Larry Arnhart has a post up on how Huck Finn's moral quandary about turning in Jim, the escaped slave, as good religion said he should (at the time), when he has come to know and admire Jim as a man, displays the evolved nature of morality. I tend to agree with this view.
Huck decides, "Very well then, I'll go to hell". Here's the entire passage, one of the greatest in English literature.
Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be a slave at home where his family was, as long as he'd got to be a slave, and so I'd better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to tell Miss Watson where he was. But I soon give up that notion for two things: she'd be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness for leaving her, and so she'd sell him straight down the river again; and if she didn't, everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger, and they'd make Jim feel it all the time, and so he'd feel ornery and disgraced. And then think of me! It would get all around that Huck Finn helped a nigger to get his freedom; and if I was ever to see anybody from that town again I'd be ready to get down and lick his boots for shame. That's just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide, it ain't no disgrace. That was my fix exactly. The more I studied about this the more my conscience went to grinding me, and the more wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feeling. And at last, when it hit me all of a sudden that here was the plain hand of Providence slapping me in the face and letting me know my wickedness was being watched all the time from up there in heaven,whilst I was stealing a poor old woman's nigger that hadn't ever done me no harm, and now was showing me there's One that's always on the lookout, and ain't a-going to allow no such miserable doings to go only just so fur and no further, I most dropped in my tracks I was so scared. Well, I tried the best I could to kinder soften it up somehow for myself by saying I was brung up wicked, and so I warn't so much to blame; but something inside of me kept saying, "There was the Sunday-school, you could a gone to it; and if you'd a done it they'd a learnt you there that people that acts as I'd been acting about that nigger goes to everlasting fire."
It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I couldn't try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they? It warn't no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from me, neither. I knowed very well why they wouldn't come. It was because my heart warn't right; it was because I warn't square; it was because I was playing double. I was letting on to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth say I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that nigger's owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie -- I found that out.
So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write the letter -- and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:
Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send.HUCK FINN.
I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking -- thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, 'stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he's got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.
It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:
"All right, then, I'll go to hell" -- and tore it up.
Now Christians and other theists often claim that without God, one cannot be moral, and indeed, as Locke said, cannot be trusted to keep their contracts and oaths. But here, in the best of American books, is a child showing that morality is indeed something we all have, excepting pathological individuals, and that religion at its best only modifies the keeping of rules. And at its worst... well that was what Twain was exposing.
As I always say, of course I have morals without gods. I'm human, ain't I? That's what humans do.
But the nature of evolved morality is contested, at best. Some, like Marc Hauser, think that it comes as a packaged grammar, like a Chomskyan language acquisition device. Others are not so exact about it, and claim that humans just follow the game theory of iterated Prisoner's dilemmas. However, humans seem not to be so rational about their moral rules as that, and in fact while chimps do match the predictions of a rational game, humans tend to err on the side of charity.
For my money, I think there is an evolutionary explanation for this. We have self-selected (the term is social selection) individuals who are more charitable than the Ayn Randian view of humanity insists that we are. And the reason is that in smaller troops, we will be aiding our kin more often than not. So we have our inbuilt dispositions, easily overturned by culture and religion, to treat others well. This is not so altruistic as it might seem, though. While relatedness sets up the selection pressure, the payoff is also that individuals who do well by others tend to gain higher social standing, and that translates rather readily into higher individual fitness too. We are more likely to aid the children of a dead hero than of a self-interested weasel.
Such dispositions are not permanent, of course, but they shape the subsequent cultural evolution of human groups. So long as we are on average more charitable than not, selection for charity will tend to continue. But if we found ourselves in a Thatcheresque society for very long, all bets are off. However, I have my doubts that such a society would persist long enough to shift the inertia of genes all that much. Once there is a bias of that kind, groups that cooperate will tend to outdo groups that don't. Thatcher's denial of the existence of society is only feasible in times of relative plenty and for short periods, evolutionarily speaking.
So in general I expect that Huck Finn's dilemma will resolve itself the way Huck did, for the foreseeable future.
