Tweaking political systems for greater good: What biology has taught me
The desired outcome/ purpose/ function of the system as a whole is often correlation, rather than causative, of the events that occur within the system .
This is something working on evolutionary ecology / ecological evolution (!?!?!?) and biological signaling systems has taught me.
Reproductive fecundity, species survival etc is often the result and molding factor of species/populations à That’s what evolution is about : survival of the fittest.
Yet each animal never has that in mind. It acts out of instinct, for pleasure , away from pain. That determines its actions. Because of natural selection, instincts/desires which align/correlate with reproductive fecundity are selected for. When we want to manipulate the reproductive rates / species viability for a particular animal population, what we do is to manipulate factors that rewards the individual animals according to its instincts/desires: we don’t ever reason with the animal about its reproductive plans.
Same with signaling systems. When I talk about signaling systems , I refer to those within the biological cells – the genes, proteins, nuclei acids etc etc that interact with each other to achieve the cellular phenotype that enables our bodies to function. A particular pathway, for example one that causes the genes to duplicate so that the cell can divide, has the intended outcome of duplication. Yet during this molecular process, the proteins involve never do what they do, because they have that goal at the back of their mind. Protein A binds to, and works with Protein B because of the molecular affinity it has for each other. When Protein A + B complex binds to a particular stretch of DNA, it does not do so because it recognizes that stretch has the Origin of Replication – that’s the human name for it. It binds, simply because the microenvironment makes that interaction the one of least energy expenditure, of highest affinity. Basically the molecules just go down the path of least resistance.
So bearing in mind how natural systems works. And applying that to human systems.
Why does capitalism work and not communism? I believe that the same principle applies. With capitalism, the basic human instinct/desire is rewarded with each action the individual takes. Human greed is aligned with the intended outcome of the capitalism à collective wealth. With communism, the individuals have to give up their human greed, and agree to share. Behavior that benefits the individual does not benefit the community under that system and vice versa. Human benevolence is aligned with the intended outcome, and the whole essence of benevolence is to put self-interest at a lower priority,
Why does religion work so well, but not atheistic moral systems (ok, I can hear some of you jumping up in protest, but hey, look at humanity over the last few millennia and see for yourself what I mean ) ? Religion that works well almost always rewards the individual for being good. Under religious systems, lying gets you thrown to eternal hell, and honesty gets you to eternal heaven, and so you would choose honesty even though the earthly temporal reward system may reward lying. You are honest, because that behavior is aligned to your individual benefit of going to heaven. Under the atheistic moral system, where there is no heaven, lying is aligned to your earthly benefit of wealth and prosperity. And so you lie. What is the result of everyone lying? You get societal chaos, which results in a less pleasurable community than the orderly one that has religion. Do communities of people then agree to be religious just so that they get a more ordered, pleasurable community to live in? I don’t think so — it goes back to natural selection; they tend to survive and chaotic ones self-destruct. What about a community of atheists who collectively agree to be moral, for the greater good of having an ordered, pleasurable community to live in? It won’t work, because even when everyone is honest, it still pays for an individual to go against the agreed system and lie. It necessarily descends to chaos, until you decide to punish lying behavior, in order to align individual benefit to the communal good — that’s when you get those oppressive communist regimes.
Why am I going through all this? What’s my point?
I think a lot of NGOs / activists / advocates etc etc tend to use the public good, human rights etc etc to campaign for their causes. That’s the intended good they want out of the system. But that cannot change behavior and so they find it incredibly difficult. The way the businesses go about it – bribery / nepotism / corrupted behavior on the other hand, rewards individual behavior. There’ll be little use saying that the Elites / People Accumulating Power ought to behave a certain way because that is the most ethical way , for public interest. What’s needed is a system to align the good of the people acting on behalf of the State, to the collective good of everyone. Democracy does that, because the people acting on behalf of the State are directly and individually rewarded with power and wealth when they act for the public good in order to get voted.
