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Menneskets (og andre dyrs) adferd bestemmes av den mentale modell man har av verden.
For å overleve må man noen ganger reagere kjapt på uventede hendelser (jfr. forventningsresponshypotesen). Man må raskt avklare om hendelsen utgjør en trussel om å bli drept/spist; eventuelt kan det være en mulighet for mat (energi) eller forplantning.
Menneskets hjerne/sentralnervesystem sorterer effektivt vha. distinkte kategorier (kalt klasser innen objektmodellering) for lynrask klassifisering av forekomster man støter på. Denne evnen er vesentlig for overlevelse, og er nok preget i genene for noen milliarder år siden, dvs. lenge før homo sapiens oppsto…‽
Noen har foreslått at "arvelig" adferd ikke bare styres av gener, men av et "hereditiome" som foruten DNA omfatter bl.a. proteiner, mikrobiomet, kunnskap, og kultur. ("The information continuum model of evolution", Biosystems, 2021-11). Propaganda og annen reklame spiller på dette, og det kan se ut som det fungerer…
Mennesker med felles kategorier kan leve fredelig sammen og samarbeide i samfunn. Hovedreglene for klassifisering kalles moral (rett/galt, godt/dårlig, farlig/harmløs,…)
Vitenskap (og annen kunnskap) bygger i all hovedsak på inndeling i kategorier; Om opphavet til den engelske termen Science:
"…Latin scientia 'knowledge, a knowing; expertness,' from sciens (genitive scientis) 'intelligent, skilled,' present participle of scire 'to know.'
The original notion in the Latin verb probably is 'to separate one thing from another, to distinguish,' or else "to incise.' This is related to scindere 'to cut, divide' (from PIE root *skei- 'to cut, split;' source also of Greek skhizein'"to split, rend, cleave,' Gothic skaidan, Old English sceadan 'to divide, separate').…"
Mennesker med andre kategorier enn majoriteten blir gjerne klassifisert som unormale, og behandlet deretter av andre mennesker ("samfunnet"); alle skal være gjennomsnittsmennesker…‽
Mennesker med kategorier som samsvarer dårlig med verden kan bli forvirret og opptre vilkårlig.
Hvis samfunnets kategorier ("normer") slutter å fungere, bryter samfunnet sammen.
Problemer oppstår ofte fordi verden er ikke binær (enten-eller), men kan ha dualismer og motsetninger som i catuskoti, se f.eks. "Beyond True and False", Aeon, 2014-05-05
Subjektmodellering er et forsøk på å unngå slike problemer…‽
Som tenkende mennesker bør man kunne tolerere og leve med ulikhet, og noen ulikheter kan være likeverdige, men likeverd er ikke det samme som likhet.
Iht. mitt ulikhetspostulat vil verden stanse når alt blir likt…
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I velfungerende samfunn har menneskene harmoniserte mentale modeller med moralske regler i form av felles kategorier og felles regler for klassifisering.
Samfunn bryter sammen når:
reglene fjernes, dvs. alt blir likeverdig
reglene kompliseres/detaljeres slik at de blir mentalt uhåndterbare for de fleste mennesker
Uvitenhet skaper frykt, kunnskap skaper forståelse
Trygge/kunnskapsrike mennesker har en tendens til å søke autonomi, mens redde/uvitende mennesker søker diktatur og regelstyring
min forvandling fra lojal konformist til rabulist kan skyldes at mitt kunnskapsnivå oversteg en terskelverdi slik at jeg gikk fra utrygg til trygg
diktaturer bygger på frykt (fiender/terror)
The ten Aristotelian categories, features and dissimilarities, 37 steps, 2014-08-14
Do I like you? Opinion set in milliseconds, Science Daily, 2016-02-23
2-Minute Neuroscience: Dopamine, YouTube, 2018-04-27
Lisa Feldman Barrett: Your Brain Predicts (Almost) Everything You Do, Mindful, 2021-04-29
Slowly evolving dopaminergic activity modulates the moment-to-moment probability of reward-related self-timed movements, eLife, 2021-12-23
Lisa Feldman Bartlett: The big idea: is it time to stop talking about ‘nature versus nurture’?, the Guardian, 2022-02-28
Brain Chemical Helps Signal to Neurons When to Start a Movement, Quanta Magazine, 2022-03-22
Virtual communication curbs creative idea generation, Nature, 2022-04-27
A Little-Known Structure Tells Our Brains What Matters Now, Mind Matters, 2022-06-01
…
“equals should be treated equally and unequals unequally”
“justice seems to be equality and it is, but not for all, only for equals; justice also seems to be inequality for in fact it is, but not for all, only for unequals”
“To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.”
