REFERENCES AND QUOTESPhilosophy2021Keep reminding that we can be good - References and quotes
References och citat: THE EMPATHIC CIVILIZATION: THE RACE TO GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN A WORLD IN CRISIS different definitions of empathy 13 mirror neurons - empathy neurons 14 Imagine a world full of only narcissits, we are not no materilist, self-serving, utilitarian, pleasure seeking, we have a chance 42 empathy maturation - development of a moral sense, guilt not shame 119 most mature form of empathy is the ability to experience an entire group or other species as its own 127 universalizing of empathy, World Survey pointing at trends in empathy, Kropotkin vs Darwin 128 both cooperative and competitive, but foremost social species 129 Yale study och babies and recognizing good Samaritans 130 Max Plankinstitus study of helping toddlers 131 testing altruism 132 – 134 “If we repress the very corporeality of our existence and dismiss the emotions that tie us in av very physical way to the world, we lose the ability to empathize with other.”145, 146 different views on meaning of life, “The embodied experience philosophers, hoverer, would argue that the meaning of life is to enter into relationships with others in order to deeply experience, as much as one can, the reality of existence. The meaning of life is to celebrate it as fully and expansively as possible” 156 empathy requires trust – to be treated as an end, a valued being, not as a mean 158 Empathy only possible with development of self, an idea of ones unique being and mortal existence 162 Enlightenment and the idea of progress, chasing immortality. Science and technology as saviors against death, doing what religion done before 163 “Through science and technology we will extend our control over the future, the forces of nature, and our bodily duration. We will live better, live longer, enjoy the good life and enter into an earthly Eden of our making where material abundance will provide a fortress against the ravages of time and the onslaught of death.” During the Enlightenment we started to believe that the more stuff the superman-like we would become.164 Religious and secular obsession with perfection, to transcend spatial and temporal limits imposed on human corporeality. Escaping death through efficiency 165 To be efficient (maximum output with minimum input of time, labour, energy, and capital), perpetual motion and imitating Gods thinking the world into existence. Efficiency secured during the Industrial revolution its place as a temporal tool for securing immortality where more efficient means more productive, more wealth and less time lost. Fredrick Taylor and the spread being efficient as a virtue into other areas. However efficiency runs against love and care 166 167 Rilke, “whoever rightly understands and celebrates death, at the same time magnifies life.” Empathy acknowledged the whiff of death in frailties. No one empathize with the perfect being – empathy is harder to perfect divine. 167 importance of trust for empathy 171 recreating world 182 LINK Shared narrative and common identity the nation-state provided the psychological reorientation to extend empathy form local kinship to encompass previously diverse peoples. At the same time it created “we” and “they” 300 Schopenhauer and empathic process 349 Industrialization shifts values, from preindustrial, to industrial manufacturing, to service knowledgebase industries - affect on empathy 447, 448 “The three stages of progression, from traditional values to rational materialist values to quality-of-life values and self-expression values, mirror the shifts in consciousness that accompany the transition from agricultural societies to First and Second Industrial-Revolution economies.” World Value Survey. 448 Empathic surge is a zero sum game, can we avoid the abyss 452 increasing empathy vs increasing entropy by more complex social structures 493 materialistic values and the consequences on empathy 497 material values and diminish quality of life, diminishing marginal utility of wealth, preoccupation with wealth makes one less empathetic 498 Elusive goal of wealth. Using everyone and everything as means to gain wealth don’t value persons as unique and special. Devaluing of others detrimental to our relations and being out for themselves “materialists assume everyone else must feel the same way - after all, it’s ‘human nature’.” Materialistic values and decline in trust and in caring for others. Relational happiness – zero sum game. See THE SPIRIT LEVEL: WHY MORE EQUAL SOCITIES ALMOST ALWAYS DO BETTER499 Relative elevated status leads to competing and less empathy. Default line not possible to live on less, the hedonic treadmill. See PROSPERITY WITHOUT GROWTH, DOUGHNUT ECONOMICS: SEVEN WAYS TO THINK LIKE A 21ST-CENTURY ECONOMIST500 Parental nurturing and material fixation. Compensating less warm and affectionate nurturing with material success, fame and image. See Kasser 502, 503 Exhibiting strong materialist