#devotion

Easter came and went - and no ponderous blogpost, no melancholy musings?  No humble contribution to the training of Google’s algorithms in the meaning of Easter for post-religious humanists?

Well, maybe it’s just wise to keep some mysteries off line? Unless, on the contrary, we should make sure that, amidst the billions of frivolous words & pictures that are continuously uploaded to the Internet, we also add our very own fleeting fragments? Feed our own morsels to that ever growing corpus of data which only an artificial intelligence can still digest.

 Meanwhile, off line, I’m grateful for the very tangible exhibition of old (1130-1600) Netherlandish sculptures in the Louvain Museum. 

The still & solid presence of  these sculptures and reliefs appeases me -  their (relative permanence) & companionship :  how many  people have stood before them, meditating, seeking & finding solace? 

A sculptured group of  a swooning Maria under the cross, held by a commiserating John ( #compassion). 

A relief of  a seated, mourning Maria, surrounded by pictures of her sufferings  (#7sorrows). 

I am also grateful for the very real voices & instruments of the Minimes Chapel Choir & Orchestra , singing and playing every month that divine music which is surely far better than us, poor sinners.   Bach’s music in the Castle of Heaven, il Divino Claudio (Monteverdi) (#sacredmusic), ....

So yes, as a post-religious humanist I am profoundly grateful for  sacred art and music: invented-sculpted-composed- sung & played by human beings – incorporating (and perhaps even assuaging) our longings for transcendence. In fact I’ve often wondered whether this sublime art could only have been created thanks to true religious faith, a real belief in the possibility of transcendence?  

But humanist appreciation of sacred art, however sincere & devoted, is not necessarily welcomed by true believers.   

Think of the notices in churches sternly admonishing visiting art lovers that "a church is not a museum".  

 Or take for example the sad fact that, after 35 years of performing Bach Cantata’s in the Church of the Minimes, the  Minimes Chapel Choir & Orchestra was compelled to look for another home (which thank god they found in the church Saint Jacques sur Coudenberg), because the Minimes Church authorities wanted to give priority to the Cult – dismissing the Bach cantata’s as "mere culture". 

The previous Minimes Parish  priest,  Abbé Van der Biest (who passed away in May 2016), an ardent Bach lover himself , would surely have disagreed.    So, at the last concert in the Minimes church , as a tribute and out of sheer human piety, the passage from Bach’s Magnificat that Abbé Van der Biest loved best, was sung.  

And while the music soared upwards, the whole congregation of music lovers rose and listened devoutly (#devotion). 

  

Pondering the Fate of Humanity over the Easter Weekend

Easter Music – Passions, Lamentations, Responsories and Lessons of Darkness


Centuries of Easter music have produced many worthy companions to ponder the pathos of our species. No need of course to mention the Bach Passions (on occasion I have felt they may be the closest that western civilisation came to atone for the wretched human condition).

One could choose Charpentier’s ominously called “Leçons des Ténèbres”, but these might be too worldly & pleasing for the ear to produce in the soul the requisite ”holy and salutary sadness” (as a 17th C Parisian priest complained).

One may also have qualms, for very different reasons, about seeking musical redemption in the Holy Week Responsoria / Tenebrae by Carlo Gesualdo (1560-1613), a ruthless prince and unpunished murderer. Unless it would take a vicious murderer (penitent & guilt-ridden, one hopes) to lament and pray with the  rawness of the blood & nails of an imminent crucifixion?

Anyway, perhaps better entrust one’s musical meditations to the Spanish composer, Tomàs Luis de Victoria (1548-1611),who reaches in his lamentations an exalted pitch of intensity and mysticism, without being devoid of the serenity appropriate for a later resurrection. And isn’t that what the Easter pathos is about - a tragic but ultimately hopeful story of a son of god fully sharing our human misery ; a god betrayed, humiliated, ignominiously dying – all to redeem our sins; and then resurrecting.



Evolutionary Theory - “Genetics of Original Sin“

The evolutionary account of the human lot offers, alas, no such divine redemption for our sins. But it does confirm the religious intuition of an original, fatal flaw in human nature. The culprit is natural selection itself, this most powerful process for maximising short term selfishness.

