TARK MARG: THE POLE STAR OF MORAL BEHAVIOR.
THE CENTRALITY OF MORALITY IN SOCIAL QUESTIONS:
Most of the vociferous disputes in society hinge on the
question, “what is the moral/right thing to do?” For instance, the entry of
large numbers of Middle Eastern migrants into Germany at the behest of
Chancellor Merkel is either a fine example of European values in action, or a
disastrous decision which could destroy European values, depending on whom you
ask (1,2). Gay marriage, transgender rights etc are either self-evident justice
or gross deviancy. A similar divergence of views exists regarding everything
from taxation and redistribution to housing policy and affirmative action.
Throughout history, most intra-society conflict has hinged on disagreement over
what constitutes the right thing to do. A clear answer to this question will go
a long way to addressing these conflicts.
THE AMBIGUOUS NATURE OF MORALITY:
These disputes exist because moral behavior has no
unambiguous, commonly agreed upon definition, unlike say, questions from
mathematics or physics. Instead, most people’s conception of morality is
heavily colored by subjective, circumstantial and selfish interest factors.
Thus, unlike the objective theorems of Euclidean geometry or
arithmetic, what is considered morally acceptable behavior in 2016 in the
Western world, such as gay marriage, would be considered ludicrously libertine
by the standards of the West in 1916. 1916 itself, being on the cusp of female
suffrage etc, would’ve been disapproved of in 1816 and so on. Extrapolating this
trend into the future, perhaps the world of 2116 will look upon in horror at
the cruelty and callousness of 2016, at the absence of cetacean or chimpanzee
personhood (3, 4), or at “animal slavery” or factory farming (5, 6) etc. Or, if
the trend towards greater liberalism has gone into reverse by 2116, 2016 may be
seen as the high water mark of libertinism and decadence after which sense was restored;
there is absolutely no way to say.
One only has to recall
that people once were exactly as secure in their beliefs about witchcraft or Geocentrism
as we are in our beliefs today. For instance, the English Parliament passed a
Witchcraft Act in 1604 supported by the great and the good of the land, under
which convicted witches could be hanged and King James I even apparently published
a book on Demonology (7, 8). Famously, people once believed with utter
confidence that the sun revolved around the earth, and Galileo’s attempt to
refute this notion by evidence and reasoning only earned him house arrest (9).
Just as the sense of morality varies with time, it also
varies over space, with perfectly acceptable behavior in the liberal West like
homosexuality or public nudity being considered depravity punishable by death
in some cases, as in Islamic countries. Similar variation occurs with other
parameters like age, sex, income, religion, family background etc. Moreover, as
popular fashions change, people’s conception of morality changes with the herd.
For example, Hillary Clinton or President Obama have totally inverted their earlier
stances on issues like gay marriage and immigration just as the popular mood shifted
(10, 11, 12).
Thus we see that in general, people’s sense of morality is
not an autonomous, logical stance taken after careful observation and
consideration, but is mostly a function of A) their individual instincts and B)
social milieu.
DERIVING
A MORAL CODE FROM FIRST PRINCIPLES:
How can one break through the mist and fog and determine the
actual truth? Would physics or mathematics have gotten anywhere if it was simply
a product of collective gut feeling rather than logical observation and
hypothesis formation? Should we be content to be driftwood pushed back and
forth by the tides and currents of popular passions and fashions?
This is not an idle theoretical question either; the fate of
whole societies may hinge on being able to carefully ascertain what constitutes
optimal behavior, as for instance in the case of the recent migrant crisis in
Europe.
I shall therefore ambitiously attempt in this post to derive
an objective, explicit guiding principle for moral behavior which holds true
always and everywhere, like the Pole Star, which unerringly points due North
from wherever and by whoever observed.
As with other fields of rational enquiry, I shall start by
establishing a basic axiom. An axiom is a starting point known to be true based
on everyday observation, using which further principles may be derived. Some
common examples from geometry and mathematics are “it is possible to draw a
straight line between any two points”, or that “if A = C, and B = C, then A =
B”. Based on these empirically validated starting points, further principles
can be derived.
What axiom can we deduce from an examination of human
behavior? Let us consider the two major drivers of human behavior, hardwired
individual instincts and social norms.
