited or co-edited more than 50 books, including Practical Ethics; The Expanding Circle; How Are We to Live?, Rethinking Life and Death, The Ethics of What We Eat (with Jim Mason), The Point of View of the Universe (with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek), The Most Good You Can Do, Ethics in the Real World and Utilitarianism: A Very Short Introduction. His works have appeared in more than 30 languages.
Singer’s book The Life You Can Save, first published in 2009, led him to found a non-profit organization of the same name. In 2019, Singer got back the rights to the book and granted them to the organization, enabling it to make the eBook and audiobook versions available free from its website, www.thelifeyoucansave.org.
Peter Singer was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1946, and educated at the University of Melbourne and the University of Oxford. After teaching in England, the United States and Australia, he has, since 1999, been Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. He is married, with three daughters and four grandchildren. His recreations include hiking and surfing. In 2012 he was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, the nation’s highest civic honour.
In 2005 Time magazine named Singer one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute ranked him 3rd among Global Thought Leaders for 2013. (He has since slipped to 36th.) He is known especially for his work on the ethics of our treatment of animals, for his controversial critique of the sanctity of life doctrine in bioethics, and for his writings on the obligations of the affluent to aid those living in extreme poverty.
Singer first became well-known internationally after the publication of Animal Liberation in 1975. In 2011 Time included Animal Liberation on its “All-TIME” list of the 100 best nonfiction books published in English since the magazine began, in 1923. Singer has written, co-authored, edited or co-edited more than 50 books, including Practical Ethics; The Expanding Circle; How Are We to Live?, Rethinking Life and Death, The Ethics of What We Eat (with Jim Mason), The Point of View of the Universe (with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek), The Most Good You Can Do, Ethics in the Real World and Utilitarianism: A Very Short Introduction. His works have appeared in more than 30 languages.
Singer’s book The Life You Can Save, first published in 2009, led him to found a non-profit organization of the same name. In 2019, Singer got back the rights to the book and granted them to the organization, enabling it to make the eBook and audiobook versions available free from its website, www.thelifeyoucansave.org.
Peter Singer was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1946, and educated at the University of Melbourne and the University of Oxford. After teaching in England, the United States and Australia, he has, since 1999, been Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. He is married, with three daughters and four grandchildren. His recreations include hiking and surfing. In 2012 he was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, the nation’s highest civic honour.
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March 3, 2022
داروینیسم اجتماعی، دلالتی راستگرایانه دارد و سنت داروینی اغلب در پیوند با لیبرالیسم تلقی میشود. سینگر با ارجاع به داروین و مارکس، و البته مغالطات و بدفهمیهای پیروان مارکس، نشان میدهد که چطور دستراستیها از «بقای اصلح» داروین به نوعی نظریهای هنجاری مغلوط رسیدند که طبق آن «حق با زورمندان است.» خود داروین در نامهای به دوستش، پس از انتشار اثرش، متوجه این بدفهمی شده بود. سینگر در نیمهی دوم کتاب به شکل ایجابی اشاره میکند که سنت چپ، و نه مارکسیسم کلاسیک، چگونه میتواند با داروینیسم در ارتباط و تعامل باشد و نظم سیاسی و اجتماعی برابریخواهانهای را نتیجه دهد، نظمی که البته دیگر همچون مارکسیسیم نمیخواهد با خوشخیالی انسانِ جدیدی خلق کند که از پیگیری منافع خود دست شُسته و تماماً در خدمت «خلق» و جامعه قرار گرفته است
February 23, 2023
میگه داروینیسم اساساً گرایش به چپ یا راست نداره و خود داروین هم بهشخصه همینطور. اما هم راستها و هم چپها میتونن از این نظریه در راستای تحقق یا توجیه اهدافشون استفاده کنن. راستها زودتر دست به کار شدند و با ارجاع به این نظریه، گفتند سرشت آدمی اساساً رقابتجوئه و پیجویی منفعت شخصی در نهایت به منفعت همگانی منجر میشه. چپها آنچنان که باید از داروینیسم بهره نبردند. یکی از دلایلش شاید استناد راستها به این نظریه بود، که چپها رو به موضعگیری مخالف وا میداشت. میگه اتفاقاً چپها (البته بهشرط منطبقکردن آرمانهاشون با واقعیت موجود) میتونن از نظریۀ داروین بهرهبرداری کنن و مشخصاً با تکیه به همین نظریه استدلال کنند که سرشت آدمیزاد اساساً همکارانهست و همین منجر به خیر همگانی میشه.
کتاب کوچکی بود که صرفاً طرح مسئله میکرد و اتخاذ نظرگاه جدیدی رو پیشنهاد میداد. یه مقدمه بود بهنوعی.
سینگر رو بهواسطۀ دستگاه فکری منسجمش، بیان سهل و ممتنعش و موضعگیری اخلاقیش در برابر نابرابری بسیار دوست دارم.
کتاب کوچکی بود که صرفاً طرح مسئله میکرد و اتخاذ نظرگاه جدیدی رو پیشنهاد میداد. یه مقدمه بود بهنوعی.
سینگر رو بهواسطۀ دستگاه فکری منسجمش، بیان سهل و ممتنعش و موضعگیری اخلاقیش در برابر نابرابری بسیار دوست دارم.
January 29, 2021
کتاب بدی نیست
فقط چند با قسمت آخرش موافق نیستم
اگه مطالعات چپ دارید و با نظریه تکامل هم آشنا هستید بخونیدش
ولی توقع توضیح و اینچیزها ازش نداشته باشید
فقط چند با قسمت آخرش موافق نیستم
اگه مطالعات چپ دارید و با نظریه تکامل هم آشنا هستید بخونیدش
ولی توقع توضیح و اینچیزها ازش نداشته باشید
July 16, 2014
The application of "Darwinian principles" to society, rather than to biological evolution, has generally been the province of the political right, with the crackpot ideas of Herbert Spencer and his followers -- the philosophical school later called Social Darwinism -- being used by the Robber Barons and their ilk as a good excuse to ignore the inordinate amount of sheer human misery their activities caused: all the poverty, starvation and suffering, all the destroyed lives, were worth it because that was the price that had to be paid for species advancement. My, you could almost look upon the Social Darwinists as saints and saviours. And, of course, we cannot forget the Objectivists, the disciples of the even more crackpot Ayn Rand.
What Singer attempts to do in the pages of this extremely slender volume is to lay out a few ground rules for what he doesn't call a Social Darwinism of the left, a political philosophy that relies less upon the "nature red in tooth and claw" aspects of Darwinism (that phrase anyway predated the announcement of the Darwin/Wallace theory) and more upon those aspects that recognize the value of characteristics like cooperation, aspects that the Spencerians simply ignored in their orgy of pseudoscientific cherrypicking. Since it had never struck me before that Singer's point was one that actually had to be made, that it wasn't wholly evident to anyone possessed of reason, I'm not sure I was actually the audience he was aiming at; at the same time, the book's very nattily written and sparkling with pertinent observations so I regret not one second of the time I spent reading it. Here's one item that had me punching the air in admiration:
[T:]o leave a group of people so far outside the social commonwealth that they have nothing to contribute to it, is to alienate them from social practices and institutions in a manner that almost ensures that they will become adversaries who pose a danger to those institutions. [. . .:] Social Darwinists saw the fact that those who are less fit will fall by the wayside as nature's way of weeding out the unfit, and an inevitable result of the struggle for existence. To try to overcome it or even ameliorate it was futile, if not positively harmful. A Darwinian left, understanding the prerequisites for mutual cooperation as well as its benefits, would strive to avoid economic conditions that create outcasts. [. . .:] When the free operation of competitive market forces makes it hazardous to walk the streets at night, governments do well to interfere with those market forces to promote employment. (p53)
Singer was writing before the recent exponential increase in the gap between rich and poor in many of the developed nations. It is depressing how much more poignant his observation has become than it was a mere decade ago.
What Singer attempts to do in the pages of this extremely slender volume is to lay out a few ground rules for what he doesn't call a Social Darwinism of the left, a political philosophy that relies less upon the "nature red in tooth and claw" aspects of Darwinism (that phrase anyway predated the announcement of the Darwin/Wallace theory) and more upon those aspects that recognize the value of characteristics like cooperation, aspects that the Spencerians simply ignored in their orgy of pseudoscientific cherrypicking. Since it had never struck me before that Singer's point was one that actually had to be made, that it wasn't wholly evident to anyone possessed of reason, I'm not sure I was actually the audience he was aiming at; at the same time, the book's very nattily written and sparkling with pertinent observations so I regret not one second of the time I spent reading it. Here's one item that had me punching the air in admiration:
[T:]o leave a group of people so far outside the social commonwealth that they have nothing to contribute to it, is to alienate them from social practices and institutions in a manner that almost ensures that they will become adversaries who pose a danger to those institutions. [. . .:] Social Darwinists saw the fact that those who are less fit will fall by the wayside as nature's way of weeding out the unfit, and an inevitable result of the struggle for existence. To try to overcome it or even ameliorate it was futile, if not positively harmful. A Darwinian left, understanding the prerequisites for mutual cooperation as well as its benefits, would strive to avoid economic conditions that create outcasts. [. . .:] When the free operation of competitive market forces makes it hazardous to walk the streets at night, governments do well to interfere with those market forces to promote employment. (p53)
Singer was writing before the recent exponential increase in the gap between rich and poor in many of the developed nations. It is depressing how much more poignant his observation has become than it was a mere decade ago.
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July 30, 2020کتاب جالبی است. بهجز مضمون اصلی _که ایجاد تلائم بین ایدهی چپ (مقدمبودن منافع جمع بر فرد در تصمیمگیری) و تکامل است_ این تصور جدید را برای من ایجاد کرد که چنین نیست که تکامل صرفا نظریهای علمی باشد و هیچ تأثیری روی بایدها و نبایدهای اخلاقی نگذارد.
