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The Conundrum of Democracy
February 5, 2008 |
Last week, Human Rights Watch released its annual report, World Report 2008, and its assessment of Russia has few surprises. The police crackdown on the Dissenters’ Marches, the detention and brutalization of protesters, the jailing of Kasparov, the legislative restrictions and government closings of NGOs, the application and extension of the Extremist Law, the efforts to paint Anna Politkovskaya’s murder as organized “from abroad,” the police crackdown on gay rights protests, and the mobilization of Nashi to prevent “destabilization” were all listed as examples of Russia’s deteriorating human rights record. Not much new here.
What is new in the HRW report is its emphasis on despots who masquerade as democrats. These are leaders who have mastered the “art of democratic rhetoric” as a means to gain international legitimacy, but rule their states using despotic means. It’s a category which allows HRW to place Putin alongside Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf, and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, and Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi. If you think of democracy as a grand ball, then it’s increasingly becoming a masquerade.
Whether Putin actually belongs in such esteemed company is a matter of debate. I personally think that HRW lessens their important point with such hyperbole. This is not to suggest that Putin is a democrat. It is only to say that he is no Musharraf or Mugabe. The Kremlin, of course, laughed off the report. “We take this with a grain of salt because it proves that the report’s authors don’t know the reality and don’t want to know it,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told reporters in response to Putin being listed alongside such reprehensible Third Worlders.
Still, such couplings shouldn’t take from the report’s larger point that at the moment of democracy’s zenith is at the same time riddled with contradictions. You get this sense in the opening lines of Kenneth Roth’s essay, “Despots Masquerading as Democrats.” “Rarely has democracy been so acclaimed yet so breached, so promoted yet so disrespected, so important yet so disappointing,” he writes. Indeed, democracy has finally become the universally recognized government of choice. Even states that hardly fit its definitional criteria are pressured to give lip service to it through elections, constitutions, and paeans to the virtues of human rights and civil society. It seems every state claims to speak for the “will of people” even when it’s abundantly clear that they don’t.
HRW rightly laments this divide between words and deeds. To its credit, the report doesn’t just place the blame for it on the masqueraders. It also charges the so-called legitimate democratic states with too often treating the democratic mask as the genuine article. Among many states, namely the United States, democracy (and here HRW means these states’ emphasis on elections divorced from human rights) is a tool of foreign policy. “Because of other interests—energy, commerce, counterterrorism—the world’s more established democracies too often find it convenient to appear credulous of these sham democrats.” In the end, democracy has become stripped of its liberatory content. In its place stands “legitimacy” which, as HRW maintains, is easily achieved through “elections.”
While HRW denounces the division between words and deeds, I have to ask at what point does the masquerade become democracy’s true face? It’s interesting that after 200 years, what was once the cry of the dispossessed, the fuel of social revolution, and the hallmark of liberation has become the very means to deny all of these. At the point when democracy has become universal has it begun to serve as its own contradiction (It is also interesting to note that this moment of contradiction has occurred at the same time capitalism has become universal). If this is the case, then perhaps the solution to HRW’s conundrum (democracy in form but not in content) is to abandon it altogether and promote a new ideology of liberation, human rights, and freedom.
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Yet, oddly enough, the Russian population continues to believe that the human rights situation has improved relative to both Yeltsin and Gorbachev.
Kasparov broke the fucking law, you know.
Kasparov broke the fucking law, you know.
He did indeed. The Russian police handled him just like every other “democratic state” handles illegal protests.
I’m sure Wally can give us some examples based on some of his recent readings.
HRW is one of those organizations that wants to make me bang my head against the desk (ouch!). Completely clueless as to culture, context, or background, and utterly naive in their universalism.
Just wait until they write a report on the mighty Empire of Rome!
CM, But isn’t the point of human rights naive universalism? No need to bang your head over it!
And as for the Russian population thinking the human rights situation is getting better, it really depends on which Russians you talk to. One of the nice things about the concept of human rights is that it is distinct from majority-rule. Zero of the Africans or Asians in Russia I have talked to have spun tales of progress from Yeltsin to present. A skewed sample, to be sure. But maybe worth thinking about.
Sean, I see the point of your last paragraph, but I can’t exactly make it out as a critique of HRW, a watchdog group seeking the application of existing international law, as far as I understand the organization. I think your point regarding the need for ideological innovation based on the current global condition stands, but might be more clearly de-coupled from a critique of HRW. In other words, it’s not so much that they have the conundrum, as that you, upon reading their report, have it. And rightfully so, I think. I think EH Carr gave a lecture on this matter in the 1950s with the emergence of “people’s democracies,” but that is only a faded memory of something I read in the library in the early 1990s, so don’t quote me on it.
…[P]erhaps the solution to HRW’s conundrum (democracy in form but not in content) is to abandon it altogether and promote a new ideology of liberation, human rights, and freedom.
Which would contemplate whom or what being in charge of national services and international relations, and selected how?
I think the HRW report illustrates a more fundamental, pre-emptive defense against the usual expected critics.
Whatever people may say about it, you can’t say that HRW didn’t spread the blame wide and far. From my reading, I thought the attack was squared upon those Western nations willing to accept and endorse the democratic performances.
These days you can’t say anything credible about human rights without first and foremost vigorously criticizing the United States (with good reason).
Moral relativism has always been a slippery concept.
Whilst I believe Putin is no Mugabe or Musharraf, Russia is not a democracy, at least not according to ourselves in Ireland and Britain. First of all, nobody here would accept endorsements from an exiting Prime Minister to a pretender to the throne -they’d be laughed out the door. Secondly our governments have very limited powers in appointing people to important jobs - in Russia, Putin appoints the governers (and seemingly the next President as well). Thirdly the 5% barrier in the Duma and 2% barrier for the presidential elections are anti-democracy in the most basic sense. Fourthly, ordinary Russians dont know what democracy under stable conditions is, cos they’ve never had it. So to be honest, I dont think the words ‘Russia’ and ‘Democracy’ should even be in the same scentence. And before anyone says ”Putin is a great strong leader, etc” save it. Putin did a competent job, that is all, a reserve goalkeeper who cam on after the number one couldnt stop fucking up and kept a clean sheet. Proper, transparent, functioning democracies eliminate any need for ’strongman’ leaders.
I see Averko has totally lost it over at SL. The Tool.