UNDERLYING BASIS OF INDIVIDUAL INSTINCTS AND SOCIAL NORMS:
Let us look at a few well known, universal, culturally
invariant human instincts. As I see it, these can be divided into two
categories; 1) those that urge repetition of certain situations and 2) those
seeking to avoid certain circumstances. Examples of the first category are love
of rich foods, peer approval, wealth, sex etc, while examples of the latter are
avoidance of physical injury, deprivation, social isolation, etc. What pattern
can one spot here? Are these universal instincts mere random whims or is there
an underlying logic?
It is apparent that the former are situations that enhance
one’s chances of survival and reproduction, while the latter diminish these
chances. Thus calories, peer approval, wealth, sex etc improve one’s likelihood
of survival and reproduction, while the converse is true of injury, poverty or
peer rejection.
We can thus assume that instincts have evolved to bring about
the self-perpetuation of the individual whose behavior they shape. Instincts
that did otherwise would have driven the person they influenced and thereby
themselves, extinct over the generations.
The same can be deduced from an examination of universal
social norms. Practically all societies promote, at least internally, behaviors
like honesty, altruism, hard work and prohibit behaviors like dishonesty,
theft, gratuitous violence etc. It is particularly noteworthy that societies as
widely separated by distinct as the European, Islamic and Australian Aboriginal
all subscribe to a similar set of basic social norms. In my view, this is an
example of an evolutionary biology concept called convergent evolution (13).
The gist of convergent evolution is that widely differing species that face
similar situations will likely evolve similar responses. A famous example is
that of sharks (cold blooded fish) and dolphins (warm blooded mammals), which
have independently evolved similar streamlined shapes despite being from very
different parts of the evolutionary tree because this is the most efficient
shape for their common problem, cutting through water.
Similarly, conservation of social norms like avoidance of
gratuitous violence or theft or promotion of altruism, is a good sign that
there is an underlying logic behind these norms. They can only be sensibly
explained, in my view, in the context of social survival and propagation. Thus,
it is evident that a society whose members are honest, eschew gratuitous
violence towards each other, help each other in times of need will be more
competitive in the long run.
A particularly illustrative norm is the almost universal
prohibition of incest. Incest does not necessarily involve force or fraud
typical of other prohibited behaviors like murder or theft, yet practically all
societies all over the world consider it taboo. Even societies where cousin
marriage is acceptable, as in the Middle East, prohibit marriage between direct
siblings. This prohibition is not explained logically but is instead
articulated as a kind of disgust into which people are indoctrinated.
Why
should this be? The answer has become apparent with the advent of modern
genetics. Offspring of closely related persons are at much greater risk of
contracting homozygous recessive diseases and susceptibility to infectious
disease (14), and by outlawing incest society avoids the burden of having a
large number of its citizens debilitated by avoidable diseases, thus increasing
its potential for self-perpetuation. Thus we see that social norms have evolved
solely to ensure the collective survival of its members.
Based on the above reasoning, we can conclude that the
underlying basis for both individual instincts as well as collective norms is
an impulse for self-perpetuation. This, of course, is a direct corollary of the
theory of evolution.
Extrapolating from this, an eternally valid, context
independent morality statement can be formulated as follows:
That is moral which leads to maximal
long term individual and collective self-perpetuation.
For any given set of possible actions, the one whose pros
regarding self-perpetuation most outweigh the cons is the most moral choice;
i.e. maximizes P(act) - C(act), where
P(act) is the self-perpetuation benefit (pro) of a given action while C(act) is
the con. I shall refer to this perspective as Tark Marg.
It is of course, often difficult to quantitatively gauge
this, and a large degree of subjectivity is unavoidable. Nonetheless, I believe
that this line of thought will help society avoid many pitfalls, as shown
later.
FRICTION BETWEEN INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE
SELF-PERPETUATION:
It’ll be apparent to the reader that a conflict can arise
between individual and collective self-perpetuation. Individual
self-perpetuation may be enhanced by theft, whereas collective
self-perpetuation will be hurt by such actions. This is a classic case of the
tragedy of the commons, a personally useful act can lead to collective loss.
