Peterson often points out that if the “postmodernists” are correct then it’s just a free-for-all for power. This will end in the gulag for the concentration camp. The problem is that we don’t have the ethical foundations to say why that is wrong anymore...
-
-
The science he talks about undermines this. The closer we look at rats or lobsters and see the relation to us the most we can say is that aspects of their nature contain moral impulses, e.g. strong rats let weak rats win when they play 30% of the time (Peterson’s example).
Show this thread -
He takes this as emergent moral behaviour. This is similar to C. Hitchens saying that the reasons we are good is just because “we evolved this way”. The problem is that nature produces quite diverse behaviour and it’s not clear in tech society...
Show this thread -
...diverged from nature what is good or not (should we be more like lobsters in the sea or in the restaurant tank?). And these “moral” instincts in animals are jut part of a bundle of instincts. It’s hard to see how we get from there to the concept of “ideas” being paramount.
Show this thread -
The instinctive desire to protect your kind is as primal and as moral. Anyway, Peterson—like Hitchens—seems content to think that evolution has favour liberal moral instincts in humans as normal. Maybe so, but I think this is unlikely.
Show this thread -
And it’s no good finger wagging and saying “bad things will happen” if you do “X” if can’t very clearly dilenate why certain things are bad. What evolution tells us is too ambiguous and general to draw these conclusions.
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.