Actually, based upon my readings I am completely disillusioned of so-called “freedom of speech” in the US and what rights we really have as citizens to behave as Kasparov and others in Russia do.
We have this illusion we can speak out and protest our government at any time, but we are completely discouraged from doing so in any real way. Those who do protest or dissent are discouraged (minimum) to prosecuted, duped, beaten, or murdered. Americans immediate reaction is that such things don’t happen here - but the record is completely different. The media is often manipulated or used as a tool to get the governments appropriate message out to the masses.
In this case, I see very few differences between the US government and Russian government.
Google “cointelpro” for some immediate background on the FBI program that was in place until 1971. I’m not at all convinced that their tactics have stopped, however.
First of all, nobody here would accept endorsements from an exiting Prime Minister to a pretender to the throne -they’d be laughed out the door.
Actually, I think that sort of thing happens all the time, it is just done through party mechanisms and not so openly as in Russia. Just for someone to make it as a top candidate for a political party in the West, they have to kiss many rings (or asses, if you prefer) to be selected.
You are perhaps right Buster. The conundrum is more mine and less HRW. I think it comes out of a frustration which I see democracy increasingly being talked about how socialists did socialism–in completely abstract and utopian terms. At some point, “really existing socialism” became the socialism’s true face. I’m wondering at what point this will happen to democracy.
As for fh’s question. I honestly don’t have an answer to my satisfaction. But it is clear to me that we must go beyond what we have. A starting point might be to embrace the slogan of the World Social Forum that “Another world is possible.” Despite my disagreements with Hardt and Negri, at least they are brave enough to call for a renewal of liberatory politics. Most leftists are satisfied with being against. They at least urged us to move to articulating what we are for.
“Zero of the Africans or Asians in Russia I have talked to have spun tales of progress from Yeltsin to present.”
Well, I can’t argue with that! Ethnic violence is really getting bad. But that is (I think) one of the issues that cannot be reductionalistically blamed on the government in power, which is what reports like this are usually used for.
@IRUSIHMAN, Russia now has a 7% threshhold for entering the duma, but I don’t see anything undemocratic in it, Germany e.g. has a 5% threshhold, why 5% is more democratic than 7%?
If it comes to the President appointing governors, for a long time France had the same system, though they are now moving to more decentralization, but you cannot say this is “undemocratic”.
I don’t want to say, that Russia has no problems with democracy, its elites are still very heterogene and until a consensus is not reached among them what direction Russia should folllow, Russia won’t become more liberal
Do we really need a new ideology? Perhaps because I have little schooling on this, but I cannot but associate the word “ideology” with dogmatism and rigidity, as well as with the consequent moral blindness and arrogance of too many of those who are committed to implement their respective ideology (the means justify the ends, etc.). In my view one of the strengths of the market economy is that it is not really an ideology. I mean, the market economy has its ideologues, but, in contrast to Marxism, it’s not really an ideology. Because of it, it’s resilient and adaptable to change. And I’m saying that as someone who has no sympathy for the corporate world, consumerism, and all that.
A cruel irony is that when believers in a dogma (whether religious or secular) gain power by revolutionary means their regime is usually bloodier and more repressive than the one they replaced. Despite all its flaws, Imperial Russia under Nikolai II was less oppressive and more tolerant than the Bolshevik regime that replace it. And the same can be said about the regime of the last Shah of Iran, as corrupt and despotic as he was, what followed was worse.
Although I’m against what I call ideology, I’m all for developing a new framework and a new system. As long as this system is aware of our fallibility and stays open to change–sort of like the way science works. For all this it’s crucial to take take into account what we learned (and are still learning) about human nature. It’s plain stupid to ignore what evolutionary biology has learned about us. And no, I’m not talking about Social Darwinism. In the last twenty years or so science has learned plenty of stuff about humans (as individuals and as social beings) that can be used–either for good or for ill. (I’m curious to read what Peter Singer has to say about it in his “A Darwinian Left”–I’ll check it out next time I go to a library.)
One more thing, I know that things such as “human rights” are our own constructs. I do think, however, that it is neither ignorant nor arrogant to try to universalize them. In Iran they still stone to death teen-age girls for out of wedlock sex. Is it arrogant of us to condemn such acts even if those acts are sanctioned by the majority of Iranians? As far as I know, In the US they can still execute mentally retarded people for a murder committed in their teen-age years? Shouldn’t such executions be condemned even by people living outside of the US? The fact that some parties (including governments) may use such condemnations for the sake of propaganda do not make those acts any more acceptable.
mean IRISHMAN of course
CM, I agree that blame can’t be put on the current regime in a reductionist or simplistic manner. That said, one could certainly wish that Putin didn’t play a bait and switch game with his critiques and indulgences with the ugly side of Russian nationalism. One could also hope that Russian agencies would more consistently prosecute hate crimes.
As with the wave of anti-Asian violence in the United States in the 1980s, explanations beginning with cultural difference, individual angry factory workers and rising immigration elide problems rooted in State policies and rhetoric.
Buster (or anybody else), have you seen any studies on the social layers that skinheads and other virulent ethnic Russian nationalists come from? A few years ago it was being asserted in some places that they were by and large children of the former Soviet middle class, i.e., people who would have had good lives under the old system were screwed by the period of the late 80s and 90s, but I don’t know if that was actually ever the case or still is. I’d also be interested in seeing how this compares with other rossiiskii nationalisms (Chechen is the most obvious case, but also Ingush, Tatar, etc., and of course Cossack cuz that’s my thing
).
As I think I’ve said before, I think the current ugly ethno-nationalist situation is the result mostly of the upheavals of the late 80s and 90s, levels of migration that are unprecedented in history, the post-Soviet ideological vacuum, the collapse of any ideological police, and exposure to wider mostly European (”white”) forms of ethni-nationalism.
“One more thing, I know that things such as “human rights” are our own constructs. I do think, however, that it is neither ignorant nor arrogant to try to universalize them. In Iran they still stone to death teen-age girls for out of wedlock sex. Is it arrogant of us to condemn such acts even if those acts are sanctioned by the majority of Iranians?”
You can condemn it all you want. But it won’t make you (or the Iranians) any more right, or any more wrong.
Given that the issue of which of the near-infinite social fictions (whoops, I meant set of moral precepts) that have existed among the human species is correct are undecidable, I am a big believer in mind-one’s-own-businessism. This may prove to have beneficial results when the Militant Vegetarians of Rigel IV arrive with their deathrays and galactic battlecruisers.