values means “less likely to develop intimate personal relationships, are less tolerant of others, and care less about the welfare of their fellows. In other words t, they are far less empathic” 503 Materialist values and consequences on caring for environment 504 The bottom line – limited resources. See Georgescu-Roegen. “empathetic development accompanies economic development at least until a threshold of comfort is reached. After that, increasing increments of wealth tend to lock people into an addictive materialist lifestyle that makes them more instrumental in their behavior and less sensitive to the plight of others, all of which slows down or undermines the development of empathetic consciousness.” Coming together at the threshold of human comfort. Some to tread more lightly and more quietly than others. 510 Civil society creates narratives that defines life and society, the narratives become the “cultural common ground that allows people to create emotional bonds of affection and trust which are the mother’s milk of empathic extension.”549, 550 culture and therefore civil society prerequisite for the functioning of trade and governance infusing their need of social trust, social capital – a sense of collective shared empathy 550 Ability to describe ones reality through history vocabulary increased in transition from oral to print, giving people richer reservoir of metaphors and language constructions to build on more extensive vocabulary more complex thoughts extending empathic domain in that they can better express innermost feelings, intentions and expectations to one another. 589 transcendent purpose, connections makes us aware of relations that make up the complex world 594 universal belonging/ stretching our mind in both directions, hard for humans to readjust to new societal demands when biologically predisposed to groups of 30 to 150 persons, transcendence 613 IPROSPERITY WITHOUT GROWTHMisconception about human natures fuels capitalism 151 both selfishness and altruism exits, both genetically possible but our econonmy is best served by the idea of human nature as selfish 155 I THINKING IN SYSTEMS – A PRIMER“Living successfully in a world of complex systems means expanding not only time horizons and thought horizons; above all, it means expanding the horizons of caring.”“No part of the human race is separate either from other human beings or from the global ecosystem. It will not be possible in this integrated world for your heart to succeed if your lungs fail, or for your company to succeed if your workers fail, or for the rich in Los Angeles to succeed if the poor in Los Angeles fail, or for Europe to succeed if Africa fails, or for the global economy to succeed if the global environment fails.” don’t erode the goal of goodness “The most damaging example of the systems archetype called “drift to low performance” is the process by which modern industrial culture has eroded the goal of morality.” See RUSSEL BRAND ON EMPATHY184 I DANA (DONELLA) MEADOWS LECTURE: SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMSonly get that we are connected I COMMON CAUSE – THE CASE FOR WORKING WITH OUR CULTURAL VALUESsituation can overwhelm and structures can make it harder to follow ones values, structure a result of particular cultural values 32 mirror neurons to our rescue, a fundamental human capacity we are born with. Predisposed to be helpful See WHY WE COOPERATE 37 We also share. Society can be formed to accentuate empathy, cooperativeness and sharing 38 IWHY WE COOPERATE WHY WE COOPERATE children and altruism 28 reciprocity, nice to the nice 29 kindness through social norms 30 Joint goal creates an “us”, In shared cooperative activities individual rationality is transformed into a social rationality of interdependence. 41 Also altruistic by nature. Mutualistic collaborative activities the source of human skills and motives for shared intentionality and human altruism. 47 Birth of altruism in mutualism, “The star is mutualism, in which we all benefit from our cooperation but only if we work together, what we may call collaboration.”52 “free-riding is not really possible because each of our efforts is required for success, and shirking is immediately apparent. As a side benefit, in the context of a mutualistic effort, my altruism toward you—for example, pointing out a tool that will help you do your job—actually helps me as well, as you doing your job helps us toward our common goal. So mutualism might also be the birthplace of human altruism: a protected environment, as it were, to get people started in that direction.” Evolution of cooperation. See New Economic Foundation 5 ways well-being 10, Sprit level 211, THE EMERGENCE OF HUMAN PROSOCIALITY: ALIGNING WITH OTHERS THROUGH FEELINGS, CONCERNS, AND NORMS, THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN MORALITY – HOW WE LEARNED TO PUT OUR FATE IN ANOTHER’S HANDS53 “The problem is how we can get ourselves to join forces. This is not a trivial task since what I do in such situations depends on what I think you will do and vice versa, recursively, which means that we must be able to communicate and trust one another sufficiently. I will call my evolutionary hypothesis the Silk for Apes, Skyrms for Humans hypothesis.” Cooperating requirements going from ape group activity to human collaboration 1. Importance of social-cognitive skills. 