675. Mice: Pets Or Vermin?

675.   Mice:  Pets Or Vermin?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130510124501.htm

"Many people express objections against child labor, exploitation of the workforce or meat production involving cruelty against animals. At the same time, however, people ignore their own moral standards when acting as market participants, searching for the cheapest electronics, fashion or food. Thus, markets reduce moral concerns."

"In comparison to non-market decisions, moral standards are significantly lower if people participate in markets."

So far, I can agree.   An example for this is the recent tragedy in the factory in Bangladesh, where the exploited workers were killed as a result of the greed of the owners not caring for the safety of the building,
But while the consumers are contributing by their willful ignorance of the reasons for the goods being cheap, the main culprits are those with the economic power to decide the prices by making the contracts and by paying low wages.   


But I strongly disagree, that the attitude towards the life of a mouse is a measurement for morals.    

"In a number of different experiments, several hundred subjects were confronted with the moral decision between receiving a monetary amount and killing a mouse versus saving the life of a mouse and foregoing the monetary amount."

Killing or saving a mouse is not at all a moral decision.   It is a decision between the naivety to consider mice as pets or the realism to evaluate mice as vermin..  
The naivety is a mistake of those people, who know mice only as being kept in cages, where they cannot cause any detriment.    Mice are damaging vermin, whenever they get a chance to bite holes into garments for making nests and to make a mess by feeding on bags of flower in the larder.  

I have killed mice and rats by traps and by poison, whenever this was necessary.   Morals to me means to discriminate between sparing vermin and being considerate to humans by paying a higher price for fair trade products, when available.    I want the vermin dead, but a decent standard of living for every human on this globe.  

Saving mice as in the study is also for other reasons an illusion.    Carnivorous animals in the zoo are fed by small animals, like for example chickens, mice and rats.   There are companies specialized in breeding these for feeding purposes, when the surplus from other sources does not suffice.  

For any of the saved mice in the study, another mouse was bred as a replacement to be fed to a hungry zoo animal.   No lives of mice were saved.   

I would like to see a study, which tests the same question but on issues of genuine morals.   

652. The Tit-For-Tat Meta Addition To The Golden Rule

652.  The Tit-For-Tat Meta Addition To The Golden Rule

"The Golden Rule or ethic of reciprocity is a maxim,[1] ethical code or morality[2] that essentially states either of the following:

(Positive form of Golden Rule): One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.[1]

(Negative form of Golden Rule): One should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated (also known as the Silver Rule)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule

Like expressed above, the golden rule is quoted often.   But for people using the tit-for-tat strategy as a basis of interacting, the following is an important logical consequence of the golden rule:

Do not blame others for treating you the same way, as you have treated them before.  

The tit-for-tat strategy does not suit morals, which are openly or even subtly influenced by a christian background of society.   Even rational non-religious people are often under this impact without being aware of this. 

Christianity promises the reward in the afterlife as a compensation for the acceptance of suffering, for unconditional forgiving, for turning the other cheek.    This is inconsistent with the tit-for-tat strategy, which chooses reactions to behavior as mirroring this behavior. 

Some people misunderstand the tit-for-tat strategy as a way of being vindictive.    This is not the case.  

• Non-criminal vengeance is an emotional behavior.   Under limited circumstances it can be a way of finding relief from suffering helpless outrage as the victim of a transgression.  
• The tit-for-tat strategy is a rational way of maintaining a balance of giving and receiving and of preventing disruptive imbalances.  

Vengeance can even be an apparently paradoxical reaction to following the christian demands under social pressure and misguidance while not being intrinsically agreeing.  Following these christian demands can lead to an extremely unbalanced situation of one person taking advantage and one suffering until a breaking point is reached.   

The tit-for-tat strategy can prevent this, because it leads to both persons involved reaching a point of ending a futile situation much earlier,   This does not escalate until one suffers enough to feel vindictive, when both do not gain any advantage.  

But tit-for-tat only works, when both agree on and are aware of its justification.   When one persons uses tit-for-tat, but the other expects christian submission to and compliance with bad treatment, then this leads to disruptive and unstable interactions.   

630. A Rare Case Of A Man With Self-Awareness

630.   A Rare Case Of A Man With Self-Awareness

I just read this story, which is another example for how much some men are biologically challenged:

"A dentist acted legally when he sacked his attractive assistant because he and his wife thought the woman was a threat to their marriage,"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9762472/Dentist-legally-allowed-to-sack-irresistible-assistant.html

First of all, of course it is wrong and not acceptable, that this man has used his power to burden the consequences of his own affliction and weakness upon someone else.   The solution chosen by him was not appropriate, but the need to act and solve the problem was real.     

This man's rare self-awareness deserves admiration.  He bluntly admits, that his instinctive urges towards abusing the body of his assistant were overwhelming his reason and disabling him from doing his job properly.  In contrast to many dangerous jerks, he owned his weakness of an insufficient cognitive control over his too strong instincts.   

He acted, before it was too late, by taking responsibility towards his own wife, towards the assistant's marriage and towards his patients.  He prevented dire consequences of his detrimental instinctivity.   

If all men would admit their weakness and act, before they have harmed others, the world would be a better place. 
Whenever other peoples' life or health depends upon a person's work, no matter if he is a dentist, a pilot or a general, it is important to avoid jeopardies.   While it is obvious that a dentist with hemiparesis or a pilot having become blind are no more fit for their work, it is time to recognize and acknowledge, how much a man's too strong sex drive is also a risky disability, which becomes virulent in the presence of attractive women.   It is time to take this into account and give up the denial, which causes so much harm.  

While the dentist in this case principally did the right thing by ending the dangerous collaboration with this assistant, it was his moral duty to do this by bringing the damage upon himself instead of harming her.   It was his moral obligation to find another appropriate work for her and to not deprive her of her source of income.   As long as he did not succeed, he owed her to continue to pay her salary without her working.

But this case is also a reminder, that women should be more supportive and considerate to men fighting against their affliction of a too strong instinctivity.   Wise women appear at work in an attire suitable to avoid triggering male instincts, they reserve seductive and lascivious attire to the privacy of their own relationship.   

628. Theory Of Mind, Empathy, Society And The Media

628.   Theory Of Mind, Empathy, Society And The Media
 

As told before, I consider not to harm others as the core principle of any acceptable moral and not to be harmed as the core principle of basic human rights.  

To be successful in avoiding to harm others requires more than the acceptance of a moral principle.   It requires also sufficient knowledge of what others experience as harm.   While recognizing visible immediate harm is easy, this is not the case with invisible and delayed harm.

The reliance upon empathy and the working of the mirror neurons is limited to situations, when someone can spontaneously feel with the unlucky person, for example someone, on whose foot a brick has just fallen.   

But when the harm is invisible and caused by complex and abstract cognitive experiences, then empathy is not enough to prevent hurting another person emotionally.   Avoiding emotional and future harm by broken trust, by injustice, by depreciation, by commodification and such requires a mature theory of mind.    

"Theory of mind is the ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc.—to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions that are different from one's own."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind

While children usually develop a basic theory of mind by innate maturation, the more complex and abstract theory of mind is a learning process enabled and enhanced by experiences of interactions.   

Nobody can know for certain, what behavior causes invisible harm to another person, unless this is based upon acquired information.    This can be achieved by either learning from the reaction and feedback by the harmed person and/or by any observing third party, or by asking the target person's advice before acting and by listening to such advice when proffered.  

It is the fallacy of immature people to deny the existence of anything, that they are ignorant of and to think that it is enough not to do to others, what they would themselves feel hurt by.   
It is also a fallacy to overlook the biological differences between women and men in evaluating the impact of behavior.   

 

An example.    Some men in the state of sexual dishomeostasis feel an urge to copulate like dogs in the gutter with any haphazard female body without getting attached.   

Those being immature believe women to be like them.  Whenever they mislead women to consent by unjustified expectations of attachment, immature men abuse women's bodies with a clean conscience.  They do not understand attachment and believe women to be stray dogs the same like themselves.  