Chris, your views are repugnant. Among other things, according to your logic if a society thinks that it’s perfectly all right to enslave or even exterminate a minority in their population, we should simply mind our own business.
A society is composed of individual persons.
I was expecting that response!
Haven’t we been through this before in the religious wars that almost destroyed Europe? What a sovereign state does within its borders is its business, unless it threatens another state.
I’m not sure what “a society is composed of individual persons” means. That it is composed of individual people is a truism. If it is supposed to mean that the rights of the individual override those of the majority, very few people really believe it. And most of them are criminals.
By the way, the last time there was a major confrontation between powers insisting that their way of looking at the world was “right,” it almost ended in the destruction of the human species. Maybe all species.
I think Chris is making a serious point — namely that states should mind their own business about other states. I might be wrong, but I don’t think we as individuals have to mind our own business. (Right?)
As for states — I think there is a good case to be made for nations remaining shtum, particularly given the politically-driven moral relativism we see so often in (for instance) our preaching to Iran vs official blindness towards atrocities in Soudi Arabia.
I’m deeply uncomfortable with this. Personally, I’d really prefer my government to take a principled stance and support universal human rights. But until I can be sure that that will happen — potentially never — I do find myself leaning to Chris’s view. Sometimes anyway.
Right. I mean states as states. Individuals can do whatever the hell they want as private persons.
Actually I am really worried we may be forgetting the lessons of the European religious wars and taking the wrong one from the Cold War… And if you think that Catholics and Protestants in 1650 didn’t regard each others’ beliefs as profoundly evil… we may view it as madness today, but they were quite sure they were dealing with questions of eternal damnation, which is quite a serious matter if you believe in it. Much more serious than anything the Iranians or Saudis are doing.
Chris - Is there room in your view for international treaties that states might sign up to, inviting multilateral enforcement? I mean, a whole host of nightmarish nations have signed lots of such things, but no-one does much to enforce the obligations. Presumably that’s because there’s insufficient authority for the means of enforcement. But, in theory at least, would that be workable?
Fh — sure. If a state enters into an agreement, it enters into an agreement. It may annoy the crap out of me that the EU requires that members share “European values” (ignoring various instances of hypocrisy here), the EU states are certainly able to do that and any member is obligated to oblige. For the EU to try to force some non-EU country into doing the same thing (”these barbarians have the death penalty! we most eradicate this most pernicious evil from the face of the Earth by imposing sanctions in the name of our universal (sic) values!”) is something else entirely.
Sean - How does this new “Reply to” drop-down thing work? It is new, isn’t it, or have I just not noticed it before?
Chris — Ok. How about the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which contains binding and (theoretically) enforceable language signatories have obligated themselves to?
I think you think I have more of a coherent opinion than I actually do! My off-the-cuff answer is “sure”; if you signed the contract, you signed the contract. (A second’s reflexion, though, brings up the possibility of being forced or bullied into signing the contract — is there such a notion as “odious signing”?)
I think that a lot of these attempts to project supposed ethical universals are actually just messianic tribal provincialism, which moreover misreads its own historically-contingent ideas as truths about human nature. For instance, the common trope that “I do not oppose the Iranian people — I oppose their government’s policies!” No, you _DO_ oppose the Iranian people, who support their government’s policies.
Re: “coherent opinion”. Yep, I do understand that. I’m not sure of this stuff at all. It’s one of those situations where someone raises an issue (you) which sort of sounds right and then someone else says it’s repugnant (Kolya), and I feel like I agree with both. Trying to work through that.
And, again, I’m sure you’re right, that many signatories to the covenant signed up because if they didn’t they were told they’d be removed from the Pentagon bidding list, or whatever.
So I’m still groping around I guess for a less “repugnant” answer.
FH, keep in mind that I referred to societies and individuals, I did not refer to states (I’m perfectly aware that states are amoral entities). I was in a hurry and very unclear. What I had in mind is that a society is composed of individuals and that as individuals we share a common bond with other individuals, even if we live in different societies (I’m afraid I’m still unclear). That’s why we, as individuals, have the moral right to campaign or work on behalf of other individuals that are being mistreated in another society–even if our own society has plenty of problems too. I remember a discussion in the Johnson Russia list about ten years ago. In response to something I wrote about Stalin’s deportation of the Chechen population during WWII, someone replied that considering what the US did to their Japanese citizens during WWII, Americans have no moral authority to write about Stalin’s treatment of the Chechens. This sort of reply is common but totally wrong. I wrote as an individual, not as the representative of a state. The fact that states may try to exploit certain issues for their own propagandistic aims does not mean that individuals should not get involve, form organizations and pressure states (including not your own state) to change.
Chris, are you saying that since the majority of Iranians seem to be okay with the stoning to death a teenage girl for having out of wedlock sex it is all right for Iran to do so? If a state, with the support of the majority, decides to exterminate an ethnic minority (say, 10 percent of the population) and this extermination will not affect any other country, the correct response is something like, “well, whether we like it or not, it’s their own business”?
“Yep, I do understand that. I’m not sure of this stuff at all. It’s one of those situations where someone raises an issue (you) which sort of sounds right and then someone else says it’s repugnant (Kolya), and I feel like I agree with both. Trying to work through that.”
It’s easy. Just recognize that ethics are irrational.
I think slavery is evil, but, you know, few people in history would have agreed with me. Similarly, you can give a Peter Singer-esque demonstration in ironclad logic that killing animals for meat is completely inconsistent with our society’s ethical premises, while infanticide is, and the argument will be completely right — but I still eat meat and oppose infanticide.
“Chris, are you saying that since the majority of Iranians seem to be okay with the stoning to death a teenage girl for having out of wedlock sex it is all right for Iran to do so?”
I didn’t say it was right ot wrong. I said that the Iranians should not be forced not to do so by foreign states.
Re: “I do not oppose the Iranian people — I oppose their government’s policies!” Well, yes, but that’s not the same as “I don’t want my country to support the execution of another country’s citizens for converting from Islam to Christianity (or vice versa, or to atheism).” Is it?
Fh: I’m not sure I see your point. Perhaps I am being dim… Or are you drawing a comparison with US support of the Saudis?
Kolya: The fact that states may try to exploit certain issues for their own propagandistic aims does not mean that individuals should not get involve, form organizations and pressure states (including not your own state) to change.