This is brilliantly argued in the book ““Genetics of Original Sin” (1) by Christian de Duve, a biochimist. With the calm authority and unswerving logic of a Nobel-prize winning scientist (medicine/biology), hallowed to boot by the wisdom of a very advanced age, de Duve first exposes the history and natural mechanisms of ‘life on earth’, to then explain how, if nothing is done, humanity is “headed for disaster”:

• “Natural selection has indiscriminately privileged all the personal qualities that contribute to the immediate success of individuals” [...]“[Apart from] intelligence, inventiveness, skilfulness, resourcefulness, and ability to communicate [...] the selected traits have also included selfishness, greed, cunning, aggressiveness, and any other property that ensured immediate personal gain, regardless of later cost to oneself or others”

• “Natural selection has not privileged the foresight and wisdom needed for sacrificing immediate benefits for the sake of the future”

• “Taking advantage of the powers of their brains, humans have proliferated beyond all measure and exploited a major part of the planet’s resources for their own benefit”

• “If it continues in the same direction, humankind is headed for frightful ordeals, if not its own extinction” (think of climate change, pollution, resource depletion, think of over-population and ferocious competition (i.e. wars) for ever scarcer resources, etc)

In short: if nothing is done, we’ll fall victim, not of an external menace, but of our own adaptive success. De Duve does not mention capitalism explicitly, but that has of course been the system that, by exalting greed, avarice and acquisitiveness as powerful motivations for entrepreneurship , has served us so well in exploiting scientific progress and natural resources to raise material standards of living for increasing numbers of people. And which will also contribute to our ultimate downfall as long as it does not put a limit on greed. (And Economics? Economics is merely a hand-maiden, priding itself on its amoral teaching of efficiency, the optimal use of scarce resources. (2))



“The only possibility of redemption from the genetic original sin lies in the unique human ability to act against natural selection”

de Duve coolly points out that humanity’s survival as a species is at risk if we do not manage to “act against natural selection” by controlling or adjusting deeply ingrained traits (such as greed, aggressiveness, acquisitiveness - traits that have served our ancestors so well in their struggle for life but that in the present conditions, amplified by technology and by the sheer number of humans, have become destructive.) As George C. Williams puts it:

“The evolutionary process is immensely powerful and oppressive, but, [...] it is abysmally stupid. It can reliably maximize current selfishness at the level of the gene, but it is blind to future macroscopic consequences of current action.” (3)(4)

Scientific thoroughness obliging, de Duve explores several options to ‘save humanity’ . He comes up with the usual answers such as ‘Protect the Environment’ and ‘Control Population’ (both already requiring quite some self-control over innate selfish urges), there’s the intriguingly formulated option ‘Give Women a Chance’ (because ‘several unfavourable human traits singled out by natural selection are largely associated with maleness ’, e.g. aggressiveness ).

Some other options he proposes are worthy of much speculative pondering: ‘Improve Our Genes’ (highly controversial - who will be the ultimate arbiter, what would be the population to experiment with ?) , ‘Rewire The Brain’ (education & brainwashing to teach us better manners) and ....

‘Call On Religions’ ! : not as an act of faith in divine powers, but rather to use them as a means to an end: i.e. call upon whatever moral authority or capacity for inspiration they have left, to assist in the improving of our manners .

But so, in order to save humanity, there we are back to what religions and ethical systems have tried to do for ages: teaching us charity (within the own group at least) and restraining our boundless greed and avarice.



“Evolution and Ethics”

de Duve’s book is a straightforward, utilitarian discourse, rationally appealing to our medium and long-term interests as a species. And when he mentions “morals” or “ethics”, it is to enlist them as means to ensure humanity’s long term survival. So it’s all about human self-interest, albeit within an extended timeframe and also with an enlarged mentality, trying to minimise pain and suffering.