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I think the idea that we are evil beings, damned because one guy disobeyed some tyrant god and in need of the same god to be moral is so condescending and demeaning of humans. How can the idea that you are punished for someone else's supposed crime and need to follow the mandates of the tyrant god be seen as anything but dehumanizing? I don't get the christian argument that god is good and we need him for morality. Also, there's that pesky Eurypthro dilema demolishing that argument that god decides what's right.....
Treat others well, or treat other people we know well? A problem with your argument is if the evolved moral rule is treat everyone well, then whence hate? But if we're allowed to hate people we don't know, I think it works better. Well, descriptively at any rate.
Incidentally, Thatcher's view was more nuanced than you make it. Actually, here's the whole thing:
Which actually sounds very close to the sort of morality you're writing about. Ouch.
Bob
I agree.
"But here, in the best of American books, is a child showing that morality is indeed something we all have, excepting pathological individuals, and that religion at its best only modifies the keeping of rules. And at its worst... well that was what Twain was exposing..."
I do recall there was a row some years ago about Mark Twain's books. Were they not removed from the "recommended books" shelves on public libraries?
Actually, I think that kin selection makes society possible. Thatcher seems to have thought that society did not exist as an entity (a view known as methodological individualism in the philosophy of social science). While I think that society is not an agent, I most certainly do think it is an entity over and above kin groups. And kin selection accounts for the existence of society; it isn't now reducible to simple aggregations of them. And in that I differ quite wisely from Thatcherian politics.
This is very much the line of of thought the anarchist Peter Kropotkin took in his Mutual Aid, written as a response to social darwinism, although he took it a bit too far ("The unsociable species, on the contrary, are doomed to decay.")
Omar, there have been battles on and off for years about whether or not Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer should be removed, and it has to do with the use of the word "nigger." That is the thing that causes a great deal of difficulty in secondary school lit classes.
It's hard for people even to put it in the context of a slave state pre-civil war.
Thatcher was trying to encourage a greater sense of self-reliance and personal responsibility as a counter to the 'benefits culture' which was perceived, rightly or wrongly, to have burgeoned under Labour administrations. Up to a point, I would agree. We have a moral duty to assist those in need but, on the other hand, freeloading on the charity and generosity of others by those who are quite capable of supporting themselves is immoral, if for no other reason than it consumes limited resources that could be better used elsewhere.
The Christians claim for moral supremacy depends entirely on the existence of their god. Without that, theirs is just one more code amongst many others.
But whether or not God exists, we are still intelligent animals who stand a better chance of surviving as part of a group than as isolated individuals. At a pragmatic level, moral codes prescribe how we should behave towards one another with a view to making life in society better for everyone. We are more likely, as individuals, to be loyal to a group that we believe will look after us. And if moral codes are based on furthering interests that are common to all humanity, we should expect to see certain basic similarities between the the moral beliefs of all human cultures, regardless of what may be the dominant faith locally. Is that what we see?
I read Huck Finn, unexpurgated, to my seven year old daughter. With sufficient explanation, she understood why the use of racist words was necessary. I find it hard to understand, not having grown up in the States, what the difficulty is for high school students, but I guess you have to be there.
I'm so pleased that someone else (Scientist of the Invisible) has finally brought Kropotkin into these discussions! His work in this and other areas has been neglected for far too long. Incidentally, Kropotkin developed his ideas on the subject further in his last major work, Ethics: Origins and Development:
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/ethics/toc.html
There are much more reasons why kindness (I differentiate between "morality" and "goodness": Morality means two things: obedience to rules of a society which a society sees as "good" and the own definition based on experience, empathy and morals. Huck violates morality in the first sense while sticking to the other meaning) has evolutionary benefits.
From the viewpoint of the fitness function of an individuum, homo sapiens is lousy: Alone and naked we are relatively slow and weak, suspectible to harsh climate.