Sure, but Chris is saying I can pressure my state any way I want, but on the matter of persuading OTHER states, my state should shut up. I find myself wobbling all over the place on that.
Chris - No, it’s about a current case in Afghanistan, actually. But even if it were, I don’t know, Switzerland I guess, you seem to be saying my country shouldn’t comment. And it especially shouldn’t comment if it can be suspected of having ulterior motives, as in re the US and Iran.
“But even if it were, I don’t know, Switzerland I guess, you seem to be saying my country shouldn’t comment.”
“Shouldn’t comment” is probably too strong.
Chris, to my:
“Chris, are you saying that since the majority of Iranians seem to be okay with the stoning to death a teenage girl for having out of wedlock sex it is all right for Iran to do so?”
you replied:
“I didn’t say it was right ot wrong. I said that the Iranians should not be forced not to do so by foreign states.”
But before that, to my:
“One more thing, I know that things such as “human rights” are our own constructs. I do think, however, that it is neither ignorant nor arrogant to try to universalize them. In Iran they still stone to death teen-age girls for out of wedlock sex. Is it arrogant of us to condemn such acts even if those acts are sanctioned by the majority of Iranians?”
You replied:
“You can condemn it all you want. But it won’t make you (or the Iranians) any more right, or any more wrong.”
From that, it seems that you are saying that with respect to the stoning of teen-age girls the Iranians are neither more right nor more wrong to those who oppose such stoning.
“From that, it seems that you are saying that with respect to the stoning of teen-age girls the Iranians are neither more right nor more wrong to those who oppose such stoning.”
If the Iranian interpretation of theology is correct, then they are right, and I am wrong. Since it is possible that their interpretaion is correct, it is also perfectly possible that I am wrong. Since I cannot look into the mind of God, I do not know.
“Shouldn’t comment” is probably too strong.
So they can comment as long as they don’t have any means of backing up the comment? New Zealand dissing Iceland is ok, but the US dissing Iran is not?
Ok, cheap shot.
Anyway, I’ve just been reading about the UN Covenant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civil_and_Political_Rights
Worth noting that the US signed it but then declared it “non-self-executing” — which means it needs to be implemented through US legislation. Which has not happened. I did not know that.
I added the “reply to” function and it doesn’t seem to be working correctly. I’ll have to mess with the code. I thought I might make things a bit easier. I’ll see how it goes. If it doesn’t work, I’ll ditch it.
How is it supposed to work? If I reply to one of your posts, we get sidelined into our own little discussion? Or is it just going to stamp “In response to Sean, fh says:”? Former could be confusing. Latter unnecessary.
I thought it would cascade the comments according to the reply. But it doesn’t seem to be doing that. Basically, you pick a comment to reply to in the drop down menu, and then it is supposed to list the comment under the one you are reply to. But it’s not working.
But maybe it’s all unnecessary. I saw it on another site and thought I’d do the same. On second thought it might just make everything a mess.
If I get it working correctly, you guys can let me know how you like it. If you don’t, I’ll get rid of it.
See. It’s not working right. That was supposed to be a reply to fh. I have a feeling that the widget doesn’t work with this template.
Ok. I’ve seen it implemented somewhere too, as sub-threads. Can’t remember where, but not on a WordPress blog I’m pretty sure.
I really like this linear approach. I’d worry about maybe missing a late reply to some Chrisius outrage.
I really like this linear approach. I’d worry about maybe missing a late reply to some Chrisius outrage.
I haven’t considered that. I’ve removed the function. Couldn’t get it to work or find a replacement. Plus I wouldn’t want to promote missing a Chrisius outrage.
Chris, to my:
“From that, it seems that you are saying that with respect to the stoning of teen-age girls the Iranians are neither more right nor more wrong to those who oppose such stoning.”
You wrote:
“If the Iranian interpretation of theology is correct, then they are right, and I am wrong. Since it is possible that their interpretaion is correct, it is also perfectly possible that I am wrong. Since I cannot look into the mind of God, I do not know.”
Chris, your reply was an example of sophistry (in the modern sense of the word).
FH, since states are amoral entities we always have to he skeptical about their actions. Having said that, on balance I’m not against a state responding to pressure from its own citizens by pressuring (and, in extreme cases, even intervening) another state to stop certain abusive and cruel practices. For example, I think it was clearly wrong not to energetically intervene in Rwanda when the Tutsis were being massacred with machetes. Of course there will be plenty of hypocrisy and moral posturing, but that’s not a good reason for not stopping massacres, slavery, and so on. As the saying goes, “hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue.”
As to ethical and moral principles, I would not simply discount them as culture bound human constructs. Despite the fact that many religious folk are sworn enemies of evolution, moral principles are also a product of evolution and natural selection. Even philosopher Dan Dennett, well known for his atheism as well as for his writings about natural selection, posits that it’s quite likely that there is something universal in the principles of morality. In his view, if there are advanced forms of life in other planets of the universe, quite likely they evolved similar sets of moral principles. Whether he’s right or wrong, his reasoning is rigorous and has nothing in common with New Age speculation.
I tried installing a similar threaded comments thing over at SL, but the tinkering with the code was beyond me as well.
There’s a part of me that would quite like a comments system similar to that over at reddit.com, where you can up and down vote comments - now that would be fun!
Chris, I also disagree with this statement of yours:
“the common trope that “I do not oppose the Iranian people — I oppose their government’s policies!” No, you _DO_ oppose the Iranian people, who support their government’s policies.”
I am against plenty of things the US government does, and yet I’m not anti-American. Am I anti-French because I strongly disagree with this or that stance of the French government? No, I’m not anti-French. An anti-Putin Russian is not anti-Russian, even if most Russians support Putin. A government, even a government supported by the majority, should not be equated with its people.
Granted, someone who opposes the government of country X may well be against the people of country X itself (La Russophobe, anyone?), but it’s wrong to assume that by necessity one follows the other.
—–
On a different note, Sean, I think your idea was a good one, too bad the threaded discussion feature is such a pain to implement. I wish I could help, but I don’t have the know-how.
OOOUUUUT-RAAAAAGE!!!!!!
Kolya, I didn’t say you (not “you” you) were against the people, I said you opposed them, as in back when the majority of Americans were pro-war in Iraq, I opposed the majority of Americans. I was not just opposing the US government. I also oppose the majority of Americans in that I don’t believe in the existence of angels.
Okay, clear enough, Chris. My apologies for the misinterpretation.