The 19th century biologist & philosopher T.H. Huxley, too, thought that humanity’s only hope was to “rebel against the cosmic process”, by individual restraint and also by social and technological initiative. But his awareness of the workings of natural selection and of the ensuing “fatal flaw” in human nature found a much more anguished, almost poetic, expression in his lectures about Evolution and Ethics.(5)

His call for rebellion was inspired by sheer moral indignation, “repudiating the gladiatorial theory of existence”: “brought before the tribunal of ethics, the cosmos might well stand condemned. The conscience of man revolted against the moral indifference of nature” .

Cherishing a humanist concept of human dignity, he refused to give any moral authority to the principle of evolution (such as social Darwinism did). Huxley did fully recognize that moral man was a product of nature, and that also the ‘good’ moral ‘instincts’ such as sympathy and altruism had “incidentally” emerged from natural selection mechanisms (e.g. nepotism or self-seeking deals with others). (6)

But he adamantly maintained that “while cosmic evolution may teach us how the good and the evil tendencies of man have come about”, Nature is not the arbiter of what is good and what is evil. And, quite movingly, Huxley associated human notions of the good with an aesthetic faculty, which by intuition distinguishes what is beautiful from what is ugly.

So here we have both a 20th/21st Century biochemist and a 19th century biologist/philosopher inciting us to rebel against our own genes, “a biological absurdity .... no more possible than the natural selection of the unfit.” (7) How can there be such a gap between Ethics and Nature, if humans (including their morality) are a product of nature?

George C. Williams: “I can think of no more fitting response than Huxley’s to this same challenge: “If the conclusion that [the natural and the ethical] are antagonistic is logically absurd, I am sorry for logic, because, as we have seen, the fact is so” (5)





Honing our ethic and aesthetic faculties ( for instance in the Procopius bookshop in Louvain)

So here’s our absurd mission: blithely combating our genes to save humanity. Obviously, we’ll need all the help we can find.

There is indeed religion, that great promoter & instigator of ethic and aesthetic values, but religions have alas a long history of promoting violence against presumed heretics and infidel tribes. Secular humanism then, for all its reverence for our ethic and aesthetic faculties, has not avoided any of the 20th century disasters. And yet, entrusting relentless scientific & technological progress to humans ruled by Palaeolithic emotions seems more than ever a recipe for disaster.

So after all, could not a wizened secular humanism, one disabused of its former grand illusions, fit the bill to offer an “ethics without [fundamentalist] doctrine” ? And while art will not save the world, could not some of its concomitant habits (of reflection, of understanding & imagination, of empathy and not least, of taste) help us to ‘enlarge our mentality’, help us to hone disinterested moral intuitions?

In 1943, Johan Huizinga ( the great historian renowned for his “Autumn of The Middle Ages / Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen”) wrote a book “Mutilated World” ( “Geschonden Wereld” – posthumously published after the war). Despairing of the then prevailing barbarism, he “reflects on the chances of repairing our civilisation”. In these reflections « he continues the defence of disinterested [cultural] exercises, of ennobling forms , without which the world perhaps loses both its meaning and its value”. (8)

I heard of this out-of-print Huizinga book only last week, while reading a collection of essays by the art historian André Chastel, whose own books now seem largely out of favour too. But judging by the few Chastel-books I already managed to find, he may well have been a prime example of that wise and disabused humanism we are looking for. (9)

Now for anyone looking for a fine selection of books to hone his or her ethic and aesthetic faculties, it is warmly recommended to spend some time in the Procopius bookshop in Louvain. It is a very selective kind of second hand bookshop, not at all crammed full with stacks of books. Its collection betrays a wayward kind of selectivity – offering a choice assortment of some of the finest writings (not limited to the usual famous landmark books, but with unexpected finds of unjustly forgotten gems).

It’s the kind of bookshop where you will find for instance this huge, beautifully illustrated, book by André Chastel on the Age of Humanism (the book as such could already serve as a bulwark against barbarism). You’ll find there too a fine selection of books on Evolution (both the de Duve book (this year) and the Huxley book (last year) I found there). And it is only there that, with great astonishment, one can discern, just on the shelf above the one with the Evolution books, the Huizinga-essay “Geschonden Wereld” about whose existence one had learnt only a week earlier...

