[lit-ideas] Re: Cortes and Justice in New Spain
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 23 May 2014 19:08:12 +0100 (BST)
>At location, 518, Wade writes, “Darwin wrote that “To do good unto others— to
>do unto others as ye would they
should do unto you— is the foundation-stone of morality.” A man who
sacrificed his life following this principle would be widely admired and
inspire valor in other members of his tribe. “He might thus do far more good to
his tribe than by begetting offspring with a tendency toinherit his own high
character,” Darwin wrote. The second part of Darwin’s
answer raised an issue now known as group selection, the idea that genes can
become more common if they confer a benefit on groups of people
rather than just individuals.>
Darwin modified his Origin between the first and last edition: his
modifications included concessions to opponents that turned original theory
into something much more watered-down and even Lamarckist, and in the light of
modern understanding the original theory without these concessions is better -
so the best edition of Origin not the last but the first (or second).
The theory of "group selection" as put above is, despite the fact Darwin puts
it, an anti-Darwinian theory - it does not fit with Darwinism where this means
"The New Synthesis" of Darwin plus genetics, or neo-Darwinism. This is an area
we can explore, and which Darwinists have explored: but we need to reject the
idea that behaviour that removes an organism from the gene-pool will be
'selected for' because it benefits the remaining group - this simply does not
work as a theory, because nothing can be 'selected for' via its removal from
the gene-pool.
Dnl
ldn
Ldn
On Friday, 23 May 2014, 17:44, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Cortes and Justice in New Spain
Nicholas Wade, inThe Faith Instinct, How Religion evolved and why it Endures,
in the early partarguesthat certain species of primates (perhaps all of them)
had a sense of justice and not just this sense but many others which those who
argued (and still argue) that we inherited nothing of this nature from our more
primitive ancestors.At location, 518, Wade writes, “Darwin wrote that “To do
good unto others— to do unto others as ye would they should do unto you— is the
foundation-stone of morality.” A man who sacrificed his life following this
principle would be widely admired and inspire valor in other members of his
tribe. “He might thus do far more good to his tribe than by begetting offspring
with a tendency toinherit his own high character,” Darwin wrote. The second
part of Darwin’s answer raised an issue now known as group selection, the idea
that genes can become more common if they confer a benefit on groups of people
rather than
just individuals. Darwin did not know of the existence of genes, so could not
have formulated the problem to himselfin those specific terms. Nonetheless, he
described a process which, if it occurs, shows immediately how the genes
underlying morality and other aspects of human sociality could have become
common.
“But Darwin’s insight was dismissed for more than a century because of several
intellectual blinders that have begun to fall only in recent years.
“First, people did not want to abandon the idea that morality is the bright
line that separates people from animals . Darwin’s idea that there was a
continuum of the social instincts from social animals to man cut right through
that line. Evenbiologists didn’t like the idea that morality had been shaped by
natural selection. If morality had a genetic basis, it must have arisen as an
unintended by-product of some other process, they argued. “I account for
morality as an accidental capability produced, in its boundless stupidity, by a
biological process that is normally opposed to the expression of such a
capability,” wrote George Williams, a leading evolutionary biologist, in 1988.
24 Second, the idea that natural selection works at the level of groups has
been rejected by most evolutionary biologists , largely under the influence of
George Williams.. . .” [Wade, Nicholas (2009-10-27). The Faith Instinct: How
Religion Evolved and Why It
Endures (Kindle Locations 523-538). Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition.]
“Darwin’s thesis about the evolution of moralityraises a seriously disturbing
possibility. He is saying that morality, viewed by some as man’s noblest
achievement, arose from warfare, the least noble, and that the brisker the pace
of warfare the more rapidly would morality have blossomed. This suggests that
people were highly aggressive in the distant past, an implication that has
raised a third mental block. Many social scientists are reluctant to believe
that people were more violent in the past than they are today. Archaeologists,
seeking to avoid glorification of war, have contrasted the carnage of modern
wars to the peaceable behavior of human foragers before agriculture and the
birth of cities. Only recently has a careful survey shown how constant and
merciless was the warfare between pre-state societies, much of it aimed at
annihilating the opponent.