Yea, I’m always sort of dumb-founded by this statistic (among others).
Kolya – I follow what you’re saying and, as I’ve indicated, am sympathetic in my usual woolly-headed way.
But Chris has raised, in his non-woolly-headed way, a very good issue, and I find it troubling up, down and sideways. What I believe he argues is that we shouldn’t be so sure that what we regard today as a universal human right actually is one or will be regarded as such everywhere and for all time.
Instinctively, I agree with you that there are at least some types of behaviour which really have to be regarded as fundamentally wrong. However short or long the list of universally proscribed behaviour might be, there certainly ought to be one. It would be contemptible to let some nation/society/community/whatever off the hook for [fill in the blank] because it’s “none of our business.”
But now that I’ve reached that point, the next questions are, how to intervene and what sanctions are possible? Selective condemnation (and non-condemnation) of the rights records of various states, for political purposes, makes me sceptical about the role of national governments. Currently there are reports that the US has decided to cut Uzbekistan some slack on human rights to try to entice the lovely Mr. Karimov away from Russia’s side on gas exports. The moral relativism – okay, call it pragmatism if you must — involved is breath-taking.
On the other hand, the legalistic approach, which Europeans espouse, doesn’t seem to work.
“But Chris has raised, in his non-woolly-headed way, a very good issue, and I find it troubling up, down and sideways. What I believe he argues is that we shouldn’t be so sure that what we regard today as a universal human right actually is one or will be regarded as such everywhere and for all time. ”
That is pretty much what I am arguing. “We” (by which I mean our society, or really most any society) reify our values and think that everyone believes in them — even though one can go through the just about the entire literary canon from Gilgamesh to Rabelais and find nary a mention of these supposedly universal values. There is a reason beyond mere dumbing-down that Hollywood adaptations of such things as the Iliad butcher the content — they represent products of alien societies with worldviews that conflict with our own.
FH, I don’t know about you writing woolly-headed comments. I wish I could convey my thoughts as as clearly as you.
You write:
“What I believe he argues is that we shouldn’t be so sure that what we regard today as a universal human right actually is one or will be regarded as such everywhere and for all time.”
Well, there is no doubt that “universal human rights” is a fairly recent human construct and our understanding of it may well change in the future. There is a lot of evidence, however, that indicates that the core moral principles from which those universal rights were derived are based on our biology. In other words, they are a result of our evolutionary history as a species. I’m all for being skeptical, but this does not mean that we should engage in a sort of moral relativism that says, “well, I’m against killing a person solely because they belong to a certain ethnic group, but you are of a different culture and you may believe otherwise and that’s all right, since there is no such thing as a universal right or wrong.”
And here I’m talking about obvious easy cases. Can we really state in good faith that it’s arrogant and rather provincial for us to state that it is wrong and reprehensible to stone to death a teenager because she had consensual sex? Or that is wrong to kill a person because she is a member of a particular ethnic group?
“But now that I’ve reached that point, the next questions are, how to intervene and what sanctions are possible? Selective condemnation (and non-condemnation) of the rights records of various states, for political purposes, makes me sceptical about the role of national governments.”
We should definitely be skeptical and vigilant, but that does not mean that it is wrong to try to find ways to influence a state or to influence a state (or states) to apply pressure to another state. It’s a messy world and hypocrisy abounds, but that’s no reason for saying, “let’s mind our own business.”
Let’s say that I’m passing a playground and see several groups of thugs and each of them is abusing a small child. I know I can stop one of those groups, but don’t have the power to stop all of them. Should I stop that one group or should I say, “well, since I cannot stop all of them, it would be unfair of me to single out only one group of thugs.”? Or if I see a cop, should I call the cop or should I say, “well, this cop may well be a wife beater and a child abuser, what right does he have to stop those thugs?”
Kolya – I suspect Chris would agree that you’d have an obligation to intervene and/or find help with the playground situation you describe. But what about official actions or policies of foreign governments which conflict with our values. The capital punishment thing is a good example. I’m totally opposed and, like many in Europe, regard it as morally repugnant. Of course we have the right to say so. We also have the right to act on our beliefs if we wish, and to call for stronger representation on the subject by our governments. And the US has the right to ignore us. Just as Uzbekistan has ignored those who have condemned boiling people alive. Obviously I don’t regard these as morally equivalent in any way. But, in my worldview, they are still both wrong.
I don’t know about core moral principles being derived from our biology. I’m sceptical. An awful lot of people cheerfully kill an even larger number of other people and seem to sleep pretty well at night. I suppose it is possible that empathy is, for most people, part of our evolved survival toolkit and that drives some of our moral impulses.
But it doesn’t take much to pre-empt such impulses. Governments do it all the time, legitimately or otherwise, by supplying grounds like patriotism, law and order, duty, defence of the realm, and so forth.
As you say, it’s a messy world and maybe all we can hope for is the ability to influence one another, either as individuals or as nations, in more positive directions. And – just to defend Chris again, though he sure doesn’t need my help on any of this – he has said he’s not against nations commenting on other nations’ behaviour.
Sorry. Can I backtrack a bit? Chris said: “What a sovereign state does within its borders is its business, unless it threatens another state.” I feel I’ve probably misrepresented myself as agreeing with that particular point. I don’t. Just to make that clear. Woolly-headedness again. I’ll move on now.
Hi, FH. I’m also opposed to capital punishment (it runs in the family, my parents and grandparents were against it too), but I purposefully chose “easy cases” (stoning, killing people on the basis of their ethnicity) because they are unambiguous cases in which inaction is truly indefensible, even if it means to pressure a nation (or nations) to pressure another nation or even (in extreme cases, such as Rwanda) for a nation (or nations) to intervene directly. Once again, I’m limiting myself to “easy cases”.
There are very good arguments, primarily scientific but also philosophical, about the biological basis of our core moral principles–natural selection plays a crucial role. This, of course, does not mean that we are automatons. But there are indeed strong evolutionary reasons for these principles to be formed. There is actually a lot of interesting literature about it. I’m sorry, but I don’t have the time (or space) to go deeper than that. My main point, though, is that we should not dismiss moral principles as simply a cultural-dependent social artifact.
I’m sorry, but I have work to do and stop procrastinating by writing more comments…
I’m sorry, but I have work to do and stop procrastinating by writing more comments…
Very familiar. Me too.