January 23, 2025
In this short book (more of a long essay) Peter Singer, the progenitor of much of the modern effective altruism and animal rights movements, makes the argument that the left needs to reclaim Darwinist thought from the right-wing in order to properly advocate for progressive ideals and implement policies that help the people who need helping
Singer makes a decent argument that generations of Left-wing thinkers have disregarded Darwinism as an inconvenient truth and pursued policies that fly in the face of human instinct, which in the long run was responsible for much of the failures in societies like the Soviet Union.
In his mind a Darwinist Left would not deny the existence of a human nature, expect to bring about a utopia, or assume that all inequalities are the spawn of discrimination. It would accept that there is such a thing as human nature and that policy should be made taking this into account, reject any inference from what is natural to what is right, expect that humans are able to be both competitive and cooperative while pursuing avenues of self-improvement and actively encourage the latter, and most importantly stand by the traditional ideals of the Left by taking the side of the weak, poor, and oppressed.
Even though this was published over twenty years ago and admittedly, can read a little dated in a few areas, many things ring true to our modern era and in my view this is a lesson large segments of the Left still need to learn. Human beings are hyper-evolved apes and we although we are capable of many astonishing things we cannot forget this fact and think ourselves above our station. I think it makes sense that this argument comes from someone like Singer who has done so much for animal rights, as from his perspective people on the Left those who view humanity as capable of some post-Darwinist utopia and people on the Right who view humanity as divined from God share the same base view that humans are not just different but betterthan any other species.
Singer's argument reminds me of The Genetic Lottery by Kathryn Paige Harden, where instead of Darwinism Harden argues that the legacy of eugenics led the left to disregarding genetics as a field, and again this field was entirely adopted by the Right. She contends that genetics and heredity matter deeply to equality and therefore to the Left, and must be synthesised with progressive ideals to properly understand both the problems and solutions of modern inequality. Two works some quarter of a century apart making arguments similar in concept if not in specifics.
Overall, if you're even slightly interested in politics or political theory this is definitely worth a read even if you disagree with its arguments. It's short enough to be read in a lunch break but impactful enough to make you think deeper on the rationale behind the arguments of many advocates you see today.
Singer makes a decent argument that generations of Left-wing thinkers have disregarded Darwinism as an inconvenient truth and pursued policies that fly in the face of human instinct, which in the long run was responsible for much of the failures in societies like the Soviet Union.
In his mind a Darwinist Left would not deny the existence of a human nature, expect to bring about a utopia, or assume that all inequalities are the spawn of discrimination. It would accept that there is such a thing as human nature and that policy should be made taking this into account, reject any inference from what is natural to what is right, expect that humans are able to be both competitive and cooperative while pursuing avenues of self-improvement and actively encourage the latter, and most importantly stand by the traditional ideals of the Left by taking the side of the weak, poor, and oppressed.
Even though this was published over twenty years ago and admittedly, can read a little dated in a few areas, many things ring true to our modern era and in my view this is a lesson large segments of the Left still need to learn. Human beings are hyper-evolved apes and we although we are capable of many astonishing things we cannot forget this fact and think ourselves above our station. I think it makes sense that this argument comes from someone like Singer who has done so much for animal rights, as from his perspective people on the Left those who view humanity as capable of some post-Darwinist utopia and people on the Right who view humanity as divined from God share the same base view that humans are not just different but betterthan any other species.
Singer's argument reminds me of The Genetic Lottery by Kathryn Paige Harden, where instead of Darwinism Harden argues that the legacy of eugenics led the left to disregarding genetics as a field, and again this field was entirely adopted by the Right. She contends that genetics and heredity matter deeply to equality and therefore to the Left, and must be synthesised with progressive ideals to properly understand both the problems and solutions of modern inequality. Two works some quarter of a century apart making arguments similar in concept if not in specifics.
Overall, if you're even slightly interested in politics or political theory this is definitely worth a read even if you disagree with its arguments. It's short enough to be read in a lunch break but impactful enough to make you think deeper on the rationale behind the arguments of many advocates you see today.
October 28, 2021
پیتر سینگر (فیلسوف فایدهگرا و متمایل به جناح چپ) معتقد است که از سویی اندیشههای مارکسیستی در قرن گذشته با نادیده گرفتن قوانین طبیعت بشری و تلاش برای تفسیر آن به رأی خود شکستهای عظیمی به بار آوردهاند و در عین حال در زمانهای به سر میبریم که نابرابری چشمگیری به وجود آمده و نیاز به آرمانهای برابریخواهانهی چپی محسوس است در نتیجه با برداشت از این دو گزاره تلاش برای شکل دادن به تفکر «چپ داروینی» را مهم میداند.
در ادامه اظهار دارد که به طور کلی اعمال ایثارگرانه و مبتنی بر همکاری جمعی نه بخاطر فضیلت آن -که در طبیعت حسن اخلاق بیمعنیست- بلکه بنا به فوایدی که احتمالاً باعث ماندگاری و دوام آنها در طی تاریخ بشری شده (به اضافهی استناد به استدلالهای مبنی بر پژوهشهای نظریهی بازیها) و همچنین اینکه به قول هگل امروزه انسان به جایی رسیده که «معرفت مطلق به معرفتپذیری خویش» دارد، باید بتوانند که بیش از آنچه که جهان رقابتی امروز به آن فرصت میدهد در امور جامعه به کار گرفته شوند و در واقع از ابزار انتخاب طبیعی به نفع آنچه که برای ما سودمنتر است (بنا بر استدلالهای خودش و در جهت فلسفهی نتیجهمحور و فایدهگرا) برای شکل دادن به یک جامعهی بهتر استفاده نمود.
کتاب بیش از آن لاغر است که بتواند به خوبی از ایدهاش دفاع کند یا حتی در مقام عدالت آن را به مقایسه با «راست داروینی» بگذارد و دانش من هم برای قضاوت آن هنوز ناقص و محدود. اما از جهت اطلاعات تاریخی از این کتاب کوچک بهرهی زیادی بردم.
در ادامه اظهار دارد که به طور کلی اعمال ایثارگرانه و مبتنی بر همکاری جمعی نه بخاطر فضیلت آن -که در طبیعت حسن اخلاق بیمعنیست- بلکه بنا به فوایدی که احتمالاً باعث ماندگاری و دوام آنها در طی تاریخ بشری شده (به اضافهی استناد به استدلالهای مبنی بر پژوهشهای نظریهی بازیها) و همچنین اینکه به قول هگل امروزه انسان به جایی رسیده که «معرفت مطلق به معرفتپذیری خویش» دارد، باید بتوانند که بیش از آنچه که جهان رقابتی امروز به آن فرصت میدهد در امور جامعه به کار گرفته شوند و در واقع از ابزار انتخاب طبیعی به نفع آنچه که برای ما سودمنتر است (بنا بر استدلالهای خودش و در جهت فلسفهی نتیجهمحور و فایدهگرا) برای شکل دادن به یک جامعهی بهتر استفاده نمود.
کتاب بیش از آن لاغر است که بتواند به خوبی از ایدهاش دفاع کند یا حتی در مقام عدالت آن را به مقایسه با «راست داروینی» بگذارد و دانش من هم برای قضاوت آن هنوز ناقص و محدود. اما از جهت اطلاعات تاریخی از این کتاب کوچک بهرهی زیادی بردم.
October 4, 2022
سینگر در این کتاب تئوری تکامل داروین را جايگزين نظرهای مارکس کرده است. فصل اول و دوم کتاب نقد مارکسیسم است و در سه فصل دیگر کتاب تکامل را جایگزین میکند. مهمترین نکته این کتاب بررسی ایثار و نوعدوستی از دید تکامل داروین است که با آن چپ را با ذات انسان هماهنگ میکند.
August 30, 2019
Well worth reading
It was thought not too many years ago that the architects (so to speak) of the modern world were Marx, Darwin, Einstein and Freud. Now that the postmodern era is upon us, a reevaluation has been made and Marxist ideas have been largely discredited. Einstein has suffered a correction (from quantum mechanics), Freud has been reclassified as literature, and it is only Darwin's reputation that has survived unsullied.
Furthermore during this period the right has taken Darwin as its own, believing that the competitive biological nature of human beings as revealed by evolutionary biology is what leads to the inequalities that exist in human societies while justifying the war of one against all, etc.
But what Peter Singer is crowing about (and is the occasion for this lengthy essay/short book) is that the "red in tooth and claw" (Tennyson) interpretation of biological evolution that prevailed throughout the modern era is now coming under fire. No longer can biological evolution be seen as simply the strong taking advantage of the weak (a notion understandably obnoxious to the left). The larger truth now emerging from biology is that cooperation plays an important role in being fit and has, especially for humans, great adaptive value. It is becoming clear that Richard Dawkins's idea of the "selfish gene" is only part of the understanding, and that natural selection operates on groups through the individual, leading to an understanding that one (more cooperative) tribe may be selected over another, and that it is through cooperation within the tribe that Darwinian fittest may be most strongly expressed.
Now this is an idea that the left can appreciate. Consequently Singer's enthusiasm. Marx is dead, long live Darwin!
My problem with this intellectual enterprise is one that Singer points to on page 38, namely that we cannot form an argument from what is to what should be. Singer opines that we can instead through an appreciation of evolution gain "a better understanding of what it may take to achieve the goals we seek."
Beginning on page 31 with his second chapter, Singer compares behaviors across societies. This allows him to note which practices are universal or nearly so and which are highly diverse. The conclusion is that the more universal the behavior, the more it is a product of our biological nature and not a construct of society. To the extent that this process is valid, the information gotten is valuable. This is indeed one of the tools of evolutionary psychology that some people on the Darwinian left would like to discredit. They fear that an emphasis on our genetic endowment will work against our ability to nurture positive values and behaviors. They want nurture trumping nature.
However, in my opinion, the entire argument is passé and invalid. It is now generally understood in biology that nature gives us a predisposition to certain behaviors that develop in concert with our environmental experience so that our behaviors are an intimate product of both our nature and our nurture and cannot in any way be separated. The old "nature vs. nurture" debate is now seen as based on a false dilemma.