The solution is to realize that individual survival is impossible without
collective strength. Thus, actions like theft or dishonesty, while beneficial
in the short term to an individual, can and will hurt his progeny, and thus his
personal self-perpetuation, by creating an unhealthy culture in society and
making that society weak and dysfunctional compared to competitors. It is no
coincidence that societies with high levels of transparency and low levels of
corruption, like the Scandinavian countries or Singapore, are also the ones
with the highest and most secure standards of living.
INSTINCTS AND NORMS CAN BECOME OBSOLETE:
Although individual instincts and collective norms have
evolved to ensure individual and collective survival, these can easily become
obsolete in the face of rapid social change. As external circumstances can
change abruptly, while changing hardwired instincts or deeply inculcated social
norms often requires generations, instincts and norms can become obsolete or
even counter-productive.
We see a stark example of this in the wave of obesity
sweeping many parts of the world. For pretty much all of history, humankind has
been short of calories. Hence our bodies/brains have evolved an attraction
towards calorie rich (sweet/fatty) foods and a mechanism for storing these as
fat. This helped to buffer against times of scarcity. However, with the advent
of industrial agriculture, food is plentiful, while the need for hard manual
labor which would burn up those calories has declined sharply. However, because
the instinctive love of calories is hardwired, many people persist in consuming
and storing excess calories, leading to a sharp spike in the obesity rate, with
grievous health consequences and unfitness which are the precise opposite of what the calorie-loving instinct evolved for.
To avoid pitfalls like this, it is best to keep in mind the explicit
underlying rationale behind instincts and norms, rather than merely following
them blindly.
I shall refer to this manner of thinking as Tark Marg (reason-path in
Sanskrit).
APPLICATION OF TARK MARG MORALITY TO SELECTED TOPICS:
Let us apply Tark Marg to some current topics:
1) ANIMAL RIGHTS:
Animal rights (and associated phenomena like vegetarianism,
veganism, anti-cruelty laws etc) is a well-established and growing movement in
various parts of the world. Indian civilization in particular has developed a
very prominent vegetarian strand, possibly catalyzed by Buddhism and Jainism. In
the West, as far my admittedly limited knowledge goes, there’ve been movements
as far back as the 19th century (anti-vivisection society, 15) and
more recently Peter Singer’s book “Animal Liberation” has become the bible of
animal rights movement (16). Yet when seen from a Tark Marg perspective,
conferring rights on animals is an unambiguous case of a negative P(act) – C(act).
Without belaboring the point, in my view rights are reciprocal
concessions (such as freedom from unprovoked violence or theft) given by
parties to each other for mutual self-perpetuation benefit. This requires that
for all concerned parties, the P(act) – C(act) be greater in the case of a
cooperative arrangement rather than a coercive one. In other words,
P(co-op) – C(co-op) –P(coer) + C(coer) > 0, where P and C
stand for benefit (pro) and cost (con), and co-op and coer stand for cooperation
and coercion respectively.
By and large the benefit of co-operation (P(co-op)) with
humans is high and so is the cost of conflict (C(coer)) as humans can
retaliate. Moreover humans can decrease the P(coer) term by destroying the
resources for which coercion might be applied, so it makes sense for people to
be cooperative, i.e. confer rights on each other.
As animals are unable to comprehend, let alone participate
in this arrangement, concessions (i.e. rights) conferred on animals are
nonsensical, and are an example of empathobesity in my view.
To elaborate briefly, much of the calorie product present in
the natural environment, such as grass, straw, decaying or waste matter, marine
plankton etc are indigestible by humans, but not to animals like ruminants,
pigs, chickens or fish. Even in agriculturally intensive environments, a
majority of the biomass of crop plants is in the form of straw, leaves etc and
only a minority in grains. Thus the only way to access these calories is the
consumption of animal products like meat, milk and eggs, and so the P(coer)
term is very high for animals. Similarly, the C(coer) and P(co-op) terms are
low for animals, rendering the above equation negative.
Thus, a society that
practices vegetarianism, let alone dogmatic veganism, will have fewer calories
available form an otherwise equal environment than an omnivorous competitor
society. This will result, other things being equal, in a smaller and weaker
population, a recipe for extinction. This is without taking into account other animal
products like leather and wool, as well as other benefits like serving as model
systems for the study of human diseases etc.
Thus it is indisputable that Tark Marg is highly in favor of
animal usage and against the animal rights/vegetarianism meme.
