MORAL TRIBES
MORAL TRIBES, Emotion, Reason, and the gap between Us and Them – Joshua Greene
– Published in 2013 by Atlantic Books
Frontispiece quote – “Man will become better when you show him what he is like.” Anton Chekov.
He suggests people “fight not because are fundamentally selfish but because they have incompatible visions of what a moral society should be.” – Page 4
“Morality is a set of psychological adaptations that allow otherwise selfish individuals to reap the benefits of cooperation.”
“How does morality do this?’
“… the gist: The essence of morality is altruism, unselfishness, a willingness to pay a personal cost to benefit others” – Page 23.
Compare the Tragedy of the Commons with what we’re doing to the planet. Morality works if all of us are moral. We now need to learn (or adapt) to all groups being moral. We’re only designed to be moral with some people – US and not THEM
“Cooperation evolves not because it is “nice” but because it confers a survival advantage.” – …. competition is essential for the evolution of cooperation.“ – Page 24
Chapter 12 – Page 347, has a great introductory paragraph on the history of life and its evolution. I may quote this in my July presentation. Most of it also appears on page 20.
Page 353 – “We are marvellous in many ways, but the moral laws within us are a mixed blessing. More marvellous, to me, is our ability to question the laws written in our hearts and replace them with something better.”
I bought this book because Haidt referred to it. I read it while preparing my AMP (Agnostic Morality Presentation) Power Point Presentation on 7 July 2019. I used the quote from page 353 in a slide. I copied a few pages from the book meaning to get back to them, which is what I’m doing now (13/01/2020) by re-reading the book.
One of the important messages of this book is the significance of various moral codes causing divisions between religions, states, politics, etc. The need for a universal moral code has been expressed by many. The question becomes how to achieve this.
It is now suggested that our human moral code will never be universal or cast in stone, but will need to evolve if humanity is to survive in an increasingly complex world. It is changing and will continue to change, and humanity will need to adapt.