Also, it should be appreciated that today's scientific understanding of human nature as derived from biology, genetics and kindred disciplines, is just that, today's understanding, and as such is tentative. Consequently any oughts, shoulds, etc. drawn from such an understanding--even if such a practice were logically valid--would also be of a provisional nature.
Having said all this, I want to note that Singer's argument is well presented and his prescription for a Darwinian left in Chapter 5 well worth reading. If adopted it would work toward relieving the left from its fear of what evolutionary psychology is discovering about human beings. As Steven Pinker (not exactly a leftist) cheerfully notes, "Singer challenges the conventional wisdom that a recognition of human nature is incompatible with progressive ideals..."
He does, and indeed Singer demonstrates that the discoveries of evolutionary biology can be completely compatible with the traditional values of the left. This is an important understanding, since evolutionary biology is not going to go away, nor are its discoveries. We must learn to live with who and what we are without necessarily condoning our less attractive tendencies or attempting to sweep them under the rug.
Bottom line: the opening chapter which concentrates too much on the well-known Marxist delusions and the Soviet doublethink might well be skipped. The meat of Singer's essay begins with Chapter 2, and works very well by itself.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “Understanding Evolution and Ourselves”
It was thought not too many years ago that the architects (so to speak) of the modern world were Marx, Darwin, Einstein and Freud. Now that the postmodern era is upon us, a reevaluation has been made and Marxist ideas have been largely discredited. Einstein has suffered a correction (from quantum mechanics), Freud has been reclassified as literature, and it is only Darwin's reputation that has survived unsullied.
Furthermore during this period the right has taken Darwin as its own, believing that the competitive biological nature of human beings as revealed by evolutionary biology is what leads to the inequalities that exist in human societies while justifying the war of one against all, etc.
But what Peter Singer is crowing about (and is the occasion for this lengthy essay/short book) is that the "red in tooth and claw" (Tennyson) interpretation of biological evolution that prevailed throughout the modern era is now coming under fire. No longer can biological evolution be seen as simply the strong taking advantage of the weak (a notion understandably obnoxious to the left). The larger truth now emerging from biology is that cooperation plays an important role in being fit and has, especially for humans, great adaptive value. It is becoming clear that Richard Dawkins's idea of the "selfish gene" is only part of the understanding, and that natural selection operates on groups through the individual, leading to an understanding that one (more cooperative) tribe may be selected over another, and that it is through cooperation within the tribe that Darwinian fittest may be most strongly expressed.
Now this is an idea that the left can appreciate. Consequently Singer's enthusiasm. Marx is dead, long live Darwin!
My problem with this intellectual enterprise is one that Singer points to on page 38, namely that we cannot form an argument from what is to what should be. Singer opines that we can instead through an appreciation of evolution gain "a better understanding of what it may take to achieve the goals we seek."
Beginning on page 31 with his second chapter, Singer compares behaviors across societies. This allows him to note which practices are universal or nearly so and which are highly diverse. The conclusion is that the more universal the behavior, the more it is a product of our biological nature and not a construct of society. To the extent that this process is valid, the information gotten is valuable. This is indeed one of the tools of evolutionary psychology that some people on the Darwinian left would like to discredit. They fear that an emphasis on our genetic endowment will work against our ability to nurture positive values and behaviors. They want nurture trumping nature.
However, in my opinion, the entire argument is passé and invalid. It is now generally understood in biology that nature gives us a predisposition to certain behaviors that develop in concert with our environmental experience so that our behaviors are an intimate product of both our nature and our nurture and cannot in any way be separated. The old "nature vs. nurture" debate is now seen as based on a false dilemma.
Also, it should be appreciated that today's scientific understanding of human nature as derived from biology, genetics and kindred disciplines, is just that, today's understanding, and as such is tentative. Consequently any oughts, shoulds, etc. drawn from such an understanding--even if such a practice were logically valid--would also be of a provisional nature.
Having said all this, I want to note that Singer's argument is well presented and his prescription for a Darwinian left in Chapter 5 well worth reading. If adopted it would work toward relieving the left from its fear of what evolutionary psychology is discovering about human beings. As Steven Pinker (not exactly a leftist) cheerfully notes, "Singer challenges the conventional wisdom that a recognition of human nature is incompatible with progressive ideals..."
He does, and indeed Singer demonstrates that the discoveries of evolutionary biology can be completely compatible with the traditional values of the left. This is an important understanding, since evolutionary biology is not going to go away, nor are its discoveries. We must learn to live with who and what we are without necessarily condoning our less attractive tendencies or attempting to sweep them under the rug.
Bottom line: the opening chapter which concentrates too much on the well-known Marxist delusions and the Soviet doublethink might well be skipped. The meat of Singer's essay begins with Chapter 2, and works very well by itself.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “Understanding Evolution and Ourselves”
January 18, 2015
What's there to say? As someone deeply sympathetic to Evolutionary Psychology or the Darwinian approach towards Human Nature (especially its behavioral and psychological aspects), I pretty much agree with Peter Singer's starting point. In effect, I also agree with him that Marxist view of human nature as a social construct of society is pretty much bunk. The diamond in the rough is Singer's idea that instead of viewing Darwinian thought about human nature with hostility or suspicion (you know, because of "Social Darwinism" and other atrocities committed under the name of "Eugenics"), the Left should use it as a scientific framework imposing some constraints on which social/economic policies are feasible and which beliefs about the world are consistent with Darwinism. This leads to the idea that the left should use some insights from Darwinism to establish social conditions that encourage or trigger the pre-existing cooperative aspect of human nature towards reciprocal altruism. Singer doesn't exactly state what that condition is, but I suspect it is on purpose because he only wants to provide a very broad view about what direction the Left is suppose to take. Moreover, Singer insists that we should avoid deducing values from facts, a mistake made by those on the right and left side of the spectrum. Instead, the Darwinian framework is the ground in which people have to think about human nature very seriously and carefully before proposing and implementing policies that may or may not presuppose an unrealistic view of human nature. Those are the highlights of Singer's short little book.
My only concern is that the book targets people who identify with many liberal/left values, but become disillusioned or dissatisfied with the political orthodoxy on the left that dismisses any idea antithetical to the notion that human nature is malleable. He does go through the history of the Left to understand their suspicion about Darwinism applied to Human Nature, but he barely engages with its contemporary critics. I suspect this is because Singer's book is more like a proposal than a philosophical defense of the Darwinian Left. This isn't a very serious objection to Singer's book, but it is worth mentioning to readers who might want to find some kind of debate. I think I recommend this book to anyone who identify with many liberal values, but disagree with the Left's take on human nature.
My only concern is that the book targets people who identify with many liberal/left values, but become disillusioned or dissatisfied with the political orthodoxy on the left that dismisses any idea antithetical to the notion that human nature is malleable. He does go through the history of the Left to understand their suspicion about Darwinism applied to Human Nature, but he barely engages with its contemporary critics. I suspect this is because Singer's book is more like a proposal than a philosophical defense of the Darwinian Left. This isn't a very serious objection to Singer's book, but it is worth mentioning to readers who might want to find some kind of debate. I think I recommend this book to anyone who identify with many liberal values, but disagree with the Left's take on human nature.
October 21, 2019
Vamos lá parar de fingir que não somos animais.
August 26, 2023
Social Darwinism is dead.
The idea that charity, welfare and medical treatment ought to be withheld so that the poor and ill perish in accordance with the process of natural selection survives only as a ‘straw man’ sometimes attributed to conservatives by leftists, and a form of ‘guilt by association’ sometimes invoked by creationists to discredit Darwinism.
Yet, despite the attachment of many American conservatives to creationism, there remains a perception that evolutionary psychology is somehow right-wing.
If humans are fundamentally selfish, as Dawkins is taken to have argued, then this surely confirms the underlying assumptions of classical economics.
Certainly, through what biologists call kin selection, we have evolved to be altruistic to close biological relatives. Yet this only reinforces conservatives’ faith in the family unit, and their concerns regarding family breakdown and substitute parents.
Finally, research on sex differences surely suggests that some traditional gender roles (e.g. motherhood, soldiering) have a biological basis, and patriarchy and the pay gap are all but biologically inevitable.
Larry Arnhart thus champions a new Darwinian Conservatism.
Against this, Peter Singer seeks to reclaim Darwin, and evolutionary psychology, for the Left.
The Naturalistic Fallacy
Since David Hume, it has been accepted among philosophers that one cannot derive values from facts.
Evolutionary psychologists have agreed, not least because enabled them to investigate the evolutionary function of such behaviors as infidelity, rape, war and child abuse without being taken as thereby justifying the behaviors in question.
Thus, rather than attempting to justify leftist ideals like equality, Singer accepts them as given. He argues not that socialism is demanded by Darwinism, but only that it is compatible with Darwinism.
But, if moral values cannot be derived from scientific facts, whence are they derived?
Can they only be derived from other moral values? If so, how are our ultimate moral values, from which all others are derived, themselves derived?
Singer implies that our ultimate moral values must simply be taken on faith.
But rejecting the naturalistic fallacy does not mean that the facts of human nature are irrelevant to politics.
While Darwinism may not prescribe any political goals, it may help us determine how to achieve those goals we have decided upon:
Darwinism also suggests some political goals are simply unattainable given human nature.
In watering down the utopian aspirations of previous generations of leftists, Singer seems to agree.
Human selfishness makes communism unattainable because:
As Adam Smith wrote:
What's Left?
In rejecting utopianism, Singer has displeased other leftists, both those opposed to evolutionary psychology (e.g. The First Darwinian Left) and others broadly receptive to the field and its findings (e.g. Marek Kohn in As We Know It).
Singer defines the left in unusually broad terms, as being:
Rather, conservatives and libertarians reject the division of society into ‘oppressed’ and ‘oppressor’ groups, arguing that mutually beneficial exchange is the basis of capitalism, not exploitation.
