(September 14, 2012 at 7:34 pm)apophenia Wrote: No, it is not a slippery slope argument. It is an argument from biological evolution and evolutionary psychology. If we tolerate, say, people with no empathy and the other traits of psychopathy in some areas of their life, say being cruel to animals, they will have a much better chance of thriving in society, of evading sanctions and so on. If we accept animal cruelty as normal, humans with predisposition to cruelty will have a better chance of surviving. The survival and success of such individuals, however, will likely have an overall negative impact on the overall success of the species, as they will be more likely than the norm to commit acts of cruelty against other humans than a person who is sensitive to the suffering of others liken to the current norm. With cruelty and lack of empathy, this evolutionary process likely results in a balance or homeostasis of sorts in the gene pool such that a certain amount of cruelty and insensitivity will be the norm (and its distribution will vary with reference to it), but that phenotypes displaying either too much or too little sensitivity will likely be selected out of the gene pool.
Quite a few problems with this.
1. Are you assuming that traits such as cruelty or lack or empathy are passed on genetically - rather than being the result of other factors such as cultural influence or upbringing? Because if it is the result of nurture rather than nature, it'd be those conditions that need to be identified. Simply suppressing the behavior would not weed the lack of empathy out.
2. Even if it was the matter of gene pool, it still wouldn't be weeded out by applying those sanctions. The lack of empathy or cruelty part is not necessary for survival and can be acted out in a lot of ways - most of them covert and unsanctionable. For example, for a CEO of a bank, lack of empathy can be a very advantageous quality to have and even increase his fitness in society.
(September 14, 2012 at 7:34 pm)apophenia Wrote: What I'm suggesting is that, on the fitness landscape populated by hominids like us, that those points of fitness which include cannibalism are in the minority, and since the consequences of moving our current genome into a fitness domain that includes cannibalistic behaviors is very unpredictable in terms of its positive or negative impact on species psychology as a whole, unless there is a clearly obtainable benefit, it's likely best not to explore that domain. (This is similar to arguments against the use of genetically modified crops, extinction or over-farming of species, and importation of foreign species into novel environments. Until we understand the full impact of doing so, it's best to be conservative unless there is a compelling reason not to be.)
The cannibals would think that the sanctions placed upon the fulfillment of their desires is a compelling enough reason to atleast explore the domain. There is a clear obtainable benefit in it for them and even though you don't have any specific knowledge of any negative impact, you are still letting them be denied without so much as the courtesy of investigation.
Put yourself back in time by about a hundred years and apply the same logic to another minority group also being criminalized for their actions. Here would be the facts as applicable to them:
1. Homosexuals form only a minority of total human population.
2. In current scenario, homosexuality is outlawed and sanctioned by the law.
3. There would be no clearly obtainable benefits overall to the society if it were to be legalized.
4. We do not know what positive or negative impact it'd have on the species psychology as a whole if homosexuality were to be included in the paradigm.
Therefore, the situation is best left unexplored and we should conservatively continue allowing it to be outlawed. In hindsight, do you think that would be the correct position to take?