Too bad I got into this a bit late but this gem I just could not have let go. Sorry if anyone had already responded to this:
We have this illusion we can speak out and protest our government at any time, but we are completely discouraged from doing so in any real way.
I have been doing radio since 1995. I have never tried to hide my dislike for the Clinton administration or for the loony lefty government here in Santa Cruz. I have been called names yes but never any pressure. On my memory, there has been only one case when my radio station got pressure from the government. It resulted in a law suit, a settlement and a resignation of our local sheriff.
I have routinely listened to both sides of talk radio from Savage and Limbaugh to Franken and Rhodes. Anyone there can say whatever they care to (less the seven deadly words). When CBS got their hands on the Pearl execution tapes, White House called them several times asking not to air the tape. They declined. What pressure, what discouragement?
There is a pirate radio station in Santa Cruz. It has been there for 10 years. The whole City Council has been there on interviews on numerous occasions. I have been invited but declined out of principle. Eventually, there appeared another, legal, radio station on the same frequency. US Marshal’s office sent people to confiscate pirate equipment (after 10 years of cease and deceased letters). The asked city police for support. Well, not only police did not show up, a crowd of supporters did. While Marshals were loading equipment, the crowd slashed their tires.
Haven’t we been through this before in the religious wars that almost destroyed Europe? What a sovereign state does within its borders is its business, unless it threatens another state.
Chris, it has been quite a while sine 1648. Internally, relationships between individuals and states they live under had undergone quite a change since then. But somehow many seem to cling to this onld dogma so convenient for autocrats. Times are a’changing and Kosovo and Iraq are clear signs of changing times - the old system when autocrats can do what they please with their subjects needs to go.
Well, there is no doubt that “universal human rights” is a fairly recent human construct and our understanding of it may well change in the future.
The only new thing here is universal. Human rights together with concept of popular governance have been around for quite a while. Initially in a very limited scale. And all the years between Gilgamesh to Rabelais and beyond they have been expanding along expansion in property rights.
There is a fundamental reason the capitalist West pushes human rights - capitalism wants expansion of property rights and it needs more markets and more labour. There is nothing sinister, hypocritical or even suspicious about any of it.
Getting back to the HRW’s report, I’d say finally and welcome aboard. Some of us have been saying for years that elections do not mean democracy. Bhutto (currently promoted as some late Thomas Jefferson in a hijab) did not win democratic elections - there has never been such a thing in Pakistan. She was not a leader of a party in the same sense we use the word - it was an still is her family’s clan.
Again, expansion of rights seem to all go parallel with expansion of wealth that trickles down and creates more property owners.
Sure, Chris, many Iranian men do not want to see Iranian women liberated, but that was true of the US during and before the suffrage movement. Do you alos think they were in the right? That is quite a conservative position to hold:-)
The best and I think the most clear cut example of intervention with a good cause was British anti-slavery crusade on the high seas, and especially around Zanzibar and the African Horn. By your logic, however, pressure on Muslim states and the Ottoman empire was not justified.
Well, what a parallel… an acquaintance of mine once called USSR an Ottoman Empire with nukes. Will Putin be a Russian Ataturk?
Kolya, any attempt to ground human morality (or human behavior in general) in biology is going to run directly into the shoals of the is-ought problem.
Moreover, such attempts will have address human behavior *as a class* — normative notions that exist not just in this or that culture but in the entire human species, or in the great majority of it, so that exceptions can be counted as statistical flukes. If one goes this route, one may not like the answer one gets, as the ethical norms held up currently by the dominant parts of Western society are very new. For instance, the belief that women should be subordinate to men has historically been nigh-universal. Still is, globally speaking and even inside the Western countries to a large extent. So, if one finds an origin of this belief in biology, and it is quite likely to have one, does that make it right?
For the matter, the evolutionary advantages of murder, rape and pillage — and their old collective version, “killing the men in the other tribe and taking their women and valuables” — are quite obvious…
CM,
Sorry for the delay in response. On the social composition of Russian skinheads, I’ve never seen anything very compelling, though there are some sketchy observations in V.A. Snirel’man’s pamphlet on skinheads and SMI: http://www.antirasizm.ru/publ_084.doc
I was at a conference a while ago where a researcher on extremism got slapped around (verbally) for failing to take a poll of skinheads since they all seem so open about their beliefs, crimes and identity. I’m not so sure I’d sign up for the duty though. (More Russian-academic-tough-guying at the conference, what a surprise.)
Thanks Buster — interesting. And also thanks for putting that commentary on the Yekaterinbutg came up on your blog.
I wonder if there is any connection between the skinheads and the late-Sovuet lyubery?
“Times are a’changing and Kosovo and Iraq are clear signs of changing times - the old system when autocrats can do what they please with their subjects needs to go.”
Cyrill; the above comment clearly illustrates two things; First that you seem to accept the Main Stream Media echoing of the State department line on foreign affairs. So long as you do that you will not get too much pressure. No waves, no pressure. Second it illustrates quite clearly that 1648 far from being a long time ago, was only yesterday in terms of the evolution of international relations. Your apparent acceptance of the bloody mayhem in Iraq I will pass over but Kosovo is in some ways more serious. Western governments managed to convince public opinion that Serbia should be bombarded for 72 days because the Serbs were committing genocide. The Serbs were determined to maintain their territorial integrity. For a variety of reasons, none of them concerned with human rights, the West did not want this and took the side of the separatists. They convinced public opinion that this was justified by a massive and successful campaign of lies. Clinton’s reference to 100,000 young men having “disappeared” was breathtaking in its brazen dishonesty. The actual number of deaths in Kosovo was according to the United Nations 2,000. Albright’s comment that “Spring has come early” when told of a massacre that never took place but that could be used as an excuse to attack Serbia, was cynical but honest. The West did not develop a new interest in human rights; they seized an opportunity to attack Serbia whilst Russia was too weak to argue. That was the real change. However there has been another change and Russia, whilst it is not as powerful as the USSR, is capable of forcing the acknowledgement of the utter cynicism of Western attitudes which involve a consistent preference for real politik over concern for human rights, accompanied by constant chatter about how much they care about those same human rights. Kosovo was a terrible failure of the media. Worse it was a dress rehearsal for Iraq. The ultimate cynicism was Resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council that affirmed Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo and was agreed unanimously by all parties. The Serbs encouraged by the Russians agreed to withdraw on that condition alone. Ever since the main western powers have made it quite clear they had every intention of ignoring their given word and accept Kosovan independence even for that part of the province inhabited by Serbs. Naturally in the light of this the Albanian Kosovans had no interest in negotiating anything. So what it was all about was not human rights but the balance of power, just like in 1648.