Thus, conservatives claim that their policies benefit society as a whole, and that socialist reforms inadvertently hurt precisely those whom they aim to help (e.g. welfare encourages welfare dependency; a high minimum wage increases unemployment).
Indeed, many conservatives would share Singer’s aspiration to create a more altruistic culture.
Indeed, this aspiration seems more compatible with the libertarian notion of voluntary charitable donations replacing taxation than with the coercively-extracted taxation favored by the Left.
Equality of Opportunity
Yet Selfish gene theory suggests humans are not entirely self-interested. Rather, kin selection makes us care also about our biological relatives.
But this is no boon for the left.
First, it means divorce is a problem since stepfamilies have higher rates of abuse.
Second, it makes ‘equality of opportunity’ as unattainable as ‘equality of outcome’—because individuals will often act to aid the social, educational and economic advancement of their kin, and those individuals better placed to do so (e.g. richer, better connected, smarter) will do so more effectively.
Yet, since many conservatives and libertarians are as committed to equality of opportunity as socialists are to equality of outcome, this conclusion may be as unwelcome among the former as among the latter.
Indeed, kin selection has even been invoked to suggest that ethnocentrism is innate and ethnic conflict is inevitable in multi-ethnic societies, a proposal popular today only on the far right.
Animal Rights
Singer argues Darwinism supports animal liberation.:
But human-animal continuity cuts two ways.
Thus, antivivisectionists argue that animal testing is pointless, because drugs and treatments often have different effects on humans than on the animals used in the tests. Our evolutionary continuity with non-human species makes this argument less likely.
Moreover, if humans are subject to the same principles of biology as other species, this suggests, not the elevation of animals to the status of humans, but rather the relegation of humans to just another animal.
Finally, if we are a product of evolution, then we surely evolved to be carnivorous..
Of course, if meat-eating is natural, this does not make it right. This would be to commit a version of the appeal to nature fallacy.
However, if carnivory is natural then this does indeed suggest that suggest that vegetarianism is nutritionally sub-optimal, since our bodies have been designed by evolution to consume meat.
Thus, the appeal to nature fallacy is not always fallacious when it comes to human health.
Moreover, since Singer argues elsewhere that there is a no valid moral distinction between acts and omissions (“We are responsible not only for what we do but also for what we could have prevented”: Writings on an Ethical Life: pxv), then, if he believes it is wrong for us to eat animals, does he also believe we should take positive measures to prevent lions from eating gazelles?
Reciprocity
In chapter 4 (“Competition or Cooperation?”), Singer argues that, although competition and cooperation are both natural, it is possible to create a society that focuses more on cooperation.
However, he is short on practical suggestions as to how a culture of altruism is to be fostered.
Changing the values of a culture is not easy, especially for a liberal democratic (as opposed to a totalitarian) government, let alone for a solitary Australian moral philosopher—and Singer’s condemnation of what he calls “the nightmares of Stalinist Russia” suggests that he would not countenance the interference with human freedom to which the left has so often resorted, with little ultimate success, in the past.
Yet Singer is wrong to see cooperation and competition as always in conflict.
Indeed, perhaps the most remarkable acts of cooperation and self-sacrifice are witnessed in wartime (e.g. kamikaze pilots, suicide bombers and soldiers who throw themselves on grenades). Yet war represents the most extreme form of competition known to man.
In short, soldiers risk and sacrifice their lives, not only to save the lives of others, but also to take the lives of other others.
Likewise, trade, a form of cooperation, is as fundamental to capitalism as is competition.
Indeed, far from disparaging cooperation, neoliberal economists view exchange as central to capitalism.
Thus, Matt Ridley, like Singer, also focuses on humans’ innate capacity for cooperation in order to justify political conclusions. But, for Ridley, our capacity for cooperation provides a rationale, not for socialism, but rather for free markets—because, he argues, humans, as natural traders, produce efficient systems of exchange which government intervention only distorts (see The Origins of Virtue).
Group Differences
Singer rejects:
Such a concession is not incompatible with leftism. In The Blank Slate, Pinker points to the theoretical possibility of a “Hereditarian Left”, arguing for a Rawlsian redistribution of resources to the innately ‘cognitively disadvantaged’.
Indeed, no lesser leftist than Marx himself, in advocating ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his need’, implicitly recognized that people differed in “ability”—differences which, given the equalization of conditions envisaged under communism, he presumably envisaged as innate in origin.
As Marxist biologist Haldane observed:
But Singer neglects another factor—women’s attachment to infant offspring, also innate, which also impedes career advancement. For a more detailed treatment, see Kingsley Browne’s Biology at Work, which I have reviewed here.
Eugenics
In response to the claim that welfare encourages the unemployed to have children and thereby promotes dysgenic fertility, Singer retorts:
While it may be unhelpful to talk of unemployment itself as heritable, traits that likely contribute to unemployment (e.g. intelligence, conscientiousness, mental illness) are indeed heritable.
Indeed, in the strict biological sense, unemployment surely is heritable. So, incidentally, are road traffic accidents and political opinions—because they reflect physical and personality traits that are themselves heritable (e.g. risk-takers and people with poor physical coordination have more traffic accidents; more compassionate people support left-wing policies).
Actually, though, the question of heritability is irrelevant.
Even if the reason that children from deprived backgrounds have worse life outcomes is entirely due to environmental factors (e.g. parenting, poverty), the case for restricting the reproductive rights of such people remains powerful.
After all, children usually get both their genes and their parenting from the same set of parents—and only a massive programme of forcibly removing children from their parents to be raised in foster homes or in socialist Kibbutzim could change this.
Therefore, if the association between parentage and outcomes is established, the question of whether this association is biologically or environmentally mediated is simply beside the point.
In conclusion, if we accept Singer’s contention that an understanding of human nature can help show us how achieve, but not choose, our ultimate political goals, then surely eugenics could be used to achieve the goal of producing the better people and hence, ultimately, better societies.
Indeed, given that Singer seemingly concedes that human nature is presently incompatible with communism, perhaps then the only way to revive the socialist dream of communism is to eugenically reengineer human nature itself.
Indeed, it is perhaps no accident that, before WWII, eugenics was generally associated with the left, opposition being largely restricted to religious conservatives.
Thus, early twentieth century socialist-eugenicists like H.G. Wells, Sidney Webb, Margaret Sanger and George Bernard Shaw perhaps tentatively grasped something that eludes contemporary leftists, Singer included—namely that reengineering society requires reengineering Man himself!
The idea that charity, welfare and medical treatment ought to be withheld so that the poor and ill perish in accordance with the process of natural selection survives only as a ‘straw man’ sometimes attributed to conservatives by leftists, and a form of ‘guilt by association’ sometimes invoked by creationists to discredit Darwinism.
Yet, despite the attachment of many American conservatives to creationism, there remains a perception that evolutionary psychology is somehow right-wing.
If humans are fundamentally selfish, as Dawkins is taken to have argued, then this surely confirms the underlying assumptions of classical economics.
Certainly, through what biologists call kin selection, we have evolved to be altruistic to close biological relatives. Yet this only reinforces conservatives’ faith in the family unit, and their concerns regarding family breakdown and substitute parents.
Finally, research on sex differences surely suggests that some traditional gender roles (e.g. motherhood, soldiering) have a biological basis, and patriarchy and the pay gap are all but biologically inevitable.
Larry Arnhart thus champions a new Darwinian Conservatism.
Against this, Peter Singer seeks to reclaim Darwin, and evolutionary psychology, for the Left.
The Naturalistic Fallacy
Since David Hume, it has been accepted among philosophers that one cannot derive values from facts.
Evolutionary psychologists have agreed, not least because enabled them to investigate the evolutionary function of such behaviors as infidelity, rape, war and child abuse without being taken as thereby justifying the behaviors in question.
Thus, rather than attempting to justify leftist ideals like equality, Singer accepts them as given. He argues not that socialism is demanded by Darwinism, but only that it is compatible with Darwinism.
But, if moral values cannot be derived from scientific facts, whence are they derived?
Can they only be derived from other moral values? If so, how are our ultimate moral values, from which all others are derived, themselves derived?
Singer implies that our ultimate moral values must simply be taken on faith.
But rejecting the naturalistic fallacy does not mean that the facts of human nature are irrelevant to politics.
While Darwinism may not prescribe any political goals, it may help us determine how to achieve those goals we have decided upon:
“An understanding of human nature in the light of evolutionary theory can help us to identify the means by which we may achieve some of our social and political goals... as well as assessing the possible costs and benefits of doing so" (p15).Abandoning Utopia
Darwinism also suggests some political goals are simply unattainable given human nature.
In watering down the utopian aspirations of previous generations of leftists, Singer seems to agree.
Human selfishness makes communism unattainable because:
1) People strive to promote themselves and their kin above othersThus, Singer laments:
2) Only coercive state apparatus can prevent them so doing
3) The individuals in control of this coercive apparatus themselves seek to promote the interests of themselves and their kin and corruptly use this coercive apparatus to do so
“What egalitarian revolution has not been betrayed by its leaders?” (p39)In addition, human selfishness suggests, if complete egalitarianism were achieved, it would be economically inefficient—because it would remove the incentive of self-advancement that lies behind the production of goods and services, not to mention of works of art and scientific advances.
As Adam Smith wrote:
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”Again, the only other means of ensuring goods and services are produced is state coercion, which, given human nature, will inevitably be exercised corruptly and inefficiently.
What's Left?
In rejecting utopianism, Singer has displeased other leftists, both those opposed to evolutionary psychology (e.g. The First Darwinian Left) and others broadly receptive to the field and its findings (e.g. Marek Kohn in As We Know It).
Singer defines the left in unusually broad terms, as being:
“On the side of the weak, not the powerful; of the oppressed, not the oppressor; of the ridden, not the rider” (p8).While many leftists have objected to Singer’s watered-down leftism, neither is this definition likely to find favor on the right. Few conservatives would admit to being on the side of the oppressor.