Men with a mature theory of mind are aware, that women do get attached much more easily and rapidly and how important attachment is for women.   Jerks have no conscience and manipulate women to be used and dumped, they are not deterred by not reciprocating attachment.   Jerks consider women's getting attached as an annoying flaw.

Mature men with morals are able to acknowledge, that not getting attached is their own deficiency.    They are responsible to not make others the victims of their own deficiencies and to accept the obligation of using self-control to abstain from hurting women.  


The development of a mature theory of mind depends upon the society and culture.  

Unfortunately the modern western societies impede and thwart the moral maturation of people.   The influence of the ubiquitous media is the main factor in this.  

Desensitization:   The media are full with realistic representations of the most horrible agonies and atrocities.   But as the human brain had evolved without realistic pictures, it cannot really distinguish between TV and real life.  Watching TV is not very different from people partaking in the spectacle of public hanging and beheading.  

The consumption of the media leads to a desensitization towards suffering.   As a result, a 'mere' emotional betrayal appears as if it were only a trifle compared with the magnitude of the frequently watched atrocities both reported from real life and in the imaginary world of movies.  

Misunderstood tolerance.   Tolerance is important to protect minorities and people with special needs from any avoidable disadvantages.    But if alleged tolerance embraces also the protection of behaviors, which cause harm, it is not tolerance, but irresponsibility and a failure to protect the victims.    

Misrepresentation.   There are many perversities and deviant behaviors, which seem obviously harmful to most people, who would immediately refuse to expose themselves to be thus harmed.    Yet in the uncensored web, nearly every perversity and deviance has its adherent proponents, who propagate it publicly from their subjective distorted view as a minority right and behavior while omitting, denying and trifling the harm to the victims.   

Desensitization, misunderstood tolerance and misrepresentation have an impact not only upon the person behaving unknowingly as a transgressor, but also on the victim and on any other possible source of corrective feedback.  

Victims getting hurt are irritated and confused as to how much their felt outrage is justified.  They are often misguided to attribute their own healthy reaction instead to an own weakness.    They submit and endure instead of protesting, because they are manipulated into.self-doubt as if they were failures lacking to adapt the socially prescribed pseudo-progress.

Acquaintances are not involved enough to suffer as victims, but they often notice behavior as potentially harming to closer relations.   Would they react sincerely and show their true disapproval, this would serve as helpful feedback towards a better theory of mind.    But instead they shrug their shoulders and avoid any conflict.   

Constructive feedback can only be given by people with a mature theory of mind, who are aware of the importance of not hurting others.   People who are immature themselves are less prone to give any feedback and they are even less able to give feedback of supportive value.    What makes role models in the media attractive to the masses is often an expression of immaturity, which is then imitated. .  

Therefore some of those people, who hurt others, never had a chance to reach sufficient maturity to get aware of what they are really doing.   

619. Objectification And The Ingroup-Outgroup Instinct

619.  Objectification And The Ingroup-Outgroup Instinct

The ingroup-outgroup instinct has evolved in many species living in groups.   It provided two sets of behaviors, automatic in animals and as a social norm in humans, which are sometimes very contradictory.   
Examples: 
Outgroup members are prey to be eaten by cannibals, while ingroup members are companions to share the food with. 
Outgroup women are prey to be raped during wars, even by men, who are no brutes to their wives or any ingroup women.

 

When a previously unknown man in real life initiates contact with a woman, for her this always bears the risk of at least the indignation of being considered as prey to be objectified and commodified, if not the worse victimization by violence.   

But there are two distinctive instinctive urges, which unfortunately add to the number of men behaving as disgusting alley dogs towards women.   

There are not only the general jerks, who driven by their instincts promiscuously objectify all women.    There are also the those jerks sufficiently determined by their ingroup-outgroup instinct, who behave differently towards ingroup women while treating outgroup women as mere prey.     

When younger and traveling alone through some Mediterranean countries, I have experienced the following pattern so often, that it started to cause me nausea.   
Sitting somewhere like on a bench in a park and being approached by a man I hoped for some interesting conversation about the country and its society and way of life.    But I was not treated as a human being with a brain.  Instead I was the target of a predator, flirting and attempting to seduce me, perceiving me as prey, as a body to be used.   

I doubt very much, that all of these predators would have caused the same indignation to local ingroup women as they allowed themselves to do to a tourist.  

Being a foreigner made me unequivocally an outgroup person by nationality.    But on a subtle and diffuse level, any subjective distinction by sorting them into either ingroup or outgroup facilitates some men's selective objectification of women.   

When driven by instinct towards abusing indiscriminately any female body for homeostation, while moral imperatives of their religion and culture forbid them promiscuity, uncoupled men suffer discomfort by either dishomeostasis or cognitive dissonance.   Defining an outgroup of women as such, upon whom moral rules do not need to be applied, is their mental trick to acquire homeostasis and avoid cognitive dissonance.   It is the mental trick of the selfish jerks attempting to acquire homeostasis without accepting commitment as not only bringing a subscription to recurrent homeostation but also meaning monogamy and emotional obligations.  

This mental trick enables jerks to have the sincere delusion to be decent and correct men, as long as they refrain from promiscuous behavior with women of their ingroup, while feeling free and justified to behave like alley dogs with women from any outgroup.   
The social history of an ingroup defined as an upper class, where so called gentlemen abused the servants and other poor and lower class women, is one example.           

602. Inconsistent Morals

602.  Inconsistent Morals 

In entry 601 I was puzzled about someone, who appeared and presented himself rather convincingly in his profile as a nice guy in search of a long term relationship, yet he decided suddenly to become an abusive jerk and to pursue the plan to copulate like a dog in the gutter.  

As the following article shows, some people are prone to lack moral integrity:

http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2012/may/wearing-two-different-hats-moral-decisions-may-depend-situation

"An individual’s sense of right or wrong may change depending on their activities at the time – and they may not be aware of their own shifting moral integrity — according to a new study looking at why people make ethical or unethical decisions."

"workers who tend to have dual roles in their jobs would change their moral judgments based on what they thought was expected of them at the moment."

"“When people switch hats, they often switch moral compasses,” Leavitt said. “People like to think they are inherently moral creatures – you either have character or you don’t. But our studies show that the same person may make a completely different decision based on what hat they may be wearing at the time, often without even realizing it.”"

"Whether they know it or not, people are often taking in messages about what their role is and what is expected of them, and this may conflict with what they know to be the moral or correct decision."

"“We find that people tend to make decisions that may conflict with their morals when they are overwhelmed, or when they are just doing routine tasks without thinking of the consequences,” Leavitt said. “We tend to play out a script as if our role has already been written. So the bottom line is, slow down and think about the consequences when making an ethical decision.”"

Maybe this research is a clue towards interpreting, how some men may attempt or pretend to be decent and monogamous, whenever they are in contact with women, yet when they are in the company of a bunch of outspoken jerks and machos they nevertheless switch to the fallacy, that the objectification and other forms of the abuse of women were appropriate behavior.   As too many men already consider this as the social norm, they reinforce each other in the fallacy, that there were nothing ethically wrong with their attitude towards women. 

Maybe the man described in entry 601 had been drinking with a group of buddies, who bragged about their successes as predators, thus triggering his ambition to compete with them.   If his wish to live up to their social norm is strong, it overrides any moral consideration or responsibility towards women..  

601. Anecdotal Evidence: How Instinctive Urges Blur, Distort And Deactivate A Man's Reason

601.   Anecdotal Evidence:  How Instinctive Urges Blur, Distort And Deactivate A Man's Reason

A few days ago, a man's profile gave me the impression of his being a nice, decent, and considerate guy.    He used words like honesty, sharing, loving, kind and compassionate in his profile.   He told me, he were fitting my own profile, where I have explicitly mentioned, that I do not want any contact with promiscuous men.   