Chris,
With respect to whether morality has an evolutionary basis, all the issues you mention have been addressed (Hume’s “ought/is” issue and so on) by people who are studying this field. Years ago, when I was a biologist, I intended to get a PhD in behavioral ecology (not human behavior, btw), but that was years ago and, unfortunately, I have neither the time nor the competence to write intelligently about it. One of the things to keep in mind, though, is that besides all the interesting philosophizing, it’s a dynamic field with falsifiable empirical studies.
The fact that morality is also a result of natural selection does not mean that (under certain conditions) there is no evolutionary advantage to kill the neighboring males and rape the females. It does mean, however, that core moral principles are deeply rooted in our biology as a social species, and that there is a distinction between those principles and mere social conventions (which are much more malleable and culture bound).
Clinton’s reference to 100,000 young men having “disappeared” was breathtaking in its brazen dishonesty.
Sticking quotation marks around “disappeared” — as if to imply he said 100,000 were dead — is a bit much. Here’s what he said:
“Nine of every 10 Kosovar Albanians now has been driven from their homes; thousands murdered; at least 100,000 missing; many young men led away in front of their families; over 500 cities, towns and villages torched.”(Clinton speech, May 13, 1999)
There were (according to UNHCR) 848,100 refugees. Some of them would have been among the 100,000 missing.
fh I was writing from memory and it seems did not do too badly. Are you suggesting that the propaganda campaign that justified the attack on Serbia was even remotely honest and that the underlying reason had anything to do with human rights?
Speaking of democracy, rule of law and human rights in Russia, what’s going on with Alexanyan? Check this post in the Robert Amsterdam blog:
http://www.robertamsterdam.com/2008/02/alexanyan_is_dying.htm
Is this really true?
This man has not even been convicted of a crime. Moreover, the alleged crime is not violent and he does not present a flight risk.
Robert — I’m afraid I’m not at all competent on the underlying causes, much less the “variety of reasons” you might have in mind for western support for what happened. But I remember the battle of the numbers.
Kolya - The authorities are reportedly now offering to move him to a clinic, though it’s known where yet or when.
Latest: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/02/07/europe/EU-GEN-Russia-Yukos.php
I gather the poor guy insisted that his situation not be made public until December, when he issued a public statement, which Amsterdam carried. There’s a good profile of him in today’s Moscow Times: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2008/02/07/001.html
…it’s NOT known where yet or when.
Obviously.
Anyway, it appears that the prosecutors have been trying to apply maximum leverage to get him to testify against Khodorkovsky. Earlier today I spoke with a supporter who said his lawyer Yelena Lvova was at Matrosskaya Tishina but being prevent from talking to him so she could confirm from him that he was being transferred.
Cyrill; the above comment clearly illustrates two things; First that you seem to accept the Main Stream Media echoing of the State department line on foreign affairs.
Robert, please spare me “MSM” and “acceptance” rhetoric. I’d say all of us here have our own hard thought concepts. This is hardly a place where brainwashed masses come to.
Second it illustrates quite clearly that 1648 far from being a long time ago, was only yesterday in terms of the evolution of international relations.
That might be, but time surely has accelerated. A lot has changed in relationships between individuals and states internally. Especially in countries most of us live in. The Helsinki process was the first serious recognition that outside pressure can be applied to countries based on treatments of its subjects. Naturally, there is not enough resources to apply equal pressure and those that press have to pick and choose, opening themselves to accusations of hypocrisy by the autocrats and supporters of status quo.
The Serbs were determined to maintain their territorial integrity. For a variety of reasons, none of them concerned with human rights, the West did not want this and took the side of the separatists.
Here I guess is the main difference in our views. Ethnic composition of Kosovo has changed since the tragic day of the “Blackbird Field”. Based on some estimates it is now populated by Albanians at around 90%. Hence now is the issue - where does the right of a state to keep territorial integrity end and where does the right of self-determination for an ethnicity dominating a territory begin? You do not seem to think of it as a human right, I do.
Western attitudes which involve a consistent preference for real politik over concern for human rights, accompanied by constant chatter about how much they care about those same human rights. Kosovo was a terrible failure of the media.
Kosovo affair as well as Iraq are hardly examples of realpolitik. Neither case gives any immediate advantages, but both cases serve (most likely unintentionally) as advancing the concept of human rights based intervention instead of simple pressure. Rwanda and Darfur show how far we are yet from getting anywhere near changing the existing Westphalian system although we have quite outgrown it.
In the short term, Iraq and Kosovo create more problems then they solved or intended to solve. Helping to break up Yugoslavia was natural and benefits of it are obvious already. Not so with Kosovo, especially since it creates a precedent hardly convenient for some, like Abkhasia. Realpolitik would be to slow down with Kosovo in order to support Georgia.
The final goal is in breaking up feudal system of sovereignty both legally and mentally. And the real conundrum of democracy is that although capitalist system is clearly the most advantageous to individual wealth, freedom and rights, it has to be advanced by mechanisms that came from the same system capitalism wants to replace.
Ever since the main western powers have made it quite clear they had every intention of ignoring their given word and accept Kosovan independence even for that part of the province inhabited by Serbs. Naturally in the light of this the Albanian Kosovans had no interest in negotiating anything. So what it was all about was not human rights but the balance of power, just like in 1648.
I agree that the process is badly flawed and there must be a give and take from Kosovar Albanians. Unfortunately, the process is being advanced by lefty idealists like Kouchner with the help of quite lefty and idealistic European press.
Kolya - I see now that there is a campaign website up on the Alexanyan situation: http://www.mka-london.co.uk
It is saying that the reports of his transfer out of detention and into a clinic are “unconfirmed.” I know his lawyers are concerned that the authorities’ announcement was simply intended to lower the external pressure — letters to Putin from Members of the European Parliament, pleas from rights groups, etc. — but that now they’ll delay the actual transfer on grounds of supposed uncertainty about which facility to send him to.
Thanks, FH. It’s cruel and disgraceful the way they are treating him.