Rather, conservatives and libertarians reject the division of society into ‘oppressed’ and ‘oppressor’ groups, arguing that mutually beneficial exchange is the basis of capitalism, not exploitation.
Thus, conservatives claim that their policies benefit society as a whole, and that socialist reforms inadvertently hurt precisely those whom they aim to help (e.g. welfare encourages welfare dependency; a high minimum wage increases unemployment).
Indeed, many conservatives would share Singer’s aspiration to create a more altruistic culture.
Indeed, this aspiration seems more compatible with the libertarian notion of voluntary charitable donations replacing taxation than with the coercively-extracted taxation favored by the Left.
Equality of Opportunity
Yet Selfish gene theory suggests humans are not entirely self-interested. Rather, kin selection makes us care also about our biological relatives.
But this is no boon for the left.
First, it means divorce is a problem since stepfamilies have higher rates of abuse.
Second, it makes ‘equality of opportunity’ as unattainable as ‘equality of outcome’—because individuals will often act to aid the social, educational and economic advancement of their kin, and those individuals better placed to do so (e.g. richer, better connected, smarter) will do so more effectively.
Yet, since many conservatives and libertarians are as committed to equality of opportunity as socialists are to equality of outcome, this conclusion may be as unwelcome among the former as among the latter.
Indeed, kin selection has even been invoked to suggest that ethnocentrism is innate and ethnic conflict is inevitable in multi-ethnic societies, a proposal popular today only on the far right.
Animal Rights
Singer argues Darwinism supports animal liberation.:
“By knocking out the idea that we are a separate creation from the animals, Darwinian thinking provided the basis for a revolution in our attitudes to non-human animals” (p17).This makes our consumption of animals as food, our killing of them for sport, our enslavement of them as draft animals, or even pets, and our imprisonment of them in zoos and laboratories all ethically suspect, since these are not things generally permitted in respect of humans.
But human-animal continuity cuts two ways.
Thus, antivivisectionists argue that animal testing is pointless, because drugs and treatments often have different effects on humans than on the animals used in the tests. Our evolutionary continuity with non-human species makes this argument less likely.
Moreover, if humans are subject to the same principles of biology as other species, this suggests, not the elevation of animals to the status of humans, but rather the relegation of humans to just another animal.
Finally, if we are a product of evolution, then we surely evolved to be carnivorous..
Of course, if meat-eating is natural, this does not make it right. This would be to commit a version of the appeal to nature fallacy.
However, if carnivory is natural then this does indeed suggest that suggest that vegetarianism is nutritionally sub-optimal, since our bodies have been designed by evolution to consume meat.
Thus, the appeal to nature fallacy is not always fallacious when it comes to human health.
Moreover, since Singer argues elsewhere that there is a no valid moral distinction between acts and omissions (“We are responsible not only for what we do but also for what we could have prevented”: Writings on an Ethical Life: pxv), then, if he believes it is wrong for us to eat animals, does he also believe we should take positive measures to prevent lions from eating gazelles?
Reciprocity
In chapter 4 (“Competition or Cooperation?”), Singer argues that, although competition and cooperation are both natural, it is possible to create a society that focuses more on cooperation.
However, he is short on practical suggestions as to how a culture of altruism is to be fostered.
Changing the values of a culture is not easy, especially for a liberal democratic (as opposed to a totalitarian) government, let alone for a solitary Australian moral philosopher—and Singer’s condemnation of what he calls “the nightmares of Stalinist Russia” suggests that he would not countenance the interference with human freedom to which the left has so often resorted, with little ultimate success, in the past.
Yet Singer is wrong to see cooperation and competition as always in conflict.
Indeed, perhaps the most remarkable acts of cooperation and self-sacrifice are witnessed in wartime (e.g. kamikaze pilots, suicide bombers and soldiers who throw themselves on grenades). Yet war represents the most extreme form of competition known to man.
In short, soldiers risk and sacrifice their lives, not only to save the lives of others, but also to take the lives of other others.
Likewise, trade, a form of cooperation, is as fundamental to capitalism as is competition.
Indeed, far from disparaging cooperation, neoliberal economists view exchange as central to capitalism.
Thus, Matt Ridley, like Singer, also focuses on humans’ innate capacity for cooperation in order to justify political conclusions. But, for Ridley, our capacity for cooperation provides a rationale, not for socialism, but rather for free markets—because, he argues, humans, as natural traders, produce efficient systems of exchange which government intervention only distorts (see The Origins of Virtue).
Group Differences
Singer rejects:
“[The assumption] that all inequalities are due to discrimination, prejudice, oppression or social conditioning.” (p61).Rather, he accepts that some disparities in achievement reflect innate differences between individuals and groups in ability, temperament and preferences.
Such a concession is not incompatible with leftism. In The Blank Slate, Pinker points to the theoretical possibility of a “Hereditarian Left”, arguing for a Rawlsian redistribution of resources to the innately ‘cognitively disadvantaged’.
Indeed, no lesser leftist than Marx himself, in advocating ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his need’, implicitly recognized that people differed in “ability”—differences which, given the equalization of conditions envisaged under communism, he presumably envisaged as innate in origin.
As Marxist biologist Haldane observed:
“From each according to his ability… would be nonsense if abilities were equal.”With regard to group differences, Singer wisely evades the vexed issue of race differences in intelligence. Instead, he illustrates the possibility that not “all inequalities are due to discrimination, prejudice, oppression or social conditioning” with the marginally less incendiary case of sex differences:
“If achieving high status increases access to women, then we can expect men to have a stronger drive for status than women” (p18)This may partly explain patriarchy and the the pay gap.
But Singer neglects another factor—women’s attachment to infant offspring, also innate, which also impedes career advancement. For a more detailed treatment, see Kingsley Browne’s Biology at Work, which I have reviewed here.
Eugenics
In response to the claim that welfare encourages the unemployed to have children and thereby promotes dysgenic fertility, Singer retorts:
“Even if there were a genetic component to something as nebulous as unemployment, to say that these genes are ‘deleterious’ would involve value judgements that go way beyond what the science alone can tell us” (p15).Viewing certain character traits, and the genes that contribute to them, as undesirable certainly involves an extra-scientific value judgement, but almost everyone accepts some traits (e.g. generosity, conscientiousness, health, happiness) as more desirable than others (e.g. selfishness, laziness, depression, illness).
While it may be unhelpful to talk of unemployment itself as heritable, traits that likely contribute to unemployment (e.g. intelligence, conscientiousness, mental illness) are indeed heritable.
Indeed, in the strict biological sense, unemployment surely is heritable. So, incidentally, are road traffic accidents and political opinions—because they reflect physical and personality traits that are themselves heritable (e.g. risk-takers and people with poor physical coordination have more traffic accidents; more compassionate people support left-wing policies).
Actually, though, the question of heritability is irrelevant.
Even if the reason that children from deprived backgrounds have worse life outcomes is entirely due to environmental factors (e.g. parenting, poverty), the case for restricting the reproductive rights of such people remains powerful.
After all, children usually get both their genes and their parenting from the same set of parents—and only a massive programme of forcibly removing children from their parents to be raised in foster homes or in socialist Kibbutzim could change this.
Therefore, if the association between parentage and outcomes is established, the question of whether this association is biologically or environmentally mediated is simply beside the point.
In conclusion, if we accept Singer’s contention that an understanding of human nature can help show us how achieve, but not choose, our ultimate political goals, then surely eugenics could be used to achieve the goal of producing the better people and hence, ultimately, better societies.
Indeed, given that Singer seemingly concedes that human nature is presently incompatible with communism, perhaps then the only way to revive the socialist dream of communism is to eugenically reengineer human nature itself.
Indeed, it is perhaps no accident that, before WWII, eugenics was generally associated with the left, opposition being largely restricted to religious conservatives.
Thus, early twentieth century socialist-eugenicists like H.G. Wells, Sidney Webb, Margaret Sanger and George Bernard Shaw perhaps tentatively grasped something that eludes contemporary leftists, Singer included—namely that reengineering society requires reengineering Man himself!
July 2, 2023
نمیدونم چی بگم. کتاب دقیقا به همون موضوعی پرداخته که دوست داشتم یه چیزی درموردش بخونم: راهی برای آشتی دادن ایدههای چپ با داروینیسم. یاد شاید بحث درمورد سوالات اساسی مثل مواجههی داروینیسم با ایدههایی که شاید برای این زمین خاکی زیادی متعالی باشن. هرچی که هست، کتاب اصلا نتونسته به خوبی به این سوالات دشوار بپردازه. حقیقتا کتاب بیشتر از اینکه چپ جدیدی معرفی کنه، چپ رو جلوی راست تسلیم میکنه که البته از نویسنده گرامی انتظاری جز این هم نداشتم. هدفم پیدا کردن آرگومنتهای جوندار بود که نیافتم. کتاب زیادی لاغر هست و گزافهگو.
October 31, 2020
کوچک اما بسیار سنگین
May 15, 2021
Interesting analysis into how a deeper understanding of human nature can be implemented into left ideology. Singer believes that "it is time for the left to take seriously the fact that we are evolved animals, and that we bear evidence of our inheritance, not only in our anatomy and our DNA, but in behaviour too."
Though very good points were made, some of them would've benefited from more developement. The book seems unfinished and reads like an introductory chapter.
Good points:
-The idea that social policy can be manipulated to drive the evolution of the species toward an utopian ideal or a situation of "best consequences" is flawed. Evolution and politics are context dependent, the former dependent on the natural environment and selection pressures, the latter on economy and various societal attributes. Therefore a Darwinian left will not strive toward absolutes, but toward strategies where cost and benefit trade-offs will minimise pain, suffering and inequality.
-The common interpretation of the theory of evolution in which competition is seen as inherent in "the survival of the fittest", is deeply flawed. Cooperation is an equally competent evolutionary strategy. A Darwinian left will encourage cooperation instead of competition, or at least establish a better balance between the two.
