An interview with me about the book "all things in common"

Submitted by Rommon on July 22, 2017

Here's an interview I did with John Shuck from progressive spirit about my book "all things in common", I hope you enjoy it.

https://progressivespirit.net/2017/07/22/jesus-was-a-communist/

http://wipfandstock.com/all-things-in-common.html

Dave B

6 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Dave B on July 25, 2017

Hi roman

Listened to most of the interview before my crap broadband pinged me out.

I think the question for you then is the origin of this socially cooperative behaviour etc.
And whether it is something like as below, selected at random, with it being frustrated and re-expressed theologically in early Christianity and projected onto the Christian god etc.

Or something else?

Marc Hauser's "Moral Minds" and Postmodernism

Hauser assesses three models for explaining how the moral grammar works, based on the moral philosophy of David Hume (Humean model), Immanuel Kant (Kantian model), and John Rawls (Rawlsian model). The Humean model explains the moral evaluation as driven by emotion. Though eclipsed by the Kantian model for two centuries, the Humean model has recently come back into favor through recognition of the role of empathy in moral evaluation and the discovery of mirror neurons in the brain. Mirror neurons reflect the emotion of a person being observed. If an observer is observing a sad person, for instance, the mirror neurons fire up sadness in the observer. Because of mirror neurons, we can feel what another person is feeling, i.e., empathize with them. The Kantian model sees moral evaluation as driven by rational judgment. The agent compares the intended action to a moral principle and acts or aborts action according to whether the intended action would be ethical. In the Rawlsian model, a moral judgment is made (by the innate moral faculty), then reasons and emotions are brought into play to motivate the agent to go through with the act called for by the judgment. Hauser thinks the Rawlsian model is now the moral faculty works.

As a scientist, Hauser must provide a naturalistic explanation of the existence of the moral faculty, as well as its operation. Much of the book is devoted to demonstrating that precursors of the moral grammar are present in how infants structure expectation about events in the world. Hauser draws upon a host of fascinating experiments in child psychology to show that the structure of the moral grammar (agent, action, receiver, consequence, evaluation) is present nearly from birth in the infant's interaction with the world, for example, in infant perception of continuity of action.

He must also make sense of the moral faculty in terms of Darwinian evolution and natural selection. The existence of a moral faculty would not be credible if it could not be explained as a product of human evolution by natural selection. As a result, Hauser brings forward research in primate psychology to demonstrate that some primates have the precursors to a moral grammar, in, for instance, behavior expressing reciprocity and fairness.
The evolutionary appearance of the moral faculty is tied to the rise of primate and human social behavior. Human survival (in the hunter-gatherer stage of evolution) has clearly required social cooperation. Social cooperation requires fairness, mutual aid, and arrangements to detect and punish cheaters and liars. The moral faculty is, as Hauser observes it in action, especially attuned to social cooperation of small groups of kin-related individuals. It is precisely the kind of mental agency that we would expect to be selected under survival pressure. Darwin himself (Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, 1872) and later Darwinians saw social morality evolving to make social organization possible under the horrible circumstances imposed on early humans by competition and scarcity. Hauser's work is in this tradition of Darwinian explanation. The evidence that Hauser brings forward to place the moral faculty in this tradition makes his theory strongly credible.

http://shroudedindoubt.typepad.com/bag_of_worms_yet_words/2006/11/marc_hausers_mo.html

Dave B

6 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Dave B on July 25, 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BYJf2xSONc

there are two I think the david Attenborough one is better.

Rommon

6 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Rommon on July 27, 2017

Dave B.

The Origin is basically from a restorationist movement, kind of like the Essenes. I don't think it's difficult to imagine a small "c" communist community, basically any time the state breaks down small "c" communist communities pop up (simply becuase communism is the best way to organize a community).

With the Christians and Essenes they were making parallel communities of righteousness, it was ideologically based. For the Christians it came from John the Baptist and Jesus, and the Apostles and their teachings, tied in with eschatology.

As to the Natural psychology of it, I mean I don't know, you could make an evolutionary model that Works, you could also go the theology route.

But "communism" doesn't require morality, all it requires is culture, i.e. People are shunned and excluded who act like ass holes, and People are recognized and praised who are Nice.