It’s pretty amazing. Of course we’re not getting the other side of the story. Or, well, I suppose we are, but it sounds so ludicrous that it’s impossible to accept. In any event, it is certainly an example of some of the things we discussed yesterday. And no need to resort to talk of “universal” rights. Russia has fully signed up for ECHR adjudication. It just chose to ignore this ruling until, after earlier non-public iterations, the court lifted confidentiality last week.
Kolya wrote
“It’s cruel and disgraceful the way they are treating him.”
Maybe.
But don’t send money for Vasiliy! :))
I agree with Chris. Every state has a full right to run in the way it finds it right to run things.
But if so - I could decide to bomb another state just because I think it’s not right for my state just to watch what other state is doing as this might end up on my side of the border sooner or later.
So we come to the universal rule - those with air and naval superiority have same rights as other just a little bit superior :))
For example, Switzerland might consider it absolutely wrong what Iranians are doing. But can it do something about it?
Represent, Ivanov, represent.
I was rereading Book I of the Iliad today — my God, that thing is beautiful, even in my halting, pathetic, look-up-every-third-word Greek. The Iliad, in essence, is the story of a plundering warband that almost falls apart because one warlord is upset because another warlord wants the slave-woman he has captured, and the former refuses to share in the ravishment.
Yes, our modern values are universal and eternal!
(Sing to me, o goddess, of the annihilating rage of Achilles, son of Peleios…)
A last comment about morality in this thread. First, people who study this issue from an evolutionary biology perspective are not claiming that there is some sort of cosmic tallying system that keeps track of our moral merits and demerits. Second, although there is plenty of interesting but unsubstantiated speculation about all of this, it is undeniable that in the last twenty years or so there has been significant scientific progress in this field. As in all cutting-edge fields, there is plenty of disagreement among scientists, but there is also a growing foundational knowledge that did not exist a few decades ago. Third, some (but not all) religious figures are deeply disturbed and even hostile to such studies, and the same can be said about some (but not all) of the social scientists who have a more ideology bound perspective.
The cover story of a recent New York Times Magazine is a Steven Pinker article titled, “The Moral Instinct”. As some of you surely know, Steven Pinker is a bona fide scientist as well as a talented popular science writer. Although he does not get much into the evolutionary genesis of morality, it’s an interesting and easy read. Here is the URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13Psychology-t.html
As to speculation, here is part of what Daniel Dennett, a hard-headed philosopher and Darwinist, said during a long interview a few years ago.
/////
Dennett: Could we find the universal principles of good behavior for intelligent beings? I’m agnostic about that. I don’t see why we couldn’t. I don’t see that the parochialism of our concerns would necessarily stand in the way of … we can ask … we can ask the same question about ethics that we ask about arithmetic. If we went to in the search for intelligent life and if we discover another civilization somewhere in the galaxy that was intelligent… What would they share with us? We’d certainly share arithmetic. Maybe not base 10 arithmetic, that’s anybodies guess. It might be base 12 or base 16 or base 8. Who knows? That’s an accident. But it would still be arithmetic. Now, would it share ethical principles with us? I think in some regards yes it would. It is not “might makes right”. And it’s not “this is what our grandfathers did so this is what we’re going to do”. It’s not just historical accident. I think that there could be a truly universal basis for ethics.
Interviewer: …certain kinds of evolution are going to happen upon when they get in the vicinity.
Dennett: That’s what I call a Good Trick with a capital “G” and a capital “T” in “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea.” [Through natural selection] there are these Good Tricks of design which are going to be discovered again and again and again. Arithmetic is one. I think ethics is another.
/////
Anekdote
Два чеха в Праге смотрят выпуск новостей. Репортаж из Ирака, на экране руины и горы трупов.
- Послушайте, пан, как нам сильно повезло!
- В чём? Что мы в НАТО и в Евросоюз вступили?
- Нет. В том, что в 1968 году СССР ещё не был демократическим государством.
Sorry guys but I think some of you would keep the flavor better than me (in translation).
“Daniel Dennett, a hard-headed philosopher”
As a philosopher and Heideggerian by training, I take issue with that!
Seriously — well, more seriously, as it is true that I really don’t like Dennett, at least his ultrasimplistic views on religion, to which I think Eagleton responded very nicely — you simply cannot derive ethical imperatives from biology. At best you can explain _why_ people believe such-and-such to be “good” — but this does not mean that it actually IS good, any more than showing that belief in a deity has evolutionary benefits means that the deity actually exists. This is once again the is/ought problem. As I think I alluded to before without saying as much, most people throughout the history of urban civilization have thought that slavery was perfectly acceptable (the most explicit enunciation of this view being I believe in Aristotle’s Politics in his (in)famous argument for the existence of natural slaves). The biological advantage of making other people work for you is pretty obvious. Does this mean slavery is right?
Yikes! I completely agree with Chris on something. Must have been something I ate.
Kolya, I’ve read the links you’ve posted. All interesting. But I’m not seeing anything demonstrating that morality is inherited. I think it’s possible, as I said a couple of days ago, that certain responses are the result of physical attributes of the brain — presence or absence of empathy was the one I thought of.
But Chris is spot on here. Just because we call the resulting behavior good or moral or ethical (or their opposites) does not mean that is what they actually are. They are simply behaviors which another era or another culture might regard differently.
I don’t think morality is in our genes. The idea that we are all evolving towards greater and greater goodness seems so unlikely as to be almost silly. In a nice way of course.
Maybe, as Dawkins says, it’s in our memes, though I’m inclined to think he has overdone that particular metaphor.
In any event, does it really matter for the purposes of enforcement of universal human rights? Whether one believes in a genetic basis for morality or a learned basis, the easily observable fact is that not everyone shares the same sense of what is right and moral. Which means that we must, in a way, negotiate our way, reconciling our own personal values with those of others, individually or as collectives. We do that all the time. A good thing too, or the guy next door who lets his cat dump in my backyard could be even more annoying than he is.
Chris, plenty of evolutionary biologists (most of them atheists) disagree with Dennett on religion, but religion is not an issue in this thread. Dennett is a philosopher, not a scientist (albeit very well informed with respect to science). I mentioned him partly because he’s writings on natural selection are more accessible to non-biologists.
It seems to me that we are not really addressing each other’s concerns and this brief comment format is unsuitable for a more in depth exploration of the subject. For example, all the issues you raised have been addressed by people studying the evolutionary basis of ethics. Maybe you would still disagree with them, but I do find them persuasive. I have to make it clear, though, that I’m not an expert on the matter and have not studied their equations and analysis (involve