-A Darwinian left will aknwoledge that not all inequalities are due to discrimination, prejudice, opression or social conditioning.
Though very good points were made, some of them would've benefited from more developement. The book seems unfinished and reads like an introductory chapter.
Good points:
-The idea that social policy can be manipulated to drive the evolution of the species toward an utopian ideal or a situation of "best consequences" is flawed. Evolution and politics are context dependent, the former dependent on the natural environment and selection pressures, the latter on economy and various societal attributes. Therefore a Darwinian left will not strive toward absolutes, but toward strategies where cost and benefit trade-offs will minimise pain, suffering and inequality.
-The common interpretation of the theory of evolution in which competition is seen as inherent in "the survival of the fittest", is deeply flawed. Cooperation is an equally competent evolutionary strategy. A Darwinian left will encourage cooperation instead of competition, or at least establish a better balance between the two.
-A Darwinian left will aknwoledge that not all inequalities are due to discrimination, prejudice, opression or social conditioning.
October 10, 2017
Brilliant little book! As a left-leaning ethnic Kekistani, it was refreshing to read something as rational, intelligent and to-the-point as this.
The general left has gone completely crazy with its politically correct authoritarian views and postmodern dogmas that are absurdly out of touch with reality. This book is the polar opposite of this madness that has inflicted contemporary left. I'd go even further and say that this perspective could at least provide a partial antidote to it and possibly help to free the left from the chains of postmodernist PC ideology.
Our society needs both the left and the right and I'd recommend this book to anyone. But I'd like to stress one thing before I finish:
IF YOU CALL YOURSELF A LEFTIST, READ THIS SHORT INSIGHTFUL BOOK... please :)
The general left has gone completely crazy with its politically correct authoritarian views and postmodern dogmas that are absurdly out of touch with reality. This book is the polar opposite of this madness that has inflicted contemporary left. I'd go even further and say that this perspective could at least provide a partial antidote to it and possibly help to free the left from the chains of postmodernist PC ideology.
Our society needs both the left and the right and I'd recommend this book to anyone. But I'd like to stress one thing before I finish:
IF YOU CALL YOURSELF A LEFTIST, READ THIS SHORT INSIGHTFUL BOOK... please :)
January 12, 2018
A Darwinian Left would not:
-Deny the existence of a human nature
-Expect to end all conflict and strife between human beings
-Assume that all inequalities are due to discrimination
A Darwinian Left would:
- Reject any inference from what is natural to what is right
- Expect both competition and cooperation
- Promote structures that foster the latter rather than the former
-Deny the existence of a human nature
-Expect to end all conflict and strife between human beings
-Assume that all inequalities are due to discrimination
A Darwinian Left would:
- Reject any inference from what is natural to what is right
- Expect both competition and cooperation
- Promote structures that foster the latter rather than the former
April 9, 2013
Required reading for all Lefties.
December 10, 2024
Here, Singer lays bare the many failings and limitations of marxism in its focus on systems. This is a reappraisal for human nature and genetics, traditionally unpopular among leftists. Singer states that he is a utilitarian, concerned with reducing suffering. I don’t see that emphasis in his current work, these days he seems equally happy with the idea of creating lives with some level of wellbeing. Perhaps he was more of a negative utilitarian at this time.
He defines leftist politics as siding with the weak and not the powerful and reducing suffering in the universe and resource redistribution. Darwin, even in his day was aware of the criticism that the implication of natural selection was that was “might is right”, he instead saw it as morally neutral. However the interpretation endured and inspired laissez faire capitalism. I suppose a libertarian here could argue that liberal economics might have the best consequences for the many as per utilitarian. An environmentalist meanwhile, could claim the ecological impacts will counteract these gains.
Singer would hope that the Darwinist legacy would educate humans that they don’t sit apart from other animals and instead stand in relation to them. Sadly the religious hangover of uniqueness and dominion still endures.
He asks the left to accept some biological diversity among humans. Pointing out that men and women have evolved differently due to their differing reproductive strategies. His example is the domination of men in high status leadership roles. He attributes this to men seeking status in order to increase their access to females. They are more likely to give all their efforts in pursuit of these ambitious goals than women.
Marx, the central figure of the left advocated for darwinism in so much as it broke down the opium of the masses, religion. He denied any human nature though, thinking that the economic role within shifting systems were of key importance. Rousseau believes a shift in our nature begins with the idea of private property. Both deny or downplay our drives and desires for the vast majority of human history.
The leftist dream of perfectibility and progress took a hit with the brutal regimes of Stalin, Pol Pot and Chairman Mao. The utopian projects of the left have to believe that something beyond the state of nature as ‘red in tooth and claw’ is possible. They seek a state of perfection beyond our animal history. Both Christianity and marxism enforce a barrier between humans and other animals. Even many scientists would espouse Marxist theory over a natural determinism for explaining human history.
So what is human nature? There is certainly some variation between human cultures in attitudes, religious belief etc but women are rarely allowed multiple partners and jealousy abounds. As does ethnic conflict, warfare and hierarchies, with men at the top and women doing the child rearing. Communists merely created a new hierarchy and elite.
Human nature must be understood before you can realistically make political plans. People will work in their own self interest. This may partially fit with left wing aims, via cooperation rather than just a desire for personal enrichment. A measure of altruism rather than just greed and competition.
Long lived intelligent animals can enter into mutually beneficial social contracts. As regards trust building, tit for tat can work at a small scale level, but what of large cities full of strangers? If human nature limits us in some ways we can still make limited, realistic attempts at altruism within the framework of our behaviour. A grounded Darwinian rather than utopian, leftist project.
“If your belief in equal rights and opportunities for all – and against racism, sexism and other kinds of discrimination – is based on there being no biological differences between people, then you’ll find it very hard to know what to do if clear evidence of biological differences actually appears.”
He defines leftist politics as siding with the weak and not the powerful and reducing suffering in the universe and resource redistribution. Darwin, even in his day was aware of the criticism that the implication of natural selection was that was “might is right”, he instead saw it as morally neutral. However the interpretation endured and inspired laissez faire capitalism. I suppose a libertarian here could argue that liberal economics might have the best consequences for the many as per utilitarian. An environmentalist meanwhile, could claim the ecological impacts will counteract these gains.
Singer would hope that the Darwinist legacy would educate humans that they don’t sit apart from other animals and instead stand in relation to them. Sadly the religious hangover of uniqueness and dominion still endures.
He asks the left to accept some biological diversity among humans. Pointing out that men and women have evolved differently due to their differing reproductive strategies. His example is the domination of men in high status leadership roles. He attributes this to men seeking status in order to increase their access to females. They are more likely to give all their efforts in pursuit of these ambitious goals than women.
Marx, the central figure of the left advocated for darwinism in so much as it broke down the opium of the masses, religion. He denied any human nature though, thinking that the economic role within shifting systems were of key importance. Rousseau believes a shift in our nature begins with the idea of private property. Both deny or downplay our drives and desires for the vast majority of human history.
The leftist dream of perfectibility and progress took a hit with the brutal regimes of Stalin, Pol Pot and Chairman Mao. The utopian projects of the left have to believe that something beyond the state of nature as ‘red in tooth and claw’ is possible. They seek a state of perfection beyond our animal history. Both Christianity and marxism enforce a barrier between humans and other animals. Even many scientists would espouse Marxist theory over a natural determinism for explaining human history.
So what is human nature? There is certainly some variation between human cultures in attitudes, religious belief etc but women are rarely allowed multiple partners and jealousy abounds. As does ethnic conflict, warfare and hierarchies, with men at the top and women doing the child rearing. Communists merely created a new hierarchy and elite.
Human nature must be understood before you can realistically make political plans. People will work in their own self interest. This may partially fit with left wing aims, via cooperation rather than just a desire for personal enrichment. A measure of altruism rather than just greed and competition.
Long lived intelligent animals can enter into mutually beneficial social contracts. As regards trust building, tit for tat can work at a small scale level, but what of large cities full of strangers? If human nature limits us in some ways we can still make limited, realistic attempts at altruism within the framework of our behaviour. A grounded Darwinian rather than utopian, leftist project.
“If your belief in equal rights and opportunities for all – and against racism, sexism and other kinds of discrimination – is based on there being no biological differences between people, then you’ll find it very hard to know what to do if clear evidence of biological differences actually appears.”
January 24, 2020
انگار داروینیسم در قرن اخیر بیشتر توسط سرمایهداری برای توجیه اصول و مبانی خود به خدمت گرفته شده تا سوسیالیزم. حالا صداهایی از سمت چپ بلند شده تا با اعتراف به اشتباهات و اصلاح یک سری از ایدههای خود با پارادایم تکامل آشتی کرده و بعد در تاکتیک و عمل از آن برای پیشبرد آرمانهای خود بهره ببرند.
توضیح تعارضهای بین سوسیالیزم و داروینیسم و تلاش نویسنده برای حل آن تعارضات برای کسی مثل من که دانش تخصصی در این حوزهها ندارد بسیار شیوا و مفید بود. این یک کتاب تخصصی نیست و انگار نویسنده در مقام یک استاد دانشگاه طی چند ساعت جلسه آموزشی مباحث را مطرح و روایت را تکمیل کرده است. برای همین خواندن آن برای هر کسی با هر سطحی از دانش تخصصی در حوزههای اقتصادی و اجتماعی مطلوب و مفید است.
بدون شک ترجمه شیوا و قدرتمند کتاب توسط محمدمهدی هاتف تاثیر زیادی در شکلگیری این روایت صریح و موجز در کنار ساختار منسجم کتاب داشته است.
توضیح تعارضهای بین سوسیالیزم و داروینیسم و تلاش نویسنده برای حل آن تعارضات برای کسی مثل من که دانش تخصصی در این حوزهها ندارد بسیار شیوا و مفید بود. این یک کتاب تخصصی نیست و انگار نویسنده در مقام یک استاد دانشگاه طی چند ساعت جلسه آموزشی مباحث را مطرح و روایت را تکمیل کرده است. برای همین خواندن آن برای هر کسی با هر سطحی از دانش تخصصی در حوزههای اقتصادی و اجتماعی مطلوب و مفید است.