(Praise also to the handy location of Procopius, less than 1.5 km from the Louvain-station, well within roaming range of even a crutch-assisted, train-travelling flâneur)





Fateful Credits & Notes  


(1) Genetics of Original Sin – The Impact of natural Selection on the Future of Humanity 
Christian de Duve   (with Neil Patterson )

(2) But how about Technology: is it a potential redeemer of the human condition or rather humanity’s Nemesis? Science and technology have obviously immensely eased the harshest aspects of the struggle for life. But they have also greatly increased the impact of humans - some speak of a new epoch with humans able to change the planet: the Anthropocene  . Humanity being a species notorious for its inability to properly discount the long-term consequences of its actions, this is rather worrisome. However, perhaps we have reached a point where it is only further progress in science and technology that can solve the problems we have created. But to use technological progress well, we’d need a more responsible and forward-looking human species.

(3) George C. Williams, an evolutionary biologist, in an essay accompanying the re-edition of T.H. Huxley’s “Evolution and Ethics”

(4) A frivolous non-expert speculation: the selfish gene is bent on its perpetuation, requiring not only its current carrier to survive and to procreate but also its current carrier’s offspring to be able to go on reproducing. So the selfish gene might well have a longer term perspective on survival than its individual carrier who is finite anyhow. Hence genetic coding for caring for one’s offspring and perhaps even for a concern to leave a viable world to later generations...

(5) Thomas Henry Huxley  : T.H. Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics (1894)- 1989 edition expanded with New Essays on Its Victorian and Sociobiological Context, by James Paradis and George C. Williams

(6) Those entertaining the romantic notion of a “noble savage”, a pristine state of nature characterized by love & cooperation , would shudder of present biological explanations of all seemingly altruist or social behaviour in nature - Loving care for off-spring? : ‘determined by coefficient of relationship, so an investment by the donor in its own genes’ ; Altruist behaviour without benefit for donor or its kin? : ‘provoked by deception and exploitation by a manipulator’; Rendering services to one another: ‘a calculation of reciprocity’ ; Gregariousness: ‘hide among companions so that evil will befall a companion instead of oneself’

(7) Gunter S Stent: “ the idea of any organism, including man, transcending its genes is a biological absurdity [..] transcendence of genes is no more possible than natural selection of the unfit.” – as quoted by George C. Williams.

(8) André Chastel, « l’image dans le miroir - chroniques artistiques - historiens et critiques, Johan Huizinga (1946) »: “Son livre posthume, Geschonden Wereld, Le Monde Mutilé (1945), poursuit [...] la défense des exercices désintéressés, des formes ennoblissantes, sans lesquels le monde perd peut-être à la fois son sens et son prix »

(9) André Chastel – an non-classifiable, in-between art historian (which may be why I find him so appealing): he’s neither one of those great humanist art historians still comforted in their idea of a glorious progression of the spirit in western art history, but nor is he amongst the joyless, destructive post-modernists cynically relegating the history of art to the exploitative activities of the rich & the powerful. Chastel fully acknowledged that the post-modern suspicions vàv the « world of art and its smugness” could be justified “by the naïvetés and the hypocrisies of academic discourse, by the imposture of hero-fications and glorifications”, but at the same time he continued to insist on the value of the aesthetic experience, on the dignity of artistic forms.

« On comprend bien que cette suspicion à l’égard du « monde de l’art » et des complaisances qui l’accompagnent se justifie par rapport aux naïvetés – et aux hypocrisies – des discours académiques, aux impostures de l’héroïsation, de la glorification, de la simplification idéaliste. Oui, mais au terme de la dénonciation, on ne fait que renouveler, au nom d’une critique plus ou moins politique, la condamnation platonicienne. Elle reste malencontreuse, puisqu’elle transporte définitivement la conscience à l’extérieur de phénomènes dont l’intérêt n’est que saisissable qu’à travers l’expérience qui en réactive les ressources émotives et sensibles. » « […][aujourd’hui] la démarche artistique […] est mieux représentée par le commentaire que par le résultat provisoire d’un objet »