Neanderthals and apes were/are much stronger and durable. As any individuum which is weak on its own, the obvious solution is to group together. Benefits:
- Together people are a much formidable force which is the basis for armies, unions etc. Any lone wolf or weak group which is threatened by larger forces is likely to be defeated. If people are under pressure (dictatorship, roaming marauders and criminals), the natural tendency is to group together (vigilantes, resistance fighters)
- A group can develop and build solutions which an
eremit cannot solve (or even if, only under much
worse conditions). The advanced economy, acriculture,
weaponry and scientific solutions need thousands of
highly specialized workers working in coordination.
- A group can help you in harsh times (sickness or
invalidity) and fulfill your social desires (love,
respect, friendship).
So any trait which will keep the group together will give an evolutionary advantage. Kindness is good because it will
give the receiver the impression that help from you will be
given with much higher probability. It is even better when you receive help if the giver cannot know if you can give him a benefit in return. It will likely convince you that the giver will help you in unfortunate circumstances and not only as long as you seem valuable.
But even the biggest kindness will ultimately fail if you constantly violate the rules of society without fulfilling the expectancies of your peers. See Jesus as example.
Strongly recommending James Miles' Born Cannibal. His thesis is that kin selection, and indeed the range of natural selection in general, is not sufficient to explain human kindness.
And he doesn't resort to supernaturalism either. It's a very interesting read.
In the preface to my now lent out paperback version, a black literature professor discusses the issue of the use of the "N" word in the book. He explains why it has been so difficult, especially in the integrated classrooms, for black students to deal with it. It has to do with the exposure they had to the word in the modern context; they have said that they felt singled out when they read it. He said that at first he was opposed to featuring the book in literature classes because of this aspect. After working on the issue some more he decided that the use of the word was a good opening for discussing the cultural history of racism.
He also explains that by using the word in dialogue and not in prose, Clemens is not endorsing the use of the word.
Does he mention reciprocal altruism? Vampire bats?
Also, this sort of thing is exactly why so many religious groups emphasize obedience above all else -- because far too often, the laws set up for the group stand to the benefit of, not the group as a whole, but specifically the leadership. Any individual sense of morality is a direct threat to the leaders' control, and so it must be stamped out.
One interesting angle to religious vs non-religious morality, is that religious morality always seems to involve some reward or punishment. With religion, your primary motivation for doing "good deeds" is to obtain a reward for yourself (go to heaven) or avoid God's wrath. Religious morality is therefore actually quite selfish in origin. I doubt there would be many Christians, if Christianity didn't promise immortality in heaven. When non-believers do good deeds, their motives are likely to be more genuinely altruistic and empathetic.
And of course, morality is all about humans, and is therefore not absolute. If there were no people on this planet, there would no good and evil here.
I'm always amazed at the universal appeal of Mark Twain. To me, he speaks so directly to the conflicted and schizophrenic nature of being American, that I don't understand what non-Americans read in him. Perhaps I underestimate the conflicted and schizophrenic nature of being Australian. :-)
I'm not complaining, mind you. Just marveling. Twain is awfully good, isn't he?
Re. human morality: Our ancestors were social animals long before they became rational animals. I sometimes suspect that morality is a post facto rationale for things we already do (albeit imperfectly).
We are fed American culture from our birth, so we appreciate Twain as a guide to what it is we are being fed. But Australians have their own racist history and subsequent schizophrenia.
I think stated morality is post hoc. I think that the underlying moral tendencies are not. Stated morality is a codification and ritualisation of underlying moral nature.
John, could you recommend any books that cover this topic (I've got Peter Singer's practical ethics book) and also the about the philosophy of the mind we were discussing recently? Would you recommend Daniel Dennet's consciousness explained? I feel woefully ignorant in a lot of the philosophicial topics.
As it happens, I can, because I reviewed one not long ago, and it's even by a frequent commenter on this blog:
Levy, Neil. 2004. What makes us moral? Crossing the boundaries of biology. Oxford, UK: Oneworld Publications.
It's a very good introduction, although I think he got a couple of things slightly (not importantly) wrong (but I forget what they are, so don't ask).
heh! you forgot to mention the puch line...
jim's owner had freed him by this time.
Twain is astounding. Have you read his essay on James Fenimore Cooper?