بدون شک ترجمه شیوا و قدرتمند کتاب توسط محمدمهدی هاتف تاثیر زیادی در شکلگیری این روایت صریح و موجز در کنار ساختار منسجم کتاب داشته است.
August 2, 2024
پیتر سینگر در این مقاله تلاش میکند جریان چپ را با طبیعتی که سالهاست از آن دور شده را پیوند دهد و همچنین آن را با جریان های روز تطابق دهد (که شامل درک از داروینیسم میشود). اتفاقی که باید سالها پیش با استفاده از عقاید کروپتکین اتفاق میافتاد اما جریان امروزه بیش از حد درگیر به رخ کشیدن خود به جریان راست است و راست هم از این فرصت برای تخریب بیشتر این جریان استفاده میکند.
March 24, 2021
A great take on the state of leftist and progressive liberal politics, including what the left gets right and what it gets wrong. Both fair and critical, it points liberals in the direction to head toward.
March 31, 2021
مدتها بود از خواندن کتابی تا این حد سرشار از لذت و شعف نشده بودم. گویا کسی بخشی از ایدههایی را که از تجربهی زیستن در جامعه و به مرور در ذهنم شکل گرفته، با نخی مستحکم به هم متصل کرده است. اینها را نه از این بابت گفتم که بر خود غرّه شده باشم، بلکه شعف من همه از آن بوده که در باور به بسیاری از این ایدهها تنها نیستم، و از آن بهتر، فیلسوفی چون پیتر سینگر بسا سلیستر و مدونتر آنها را بر روی کاغذ آورده و چه بسا بسیاری آن را خواندهاند.
بهخصوص آنجا که از «ایثار» در کنشهای اجتماعی سخن به میان آورد، برایم بینهایت ارزشمند و دلگرمکننده بود.
بهخصوص آنجا که از «ایثار» در کنشهای اجتماعی سخن به میان آورد، برایم بینهایت ارزشمند و دلگرمکننده بود.
November 11, 2018
A great short read about the interface between Darwinian and leftist thought.
Singer offers a critique to early leftist writings, such as Kropotkin's Mutual Aid and Engels' Dialectics of Nature and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, that attempt to incorporate evolutionary ideas in their theories, claiming they "got Darwin wrong". Indeed it seems that "scientific" socialism, as presented by Engels, was, contrary to his claim, very much utopian, due to its strive towards a perfect society. There is also Kropotkin's reliance on an idealized conception of human nature as intrinsically 'good'. Views that are difficult to commensurate with Darwinian theory, which firmly rejects a priori value judgments and teleological arguments. These and other early writers on the left believed invariably that evolutionary thinking should be limited to the biological, and can never inform the social. Precisely this idea should, according to Singer, be dismantled in order to progress left-wing politics. He offers modern evolutionary models of cooperation and cultural change, as ample evidence supporting such a move.
As a result, we end up with a revised, albeit non-original, view of the left that is less utopian and more expansive in its domain; with Darwinian theory serving not as a source of values (as suggested by some people on the right), but as a tool for identifying bad theories and policies, incompatible with modern scientific understanding of society.
Singer offers a critique to early leftist writings, such as Kropotkin's Mutual Aid and Engels' Dialectics of Nature and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, that attempt to incorporate evolutionary ideas in their theories, claiming they "got Darwin wrong". Indeed it seems that "scientific" socialism, as presented by Engels, was, contrary to his claim, very much utopian, due to its strive towards a perfect society. There is also Kropotkin's reliance on an idealized conception of human nature as intrinsically 'good'. Views that are difficult to commensurate with Darwinian theory, which firmly rejects a priori value judgments and teleological arguments. These and other early writers on the left believed invariably that evolutionary thinking should be limited to the biological, and can never inform the social. Precisely this idea should, according to Singer, be dismantled in order to progress left-wing politics. He offers modern evolutionary models of cooperation and cultural change, as ample evidence supporting such a move.
As a result, we end up with a revised, albeit non-original, view of the left that is less utopian and more expansive in its domain; with Darwinian theory serving not as a source of values (as suggested by some people on the right), but as a tool for identifying bad theories and policies, incompatible with modern scientific understanding of society.
June 11, 2018
l was expecting Singer would be a left Darwinist himself, but the book is more of a preaching for left Darwinists to compromise their values which leaves quite nothing from left. However, it gives a good account of how values could easily overshadow the facts.
September 24, 2018
A clear exposition of Darwinian ideas that should be embraced by progressives. Discards some of the optimism of perfectability; accepts the reality of biological variation, without gratuitous extrapolation.
May 25, 2021
A short, potent and remarkably prescient warning to the left to clean up it's worst tendencies--a disavowal of any kind of human nature, creating economic or ideological outcasts, and a kneejerk reaction to all disparities as the result of discrimination.
Many of these issues are still pressing today. The fact that free trade created economic outcasts is mentioned here, but became a central issue since Trump. Even much of the left has disavowed Bill Clinton on the basis of his betrayal of the American manufacturing base. Singer only lightly mentions political correctness as a social means of creating outcasts, but this issue has grown large in public consciousness today under the banner of "cancel culture." Large segments remain optimistic about sudden and radical revolutions in social relations (the CHAZ encampment in Portland, the "Abolish the Police" slogan, bioligically illiterate accounts of sex and gender, and the anti-racist views of race relations are topical examples). It's not that these social movements are fundamentally unsympathetic, but that they often go against the grain and this becomes clear when applying the Darwinian analysis that Singer promulgtes here.
Singer wonders if the left can better integrate Darwin into our understanding of social policy and give up on the blank slate view of Marx. He quotes the latter in Theses on Fuerebach VI: "the human essence is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In its reality it is the ensemble of the social relations." The implication is that if you change social relations you change human nature.
Here's a statement of Singer's thesis:"I want to suggest that one source of new ideas that could revitalise the left is an approach to human social, political and economic behavior firmly based on a modern understanding of human nature. It is time for the left to take seriously the fact that we are evolved animals, and that we bear the evidence of our inheritance, not only in our anatomy and our DNA, but in our beheavior, too. In other words it is time to develop a Darwinian left."
Because the left is built on sympathy for the poor and downtrodden and a belief that government and social policy can make things better, it is tempting to believe that human beings are entirely products of their environment and our nature is endless malleable. Adam Curtis's recent documentary "Can't Get You Out of My Head" quotes David Graeber: "The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something we make and it could just has easily been made in a different way."
Integrating Dawinism does not mean accepting the world as it is, justifying it, or claiming that "Greed is good" as it is often portrayed. In the latter half of the 20th century biologists have written about the importance of cooperation and even the possibilities for forms of altruism in a Darwinian context.
To examine, as Singer does, what aspects of human nature are invariable, somewhat variable and totally variable from culture to culture can give the left more grounding in what is possible and how we might achieve certain ends. For instance, the human tendency towards hierarchy meant that soviet attempts to abolish hierarchy were doomed to failure and merely displaced itself into status games within the Communist party government.
Singer argues that good social policy should harness self-interest in a dynamic way and never force people to go against their own interests.
Singer provides a useful framework for understanding the intellectual history and tendencies of the left and how to move it forward.
Many of these issues are still pressing today. The fact that free trade created economic outcasts is mentioned here, but became a central issue since Trump. Even much of the left has disavowed Bill Clinton on the basis of his betrayal of the American manufacturing base. Singer only lightly mentions political correctness as a social means of creating outcasts, but this issue has grown large in public consciousness today under the banner of "cancel culture." Large segments remain optimistic about sudden and radical revolutions in social relations (the CHAZ encampment in Portland, the "Abolish the Police" slogan, bioligically illiterate accounts of sex and gender, and the anti-racist views of race relations are topical examples). It's not that these social movements are fundamentally unsympathetic, but that they often go against the grain and this becomes clear when applying the Darwinian analysis that Singer promulgtes here.
Singer wonders if the left can better integrate Darwin into our understanding of social policy and give up on the blank slate view of Marx. He quotes the latter in Theses on Fuerebach VI: "the human essence is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In its reality it is the ensemble of the social relations." The implication is that if you change social relations you change human nature.
Here's a statement of Singer's thesis:"I want to suggest that one source of new ideas that could revitalise the left is an approach to human social, political and economic behavior firmly based on a modern understanding of human nature. It is time for the left to take seriously the fact that we are evolved animals, and that we bear the evidence of our inheritance, not only in our anatomy and our DNA, but in our beheavior, too. In other words it is time to develop a Darwinian left."
Because the left is built on sympathy for the poor and downtrodden and a belief that government and social policy can make things better, it is tempting to believe that human beings are entirely products of their environment and our nature is endless malleable. Adam Curtis's recent documentary "Can't Get You Out of My Head" quotes David Graeber: "The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something we make and it could just has easily been made in a different way."
Integrating Dawinism does not mean accepting the world as it is, justifying it, or claiming that "Greed is good" as it is often portrayed. In the latter half of the 20th century biologists have written about the importance of cooperation and even the possibilities for forms of altruism in a Darwinian context.
To examine, as Singer does, what aspects of human nature are invariable, somewhat variable and totally variable from culture to culture can give the left more grounding in what is possible and how we might achieve certain ends. For instance, the human tendency towards hierarchy meant that soviet attempts to abolish hierarchy were doomed to failure and merely displaced itself into status games within the Communist party government.
Singer argues that good social policy should harness self-interest in a dynamic way and never force people to go against their own interests.
Singer provides a useful framework for understanding the intellectual history and tendencies of the left and how to move it forward.
August 8, 2024
The book's thesis is that a Darwinian understanding of human nature is compatible with upholding many of the traditional goals of the Left. The core leftist ideal is concern for the least well-off in society, supported by the belief that oppressive social structures should not be considered beneficial or unavoidable.