54 2. Importance of trust. 3 Institutional practices such as public social norms and deontic status to institutional roles 55 “Human cooperative communication thus evolved first within the bounds of collaborative activities because these activities provided the needed common ground for establishing joint topics, and because they generated the cooperative motives that Grice established as essential if the inferential machinery is to work appropriately.” Example of pointing. Wittgenstein 73 “To sum up, the species-unique structure of human collaborative activities is that of a joint goal with individual roles, coordinated by joint attention and individual perspectives. It was by way of Skyrms’s stag hunt19 that human beings evolved skills and motivations for engaging in these kinds of activities for concrete mutualistic gains. Skills and motivations for cooperative communication coevolved with these collaborative activities because such communication both depended on these activities and contributed to them by facilitating the coordination needed to coconstruct a joint goal and differentiated roles.” SeeTHE EMPATHIC CIVILIZATION: THE RACE TO GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN A WORLD IN CRISIS and FINDING FRAMES: NEW WAYS TO ENGAGE THE UK PUBLIC IN GLOBAL POVERTY on Lakoff and language 74 “Humans were put under some kind of selective pressure to collaborate in their gathering of food—they became obligate collaborators—in a way that their closest primate relatives were not.” 75 Importance of trust 77 Group-mindedness in cooperation a cause for suffering today. New ways to define the group. Define human beings as being threaten by climate change. 100 I FINDING FRAMES: NEW WAYS TO ENGAGE THE UK PUBLIC IN GLOBAL POVERTYmirror neurons, empathy and cooperative instincts 72 I THE COMMON CAUSE HANDBOOKreasons for not following ones values 26 I THE SPIRIT LEVEL: WHY MORE EQUAL SOCITIES ALMOST ALWAYS DO BETTERLess meeting other people less trust. Inequality is a powerful social divider In-group, out-group affecting our ability to identify with and empathize with other people. See Empathic Civilisation, WHY WE COOPERATE 51 de Tocqueville and prejudice as “imaginary inequality” followed by “real inequality”. Empathy to those we view equals. Inequality, trust and empathy. See THE EMPATHIC CIVILIZATION: THE RACE TO GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN A WORLD IN CRISIS52 inequality affects trust and empathy. “With greater inequality, people are less caring of one another, there is less mutuality in relationships, people have to fend for themselves and get what they can – so , inevitably , there is less trust”. Trust is important for empathy (try empathizing for a person you don’t trust!), we empathize with equals and material differences serve to divide us. Trust also affects well-being 56 people with higher levels of trust live longer 57 Social status (competing for resources) vs friendship (sharing resources). They reflect different ways of dealing with scarce comforts and necessities. See THE EMPATHIC CIVILIZATION: THE RACE TO GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN A WORLD IN CRISIS, WHY WE COOPERATE , Some cost of American corporate capitalism 196-197 unique human ability for specialization and cooperation See WHY WE COOPERATE , WHY WE CONSUME: NEURAL DESIGN AND SUSTAINABILITY198 Hunter gathering societies – social and economic life was based on gift exchange, foodsharing and equality. 198-199 “systems of material or economic relations are system of social relations.” Economic games and sense of fairness. 199 altruistic punishment 200 Humans more like bonobos than chimps, more love than power. Share the DNA that regulate social, sexual and parenting behaviour. See PROSPERITY WITHOUT GROWTH 155 202 The larger group the more neocortex needed to handle social life. Social demands developed our brain and maybe the reason for our intelligence. Getting social right is important as other human being can be friends or foe in relation to scarce resource. Different mental tool-kits for dominant or egalitarian societies using dominant or affiliative strategies. 203 Pre-human – dominance where competing for resources, desire for high status and being aware of status is the way of life. Maximizing status being seen as superior. Regaining self-worth through cicycle reaction. 204 However, hunting/gathering societies – highly egalitarian society comprise more 90 % of human history. 