I mean… he isn’t wrong. Goals / objectives are not something rational. Rationality is just maths and logic. A computer does not have an objective (not even the objective of preserving itself), unless you program it into it.
It’s perfectly possible that at some point in our evolutionary past there were creatures that didn’t really care about looking for food to stay alive, the only reason we do care is because we are descendants of the very few weird mutants who had the urge to seek food… most of the ones who didn’t seek it are not here anymore. To think that it’s somehow a miracle that we exist, and that there must be something special/supernatural about us, is a survivor bias fallacy…
We have objectives programmed into us through our evolutionary development. We define things as “good” or “bad” based on our instincts (our… “heart”), only because they happen to have been selected through evolution. They aren’t really based on rationality (although reason can be used as a tool to try and predict if the action is really consistent with achieving the goals).
So any response that’s in line with our animal instincts that we’ve developed across our evolution is as good of an answer as to what our motivations are.
In moral philosophy these are called “evolutionary debunking arguments”. (Wikipedia)
There are some really good replies to why we shouldnt conclude ethics is moot or something because of evolution. Mentioning this so anyone curious can read about it.
I mean… he isn’t wrong. Goals / objectives are not something rational. Rationality is just maths and logic. A computer does not have an objective (not even the objective of preserving itself), unless you program it into it.
It’s perfectly possible that at some point in our evolutionary past there were creatures that didn’t really care about looking for food to stay alive, the only reason we do care is because we are descendants of the very few weird mutants who had the urge to seek food… most of the ones who didn’t seek it are not here anymore. To think that it’s somehow a miracle that we exist, and that there must be something special/supernatural about us, is a survivor bias fallacy…
We have objectives programmed into us through our evolutionary development. We define things as “good” or “bad” based on our instincts (our… “heart”), only because they happen to have been selected through evolution. They aren’t really based on rationality (although reason can be used as a tool to try and predict if the action is really consistent with achieving the goals).
So any response that’s in line with our animal instincts that we’ve developed across our evolution is as good of an answer as to what our motivations are.
In moral philosophy these are called “evolutionary debunking arguments”. (Wikipedia)
There are some really good replies to why we shouldnt conclude ethics is moot or something because of evolution. Mentioning this so anyone curious can read about it.