(10) André Chastel - The Age of Humanism - Europe 1480-1530 (Published under the auspices of the council of cultural co-operation following teh 1st art exhibition of the Council of Europe “Humanist Europe” organized in 1954 in Brussels by the Belgian Government)

Prisoner's Dilemma in Brussels? (July 21st , 2011)

Being an inveterate doubting humanist, I‘ve never shied away from Great Nagging Questions such as “the inescapable duel between biological necessity and the transcendence of the human spirit”. (1) Thus there is the puzzle of altruism (or just plain kindness): is it a uniquely human moral quality which transcends (2) the ‘inevitably’ selfish biological instincts (3)? But then how could it survive nature’s merciless selection of the fittest? Or is altruism merely yet another evolutionary strategy serving an ulterior selfish motive, a strategy that has evolved because in some cases apparent selfless behaviour does enhance evolutionary success? (be it on the level of selfish genes, selfish individuals or selfish groups) (4)

In any case, digesting the findings of evolutionary biologists, keen economists reasoned without much delay that 1> self-seeking is inherent to our evolved human nature and that 2> humans are rational in the pursuit of their self-interest. Thus they posited this elemental truth: “Human beings are self-seeking, rational agents out to maximize their gains in a fierce, competitive world”(5).
And wanting to draw conclusions as to how societies should organize themselves, they added 3>, “nature [being] mankind’s moral compass” this ‘natural’ individual gain maximization will get the most out of each and every resource (human or otherwise), thus benefiting to the community as a whole.

Mathematically based ‘game-theory’ could even help those rational self-seeking ‘players’ to find the optimal strategy to maximize their individual gains. (5)
But alas, one of those maximising games irrefutably showed that individual rational and self-seeking reasoning did not always produce the best possible collective good. In the so-called “Prisoner's Dilemma” “each player pursuing his own self-interest leads both players to be worse off than had they not pursued purely their own self-interests”(6)

So shouldn’t we then all, as reasonable beings aware of the limits of pure selfishness, rather seek enlightened cooperation instead of going for the selfish option in our ‘games’?
Umm, well, It’s true that if we are both being reasonable that we will both be better off, but ... ay, here’s the rub, what if I am being reasonable & I give in, and the other does not, then I’m the dunce of the affair! Ah and just suppose that I won’t budge, while the other might give in, then I have a chance to win it all! And so neither of us gives in, neither of us cooperates and we‘re both worse off than if we had cooperated.

Dear readers, obviously only few of you are concerned with the fate of the Belgian people, but really, the recent Belgian political manoeuvres are a perfect (though sickening) example of game-theory. The Belgian politicians (sorry, the Dutch and the French speaking politicians of Belgium) have been trapped in this Prisoner’s Dilemma for over a year now, hostages of narrow “Them and Us” group thinking, too paralyzed to be able to form even a government.

Yesterday, at the eve of the Belgian National Holiday, the poor tired King of Belgium addressed its troubled nation, speaking about responsibility and tolerance, about how disastrous the current stalemate was for each Belgian citizen (sorry, for each Dutch speaking and each French speaking citizen of Belgium). An almost desperate, but above all genuine and dignified plea for cooperation ... (7)

Upon which, quite reluctantly, one of the stalling Flemish political parties (say party A) did announce to be willing to rejoin the negotiations with the French speaking parties. And, WHAMM – BHAMM , this mere sign of “willingness to cooperate” was immediately punished by another Flemish party (say party B), eager to steal voters from party A . Indeed, Party B could now claim to be the only Truly Unflinching Defender of The Flemish Interests. And so Party B did not measure its words – accusing Party A to betray the Flemish Interests, “to show its bare naked butt” (“volledig met de billen bloot” ), “to go flat on its belly” (“plat op de buik”).