During the whole financial crisis, people have been laying the blame at the feet of the bankers for their greed. But seriously, everyone has to be maximally greedy – that’s about getting individually rewarded. Expecting bankers to act ethically and not out of greed would be to ask them to give up individual good. We need to tweak the system that aligns this greed with public good. It’s a system error.
So what’s my final point?
I think in trying to get our society (not just Singapore, but in general) to be improved, we need to go beyond bashing individuals of the system. We need to recognize that ANYBODY in a particular position in that system will act out of his individual interest to the maximum. What we need to do is to alter the system to align individual interest and public good that we intend.
How do we do that? I don’t know. But that’s the direction I think our thoughts should go towards.
(PS. I’m no politics student, never ever took even an elementary course in that area, so pardon me if this seems really duh ……. I’ll be happy if you would share your insights. This is just something I came up with during lunch hour, as a student of biology, as my opening paragraph says already. )
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incidentally in a local context, I think that is the reason why the different parties fare the way they do at elections. The parties which reward individual voters directly for their votes fair better than the parties that reward society as a whole in the long term, but calls for the individuals’ immediate good to be compromised. It goes back to the whole idea of how, despite elections having the intended outcome of greater public good, what determines behavior at the individual level is that individual’s reward. For political parties working towards the greater good to do well, what they need to do is to align this 2. How to do that?
If I knew, do you think i’ll be a mere blogger ? ; )
Okay, i’ll bite: In what way “… does religion work so well, but not atheistic moral systems” exactly?
You then proceed to assume that atheists cannot be moral beings: “Under the atheistic moral system, where there is no heaven, lying is aligned to your earthly benefit of wealth and prosperity. And so you lie.” Which atheistic moral system? Why can’t atheists be moral being? What is your evidence for this shocking assertion?
“You are honest, because that behaviour is aligned to your individual benefit of going to heaven”, really? You only behave nicely so you can be rewarded in heaven? How superficial. What about being nice just for the sake of it? How about leading an upstanding life and taking pride in your own moral fibre? Why must you believe in a religion to perform these things?
” [society lacking religion is less] … orderly one that has religion” Evidence? re Europe versus the USA. one is more religious than the other. is one more ‘orderly’ than the other? Does it even matter or have anything to do with religion.
“[Atheist society] necessarily descends to chaos, until you decide to punish lying behaviour, in order to align individual benefit to the communal good — that’s when you get those oppressive communist regimes. ” ???? You have a simplistic view of communism – it could only ever work in a post scarcity society (even then it probably wouldn’t work, see Iain Banks writings on the Culture). Modern implementations of communism have never even really attempted communism at all but are an excuse for pure and simple autocracy. Which has its roots in the organisation of human societies after the introduction of farming and the development of the ‘big man’, just taken to its logical conclusion. See Jared Diamond.
“It won’t work, because even when everyone is honest, it still pays for an individual to go against the agreed system and lie” – but what exactly about religion mitigates these? People of various religions still lie and cheat. Where is your empirical evidence that individuals with less of a religious bias are less likely to lie?
What about religions with no afterlife? Why should they not lie and cheat just like ‘atheists’?
Annoyed, why do all atheists get tarred with being liars and cheats just because they don’t believe in an after life/god/allah/buddha/whatever is the latest group thing?
Argh. Gnash teeth.
After that you go on to make a good point.
Haha, just noticed “People Accumulating Power” was that deliberate?
Hahahh AH, I knew I’ll get hit on that one!
I do admit that you have a lot of valid points, and that i sorely lack the hard evidence that you seek .
I am not claiming that atheists are immoral or have no reason to be — on an individual level , of course there is. I’m looking at the normal curve though, the entire curve.
And I’m looking across human history. I’m sure even you’ll agree that human history has been dominated by societies where religion is widely practised to a certain degree.
And i’m looking at the presence of an afterlife in the views of most religions that have survived the millenia — Christianity, buddhism, islam, hinduism, ancient egyptian whatever, etc etc. Whether it is heaven, a good rebirth, nirvanna, good karma — whatever it is, there is a personal , individual reward for good behavior.