He seemed interested in further contact with me.   We exchanged a few emails and he agreed also with the importance of communication and of intellectual compatibility.   

But when I had another look at his profile, I was really puzzled.    He had changed his declared intention from actively seeking a relationship to dating but nothing serious.   When I asked him about this unexpected and seemingly incongruous change, his answer was so different from what he had appeared before, that he appeared like a different person.  
.   
He wrote,
1.  that he was "totally discouraged with online dating"
2.  that he now intended to have "a hookup, nothing serious. Dinner, movie, and sex."

For a moment I was speechless.  When he wrote this, it was morning in his time zone.  Had he written this in the evening, I would have suspected him to be drunk.  
  
1. Even by not being his dream woman, according to his initial interest, the contact with me could more logically have encouraged him.
  
2. Something is strange, when someone with this man's profile decides on such a project.  It is not something to achieve with honesty.   Most women, to whom a man would unequivocally suggest "a hookup, nothing serious. Dinner, movie, and sex" would feel insulted by this objectification and disrespect.  They would consider him a ridiculous fool for having such expectations.   
Most men, who succeed in getting "a hookup, nothing serious. Dinner, movie, and sex", do this by lies, manipulation and other methods of misleading a woman to consent based upon the false hope of beginning a relationship.    This is abuse. 

It seemed incongruous and inconsistent, that a man, who had declared himself as valuing compassion and kindness, suddenly plans coldblooded abuse.   It is incomprehensible, how someone suddenly decides to abuse a female body as a toilet for his body waste in spite of his claim of wanting intellectual compatibility.

The following are of course only speculations, as there is no way to find out the truth. 

Desensitization to full comprehension for how much a woman gets hurt, when she is used and discarded is not enough to explain this contradiction.  Desensitization to harming others works best in the absence of compassion.    

The most plausible explanation is this man's overreacting to a state of strong physiological dishomeostasis.    The guy seems to have been reduced from a thinking and feeling human being to a mere animal, being completely under the power of overwhelming instinctive forces.   In this state as an animal, all his human reason appears blurred, distorted or deactivated.    

Any option for behavior guided by human compassion and kindness seems to be concealed behind the predominant urge to copulate like a dog in the gutter, and behind the drive to be a predator and to ruthlessly hunt for prey.   This state as an animal lasts until homeostation restores humanity.

I replied, that a man, who objectifies women, is not worthy of me.    His reaction was "F**k you, you crazy broad. Go back to the asylum."    I was merely blunt, but the animal in him became vulgar.


While I am scared of men's dangerous instincts, I also feel sorry for them.   They are afflicted with instincts, which destroy for them the chance to get, what is most beneficial to their human cognition, especially in the case of men, who are intelligent and educated, and only deranged when they experience dishomeostasis.   

This guy is just one example.   Without being deranged temporarily by his instincts, he could have a happy symmetrical committed and bonded relationship with a woman like me.   But his instincts reduce him to a disgusting beast, who temporarily sinks so low as to intend to abuse women as a toilet for his body waste.   No decent woman with dignity and self-respect wants anything to do with such a man.   

It is very difficult for me to imagine, how men's specific physiological sexual dishomeostasis of needing to get rid of body waste feels.   Biologically, women's bodies do not provide this same experience of dishomeostasis.   
My best attempt to comprehend the magnitude of men's problem is to compare it to the urge of an addiction like alcoholism or even an extreme deprivation as is starvation.   Sometimes an extremely strong craving deactivates and overrides all higher cognitive and moral consideration.  The craving person ruthlessly applies any atrocity, which allows him to restore homeostasis, even killing, stealing and robbing. In the case of men, it can be abuse and rape of women.       

Those jerks, who always copulate like dogs in the gutter, oblivious of the damage done to the abused women, are just animals, who have never really become fully human.  
But assuming, that the guy in this incident knows the full meaning of the words used by him in his profile, like kindness and compassion, makes me wonder, what happens after he had his night in the gutter.   How will he feel, when he is back temporarily in a state of homeostasis, becoming fully aware of what he had done to the woman by luring her into his gutter?    Will he feel the same shame and regret as the addict, who in the state of homeostasis wishes to be free from the addiction?

597. Commodification And Wanting

597.   Commodification And Wanting

When a sane, mature and rational person declares to want something, this is an expression of a mere wish and of nothing more.   Wishing does not imply any assumption concerning the availability or feasibility nor does it imply any claim to get it.

Attempts towards gratification are an independent next step.   Such attempts are limited by the full recognition of and awareness for the rights of others and by the moral obligation to refrain from harming others and from usurping and seizing.     

The rational method to get gratification is earning it.  When it comes as a gift, it is received with gratitude and not taken for granted.
 

Immature and selfish jerks have a blatant delusional fallacy in their thinking.  When they say 'I want x', they really mean to say 'I demand x, because I believe myself to be entitled to get x immediately'.  They confound wanting something with the entitlement to automatically get it.  They believe, that everybody and the society owe to given to them, whatever they want and when they want it.  

Relationships are entered for the purpose of meeting specific needs.   The difference between mere wishes and claims of alleged entitlement contributes to the difference between egalitarian bonded couples and asymmetrical commodification.   

A bonded, caring, considerate couple feels reciprocally responsible for the careful use of their pooled resources.   Those expenses have priority, of which the benefits are shared by both partners   Any expenses only benefiting one partner are secondary.  Shared decision are based upon agreement as being fair.  Reciprocal gratification of wishes is perceived with gratitude as a gift or as a favor.     

The commodification of women is one special case of the fallacy of mistaking wanting as an automatic justification for claims, demands, coercion and usurpation.  A jerk informing a commodified woman of what he wants feel automatically also entitled to get it immediately. 

• Commodifying men experience and consider it as their baseline of normality, if they always get everything immediately whenever they demand it.   
  They take all received benefits for granted.  They are blind to recognize, when someone does something for them by choice and by a voluntary decision.   They do not know, what favors are.  They do not know gratitude.  
  Any expression of love, care and affection by voluntarily doing something for such a man is lost and not recognized as such.  Whatever gratification he receives, he always confounds it as if it were his due and as if she were only doing her duty. 
  
• When the reaction to commodifying men's demands is refusal,
  
  • they seize their alleged due by hook or by crook, by domination, coercion, bullying, if they have the power to do so.
  • they get extremely angry, aggressive, frustrated and unpleasant, when they lack the power to enforce gratification.

574. The Baseline Of Insignificance

574.   The Baseline Of Insignificance

There are billions of people of this globe.   I know that they exist as an abstract mass of people, but not as individuals, as long as I have never even heard their individual names.  They are insignificant for me personally.    This has nothing to do with the ingroup-outgroup instinct.   The German stranger living down the street is as insignificant to me as any stranger on another continent.  

I perceive all human beings as a kind of prototype, as long as they are not known to me personally as individuals.  People visibly and unequivocally engaging in specific behaviors, no matter if for example performing religious rituals or as spectators at a sports event, are a subgroup of the general prototype distinguished by one of more special additional attributes.  

The existence of these prototypical humans has only one impact upon myself:  They are beings not to be harmed.  
Not harming as the baseline of behavior with strangers requires nothing more than distant politeness in the case of superficial haphazard interactions.  As long as I keep away from them and it causes no harm, I am free to choose, what to think or say about them.   
Their insignificance for me is the baseline.   I owe them no proactive beneficial behavior.    I do not owe them any respect, because I cannot know, if they as individuals deserve it or not.   


Based upon this, it is justified to discreetly ridiculing the weird irrational behaviors of people in Lourdes as explained in entry 573.  

• It is not harming by propagating prejudice.   Laughing at irrational expressions is laughing at something really and publicly displayed.   Propagating prejudice would mean to make unfounded detrimental claims by alleged contingencies. 
  