204-205 For 2 000 000 years we lived in egalitarian hunter/gathering (foraging) groups. Modern inequality rose with agriculture. Counter-dominance strategies, vigilant sharing, against behaviour threatening peoples sense of autonomy and equality, e.g. someone trying to dominate others. Psychological characteristics for egalitarian societies: 1. Our conception of fairness developed in the egalitarian societies See 199-200 205 2. indebtness feeling of gifts to prompt reciprocity. 3. Sense of identity and interdependence with those we share food and other resources as equals. In-group and out-group, those we share and empathize with and do not See 51 Sharing resources a way to make more people belong to the in-group – importance of empathy for a finite planet. Tocqueville and differences in material living standard barrier to empathy. Sense of self-realization when meeting others need – reassure us part of the group. See Common cause and intrinsic values, Some cost of American corporate capitalism creating a dominant hierarchical social organization 206 “At one extreme, dominance hierarchies are about self-advancement and status competition. Individuals have to be self-reliant and other people are encountered meanly as rivals for food and mates. At the other extreme is mutual interdependence and co-operation in which each person’s security depends on the quality of their relationships with others, and a sense of self-worth comes less from status than from the contributions made to the wellbeing of others. Rather than over pursuit of material self-interest, affiliative strategies depend on mutuality, reciprocity and the capacity form empathy and emotional bonding” Growing up in different societies, dominant or cooperative, require different skills 207 Stress affect babies. “The quality of care and nurture, the quality of attachment and how much conflict there is, all affect stress hormones and the child’s emotional and cognitive development.” Epigenetics on-and-off switch of genes that affect future development. Children who experience more stress become more aggressive, less empathetic but better at dealing with conflict. See Empathic Civilisation och attachement theory. Passing experience of adversity to children making them less empathic. 208 mirror neurons and human beings as social beings 210 cooperation stimalutes reward centres to encourage reciprocity and mutuality. Pain of social exclusion 211 Power of inclusion and exclusion indicate our fundamental need for social integration and explains why friendship and social involvement are so protective of health. 212 “For a species which thrives on friendship and enjoys co-operation and trust, which has a strong sense of fairness, which is equipped with mirror neurons allowing us to learn our way of life through a process of identification, it is clear that social structures which create relationships based in inequality, inferiority and social exclusion must inflict a great deal of social pain.” 213 DOUGHNUT ECONOMICS: SEVEN WAYS TO THINK LIKE A 21ST-CENTURY ECONOMISTPutnam and social capital 67 simplified version of human beings proposed but not believed by Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill. Critique from Devas. Mills wanted human being to be the atom, to economics to be as Newtons mechanistic physics. Origin of utility. 84 The solitary, self-interested, utility calculating, insatiable, superpowered economic cartoon human being became the model for reality. Robert Frank, belief of human nature shapes human nature. Economics, cocreating reality, the study of MacKenzi and Milli and the Consumer vs Citizen reaction study. See Common causeon policy feedback,Some cost of American corporate capitalism, In search of homo economicus: behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies 73, 74, 77 86 Human nature, first we are also social and reciprocating, second we have fluid values, third we are interdependent, fourth we approximate, fifth we are embedded in nature. Human nature and WEIRD people 89 We share, we are the most prosocial and cooperative species. See WHY WE COOPERATE , FINDING FRAMES: NEW WAYS TO ENGAGE THE UK PUBLIC IN GLOBAL POVERTYs. The feeling of fair has cultural differences and is impacted by social structures such as economy See Common cause on policy feedback, Some cost of American corporate capitalism, In search of homo economicus: behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies 73, 74, 77 91 I THE EMERGENCE OF HUMAN PROSOCIALITY: ALIGNING WITH OTHERS THROUGH FEELINGS, CONCERNS, AND NORMSChildren sharing 2 What constitute fair is not universal, children punish unfair offers See DOUGHNUT ECONOMICS: SEVEN WAYS TO THINK LIKE A 21ST-CENTURY ECONOMIST 91 9 “We align ourselves with other individuals by way of empathy and other-regarding concerns, especially empathic concern, which allow us to feel with and for others. And we align ourselves with the group by way of normativity. These two forms of alignment are intricately linked, and they together give rise to uniquely human forms of prosociality and cooperation, both at a small scale, namely families and tribes, and at a large scale in groups of unrelated strangers.” 