That’s my point. Again, the normal curve. Plot “% of population” vs ” behavior that leads to the greater good at the expense of self, in the present earthly existance”. Plot a curve for the religious people. Plot a curve for the atheist. There’ll be overlaps, yes, but my hypothesis is about the entire population — you know how that works.
People Accumulating Power? Deliberate ? *innocent look*
i realise that i need to add qualifiers to my post above, because some terms may be misunderstood:
like when i used the term atheist, i didn’t mean, atheism as it is used today
i meant, ‘in the absense of God/supernatural/afterlife’
so religions like sikhism, confuciounism would be considered atheistic, in my post.
And my point about religion was to explain why theistic religions are so commonplace — in evolution, when something is common place, there has to be a reason why
We must realize that life is selfish, life is about survival of the fittest. If you have studied how plants, animals, bacteria, etc work, it’s all about survival of the fittest. Fittest in this case doesn’t mean the strongest, but the organism that can adapt the best. Cells do cooperate to survive, but it’s still about survival.
The human being is inherently selfish. He does everything for his own good. We always tend to choose the path of least resistance because that is the least painful (short term). We tend not to follow the chinese saying “Bitter first, sweetness later”. We are ruled by our passions (desires). As we are guided by desires, we will of course go for things that gives pleasure, rewards, even if the rewards are short term.
The only way out of this ‘problem’ is reason. Reason is what makes someone choose to do something ‘painful’ first, with a sweet reward later. Reason is what lets someone choose long term gain over short term gain. But how many of us can do that?
But having reason means you have a sense of responsibility. You know the cause and effect of doing something. You are responsible for acting.
Religion works simply because people think that they can delegate their responsibility to living their own life to God. It is easy to have the burden off your shoulder than to carry it all the time.
Communism will never work because people are flawed. People cannot be trusted to run the system. It will lead to autocracy like what you said.
Humans are social animals but they are not hive animals, so we cannot work towards a greater good inherently. There needs to be an outside overwhelming force that acts on us (i.e. threaten us) in order to push us towards doing something together.
are you familiar with kohlberg’s moral stages?
http://faculty.plts.edu/gpence/html/kohlberg.htm
and have you read dawkins’s refutation of atheist immorality?
You should do some reading on brain science advancement.
There are parts of the brain that deals with morals and empathy. The brain structures that deals with morals and empathy are very different in a psychopath. That is why they feel no guilt inflicting pain on people.
Note that there are very “successful” psychopaths and you are unlikely to know who they are. Some of them are expert swindlers (they feel no guilt swindling your money, even if that money is meant to pay for your suffering dear old mom’s healthcare) and they are smart enough to blend-in in society.
Of course, this is also 50% nature and 50% nurture. But without the 50% nature component, it is really an uphill task.
Therefore, for majority of the population, “good” is wired into the brains to a certain extend. This applies to atheist and non-atheist.
Mathia:
….. what’s needed is a system to align the good of the people acting on behalf of the State, to the collective good of everyone. Democracy does that……
-> That’s where you are wrong. How many presidents in the history of democratic USA does that? An example is the mess created by George Bush. Note that it is also in democratic USA that gives rise to the Wall Street of today.
-> Does democracy really reward the people acting on behalf of the State? Look at the procedure… First the politicians get voted in. At this point, they have done minimal work on behalf of the State, yet they are given power and wealth. Then it takes time for policies to yield results, but they are still holding power and wealth. And in USA, even if the president is very very good, he stops after two terms. And we know that historically, democracy did not prevent incompetent people from being voted in.
-> Historically, a monarchy with a good and capable head of state can achieve much more than a democratic government system. HOWEVER, over a longer period of time, a democratic government system produces more consistency than a monarchy system, simply because good rulers don’t live forever. This of course doesn’t mean democracy is the ultimate system to use.
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Depending on your definition of greater good, there are two ways to go about it:
1) Go towards socialism. This will choke progress (depending on your definition). And since humans are not perfect, implementation is extremely difficult.
2) Accept the current flaws and let things work itself out. Sometimes this means doing nothing. Didn’t progress come about when people do problem solving? Didn’t progress come about with competition? Is not progress a form of greater good?