• It is neither interpersonal cowardice not talking behind people's back, because both these behaviors are clearly defined as reproachable under the limiting conditions of concerning people personally known.
  Encouraging a person into his face to pray for health and then talk with others behind his back about his foolishness to pray is cowardice. 
  Being told in confidence about someone's illness and then breaking the trust of telling this to others is talking behind his back.
  Sharing the opinion about how expecting to be cured in Lourdes is preposterous and laughing about it is neither of this, because it concerns the public behavior of strangers. 
  Nobody has any rational reason and even less moral obligation to approach a complete stranger to inform him of the own unfavorable cognitive reaction to his public behavior (unless the interference serves to protect a third party).      
  The rational reason to approach a stranger would be the intention of mutually beneficial interactions, not to offend him.
  
• The absence of personalization is not the same as depersonalization.   As stranger is insignificant but is considered as the prototype of a person entitled to not be harmed, he has just not been known as having an individuality.   
  Depersonalization is an ingredient in the justification of harming by commodification.   Depersonalization is the wilful undoing of a previous personalized contact for the purpose of asymmetrical advantages.  

573. The Justification For Ridiculing Irrational Beliefs

573.     The Justification For Ridiculing Irrational Beliefs

In entry 436 (Religion As Entertainment), I described, how the weirdness of behaviors based upon irrational beliefs can be very entertaining and that some religious events are spectacles worth visiting.   I mentioned Lourdes as an example.   

In a forum discussion I mentioned, how shared laughter at irrational behaviors is a way of feeling close with someone because of sharing the same attitudes, while the necessity to censor myself and refrain from laughing in the company of persons afflicted themselves with those weird beliefs is an indication of the separating mental ditch.  
Mentioning Lourdes as an example I was accused of laughing at cripples.   There is a fallacy in this accusation.   

The evaluation of a person's situation and the evaluation of a person's method of coping with a situation are independent.   Compassion with a person's unfortunate situation does not require automatic respect for weird coping,

• Every religious and other irrational belief and every behavior based upon such beliefs are so preposterous and ludicrous, that this justifies ridicule and making fun of it.   This is independent of who is afflicted with the irrationality and of the reasons to behave irrationally.   This ridicule is principally justified by the irrationality.  
• Justified ridicule is no justification for hurting the feelings of the misguided believers.  Ridiculing has to be restricted to be shared only by those in agreement.   It is important to be guided by the consideration to ascertain, that the unfortunate believers are kept ignorant and are not exposed to the ridicule.     
• The moral justification of ridicule depends directly upon how much choice there is.   It is not justified to ridicule someone for being sick, because this is not a choice.   But it is justified to ridicule someone (without his knowledge) for praying or taking homeopathy, because this is irrational and it is a choice.  
• When looking at the absurdity, there is not difference between someone praying to win the lottery and someone praying to be healed from an incurable condition.    The urgency of the suffering of the sick, which is not there for someone merely dreaming of being rich, explains the susceptibility and gullibility to behave irrationally, it does not diminish the absurdity.   
• Justifying hidden ridicule is the combined expression of two distinctive consequences of the same underlying strong rationality.  
  Irrationality is defined as the absence of full rationality, no matter the circumstances.      The rational moral principle of not harming people, of behaving according to the golden rule and a tit-for-tat strategy requires not to show the ridicule.  It requires instead to independently perceive and acknowledge the need for compassion and support.     

Having visited Lourdes, standing there hidden in a corner and sharing a discreet good laughter about the weird spectacle was restricted to ridiculing the irrational religious behaviors of making fools of themselves by going to Lourdes.  Ridiculing this choice does not imply any devaluation of the unfortunate and tragic situation of being crippled and sick.   They have my compassion and my sympathy.   


There is the Darwin award, ridiculing especially absurd and stupid ways of people causing their own accidental death.  I would never jump to the fallacious conclusion to mistake people as cold and immoral monsters for nothing more than having invented the Darwin award.   Laughing about weird ways of getting killed does not preclude their having compassion with dying and suffering persons and those grieving for them.  

570. Politicians And Morals

570.   Politicians And Morals

As mentioned before, there is a biologically caused asymmetry of many men harming women by excessive instinctive urges for sexual homeostasis and of many women not only getting harmed but participating in their own self-harming due to their instinctive urges for breeding.    As a result, the co-evolved gullibility to religion has established a general desensitization to women's plight of being harmed.   Women's bodies being used by men is not perceived as an outrage and a transgression, but as morally acceptable and as their innate doom. 

But this attitude of accepting the desensitization has consequences far beyond merely harming individual women in private situations.    When someone considers and accepts it as correct behavior and his entitlement to harm women by abuse, commodification, objectification, exploitation and taking advantage, this indicates, that he is a hazard to others, not only to women.  

Not only are politicians elected to work for the benefits of their voters, who have entrusted their interests to them.    Politicians are also paid a salary out of tax payer's money, which is so high, that many of the voters can only dream of such an income.    The trust and the salary oblige politicians to balance their self-interest with the benefits owed to their voters.       

But this is not reality.   As can be easily derived from reading daily in the newspapers about the frequent scandals and misdemeanors of politicians, many of them seem to be more or less corrupt, drastically taking selfish advantages of their positions.   Some are limited by what they can do legally, many get even away with criminal transgressions.   

What a politician does to women is an excellent and valid indication of his attitude to his voters.   If the voters were fully aware of this, they would base their political choice not only on the promises of a politician, but also on his moral integrity.  

A man without hesitation nor inhibitions to cheat on his wife can be expected to also cheat on his voters.    A man not hesitating in abusing a prostitute's body for his selfish instinctive urges can be expected to abuse the power of his position for his own greedy selfish interests.    A man using his position as immunity to rape and harass women can be expected to be criminally corrupt.   

The frequent scandals reported in the press and news indicate clearly, how many of the male politicians are not only commodifying and objectifying women as if this were their entitlement and privilege, but that their position also supplies them with more occasions to harm women than has the average jerk.    

Unfortunately too many voters are themselves desensitized to abuse women and even the female voters are manipulated to overlook, that politicians forfeit their trustworthiness by abusing women.   These voters tolerate the immorality, which harms women, and then they are disappointed and angry, when the corrupt politicians fail to do, what the voters expect.   

But the impact of abusive politicians being reelected is even worse than their mere failing to fulfill their obligations.   The fact of having been voted for by many people creates their reputation as role models worthy to be copied, no matter how morally rotten they are.    

Every time, when a politician is reelected in spite of the public knowledge of his cheating and frequenting brothels, this emits a very wrong signal.   It reinforces the fatal social norm of oversexation, promiscuity and harming women by objectification. 

In an ideal world, politicians would only be elected, if they have sufficient moral integrity of not taking advantage of occasions to harm and exploit others, neither women nor voters. 

566. Rational Feminism, Male Biology, Harm And The Liability Principle - 1

566.  Rational Feminism, Male Biology, Harm And The Liability Principle - 1

Entries 565, 554 and 552 were about the unjustifiable acceptance of and desensitization to harming and being harmed and how this is connected with religion having become a part of many cultures and being taken for granted as if there were no alternative.   
Even feminism is not free from this, often being much more politically concerned with justified anger about inequality and abuse, but not with the principle of avoiding harm. 

Lately I read an article protesting against any recognition of biological differences between the genders as a danger to feminism.    I strongly disagree.    Feminism without awareness for the insights of evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology is doomed to be irrational.  
 

A rational form of feminism is needed, which focuses on ending not only the daily and ubiquitous harm to women by men, but also the tolerance to and acceptance of being harmed by women themselves.  
Feminism is rational, when it has been cleaned of all religious beliefs and myths concerning women and also of all indirect consequences of such beliefs on how woman are treated and what they accept as appropriate.     
Rational feminism has the predominant goal to avoid and to reduce harm to women.  This can only be accomplished by taking realistic account of the biological gender differences.  

Rational feminism includes the task of overcoming two fallacies.  Both fallacies are enhanced and reinforced by the underestimation of the disabling effect of instinctive urges upon the morals, the reasoning and the self-control of many men.  