Again, I am an eternally doubting person who knows she does not know and who, having not analyzed in full detail all proposals from all Dutch speaking and all French speaking parties, is not eager to take big political stands.
But I do have taste ....and I do have a sense of beauty and of dignity. And the sheer crudeness with which this Flemish party B crushed a tentative opening towards negotiation ... Nope, that’s not where I want to be. And yep, now I know for sure – this party B is indeed nothing but a bullying populist party opportunistically catering to the basest selfish instincts.

And in the meanwhile, also on this 21st of July, and also in Brussels, European leaders are convening, with nothing less than the fate of the Eurozone being at stake. One can only hope they will be able to “transcend”(9) the Prisoner’s dilemma, that they will be able to at least try and pursue the collective good ...

Nine National Belgian Notes
(1) Oren Harman – “The Price of Altruism” - “George Price and the search for the origins of kindness”. Click here for a review. It's a truly fascinating book “[covering] the entire 150-year history of scientists’ researching, debating and bickering about a theoretical problem that lies at the core of behavioral biology, sociobiology and evolutionary psychology: Why is it that organisms sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others?”
(2) Ah, transcendence! Have never been quite able to grasp what it is, except that it denotes a realm of all that‘s beyond our greedy materialist grasp? As a (inveterate, doubting, etc) humanist I of course take “transcendence” in its humanist-philosophical sense, not in any God-given sense. And what would I personally put then in that transcendental realm - everything that is not merely utilitarian, everything that gets us beyond our role in the food chain, ie : meaning, beauty, goodness, justice, ...
(3) “inevitably selfish” – yeah, well, it’s simple really: in a struggle for life under conditions of scarce resources, selfishness does enhance individual fitness to survive, and thus evolution will mercilessly get rid of any selfless tendencies that reduce individual fitness.
(4) This kind of apparent altruism then depends on relatedness of genes (helping one’s kin), or on expected reciprocity of support and mercy amongst individuals, or on the success of cohesive groups against other groups. But so it is still always one entity surviving at the expense of another. There are even very elegant mathematical formulas that describe how and when “selfless” behaviour is an efficient strategy for genes and individuals to enhance their eventual selection success.
(5) “The price of Altruism” pp 135-137
(6) See Wikipedia for full exposition on Prisoner's Dilemma
(7) Look, I have neither outspoken royalist nor anti-royalist convictions. But I can see how a purely ceremonial, symbolic monarch can help to foster some common sense of belonging – without therefore veering into royal adoration or blind patriotism. And again, as to the Belgian nation – yes, I do cherish it, because it so utterly lacks the more nefarious tones of nationalism, and yes, I do value this cultural diversity inherent in the Belgian nation. And as to the threat for the Dutch language of having to share a nation with an “imperialist” language such as French – well, frankly, I think that Global English poses more of a threat – (witness this very blog written in second hand Global English by a Dutch speaker)
(8) as Hannah Arendt rhetorically asked: “ Could it be that taste belongs among the political faculties?”
(9) Ah, there’s “transcend” again! Time for a confession – while I am fascinated by the biological origins of human morality – at heart I still am this old-fashioned Kantian humanist who would rather believe that humans do not merely entertain notions of altruism and goodness because of their use for individual or collective survival. I would much rather continue to believe human morality stems from some sort of empathy or non-utilitarian “affection for our fellow creatures in chance’s kingdom” (Richard Powers), from some non-utilitarian sense of beauty and human dignity.

Humanism after Darwin (short & frivolous post)

Let me confess right away, I’m a “humanist” – my heart leaps, my mind exults, whenever I read phrases like:

“one should treat humanity in oneself and others always as an end and never merely as a means” (1)

'Humanitas' signifies “man’s proud and tragic consciousness of self-approved and self-imposed principles, contrasting with his utter subjection to illness, decay and all that is implied in the word ‘mortality’” (2)

“humanism is an attitude [suffused by] the conviction of the dignity of man, based on both the insistence on human values (rationality and freedom) and the acceptance of human limitations (fallibility and frailty): from this two postulates result – responsibility and tolerance” (3)