The traditional left has rejected Darwinism because of its long-standing association with social darwinism and laissez-faire capitalism, both supported by the Right. These ideologies were characterized by the belief that human beings are inherently selfish and the good of society can only come from unrestrained competition and allowing each individual to pursue her own private interests. The traditional left (particularly Marxism) is also characterized by the idea that human nature is a product of economic and power structures, and as such inherently malleable. The hope was to create a utopian society in which everyone will be naturally concerned about the good of her neighbor since the social forces compelling competition will have been eradicated.
Singer deems the view of the human mind as entirely malleable to be mistaken in the light of modern advances in the theory of evolution and sociobiology. Some degree of status-seeking and behavioral differences among human groups (like the sexes) are most likely natural and will not be eradicated by social engineering. Instead, the Left should concentrate on promoting more circumscribed and realistic goals. Luckily, evolutionary theory (prompted by the research of people such as Maynard Smith and Robert Axelrod) has shown that natural selection favors the evolution of cooperation or reciprocal altruism in species like Homo Sapiens endowed with complex social structures. Thus, the fundamental assumption of the right that only self-interest can be counted upon to promote the greater good is misplaced, since the state can intervene to encourage greater cooperative behavior.
Ultimately, any attempt to make society more just will have to take into account the features of human nature that have prevailed in the course of evolution.
Reading this short book is recommended for those who want to achieve greater clarity on issues relevant today, especially related to the culture wars and to the goals of political ideologies in the XXI century.
The traditional left has rejected Darwinism because of its long-standing association with social darwinism and laissez-faire capitalism, both supported by the Right. These ideologies were characterized by the belief that human beings are inherently selfish and the good of society can only come from unrestrained competition and allowing each individual to pursue her own private interests. The traditional left (particularly Marxism) is also characterized by the idea that human nature is a product of economic and power structures, and as such inherently malleable. The hope was to create a utopian society in which everyone will be naturally concerned about the good of her neighbor since the social forces compelling competition will have been eradicated.
Singer deems the view of the human mind as entirely malleable to be mistaken in the light of modern advances in the theory of evolution and sociobiology. Some degree of status-seeking and behavioral differences among human groups (like the sexes) are most likely natural and will not be eradicated by social engineering. Instead, the Left should concentrate on promoting more circumscribed and realistic goals. Luckily, evolutionary theory (prompted by the research of people such as Maynard Smith and Robert Axelrod) has shown that natural selection favors the evolution of cooperation or reciprocal altruism in species like Homo Sapiens endowed with complex social structures. Thus, the fundamental assumption of the right that only self-interest can be counted upon to promote the greater good is misplaced, since the state can intervene to encourage greater cooperative behavior.
Ultimately, any attempt to make society more just will have to take into account the features of human nature that have prevailed in the course of evolution.
Reading this short book is recommended for those who want to achieve greater clarity on issues relevant today, especially related to the culture wars and to the goals of political ideologies in the XXI century.
August 3, 2017
Petra Singer je pre mňa veľkou inšpiráciou v oblasti aplikovanej etiky a už desaťročia bojovníkom za práva zvierat. Vegetariánstvu a vegánstvu dal morálny obsah a desaťročia dráždu svojimi názormi a postojmi. V tejto sviežej knižôčke sa snaží ísť k akejsi podstate ľavice. V prvej časti upozorňuje na to ako v minulosti zle ľavica pochopila Darwina. Prečo Engels nad Marxovým hrobom vyjadril mimoriadnu poklonu tým, že prirovnal Marxov objav zákona ľudského vývoja K Darwinovému “ zákonu vývoja organickej prírody” ? Singer sa snaží odpovedať prečo ľavica sa nakoniec postavila voči darwinizmu odmietavo a prináša základný prehľad konfliktu medzi marxistickou teóriou dejín a biologickým pohľadom na ľudskú prirodzenosť.
Čo sa môže od Darwina naučiť nová ľavica ?
Autor zdôrazňuje v ďalšej časti, že ten kto sa snaží zmeniť spoločnosť, tak musí najprv pochopiť sklony, ktoré sú vrodené ľudskej povahe a upraviť svoje abstraktné (ľavicové) ideály, tak aby boli v súlade s ľudskými sklonmi a zároveň nikto nechcel po druhom, aby konal proti svojim vlastným záujmom. V záverečnej časti sa pokúša o syntézu moderného darwinovského myslenia, ktoré vsalo do seba myšlienky konkurencie a recipročného altruizmu, čiže zjednodušene obyčajnú ľudskú spoluprácu. Peter Singer odhaľuje záhadu altruizmu interpretáciou vedeckých poznatkov, behaviorálnych štúdií a snaží sa odpovedať na otázky odkiaľ sa berie altruizmus a ako nastaviť také podmienky, že sa bude dariť prirodzenej spolupráci medzi nami ?
V závere svojej eseje predkladá základné smerovanie novej darwinovskej ľavice. Akceptovať ľudskú prirodzenosť a založiť politiky na najlepších dostupných poznatkoch o tom akí v skutočnosti sme. Podporovať také sociálne štruktúry spoločnosti v ktorých sa darí viac spolupráci ako konkurencii a pokúsiť sa nasmerovať konkurenciu k spoločensky prospešným cieľom. Držať sa tradičný ľavicových hodnôt a stáť na strane slabých, chudobných a utláčaných a nachádzať také ekonomické zmeny, ktoré im budú k prospechu. A v neposlednom rade priznávať väčší morálny status zvieratám a ich právam a opustiť antropocentrický pohľad dominancie človeka nad prírodou.
Čo sa môže od Darwina naučiť nová ľavica ?
Autor zdôrazňuje v ďalšej časti, že ten kto sa snaží zmeniť spoločnosť, tak musí najprv pochopiť sklony, ktoré sú vrodené ľudskej povahe a upraviť svoje abstraktné (ľavicové) ideály, tak aby boli v súlade s ľudskými sklonmi a zároveň nikto nechcel po druhom, aby konal proti svojim vlastným záujmom. V záverečnej časti sa pokúša o syntézu moderného darwinovského myslenia, ktoré vsalo do seba myšlienky konkurencie a recipročného altruizmu, čiže zjednodušene obyčajnú ľudskú spoluprácu. Peter Singer odhaľuje záhadu altruizmu interpretáciou vedeckých poznatkov, behaviorálnych štúdií a snaží sa odpovedať na otázky odkiaľ sa berie altruizmus a ako nastaviť také podmienky, že sa bude dariť prirodzenej spolupráci medzi nami ?
V závere svojej eseje predkladá základné smerovanie novej darwinovskej ľavice. Akceptovať ľudskú prirodzenosť a založiť politiky na najlepších dostupných poznatkoch o tom akí v skutočnosti sme. Podporovať také sociálne štruktúry spoločnosti v ktorých sa darí viac spolupráci ako konkurencii a pokúsiť sa nasmerovať konkurenciu k spoločensky prospešným cieľom. Držať sa tradičný ľavicových hodnôt a stáť na strane slabých, chudobných a utláčaných a nachádzať také ekonomické zmeny, ktoré im budú k prospechu. A v neposlednom rade priznávať väčší morálny status zvieratám a ich právam a opustiť antropocentrický pohľad dominancie človeka nad prírodou.
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October 3, 2021
پیتر سینگر، فیلسوف اخلاق زیستی معاصر امریکا در این کتاب کوچک به نکتهای مهم اشاره میکند؛ اینکه علوم انسانی متأثر از آموزههای دو قطب ظاهراً مخالف اما برخوردار از ماهیتی یکسان در تلقی خود نسبت به انسان، یعنی مارکسیسم و مسیحیت، عملاً طبیعت انسان را تاریخ آگاهی او قلمداد میکنند و بدین ترتیب این باور را انتشار میدهند که به محض افتادن انسان روی زمین (احتمالا از آسمان!!!) انتخاب طبیعی و اصول زیستشناختی برای او دیگر کارکرد ندارد. تطور انسان یک تکامل تاریخی به سمت آگاهی است؛ البته نه آگاهی مطلق هگلی که مارکس نسبت به آن حساسیت مزمن داشت، بلکه آگاهی عملی که از طریق زیرساختهای تولید و اقتصاد ایجاد میشود. انسان یک لوح نانوشته است که انقلابهای کمونیستی میتوانند هرطور که خواستند او را در مسیر این تکامل تاریخی خط خطی کنند! اما واقعیت خیلی دور از این باورها است. مارکسیستها به زیستشناسی تطوری داروینی که بخواهد طبیعت انسان را به معنای واقعی کلمه طبیعت انسان برشمار آورد و مبناها و بنیانهای طبیعی فرهنگ را شرح دهد میگویند علم بورژوازی؛ اما سینگر در این متن میخواهد به آنها کمک کند و به این نکته اشاره که از اتفاق، کلید رهایی انسان و گام برداشتن او به سمت یک زندگی مطلوبتر در همان طبیعت داروینی وی نهفته که کلیسا و مارکسیسم به یک اندازه سرسختانه منکرش بوده و هستند! در فصل پنجم این کتاب نکتة دلنشینی هست: هگل در پدیدارشناسی جان (یا ذهن بنابر تلقی سینگر) میگوید روح انسان اکنون به جایی رسیده که علاوه بر توان تحصیل معرفت به پدیدهها، معرفت مطلق معرفتپذیری خویش را نیز دریافته است. به همین اعتبار، زیستشناسی تطوری این امکان را فراهم کرده که پس از گذشته میلیونها سال از شکلگیری نخستین اشکال حیات، یک گونه جانوری نه تنها موضوع آن تطور باشد، که امکان تحصیل این معرفت را نیز داشته باشد که موضوع یک جریان تطوری است. داشتن این آگاهی از مطلق تطوّر میتواند گشایندة راهی واقعی به سمت اشکالی حتی کمی کامیابانهتر از زیست و حیات انسانی باشد. این کتاب تازگیها توسط نشر کرگدن، فارسی شده است: http://kargadanpub.com/book/598/
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