• Fallacy 1 is the irrational denial of biological differences and the subsequent overestimation of the general moral qualities to be expected and demanded from men.   Men are not only believed to have a free will, but they are also considered to be able to act responsibly by always having a sufficiently strong self-control.  They are believed to be capable to behave morally by simply deciding to do so.   Whenever they don't, it is attributed to an individual man's personal failure or momentary blunder.   
  Women are considered as having no part in how they are treated nor are they held responsible for influencing men. 
  No matter how often and how strongly abuse of women is denounced and protested against under this fallacy, harm to women cannot be avoided, as long as men's attributed moral qualities are overestimated and unrealistic .  
  
  This fallacy is found by all female feminists, who focus on demanding different behaviors from men as a deliberate decision and it is shared by those more decent men of low instinctivity, who project their own rare qualities upon all men.
  
  
• Fallacy 2 is the irrational acceptance of all biased consequences of gender differences as unchangeable innate male privileges and innate female fate or doom to be harmed.  Any gender difference, no matter if by biology or by learned gender roles is mistaken to justify, condone and excuse inconsiderate treatment of women.  In more drastic cases, entitlement and grandiosity delusion lead to ruthless commodification and objectification of women.  
  Men are considered as unable to be responsible towards women. They believe their alleged male superiority as placing them above the requirement of responsibility towards women.  The trifled weakness of lacking responsibility towards women is not considered as significant enough to impair their alleged self-attributed superiority, because they perceive women as too insignificant.
  This fallacy is shared by men, who consider their abuse, domination and exploitation not as such but as women's appropriate fate, and by women, who are suffering in resignation without even feeling an outrage.  
  Women are not protected from but exposed to harm, their only method to reduce this is restricting their own liberty and scope of life.  

Both fallacies include the oblivion or denial of the fact, that the problem is caused by men's tragic defect, that their instinctive urges are far out of proportion of what would be beneficial for women.   

 
Making feminism rational means to discard both fallacies and focus upon how to end the harming of women on two levels:. 

1. Those men, whose cognition enables them, are required to take the responsibility to not harm women. 
   Taking responsibility requires to be able to have and to act by the insight, that harm to women is an outrage beyond any justifiability.  But to ask and to expect responsibility is only rational with people, who not only have this insight, but are also in the full capacity of being controlled by morals.  
   
2. When men are unable to refrain from harming women by responsibility, because they are too much enslaved by their excessive biological instinctive urges, then the protection of women requires stronger measures.  The study quoted in entry 565 is an example of the absurdity of punishing transgressors less due to biological explanations of their inability to act responsibly.  
   Such men need to be held accountable and liable by any means, no matter if and how much the procedures used are drastic, detrimental, disadvantageous, restrictive and unpleasant for the transgressors.  

When there are two option, either allowing a transgressor harm an innocent person, or to do some unavoidable harm to the transgressor to protect the Innocent, I consider the protection of the innocent as much more ethically justifiable than any clemency for the transgressor.   

The victims to be spared are innocent and therefore fully worthy of protection.  The transgressors have forfeited and damaged their worthiness by the harm already caused by them.   The innocence of not having harmed anybody is a strong moral justification for the privilege of being protected.

This general moral dilemma between protecting the innocent and forcing liability on transgressors is of course not restricted to men as transgressors and woman as victims, but it is the most drastic problem, because of the biological asymmetry  

• The average man is physically much stronger than the average woman.   Only a man has the choice between harming, forcing, dominating, coercing a woman and not harming her.  
• Men have a biological urge for homeostasis, which above a certain level of their instinctivity makes them predators, who harm women by objectification.
• The combination of urges to motivate and strength to enforce makes some men so fatally dangerous.

Rational feminism aims at finding methods, how to deal with this asymmetry in a way that ends the harming of women.

What I mean by holding men accountable and liable, will be continued in another entry.  

554. The Ubiquitous Desensitization To Harming

554.    The Ubiquitous Desensitization To Harming

The biological asymmetry of the survival of the human species depending on pregnancies and births being severe harm only to women, while men are spared, is no rational justification for accepting harming as natural.  

In entry 552 I attributed the evolution of the gullibility to believe in delusional deities to supplying both resilience to the victim and displacement of responsibility to the perpetrator following his instinctive urges.  

As a consequence, people are misguided to principally accept harming as a normal part of living and not as an outrage and a derangement and distortion of the potential of human cognition.    

While the religious beliefs served or facilitated the initial establishing of the acceptance of harm, but from then on it becomes independent of its religious roots once it is part of the social norm.

The awakening reason of the maturing brain enables some people to comprehend the irrationality of believing in a non-existent deity.   This enables them to throw over the religious beliefs, they had grown up with,    But they do not automatically also get aware of how much more of their thinking needs also to be reconsidered as an indirect consequence of the religious beliefs.

The logical next step after discarding the belief in a deity would be to also adjust the moral justification of behaviors.  The principle by Epicurus of not harming and not be harmed and the golden rule are rational guidelines, while the belief in being rewarded in the afterlife and the belief of harm being justified by the responsibility of a deity are obsolete and irrational.  

Unfortunately, the general acceptance of harming is rarely questioned, even by those, who have freed themselves from the religious beliefs.   In western societies, the acceptance of harming is a part of the culture.   Children grow up with it until they take it for granted and cannot even think of it as just an option with alternatives.   Harming is not connected with religion but taken for granted as if it were a law of life.   

The effects of installing harming as acceptable behavior into the perpetrators' brain and to be harmed as unfortunate but acceptable fate into the victims' brains reinforce each other as complementary.

Perpetrators: 

Perpetrators become desensitized by repeating behaviors, to which they, usually by empathy, had initially felt inhibited, until the cruelty becomes a routine.   
Desensitization to being cruel can become irreversible.   Desensitization to inflicting pain on others usually happens at a young age under the influence of education, role models and social norms, which are also an expression of the morals of the predominant religion.  

War as a drastic example is an expression of the ingroup-outgroup instinct.   If nobody would be considered as outgroup, there were no wars.    Sometimes the ingroup is defined by sharing the same religion.   
Parts of the training of soldiers is the desensitization to overcome any killing inhibition.  
This desensitization is usually permanent.    Soldiers coming back from the war may well have the insight and the self-control not to kill members of the ingroup, but they have no inhibition to do so.  

But the most common and ubiquitous desensitization causes subtle and invisible harm by emotional cruelty like manipulating, betrayal, cheating, playing games, intrigues, mobbing, mocking, humiliating, ridiculing.   These are just a few examples from a long list of cognitive and emotional methods of harming.  They suffice to illustrate the kind of hurtful weapons serving the instincts to procreate and to gain access to resources available to those having high positions on hierarchies.      

Victims:

The acceptance of being harmed as unavoidable has been installed by the delusion of it being the deity's will.   The resilience to suffer in submission and resignation has been installed by the delusion of the reward in the afterlife.   
Logically, as soon as someone discards the belief in the deity, this obsolete and irrational acceptance of being harmed should be discarded immediately.  Harm should be recognized as what it really is: an outrage against human dignity.  
Instead irrational expectations of a resilience out of proportion of the serious impact of harm has become a social norm not only by the perpetrators but also by the victims themselves.  
The social norm of irrational resilience is based upon the perpetrators' expectations, that their desensitization would lead automatically to an equal desensitization of the victims, who should not suffer but are instead supposed to agree with the harm allegedly being appropriate treatment,   They are expected not to suffer due to being oblivious of the injustice and the absurdity of the instinctive behaviors.   

Those not resilient as victims of not physical and thus invisible cruelties are considered as flawed, defective, weak and in need to be fixed.   And too often they accept this themselves.   They do not resist, rebel or protest, they do not demand better treatment, instead they take psycho-pharmaceuticals, go to therapy, or cope in even more unhealthy ways.   They get sympathy and compassion as failures, not the solidarity needed as the victims of wrong behavior.  