“A fourth obstacle to understanding the evolutionary nature of morality has
been the insistence by researchers who study animalbehavior that it was
fallacious to attribute complex emotions to them, especially positive ones. The
primatologist Frans de Waal reports that in his studies of peacemaking among
chimpanzees he was instructed to use dehumanized language. A reconciliation,
sealed with a kiss, had to be described as a “post-conflict interaction
involving mouth-to-mouth contact.” 27 Given the evolutionary closeness of
humans and chimpanzees, de Waal considered that the two species were likely to
have similar emotions. Excessive fear of anthropomorphism had long stifled
research on animal emotions, in his view. It also prevented biologists from
acknowledging the continuum of social instincts that Darwin recognized between
social animals and people.
“After decades of neglect because of these various intellectual road-blocks,
the evolutionary origin of morality has been slowly resurrected as a fit
subject of research.. . .”[WadeKindle Locations 541-556]
So when Cortes treated the Amerindians he conquered with fairness, even to the
point of prohibitingtheabusive acts of Motecusuma’s tax gatherers, they
responded to him. He made converts amongst them as much by his acts of justice
as he did through the military prowess of hisconquistadores. And when a
political rival sends a superior force to New Spain to put Cortes in jail, Diaz
is at pains to tell us that while Cortes behaved with fairness and justice, the
commander of the opposing Spanish army, Narvaez, was unfair and unjust: Before
the battle against the superior forces of Narvaez, Cortez speaks to his
soldiers, first reminding them of all the hardships they endured and then
saying,“. . .and now, after we have undergone all this, Pamfilo Narvaez comes
tearing along, like a mad dog, to destroy us all; calls us villains and
traitors, and makes disclosures to Motecusuma, not like a prudent general, but
with the spirit of a rebel; he has even
presumed to throw one of the emperor's auditors intochains—of itself a
criminal act; and to sum up, has declared a war of extermination against us,
just as if we had been a troop of Moors." Upon this Cortes launched out in
praise of the courage we had shown in every battle: "Up to this moment," he
continued, "we have fought to defend our lives, but now we shall have to fight
valiantly for our lives and our honour. Our enemies have nothing less in
contemplation than to take us all prisoners, and rob us of our property. No one
could tell whether Narvaez was commissioned by the emperor himself; all this
was merely done at the instigation of our most deadly enemy, the bishop of
Burgos. If we were subdued by Narvaez, which God forbid, all the services we
had rendered to the Almighty and our emperor would be construed into as many
crimes. An investigation would be set on foot against us, and we should be
accused of murder, of rapine, and of having
revolutionised the country, though the real guilty person would be Narvaez;
and the things which would be consideredmeritorious in him would be construed
as criminal in us. As all this must be evident to you," said Cortes, in
conclusion, "and we, as honest cavaliers, are bound to defend the honour of his
imperial majesty, as well as our own, and all our property, I have marched out
from Mexico, reposing my trust in God and your assistance, to bid defiance to
such injustice." [Diaz, Kindle locations6540-6552]
As we might expect Diaz goes on to writethat “Several of our officers and
soldiers then answered, in the name of the rest, that he might rely upon our
determination either to conquer or to die.” [Diaz, Kindle location 6553]
After Cortes and his small force defeated Narvaez and his much larger force,
“Daylight in the meantime had broken forth. . .and thedrummers and pipers of
Narvaez's corps, without instructions from Cortes or fromanyoneelse, suddenly
sounded their instruments, and cried out, "Long live these brave Romans, who,
though small in numbers, have gained the victory over Narvaez and his troops!"
And another merry-making fellow, called Guidela, a negro, cried out at the top
of his voice, "Hark ye! the Romans themselves could never boast of so brilliant
a victory as this!"[Diaz,Kindle Locations 6655-6659]
Lawrence
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