tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8147530857022746677.post4986168575880943519..comments2023-07-22T06:32:05.039-07:00Comments on Large Group Dynamics in Quasi-Sacred Organizations: Playing Along With Sam Harrischris goblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12747964476242223294noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8147530857022746677.post-21610772736448479582018-01-15T08:20:32.226-08:002018-01-15T08:20:32.226-08:00Sounds like Dennis Prager and Michael Sheerer in t...Sounds like Dennis Prager and Michael Sheerer in their Rubin Report debate hit on similar ground to my position on religion's role as a societal coherer often maintaining "good-enough" rates of moral change (depending upon the religious tradition of course). Shermer addresses this question again at 35:58 in his next Rubin Report<br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k54jvUeRPao<br /><br />While I haven't listened to Prager at all (just never found his stuff very interesting nor challenging), it sounds like I differ from him in that I don't see a need for supernaturalism (or supernatural agents) as a focal point for moral coherence and Big Brother "enforced" unifying morality. I think atheism works fine here. In practice you'll usually still get a de facto Big Brother (maybe something akin to human rights), but this agent can be very weakly embodied. I'd suggest it probably could be something as simple as a stable nexus of ideas which can be interpretable as a moral system. I think that is how List & Pettit imagine their group agents. In practice though, I suspect due to human nature, over time, such weakly embodied or idea-only moral agents get embodied more and more. I suspect the reason for this is how we naturally gravitate toward certain levels of quasi-factuality. But, unlike many I'm not so sure these Darwinian wells / modules are as independent as many think. I tend to take a homeostatic view and feel that if we're low on one module, say degree of big brother embodiment, it can be compensated by increases in other modules, say ritual or seld-sacrficial signalling.chris goblehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12747964476242223294noreply@blogger.com