Discarding irrational religious beliefs does not suffice.    Required is also a revision of the entire attitudes and habits as to what behaviors of religious roots are not only irrational but cause damage.  This revision means to focus on taking full own responsibility by gaining full awareness and knowledge of the perception and experience of the target of behaviors.  Even though some desensitization cannot be undone, full awareness can be a method of learning how to avoid harming after having decided to do so.

553. Harm And Kant's Categorical Imperative

553.   Harm And Kant's Categorical Imperative

In entry 552 I pointed out, how the human dilemma of being torn between instinctive urges to harm and cognitive reasons to refrain from harming is sometimes solved by externalizing the justification to the responsibility of some higher authority.    This authority can be the imaginary deity or deities of religions.  

But there are other options to externalize responsibility.    One is following Kant's categorical imperative: 

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative

I am not basing the following thoughts upon having read Kant.   As far as it concerns human behavior, I prefer to read modern scientific texts based upon research in psychology and neuroscience.   

But the categorical imperative is often quoted as a guidance by people, who most probably also have not read Kant.   So more precisely this is about the potential to externalize responsibility by a literal interpretation of the quoted text of the categorical imperative.     

The hazard is the definition of a universal law by the wish of the acting person and the disregard of the perception and experience of the target or victim as to the harm done to them.   

Any universal law cannot include the avoidance of harm, which is not universal but a subjective and individual reaction to the exposure to specific experiences.    Any universal law is a way of balancing benefits and disadvantages, else the law would not be needed.    

Not harming by a conscious decision in the sense of Epicurus needs a careful assessment of what would harm any individual before being able to avoid it.  
 

In Kant's time, women did not count and the categorical imperative could be thus reworded for better explaining the hazards.     

Any own behavior can be justified by a man, whenever he also wants all men making each other the target of the same behavior.   

To this very day. men still confound laws and rules applicable to most or all men with universal laws. 

But biological differences are real and some behaviors cannot be evaluated equally depending on the actor's and target's gender.   Due to the biological differences I use agreement for those behaviors, where prescribing identical behaviors for women and men is not possible, only reciprocal agreement with unilateral behaviors.  

Any own behavior can be justified by someone, whenever he also wants everybody else to agree with.   

Behavior based upon this principle can lead to the belief, that harming the target were justified. 

1.  Existing laws are mistaken as the moral justification of the behavior.    When the authority represented by the law installs slavery, then owning slaves is not considered as harming humans.    

2.  When enough persons want the same and have sufficient political power, they convert their intention into laws.   
Example:
Men wanting wives to be commodities for their convenience as financially dependent house keepers.   Where enough men had this wish, they made laws not allowing women to get a job without the husband's permission.    The alleged authority of the multitude profiting from the same law served to justify the harm to the wives.  

3.  Any mental or intellectual problem or deficiency causing someone to wish weird and unacceptable behaviors to be shared by the majority automatically justifies the behavior for himself.  
Example:
A men believing himself as an excellent driver, not only disregards speed limits and other traffic rules but believes, that all traffic rules should be abandoned.  Only a few excellent drivers like himself should be allowed to drive, anybody else should yield the roads to them.   Any person getting run over had been in the way. 


There are certainly other ways of interpreting the categorical imperative.   But I cannot think of any, which would allow to see it as a method to protect victims from being harmed. 

547. The Subtle Immorality Of Christian (Pseudo-)Morals

547.   The Subtle Immorality Of Christian (Pseudo-)Morals

This continues entries 545 and 546.   

I watched this video made by a group of people around Reisman
 

The Kinsey syndrome

http://www.drjudithreisman.com/archives/2009/03/watch_videos_on.html#table34

This video presents principally the same information concerning Kinsey's misconduct and aberrations as does Tate's documentary.    I can agree with the simple attribution to Kinsey of the onset of the sexual revolution and with Reisman's pointing out, that pornographic magazines like Playboy are one facet of the damage done by the sexual revolution.  Her elaboration of the harm of pornography in her article in entry 545 is excellent. 

I see this in a wider context of an unfortunate reciprocal reinforcement between social development and technological progress leading to the fatal oversexation of society.    Kinsey's mere claim of what and how sexual behaviors should be a social norm happened to coincide with men's instinctive predispositions to commodify women.  But only the development of a sufficiently high quality of photos, moving pictures and recorded voices made the presented virtual persons in the media such a good imitation of real people, that there impact upon the brain is nearly or completely the same as if they were real.   
   

Beyond this partial agreement, the bias of some of the conclusions, interpretations and claims of the video make me shudder.    This video is one more example, how any morality derived from a religious belief system can be very immoral, when morality is measured by how much the victims are either harmed or spared.   

The morals of any religion arbitrarily defining sin cannot be more rational to the needs of individual humans than is the belief system itself.

Bias/fallacy 1.  The video attributes Kinsey's part in the atrocities to children to his having rejected religious beliefs.    There are many possible explanations of what was wrong with Kinsey causing him to harm other humans.  Maybe his behavior was due to psychopathy or any other disorder, but it was certainly not caused by the absence of religion.  

Bias/fallacy 2.  The video condemns behaviors, even though they do no harm.    

Homosexuality is generally condemned.  The video does not distinguish between the differences in the harm caused by either promiscuity or monogamy.    A caring committed couple is beneficial to each other, independent of both partners' gender being the same or different. 

Bias/fallacy 3.  The video even condemns beneficial behaviors.   Abortion is condemned, even though legal abortion is beneficial.   Women are protected from harm, while nobody is harmed.        

Bias/fallacy 4.   The video condemns necessary preventive adaptations to reduce the risk of harm, even though the causes of the necessity cannot be changed.  

The video condemns sex education for children.    The ubiquity of the oversexation of the media makes it nearly impossible to avoid young children to be exposed to age-unsuitable material.   Age appropriate sex education can reduce the risk or prevent harm.   

Bias/fallacy 5.   The video is not concerned about subjective harm, only about sin and fraud.  
Example 1:  The tragic case of the girl, whose father was paid by Kinsey for taking notes during his abuse of his own daughter.  
In Tate's documentary, she was presented as a suffering woman having been traumatized by an outrageous act.
In the religious video, she was presented as a witness of Kinsey's sin and fraud, her lifelong suffering was omitted.   
Example 2:   A man is interviewed about having ended his pornography addiction due to in his own words his 'fear of god'.   There was not one word of consideration, guilt or remorse concerning the victims abused directly and personally by him or indirectly by the production of the pornography.   He did not change his behavior to stop harming others, only himself.    He subjectively stopped to sin, not to harm.  

Bias/fallacy 6.   The video implicitly shows the christian attitude, that nothing done to an adult woman is a sin bad enough to be mentioned, let alone condemned.   In the christian world view, women are meant to suffer and to wait in patience until their god does his job to compensate them after their death for the plight.   

The video's attributing a lot of harm to children to the influence of pornographic magazines like Playboy is very stringent.   But there is not the least logical reason to protest against harm only when the victims are children, but to completely omit all of the harm done to women in the video's entire duration is over two hours.  

It is absurd to consider women as growing up automatically for the destiny of sufferings by male abuse and commodtification.    Harm to adult women is misinterpreted as a god's will, which therefore cannot be a sin to bother about. 


In addition of being already apistic, because this fits my rationality, any belief system, in which morals do not serve to protect and prevent all people equally from being harmed and abused, is as repulsive as it is dangerous.   
in the above example, the immorality of alleged morals happens to be christian, but this is just one example, some other religions inflict even more drastic harm on the victims by the alleged justification of a cruel pseudo-moral.  

537. The Golden Rule - A Modified Version For Men

537.   The Golden Rule - A Modified Version For Men

The Golden Rule as quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule

"One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself"

"One should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated."

The second form of the golden rule does not prevent women from being objectified and commodified, the first form even encourages men to do so. 

When men are driven so much by their instinctive urges for homeostasis, that it deactivates their cognition and blurs their reason, they perceive every female body as a potential target for their animal needs, at least subconsciously.   