― Aristotle (384-322BC)
"Nothing is so unequal as equality."
― Pliny the Elder (23-79)
"Good laws have their origins in bad morals."
― Ambrosius Macrobius (395-423)
“By nature all men are equal in liberty, but not in other endowments.”
― Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
“We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.”
― John Locke (1632-1704)
“Those who attempt to level, never equalize.”
― Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
"It is the height of stupidity to claim that men who for a thousand years have had the power to berate us, to fleece us and to oppress us with impunity, will now agree, with good grace, to be our equals."
— Jean-Paul Marat (1743-1793)
"When a man reflects on his physical or moral state, he usually decides that he is ill"
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
"The success of any great moral enterprise does not depend upon numbers."
― William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879)
“Besides love and sympathy, animals exhibit other qualities connected with the social instincts which in us would be called moral.”
― Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
"Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it".
"From the naturalistic point of view, all men are equal. There are only two exceptions to this rule of naturalistic equality: geniuses and idiots".
― Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876)
“It is not what we believe, but why we believe it. Moral responsibility lies in diligently weighing the evidence. We must actively doubt; we have to scrutinize our views, not take them on trust. No virtue attached to blindly accepting orthodoxy, however 'venerable'...”
― Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895)
“Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.”
“Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty.”
—Lord Acton (1834-1902)
“The great cause of inequality in the distribution of wealth is inequality in the ownership of land. The ownership of land is the great fundamental fact which ultimately determines the social, the political, and consequently the intellectual and moral condition of a people.”
"The ideal social state is not that in which each gets an equal amount of wealth, but in which each gets in proportion to his contribution to the general stock."
—Henry George (1839-1897)
“If liberty of speech is to be untrammeled from the grosser forms of constraint, the uniformity of opinion will be secured by a moral terrorism to which the respectability of society will give its thorough approval.”
― Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914)
"The moral sense is a natural faculty in us like the sense of smell or of touch."
― Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921)
“Immorality, no less than morality, has at all times found support in religion.”
“Men are more moral than they think and far more immoral than they can imagine.”
― Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
"Man is a moral being, only because he lives in society. Let all social life disappear and morality will disappear with it."
“When morals are sufficient, laws are unnecessary; when morals are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.”
― Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
“It is always distressing when outraged morality does not possess the strength of arm to administer direct chastisement on the sinner.”
― W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)
“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
― G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)
"With morality we correct the mistakes of our instincts, and with love we correct the mistakes of our morals."
― José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955)
"The idea of social justice is that the state should treat different people unequally in order to make them equal."
“To act on behalf of a group seems to free people of many of the moral restraints which control their behaviour as individuals within the group.”
― Friedrich August von Hayek (1899-1992)
"Science is the search for truth, that is the effort to understand the world: it involves the rejection of bias, of dogma, of revelation, but not the rejection of morality."
― Linus Pauling (1901-1994)
“While differing widely in the various little bits we know, in our infinite ignorance we are all equal.”
― Karl Popper (1902-1994)
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
— George Orwell (1903-1950)
"No morality can be founded on authority, even if the authority were divine."
"The only possible basis for a sound morality is mutual tolerance and respect: tolerance of one another’s customs and opinions; respect for one another’s rights and feelings; awareness of one another’s needs."
― Alfred Jules Ayer (1910-1989)
“One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion. So now people assume that religion and morality have a necessary connection. But the basis of morality is really very simple and doesn't require religion at all.”
― Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008)
“The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities.”
― Anthony Burgess (1917-1993)
“Equal opportunity means everyone will have a fair chance at being incompetent.”
“Aristotle's axiom: The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.”
― Laurence J. Peter (1919-1990)
“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.”
― Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)
"The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General."
— Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
“When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses.”
― Shirley Chisholm (1924-2005)
“I think there are two ways in which people are controlled. First of all frighten people and secondly, demoralise them.”
—Tony Benn (1925-2014)
“we are all murderers and prostitutes – no matter to what culture, society, class, nation one belongs, no matter how normal, moral, or mature, one takes oneself to be.”
—R. D. Laing (1927-1989)
"Every government, left or right, always engages in moral crusades. What else are they supposed to do? Especially when they make war; any war has to be a moral crusade."
— Richard Rorty (1931-2007)
“Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.”
― Stanley Milgram (1933-1984)
“Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as though the fate of the world depended on our side winning each battle. It blinds us to the fact that each team is composed of good people who have something important to say.”
“People bind themselves into political teams that share moral narratives. Once they accept a particular narrative, they become blind to alternative moral worlds.”
― Jonathan Haidt
"States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions."
—Noam Chomsky
“At the foundation of moral thinking lie beliefs in statements the truth of which no further reason can be given.”
― Alasdair MacIntyre