@HM:
Being non-american (German), I think Twains appeal lies in the fact that he is a keen observer of humans and a natural narrator. The people he included are not padding with exchangeable characterists to tell a preconceived story. The people *he* draws are people with all their blessings AND sins. Combined with his sharp humor Twain is unbearable
for people with strict moral codes which take themselves very seriously.
He uses the "N"-word because the people used it; he describes the situation as it is, not how it should be.
But still...
John, I am astounded that you read it to your seven-old year daughter. I read the (censored) version during my teens (fourteen years). Reading the Wordsworth complete version some time ago the tale of Huck when his father tried to kill him during his alcoholic delirium and the shooting of the young son during the family vendetta gave me goosebumps even as an adult. How did you deal with that ?
Consider what children see on TV these days. The attempted murder of Huck by his Pa, and the death of the son are no worse than that, albeit more realistically drawn.
Like the grandfather in The Princess Bride - another favourite book - I reassured her.
John Wilkins wrote:
That's precisely my position, that religious morals are really just a mirror of the underlying moral makeup of a society at any given time, and that those morals are as often as not greatly dependent upon the social, economic and political structure on which they are built.
One only has to look at the Non-comformists in England, whose morality is the real inspiration of what we see in America. Fundamentally, they were the first generations of what became the Middle Class in England, and their morality very much encapsulated a rather specific view of a thrifty, productive workforce. The divinely-inspired morality of the Puritan was simply away of getting God to agree with their particular theories on a well-running society.
The same can be said of the Abolitionists in the United States. While there were many devoutly religious men and women who believed it was God's will that slavery be ended, underneath it all was the serious division between the industrialized and mercantilistic Yankee economy and the agrarian economy of the South, and the ultimate requirement by the former that the latter pull itself up by its boots and enter the modern age (slavery itself was the root of the problem, but not on grounds of liberty, but rather on the grounds that it was an archaic and inefficient economic model).
I think most social species show some degree of altruism. I think it's pretty much an underlying requirement of being a social species. Humans certainly exhibit more charity than other social animals, but then again I wonder if its because of the long phase of being wide-ranging hunter-gatherers, that the division into relatively small and at times geographically widespread kin groups selected for this.
> Consider what children see on TV these days.
Films with a rating of over 12 years will be shown here after 22:00, films with no rating only after 23:00 Uhr. The
ratings of "War of Worlds" (> 6 years rating) and "Jurassic Park" (> 12 years rating) caused a storm of enragement.
But that does not mean that our breath is clean, only that we normally start to view/read it later. I and most of my peers started to look action/horror movies after 12 years, peaking with 14-16 years. TV consumption of children (3-13) lies at 93 minutes (ranging from nil to 3-4 hours). So my experience may difer from yours, violence is here still detested widespread. I didn't read The Princess Pride, I saw only the congenial film of Rob Reiner and I can praise it too.
Oh, and if someone here knows German, take a delightful look into Twains "The awful German language"...:-D
I don't know, I'm not so sure that all humans have a hardcoded underlying moral nature. Some of them may be more predisposed in some ways than others, and intelligence would complicate those predispositions. In some animals (for example foxes), it's fairly easy to see dramatic changes in social behaviour with minimal selective breeding.
I'm not familiar with all the details of Hausers work. Are there consistent responses to his tests across all social groups, cultures, populations, and races? The tests might be more significant if done with younger people, before learned behaviour overwhelms any innate predispositions.
Oh, and if someone here knows German, take a delightful look into Twains "The awful German language"...:-D
I've read that - I thought it was very funny. I showed it to my religious relatves (who are German) and they thought Twain vas "schtupit". Never really understood most German humor (although I love Baron Munchausen).
The fox case in fact shows that behaviour is hard coded - they selected for behavioural traits that were more human friendly, and overall the morphology and behaviour followed.
Of course there had to be some genetic variance for that to work, but that is in existence in most species (including humans). And of course environment plays a role - without the right conditions, behavioural traits are not going to be expressed. [Consider an extreme case - no behavioural trait will survive hard vacuum :-)]
It's not at all clear that modern society is psychologically stable, either. Especially given what's required for humans to treat nation-states as extended kin groups.
