Consequently, we suggest that the concept of utilitarian impartiality must be replaced by that of “inclusive reciprocity”. Considering the well-being of everyone equally, making no difference between those who belong to a reciprocity scheme and those who do not is non-sustainable. On the other hand, the universalism of utilitarian ethics can be maintained by keeping reciprocity schemes open to all. A human group with a pledge for mutual support and open to those who are willing to assume those obligations regardless of their origin could be sustainable and even could be close to be the social version of a Darwinian optimal replicator.
Thank you for your comment. I start from the idea that the most effective altruism is not based so much on mutual support—in the material sense—as on participation within a culture of altruistic values where support is above all of an emotional, affective nature. We would then be more in the field of “virtue ethics” than of a utilitarian type. Economic acts would be a necessary material consequence of an emotional state. Here I am with Hume: reason is the slave of the passions (but we can rationally shape our own passions: that is psychology). The most intelligent altruistic action would be to help build that emotional state that would compose an altruistic ethos. That was what the so-called “compassionate religions” did before, but today we have more cognitive instruments… apart from those they already had. Jonathan Haidt comments that the ancients did not know much about science but were good psychologists, and he himself names an “emotion of elevation” as a motivator of behavior. On the other hand, in books such as Larissa MacFarquhart’s “Strangers Drowning” we find contemporary evidence of sufficiently motivated altruistic actors. What is missing is an ideology of behavioural improvement.
Yes!
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/aCEuvHrqzmBroNQPT/the-evolution-towards-the-blank-slate
Consequently, we suggest that the concept of utilitarian impartiality must be replaced by that of “inclusive reciprocity”. Considering the well-being of everyone equally, making no difference between those who belong to a reciprocity scheme and those who do not is non-sustainable. On the other hand, the universalism of utilitarian ethics can be maintained by keeping reciprocity schemes open to all. A human group with a pledge for mutual support and open to those who are willing to assume those obligations regardless of their origin could be sustainable and even could be close to be the social version of a Darwinian optimal replicator.
Thank you for your comment. I start from the idea that the most effective altruism is not based so much on mutual support—in the material sense—as on participation within a culture of altruistic values where support is above all of an emotional, affective nature. We would then be more in the field of “virtue ethics” than of a utilitarian type. Economic acts would be a necessary material consequence of an emotional state. Here I am with Hume: reason is the slave of the passions (but we can rationally shape our own passions: that is psychology).
The most intelligent altruistic action would be to help build that emotional state that would compose an altruistic ethos. That was what the so-called “compassionate religions” did before, but today we have more cognitive instruments… apart from those they already had. Jonathan Haidt comments that the ancients did not know much about science but were good psychologists, and he himself names an “emotion of elevation” as a motivator of behavior.
On the other hand, in books such as Larissa MacFarquhart’s “Strangers Drowning” we find contemporary evidence of sufficiently motivated altruistic actors. What is missing is an ideology of behavioural improvement.