As mentioned in Peter Singer’s book, the origin of the animal
rights movement is an extension of the instinct of empathy, historically
restricted to members of one’s society, to animals. But should instincts be
extended ad infinitum? As we have seen with the example of obesity, instincts
make sense only to a certain extent and in a certain context. What is this
context when it comes to empathy?
As with other instincts, empathy can only be logically explained
from a self-perpetuation rationale. In my view, empathy is useful in that in compels
the subject to extend help to fellow citizens in distress, who may then
reciprocate later, thus enhancing collective self-perpetuation.
The implication is that empathy is only relevant when
applied to those willing and able to reciprocate for mutual benefit, thus
ruling out its application to animals, who are incapable of understanding, let
alone reciprocating the contract implicit in empathy.
2) GAY MARRIAGE AND MARRIAGE IN GENERAL:
WHY CONFER PRIVILEGES ON MARRIAGE?
Until recently, marriage was by default a prelude to
reproduction, and as married couples are more likely than other parenting models
like single mothers to give rise to productive citizens, (17), it made sense to
confer special status/financial benefits on married couples. In other words,
the most parsimonious explanation is that from a self-perpetuation perspective,
society gains a net self-perpetuation benefit (P(act) > C(act)) in
conferring special privileges on those who would privately bear burdens (i.e.
Childbearing and rearing) which have public positive externalities (future
taxpayers, workers etc).
In recent years the extension of marriage rights to
homosexual couples has become a popular political trend in Western countries,
and as such is likely to spread to others which are culturally downstream from
the West (18, 19). This is in line with a centuries long trend of increasing
empowerment, which was responsible for the rise of the West historically but
has now run into negative returns, in my view (see December 2015 post). Marriage
confers privileges like exemption from inheritance and gift taxes and others,
so extension of this to homosexual couples imposes a cost (C(act)) to society
in terms of foregone revenue. Yet I cannot see a clear countervailing P(act),
given that homosexual couples are unable to produce future citizens. Thus, in
my opinion, C(act) is greater than P(act) in the case of homosexual couples and
gay marriage is therefore a unfavorable policy.
In fact, in contrast to the trend of expanding marriage
rights, the self-perpetuation rationale seems to me to require a contraction of
marriage privileges. As the widespread availability of contraception means that
many heterosexual couples are also childless, these too no longer produce the
P(act) to justify being given subsidies/privilege historically associated with
marriage.
Thus, the rational path, Tark Marg would be to modify the current arrangement
and provide tax rebates/subsidies/exemptions etc to parents or guardians,
including homosexual and single parents etc, whose children meet a minimum
threshold of likelihood to be good taxpayers. As a rough example, all children
scoring above, say, the 20th percentile in basic criteria like literacy and
numeracy could qualify their parents/legal guardians for certain subsidies.
These incentives could be formulated to achieve optimal outcomes in terms of
number of children etc.
The availability of decades of data on individual citizens should enable
estimation of what early childhood parameters are predictors of future
potential as good citizens, and these could then be subsidized; however this
should not be overdone as there are likely important parameters that are
difficult to measure.
The details of this modified incentive structure are beyond
the scope of this blog post, and will vary based on numerous variables. Suffice
it to say that Tark Marg leads us to quite a different and, in my view, more
sensible and sustainable direction than the default empathobese path which
society is on now.
CONCLUSION:
I hope I have been able to convey the empirically and logically
compelling, and rather beautiful reasoning that unifies disparate facts and
observation into a coherent structure centered on the most basic impulse of all
living creatures, self-perpetuation. Not only is it intellectually satisfying,
it is an indispensable guide, like the Pole Star, in an otherwise complex and ever-changing
world. I hope you’ll agree, dear reader.
It has not escaped my notice that some of the thoughts expressed here can cause disquiet or outrage. Yet outrage can also be a consequence of a creeping realization of the fragility of one's position. After all if I said something obviously false like 2 + 2 = 5000, this wouldn't likely cause outrage. I'd appreciate an attempt to examine one's own position from scratch and I promise to hear logical or factual rebuttals of my position with all the objectivity I can muster.
In the coming days I’ll try to discuss this in greater
depth. Please spread the word if you found this post interesting and leave a
comment if you have criticism or feedback.
REFERENCES:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-25459648