In this situation, jerks and psychopaths do not feel any need for justification, they ruthlessly act upon their entitlement delusion for promiscuity.   They are determined to get homeostation by hook or by crook, their methods include seducing, paying, manipulating and coercing.    Their abuse of women is out of the reach of any moderation by the influence of the golden rule.

But many of those men, who consciously attempt to be guided by the golden rule, fatally misinterpret it as an encouragement to project their own inclinations, wishes and needs upon women.   Many men in the state of dishomeostasis dream, hope, wish or even wait to be proactively approached by self-objectifying women offering homeostation without demanding or expecting anything for themselves.   As this is a denial of reality, these men take the initiative and approach women for the purpose of objectification.   Subjectively they follow the golden rule: They are doing to the women only exactly what they wish done to themselves.   
This misinterpretation of the golden rule impedes these men from being aware, that and how much they are insulting women with this depreciation, devaluation and indignation.  

While men in the state of dishomeostasis are prone to be unaware of what they themselves are doing, this does not automatically distort their general judgment.  The same men, who themselves do not hesitate to sleep around like alley dogs, may well feel outrage, when their mother/sister/daughter becomes the prey of his fellow alley dogs. 

Therefore I suggest this golden rule for men:

A man should treat women as he would like others to treat his mother/sister/daughter/wife/girl friend.

A man should not treat women in ways that he would not like his mother/sister/daughter/wife/girl friend to be treated.

516. Apparent Altruism Without The Myth Of The Free Will

516.   Apparent Altruism Without The Myth Of The Free Will

When discarding the myth of the free will, I explained that all apparently moral behaviors is caused by some beneficial motivation, either by serving to reduce dishomeostasis or to stimulate the pleasure center of the brain, either immediately or by anticipation.   While I mainly focused on the motivation for the most basic moral behavior of avoiding to harm others, this does not exclude proactive altruistic behaviors like helping others.  

The following source compares the diifferent motivation to help of religious with that of non-religious people.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120430140035.htm

"But new research from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that the highly religious are less motivated by compassion when helping a stranger than are atheists, agnostics and less religious people.

For highly religious people, however, compassion was largely unrelated to how generous they were,
 

The results challenge a widespread assumption that acts of generosity and charity are largely driven by feelings of empathy and compassion, researchers said. In the study, the link between compassion and generosity was found to be stronger for those who identified as being non-religious or less religious."

Helping behavior is triggered, when the motivation is strong above a threshold.   The motivation of the same subjective strength can consist of very different reasons.   When there are two identical cases of a person in noticeable distress, and the religious and the non-religious person engage in the same helping behaviors, this can be both explained very differently, each without a free will.

1.  A religious person's motivation can be strongly influenced by religious rules and norms concerning whom to help and how. 
A religious person can feel compassion without helping, if the observed suffering is considered as the god's will not to be interfered with.    When the religious person helps, this can be caused by the anticipation of a reward after death and/or by feeling dishomeostasis due to the fear of hell in the case of not helping.     

2.  When another person's suffering triggers a non-religious person's mirror neurons, this causes the compassion by empathy.  This means, that the other's suffering is experienced as a state of dishomeostasis, which can be reduced by homeostation.    

515. Responsibility And Liability Without The Myth Of The Free Will

515.  Responsibility And Liability Without The Myth Of The Free Will

Discarding the concept of the free will does not imply to accept, condone or excuse harmful behavior.   It only means a different approach how to protect people from being harmed.    Not harming others is a moral issue, no matter if there is a free will or not.  It requires to redefine the moral quality of behavior from the perception and experience of the target, recipient or victim.   The harm suffered by a victim does not depend on the ability of the transgressor to control his behavior or not.   The need to be protected from harm is independent from how this is done.

People's possibilities to harm others are drastically restricted by legal systems, and subtly also by social norms.     The myth of the free will limits the success of these protective methods for the innocent.   Without the myth of the free will, a person's inability to act responsibly is not a suitable and rational justification to release this person from all liability resulting from his actions.


Responsibility is the cognitive ability to behave deliberately without harming others.   The myth of the free will considers the ability to act responsibly as a part of human sanity.   Harming is legally punished for the purpose to enable the transgressor to learn how to apply his free will for not repeating the harm in the future.  
Only those declared as insane are not punished, as they are considered to have no free will to learn and to control themselves.  

As a consequence of this paradigm, the suffering of victims is considered the unavoidable collateral damage of the learning process of those, who are supposed as having merely strayed but have a free will to decide to change.    The focus is on the transgressors, the victims are considered the objects of their learning.  

The free will myth leading to dealing with a person lacking the ability to act morally by first allowing them to do harm and then punishing them is an inappropriate and cruel mistake.    It burdens too much suffering upon too many innocent victims by being too lenient with the transgressors.    Any person, who for the first time commits a crime causing serious physical or traumatic injuries to the victim, no matter if it is assault, robbery, rape, gets free after a few years.   Only when he has repeated harming innocent victims several times, is he considered as dangerous enough to be locked away for good.   

This is an outrage to the innocent second and further victims of known transgressors.   No punishment can ever undo and heal the damage to the victims.    Punishment may even impede those with lacking morals from changing their behavior.    They experience their time in prison as paying for the benefits of the crime.   Having paid is their reason to feel not or less guilty.  


Without the free will, the concept of universal responsibility has to be replaced by the concept of unrestricted liability.    Liability focuses upon the harm done by someone independent of the reasons for, causes and triggers of any behavior.   The focus is upon protecting the innocent from becoming victims, no matter, how this is accomplished and no matter the consequences for those, who are not able to refrain from harming.  

Responsibility does not require a free will, as it can be motivated by a cognitive calculation of preventing dishomeostasis and of expecting future stimulation of the pleasure center.    Responsible behavior can be the best behavior for the own long-term needs as already explained in entry 514.  

Under the liability paradigm of protecting the innocent, those able to act responsibly are the lucky ones, whose brain allows them to live without being externally restricted.    The others are less lucky, they need to be externally restricted from becoming the cause of harm. 

The ability to behave morally as experienced by the targets, to live without harming is a talent and a disposition, that people are either lucky enough to have wired in their brain or they are unfortunate enough to lack it. 

It is not in any way different from intelligence.    Logically, it should also not be dealt with differently.  
Most people take the benefits of intelligence for granted without even wondering about any injustice, when an intelligent person receives a lot of expensive formal education and reaches high positions of power in a factory.  He earns a lot more for a rewarding job than does the person lacking intelligence, who is given no choice but to do a dull repetitive job at the assembly line.  

Less intelligence is usually accepted as a justification for less quality of life, even though those with less intelligence are only detrimental to themselves.   But the lack of the ability to behave morally is even more detrimental, because suffering is imposed upon innocent victims, and the transgressors often get away with it.   It is time to accept the fact, that the inability to act morally is at least as much a justification if not much more than is intelligence for limiting and restricting the quality of life.   

Intelligence can be at least roughly measured and noticed by limited achievements, thus mistakes by wrong decision can be often prevented.  
Morals are more difficult to assess.  Unfortunately for the victims of first crimes, it is impossible or very difficult to predict the first occurrence of someone seriously harming another.  The first victim cannot be protected.   But after the first crime has been proven beyond doubt, the danger is known.   The second victim of the same criminal is not only a victim of him, but also a victim of a society, which fails to protect the innocent. 

I am not defending or justifying the inequality of chances.   Only when two needs are in conflict, then the needs of the innocent should have priority over the needs of the person known already as a potential danger.    The need to remain unharmed should have priority over the need to have a freedom, which includes the freedom to harm at the next occasion.   

514. Morals And Ethics Without The Myth Of The Free Will - 2

514.  Morals And Ethics Without The Myth Of The Free Will - 2

The myth of the free will (discarded in entry (512) is perpetuated as a result of the subjective experience of other people's behavior as moral.   This experience is often independent of the person's real motives.   Whenever another's personal benefits from choosing a specific behavior are not obvious, people are prone to ascribe the behavior to the expression of an apparent free will. 
   