Humanism, in this interpretation, takes the ambivalence of the human condition fully into account: on the one hand we are but a product of a chance combination of genes. Our deepest emotions, our loftiest thoughts are nothing but chemical interactions and electric charges in our brain cells. We are driven by our selfish genes in the struggle for life. And we are amongst the feeblest creatures of nature – a mere gust of wind or a banal bacterial infection can wipe us out.(4)

And yet, on the other hand, as human beings, we have feelings beyond our primal survival-urges, we can reflect on our condition, we are endowed with sensitivity, reason and empathy.
Therefore we cannot merely hide behind biological or cultural determinism – we can observe and sense, we can learn, we can reflect: so we can and have to take up responsibility for our lives.

And we may not exploit others for our needs, nor physically or mentally hurt or humiliate (5) them - should they be in our way, or should they be in our view too different from us, or too fallible or too frail: because we know that ultimately the other is a self too, who at the very least shares with us a common human vulnerability and sensitivity that our empathy asks to spare.

So no, I don’t in the least see how this humanist attitude of responsibility, tolerance and empathy should be threatened by the findings of genetics or of neuro-science. Humanism is not about the adulation of the Human Being as some perfect metaphysical divinity, humanism is on the contrary very pragmatic in its acknowledgement of our limitations as well as of our possibilities. The materialist basis of our being does not take away the fact that we have these 'feedback systems' - reason, sensitivity and empathy - that create our responsibility towards ourselves and others.

Speaking of “reason”, “sensitivity” and “empathy” as the foundations of this humanist attitude, I hope to avoid being caught in the fallacious dualism of “emotions” versus “ratio”. A dualism that may be obsolete (6), now that is shown that 'good' decision- making involves both emotions and ratio. And what matters, is how 'we' (we = our self-reflective feedback-systems) deal with our emotions, what we do with our rational intellectual capacities. Both emotions and ratio can be used for evil ends.

So this is where the humanist moral imperative enters: the imperative of respect and responsibility towards ourselves and others, a call to summon up whatever grace and dignity we can muster, even when defeated, even at death (7).

(and this is where trumpets should blaze, violins should swell, a choir should burst out in a Beethovenian ode!)

But so, though I don’t at all see positivist science as a menace for Humanism – I fear some moral interpretations of Darwinism and of economic rationalism do pose a threat.
We all know that we are creatures governed by selfish genes that are bent on their survival & reproduction. We all know that in the end only those traits and genes survive, that, well hum that survive, at the expense of other les well adapted, less aggressive variations.
We all know how economics got hold of this “survival of the fittest” principle and of the rule of self-interest to posit a Rational Man and a system of “laisser faire” in which the sum of all these individual pursuits of self-interest in the end produces the best results, as if directed by an “invisible hand” . We all know now that utopian state controlled economics did not work.

And so, yes, evolutionary biology and classical economics alike wrestle with the problem of “altruism”. Altruism! Moral Values! Shock! Horror! The menace of Irrationality!
Indeed, how to explain altruism, how to explain morality in a conceptual framework which posits the selfish struggle for life or the maximization of self-interest or profits as the ultimate driving forces? Self-interest as the one principle that guarantees the most efficient system to arrive at the best results, so the one and only principle that any rational person should heed.

Oh yes, biologists and economist alike are at great pains to find somewhere some selfish reason for altruism - not a year goes by without another theory showing how display of some altruistic behavior might be good to attract potential mates (because it’s a sign of abundant strength, or of good caring skills for off-spring), a theory that therefore can unmask altruism as yet another ploy of the selfish gene. And ah the relief when yet another economic theory shows that “trustworthiness” is nothing but a good strategy to optimize economic interactions and thus to maximize wealth – so yes, yet again rational enlightened self-interest at work!

And here, as a humanist, I disagree. I object to “rational behavior” being exclusively claimed as a utilitarian strategy. I don’t accept that taking a moral stance would only be acceptable if there’s a utilitarian value to it, be it in biological survival terms or in economic profit terms. I object, in the name of humanism, in the name of the humanist concept of human dignity and responsibility. Maximization of wealth is not the only end. I even dare say that for a humanist not even sheer personal survival is the only end … not at whatever price. … not when human dignity, of ourselves or of others is at stake (8).

