Joshua Greene (2)

An amazing book which describes how our brains, by evolution, discriminate between various sources of happiness. Clearly expressed reasons for why in-group people listen to their ideology over others even if given overwhelming evidence of the other ideology being superior. As emotions control decisions, an explanation of why some actions activate our moral sensors, our emotions, while other actions which have the same outcome do not activate emotional responses. Reasons for how and why cooperative results occur even if the individual self-interest of for each player to get the maximum amount from a particular interaction are explained via morality. The author uses different tools to help explain the case of morality such as game theory, economics, philosophy and psychology. The major theme of the book is the philosophy of utilitarianism with its history, why its underrepresented and its actual meaning is given. Extremely well written. The only possible downside of the book is that sometimes the author generates questions without giving a more clear answer. For instance in the case of using what is best. The economic solution would be to use Bayesian Theory.… (altro)

Summary: Our brains evolved to feel specific things to facilitate cooperation within our tribe only. We've translated these feelings into the concepts of morals, rights, and duties, and treat them as the absolute truth when they're really based on racist/tribalist evolutionary function. So what's the solution?

Greene argues for utilitarianism, although he's scared of using the word "utility."

This book is interesting, easy to read, but slow moving. Entry-level moral philosophy. Give it a shot.… (altro)

This is a powerful blend of neuroscience, psychology, and sociology. The first third or so is probably the most fascinating, with ideas about Individualism v/s Collectivism taking a front seat in the discussion. This is worth reading as it could fuel discussion around a variety of areas, including values-based decision making, inherited perspective, biases, bystander-intervention, and responding to the controversy.

It points out that 'Reason is an evolved trait, like bipedalism. It emerged on the savannas of Africa, and has to be understood in that context. This makes much more sense if you've studied more on Cognitive dissonance and Biases before (One of them is confirmation bias: the tendency people have to embrace information that supports their beliefs and rejects information that contradicts them)
Humans' biggest advantage over other species is the ability to co-operate. Cooperation is difficult to establish and almost as difficult to sustain. For any individual, freeloading is always the best course of action. Reason developed not to enable us to solve abstract, logical problems or even to help us draw conclusions from unfamiliar data; rather, it developed to resolve the problems posed by living in collaborative groups.
Habits of mind that seem weird or goofy or just plain dumb from an “intellectualist” point of view prove shrewd when seen from a social “interactionist” perspective.

“Humans, aren’t randomly credulous. Presented with someone else’s argument, we’re quite adept at spotting the weaknesses. Almost invariably, the positions we’re blind about are our own.”
… (altro)