10 “The foundations for uniquely human ultrasociality thus comes from the combination of an emotional, possibly innate, sensitivity to the needs of others, coupled with a motivation toward their welfare. Norms systematize, standardize, and contextualize for the group which prosocial (or antisocial) behaviors are expected, when, and toward whom.” human beings being ultrasocial and its origins 11 I THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN MORALITY – HOW WE LEARNED TO PUT OUR FATE IN ANOTHER’S HANDS400, 000 years ago Homo heidelbergensis began obtaining scarce food through collaboration, something essential for survival. “An essential part of the process of obligate collaborative foraging involved partner choice. Individuals who were cognitively or otherwise incompetent at collaboration—those incapable of forming joint goals or communicating effectively with others— were not chosen as partners and so went without food. Likewise, individuals who were socially or morally uncooperative in their interactions with others—for example, those who tried to hog all the spoils—were also shunned as partners and so doomed. The upshot: strong and active social selection emerged for competent and motivated individuals who cooperated well with others” 72 “Most important, they had strong cooperative motives, both to work together to achieve common goals and to feel sympathy for and help existing or prospective partners. If an individual depended on partners for foraging success, then it made good evolutionary sense to help them whenever necessary to make sure they were in good shape for future outings. In addition, one’s own survival depended on others seeing you as a competent and motivated collaborative partner. Thus, individuals became concerned with how others evaluated them. In experiments from our laboratory, even young children care about how they are being evaluated by others, whereas chimpanzees seemingly do not.” 72, 73 “From these studies we have surmised that early humans who engaged in collaborative foraging developed a new kind of cooperative reasoning that led them to treat others as equally deserving partners— that is, not just with sympathy but also with a sense of fairness (based on an understanding of the equivalence between oneself and others).”“The roles— each of which had mutually known and impartial standards of performance—were, in fact, interchangeable. As such, each partner on the hunt was equally deserving of the spoils, in contrast to cheats and free riders who did not lend a hand.” “In choosing a partner for a collaborative e‑ ort, early humans wanted to pick an individual who would live up to an expected role and divide the spoils fairly.” “A ‘we is greater than me’ morality emerged. During a collaboration, the joint “we” operated beyond the selfish individual level to regulate the actions of the collaborative partners ‘I’ and ‘you.’ The outcome of early humans’ adaptations for obligate collaborative foraging, then, became what is known as a second-personal morality—defined as the tendency to relate to others with a sense of respect and fairness based on a genuine assessment of both self and others as equally deserving partners in a collaborative enterprise.” Competition between groups with the need of loosely knit social groups to cooperate against outside invaders and population increase and the need for subunits to recognize members meant the birth of cultural norms. 73 “Animals often cooperate with others of their own species. But the way humans do so is different. The human form of cooperation—known simply as morality—distinguishes itself in two related ways. One person may help another based on unselfish motives driven by compassion, concern and benevolence. Also, members of a group might seek means for all to benefit through enacting norms to promote fairness, equity and justice. These capacities evolved over hundreds of thousands of years as humans began to work together out of a basic need for survival. The cognitive and social aspects of this process may be understood through the philosophical concept of intentionality: the ways individuals interpret the world and pursue their goals.” Individual intentionality, joint intentionality and collective intentionality. 74 “Some social norms were about more than conformity and group identity. They touched on a sense of sympathy and fairness (inherited from early hu mans), which became moral norms. Thus, just as some norms codified the right and wrong way of doing things in hunting or making tools, moral norms categorized the proper way of treating other people. Because the collective group goals and cultural common ground of human groups created an “objective” perspective— not “me” but “we” as a people—modern human morality came to be characterized as an objective form of right and wrong.” “But if we are to solve our largest challenges as a species, which threaten all human societies alike, we had best be prepared to think of all of humanity as a ‘we.’” 75To encouragementNext encouragement