Once you pay the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane. (No offense to the Danish.)
How much of any given moral code is hardcoded? What I think is hardcoded is the building of moral codes. Certain features do come out in virtually all societies, even ones that supposedly aim to be classless, and that's a social hierarchy. As well, while what constitutes a kin group has most assuredly changed a great deal from the first humans, the sorts of behaviors surrounding what it means to be in or out of a kin group has not.
It's still rather easy to manipulate even a "modern" "liberal" society into attacking those perceived to be of a different tribe. Underneath all our supposed charitable democratic liberalism, we're still a tribal ape, and in moments of fear and panic, it's frightening to see how thin the fabric of our post-Enlightenment world can be cast off.
My first evening class of German when I got to university, we were handed a photocopied version of that very piece. If anyone hasn't had the pleasure, it is here in all its brutal, twisted glory.
Probably the best bit;
Incidentally, that course was because I was to head to Germany to study. Had I done well enough to now frequent Scienceblogs.de, I would be posting from Erlangen now, rather than York.
If this review of "Born Cannibal" is accurate, it doesn't seem promising.
Homosexuality is "of course" horrible? I think I would like to read this book just for the camp value.
Paul Schofield wrote:
This comment on your comment is posted from Erlangen.
Re: Miles' Cannibal book. Curiously difficult to find other information about it. Looks like it might be out of print, with only used copies available...? I did find a review with a bit more context at
http://psyc.queensu.ca/faculty/quinsey/bio_revs.htm
(near the bottom of the web page)
Re: primate behaviors in general. It seems to me that attempts to characterize human behaviors by comparison to other primate species has been going on for quite a while now. I find it an unrewarding avenue.
Some say, "Humans are vicious because chimps are vicious."
Others say, "Humans are virtuous because bonobos are virtuous."
I get the impression that, "Humans behave like humans because we evolved to be human" doesn't provoke enough conflict to interest many folks.
Understanding the evolutionary paths various species took seems useful. Trying to draw conclusions based only on their destinations seems unhelpful to me.
And of course environment plays a role - without the right conditions, behavioural traits are not going to be expressed.
You're probably right, of course. It's just that I've met so many truly evil bastards in my life :) Why haven't they disappeared over time if the underlying code doesn't support them?
Underneath all our supposed charitable democratic liberalism, we're still a tribal ape, and in moments of fear and panic, it's frightening to see how thin the fabric of our post-Enlightenment world can be cast off
Yes, that's what I see - well said. The kind of "morals" we fall back on in a holocaust may not be what we perceive as moral today.
From the link (Born Cannibal):
-------------
Kill or be killed. Be strong and merciless, or die. The strongest win, the weaker ones are sorted out, and the only thing that really matters is to make sure the survival of one's genes.
-------------
It's garbage.
I have a very interesting read: "Chimpanzee Politics" from Frans de Waal, 1982. Old, but still excellent.
It describes the politics (yes, politics) of chimpanzees and the fight for power between Mama (female), Yeroen, Luit and Nikkie, the three men.
It is not sufficient for the Alpha to be the strongest and toughest, but he needs support from other apes and he must care for the well-being of the group, else he will be overthrown.
Mama, weaker than any of the males, still dominated them by leading an overwhelming force of females. Because it was Winter and the males were severely wounded, Mama was finally isolated. Yeroen was than Alpha, but Luit, the strongest of the men finally challenged and defeated him. But his reign was only short: Nikkie, the youngest and most ambitious, allied with Yeroen and both of them defeated Luit because Luit had no backing of the females.
Moreover, any really serious conflict ("Kill or be killed") between two members of the same species will probably seriously wound/maim the victor; a Pyrrhic Victory if the fight saps your ability to reign.
> I showed it to my religious relatves (who are German) and
> they thought Twain vas "schtupit".
Nope, cruel perhaps, but cruelly witty and dead on. While some words are not used anymore, all his remarks succintly compress all the complaints frequently heard from other people and they are still true. I have read the Cooper essay in the meantime...Twain don't know the meaning of
mercy (coming back to morals) :-)