Morals and ethics can instead be explained by the intrinsic and extrinsic cost and benefit calculation for deciding to choose a behavior. 
This calculation is not only using the perception of immediate and present dishomeostasis and the immediate attraction of present stimuli for expected pleasure.  Both can at least partially be visible and recognizable to others including to the target of the behavior.  
This calculation also includes the evaluation, consideration and expectation of emotional, social and legal direct and long-term consequences derived from experiences stored in the memory.   This cognitive part is invisible and mostly unknown to those exposed to the behavior, which is thus not or not fully explicable and comprehensible.  

Not harming others unless there is a morally justified reason to make an exception can be seen as a basic principle of all morals.    As outlined in entry 513, persons with the particles' identity value the species higher than the individuals.  They accept the justification of harm, when it is collateral damage in favor of the survival of the human species.  
For the individualistic identity, there is no justification for harming others.   

Therefore refraining from harming behaviors is at least an important ingredient in what is subjectively experienced as an expression of morals, if it is not the core of it.

Evaluating the morality of behavior implies the interaction between two or more persons.  There are two perspectives.  One focuses upon the target of possible behaviors, the other one upon the acting person's motivation and reasons.
 
The target can judge from direct subjective experience and according to the own concept of morality, if a specific behavior is either moral or not.  The motivation for the behavior is hidden, and can only be assessed as a guess.    The behaving person can either act morally by ethical principles or as the haphazard reaction to a singular situation.   

A monster is not less a monster, when once in a while a possible victim is lucky enough to remain unharmed in spite of being exposed to the hazard.   The non-victim in an ephemeral exposure can remain unaware of having been exposed to a monster and is unable to know, if the apparently moral behavior was only exceptionally and accidentally identical with what the target considers moral.     

There are four varieties of interactions, which are experienced as moral by the target.  None needs the free will as an explanation:  

1. Moral behavior in the absence of conflicting needs.
   
   1.1.   The acting person lacks any opportunity, occasion, method, means, tools or weapons to indulge in harmful behavior.
   
   1.2.   The acting person happens either temporarily or principally not to experience any need, urge or reason to do anything, that would be experienced by the target as harming.
   
2. Moral behavior by self-control as a result of expected consequences.
   
   The acting person anticipates external consequences following the choice of behavior, there is awareness of the pending punishment for harming and/or pending reward for not harming.   This includes acquiring correct knowledge of what is harmful to every individual target as a part of choosing, how to behave.
   Consequences can for example be legal punishment, harmful reactions of the victim or social damage as is the loss of a position of power and influence.   It also includes delusional rewards and punishments by an imaginary deity.  
   
3. Consistent moral behavior of apparently ethical persons.
   
   The acting person anticipates internal consequences following the choice of behavior.   This can be emotional dishomeostasis and/or emotional joy of the pleasure center.
   In a generalized anticipation of these internal consequences, some people follow rules and thus behave consistently in a way, that is experienced by the targets as not only moral but as the apparent expression of an ethical personality.  
   
   3.1.    Dishomeostasis can be triggered by 
   
   • suffering as a result of spontaneous empathy with the target
   • experiencing harming others as damaging the self-esteem and self worth.  This is the result of being influenced by social norms and/or a religion, when specific harming behaviors have been associated with despised traits like being weak, foolish, coward, guilty, ashamed.   
   
   3.2.   Stimulation of the pleasure center can be caused by an innate predisposition of the cognition.
   This innate predisposition is the prevalence of rationality over instinctivity.   Rationality determines a specific choice of an ethical principle.    When focusing decisions not only on self-interest, the interaction with individuals nor on the preference for any ingroup, but on looking at the big picture of the overall balance between giving and taking, then justice, fairness and equal chances are the most logical principle.  
   On this level, the generalized benefits of the golden rule and of tit-for-tat strategies are ethical, because they are logical.    Unjust, unfair and asymmetrical behavior and inequality are unethical, because they are irrational.  
   Rationality causes the pleasure of self-esteem, self-worth and self-confidence, while irrationality causes dishomeostasis.
   People with this predisposition are ethical, because they are rational.  

513. Morals And Ethics Without The Myth Of The Free Will - 1

513.  Morals And Ethics Without The Myth Of The Free Will - 1

In entry 512 I discarded the myth of the free will.   This has many implication.   

Some aspects of moral behaviors are not universally logical, but they depend upon the extent of how different instincts determine the brain differently and what needs are predominantly experienced by the subjective perception of homeostasis.   

People suffer physical and emotional pain as a consequence of being harmed and hurt.  Suffering is a form of dishomeostasis, and not to suffer is a basic human need.    This need can be in conflict with another person's different needs.   Morals and rules are attempts to solve the conflict of needs.  

Unfortunately, there is no absolute basis for a general moral principle.  There are two competing principles, depending on the view of human beings as either individuals or particles (defined in entry 74).   Both moral principles include a very disparate approach to suffering, which logically leads to an equally disparate approach to the justification of harming others or protecting others from being harmed.  

1.  By the particles' principle, the species is more valuable than the individual.   Thus suffering can be justified whenever it is required for the survival of the species.   Morals serve not only to minimize individual sufferings, but also to force individuals to suffer.

2.  By the individualistic principle, individuals are in conflict with each other for their wellbeing.   The logical method to minimize suffering and maximize the quality of life applies the comparison of the impacts of all behaviors upon others.   Morals are based upon the acceptance of the basic human right of not being harmed. 

The preference for one of the two principles is not an independent choice by a free will.  It is determined by the wiring of a person's brain in combination with modifications by external influences.  This determination is expressed by the the person's subjective identity as either more a particle or more an individual.    What appears naturally and logically as moral is very different for particles from what it is for individuals.    Especially the individually different magnitudes of the procreation instinct, of the ingroup-outgroup instinct and of the gregarious instinct have a decisive impact upon the identity.  


An example:   In the case of a shipwreck, the general rule is to save women and children first.   This is clearly an implicit choice for the survival of the species without considering individual sufferings.

Assuming 240 persons to be rescued, 80 families of a couple with one child each, while there are only 120 places in the life boats.   Theoretically, by weighing the suffering, there are alternatives to the general rule of women and children first.  
Drowning is an agony for every of the 120 persons, no matter who they are.   But when considering also the individual suffering of the survivors, there are huge differences, depending on their selection.    

Option 1 is saving 60 women, each with her child.   The consequence are 60 women suffering for a very long time not only the loss of their partner, but they are also burdened by the necessity of raising the child alone, which is additionally a severe obstacle towards finding a new partner.   
Option 2 is saving 40 families and leaving 40 families behind.  

The choice between option 1 and 2 is the choice between the two moral principles of either the priority of the individual or of the species.    It is a choice between minimizing individual suffering and minimizing the reproductive loss.  
Option 1 causes extreme emotional suffering but biologically it is the least possible loss of reproductive potential.   No children are lost, and 20 wombs.   The saved women can be made pregnant again by any man.  Biologically seen, the husbands left behind are not needed to prevent a loss of reproduction.
Option 2 avoids the emotional suffering of directly bereaved survivors, but to the species, there is the biological loss of 40 children and of 40 wombs.  

By implicit calculation, the moral of society prescribes forcing the agony of losing the beloved partner plus the dreary life as a single mother upon 60 women.   This is implicitly considered to be an acceptable price for preventing the loss of 40 children and 20 wombs.

There is no free will, when instinct driven particles force the priority of the species upon individuals.   The procreation instinct is a determining force, which is stronger than rationality for all those driven by it.  The afflicted persons sacrifice their individual wellbeing in favor of the survival of the genes and this sacrifice is their justification to force sacrifices also upon others.  

Another example:  The woman, who is compelled to change stinking diapers instead of reading a book, does this to restore homeostasis.  By submitting to all the detrimental consequences of the procreation instinct, she is a victim of her biology.   The man, whom she tricks with lies to become the payer of child support is also a victim of instincts.