Empathy may well have evolved as a useful social skill to help along the selfish gene – but now it also presents us, sensitive and pensive humans, with a responsibility that goes beyond the mere self-interest. There is man’s amazing “ability to step out of the food-chain”, to have an altruistic “affection for his fellow creatures of chance’s kingdom”. (9)

So I’d like to conclude with a quote from Richard Dawkins ( the evolutionary scientist par excellence), from his book “The selfish gene” ( the Darwinian book par excellence) :
“We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators”.

(trumpets, violins, choir!)


Edifying quotes & notes (so please, do read them!)

(1) yes, this is one of Kant’s famous categorical imperatives!
(2) Erwin Panofsky in “The History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline” (a 1940 essay collected in “Meaning in the visual arts”
(3) Ibidem
(4) Paraphrase of Pascal’s pensée : “L’ homme n’est qu’un roseau, le plus faible de la nature; mais c’est un roseau pensant. Il ne faut pas que l’univers entier s’arme pour l’écraser: une vapeur, une goutte d’eau, suffit pour le tuer. Mais, quand l’univers l’écraserait, l’homme serait encore plus noble que ce qui le tue, parce qu’il sait qu’il meurt, et l’avantage que l’univers a sur lui ; l’univers n’en sait rien. Toute notre dignité consiste donc en la pensée »
(5) On human vulnerability to cruelty and humiliation as a shared human condition that we always ought to be sensitive to, I would like to quote Richard Rorty in ”Contingency, irony, and solidarity”. RR is so post-modernly relativist that he shies away from admitting the existence of any universal values, but he does accept this physical and moral vulnerability of the human being as a universally shared trait. I’m happy to quote him at length, so as to prove that postmodernism does not need to preclude humanism!
So here goes: “The idea that we all have an overriding obligation to diminish cruelty, to make human beings equal in respect to their liability to suffering, seems to take for granted that there is something within human beings which deserves respect and protection quite independently of the language they speak. It suggests that […] the ability to feel pain, is what is important, and that differences in vocabulary are much less important. […] Metaphysicians tell us that unless there is some sort of common ur-vocabulary, we have no “reason” not to be cruel to those whose final vocabularies are very unlike ours. […].
The morally relevant definition of a person, a moral subject, to be “something that can be humiliated ”. [Our] sense of human solidarity is [thus] based on a sense of a common danger. So [we] need as much imaginative acquaintance with alternative vocabularies as possible, not just for [our] own edification, but in order to understand the actual and possible humiliation of the people who use these alternative vocabularies […] . What unites [us] with the rest of the species is not a common language but just susceptibility to pain and in particular to that special sort of pain which the brutes do not share with the humans – humiliation."
(6) As far as I am aware of the findings of neuro-science as they get reported in the popular press, it seems that “emotions” and “ratio” collaborate far more in judging and deciding than traditionally was posited. For instance, there’s the case of a man whose brain got damaged in an accident. The damage was done to a part of the brain associated with the emotions. After this accident the man was no longer able to take decisions: he could analyze a problem, draw up long lists of determining elements and of arguments for and against – but he could no longer reach a decision.
(7) This is a paraphrase on some sentences out of Fay Weldon’s “Letters to Alice” . I can’t right now locate them exactly, ….maybe a fine reason to read that book again! I remember it as so erudite and moving a plea for the reading of novels as exercises in empathy and in the finding of moral significance, + its’ an excellent introduction to Jane Austen . Someone who made it all through the Richard Rorty footnote, will have noted note that RR too pleads for the widening of our empathy (through, amongst other things, the reading of novels).n
(8) of course the smart Darwinian can here suffice with a single smug remark: being a humanist then does not seem to be such a good survival strategy amongst the selfish, so in the end these naïve humanist variations will simply get extinct. Euh.Well. Should anyone have a suitable retort, thanks for sharing!
(9) Richard Powers in his “The Goldbug Variations”