Utility and Suffering in Culture

B.Contestabile admin@socrethics.com First version 2007 Last version 2010

Table of contents

Abstract

1. Introduction

2. The Assessment of Suffering

3. Cultural Utility

4. The Evolution of Suffering

4.1 Suffering as Adaptive Trait

4.2 Suffering as By-product

4.3. The Distribution of Suffering

4.4 The End of Suffering

5. Conclusion

References

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Abstract

Starting point

The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but pitiless indifference (Richard Dawkins)

“Ethical” principles on the sociobiological level serve the biological utility function

Type of Problem

1) Does suffering increase with cultural evolution as well as with biological evolution?

2) To what extent can culture overrule the biological mechanisms?

3) How will suffering end?

The evolution of suffering

1. On the biological level the increase in suffering with evolution is evident and seems to increase the survival value (biological utility). On the cultural level only the quantitative increase in suffering is evident.

2. Although there are many indications, that the degree of suffering increases as well, the system of culture is too complex to make a reliable prediction. The general situation is one of opposing and overlapping trends.

Thesis: The degree of suffering increases as long as the lifetime of the individuals and the complexity of the environment increase.

3. Unpredictability is no argument for optimism.

Thesis: As long as there is a potential for a higher degree of suffering (keyword technology) at least a minority will be affected by an unforeseen development or by hazard.

The end of suffering

Theses:

1. Destruction is more likely than salvation.

2. Suffering will end by the destruction of life by non-human forces.

1. Introduction

Starting point

The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but pitiless indifference (Richard Dawkins, God's Utility Function, Scientific American, November, 1995, p. 85, Wikiquote)

“Ethical” principles on the sociobiological level serve the biological utility function.

Type of Problem

1. Does suffering increase with cultural evolution as well as with biological evolution?

2. To what extent can culture overrule the biological mechanisms?

3. How will suffering end?

2. The Assessment of Suffering

Definition of pain

1. Pain is a synonym for physical suffering. It is defined as an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage (International Association for the Study of Pain )

2. For a neurological definition see [Melzack].

Definition of suffering

1) Suffering or pain in this sense is a basic affective experience of unpleasantness and aversion associated with harm or threat of harm in an individual. It constitutes the negative basis of affective states (emotions, feelings, moods, sentiments). The term suffering includes the term pain (Suffering, Wikipedia).

2) Health care approaches to suffering remain highly problematic, according to Eric Cassell, which is the most often cited author on that subject: "The obligation of physicians to relieve human suffering stretches back to antiquity. Despite this fact, little attention is explicitly given to the problem of suffering in medical education, research or practice." "In fact, the central assumptions on which twentieth-century medicine is founded provide no basis for an understanding of suffering. For pain, difficulty in breathing, or other afflictions of the body, superbly yes; for suffering, no." (About Suffering)

Assessment

1) How is it possible to know, if a creature suffers? No matter how much we know about the brain of an animal, we can never unlock its inner perspective.

It is true that we never know how it is for an animal, to feel pain. But the same is true for a human being. In many cases (e.g. brain damage, young children) there is no language for communication. Even if there is a communication the investigator might be deluded by fraud or semantic differences. Besides it is almost impossible to describe feelings by language. Nevertheless we are often forced to empathize or to carry out estimation from the outer perspective (using scientific methods):

a) Much research has been done on animal pain; see Utility and Pain in Biology.

b) Pain intensity can now be measured from the outside, say researchers using a technique for analyzing MRI scans [Hamzelou]. Their claim reopens the debate over whether pain can be measured objectively.

2) The term suffering is much too general, i.e. doesn’t consider the differences in individual vita.

The comparison of individual vita and corresponding emotions is in fact an immense problem, but it can be radically simplified, if we concentrate on the worst cases of suffering. Concerning these cases there are hardly doubts how to valuate them (despite of the above mentioned problems).

3) A possibility to measure suffering is the International Human Suffering Index, although it relies on the statistic of the World Bank, UN and other readily available resources, with no attempt at involving citizens in drawing up subjective measures of dissatisfaction.

4) As far as suffering can be interpreted as negative happiness there are established methods of measurement, see The Economics of Happiness and World Database of Happiness.

3. Cultural Utility

Before defining the term cultural utility we have a look at the term biological utility:

1. Biological utility defines the biological goal, i.e. the proliferation of DNA (see biological utility function).

2. Whatever serves the biological goal has biological utility.

If human behavior were driven by the biological utility function, then we could associate competitive cultures with group selection. But we don’t know to what extent human behavior is driven by biology.

Definition

1) Cultural utility represents the aggregated individual utilities of a majority (or ruling minority) within the culture. Individual utility is the dominant end of human behavior, respectively the Aristotelian idea of a summum bonum. Because of its paramount position in the hierarchy of values it is related to the term sense of life.

2) Whatever serves the cultural goal has cultural utility, e.g. traditions (experiences, values, norms), technologies (tools, plans, recipes) and the worldviews where traditions and technologies are embedded in.

Example: Written language has a cultural utility because it improves the communication across generations, i.e. the passing of traditions, technologies and worldviews.

Following some concrete examples of cultural goals:

1) In classical utilitarianism the term utility is associated with the happiness which is created by consumption [Bentham, 120]. The replacement of the abstract concept utility by the concrete meaning happiness is called hedonic reduction.

2) In Rawls’ Theory of Justice, fairness is rated higher than the total amount of happiness within society.

3) In Social Darwinism (which is inspired by the biological utility function) survival is rated higher than happiness and fairness.

4) For believers the dominant end is salvation and the path to salvation is given by a divine law.

5) In happiness economics utility is associated with subjective life satisfaction. Life satisfaction is not merely an affective state; it includes a cognitive component. Because of this cognitive component, certain kinds of suffering can be compensated and certain kinds of happiness don’t make sense. Under the assumption that non-hedonistic values like fairness, survival, obeying a divine law etc. can be mapped to a unique scale (like life satisfaction) this scale measures all kinds of cultural utilities.

People, who consider happiness (respectively the avoidance of suffering) as an end and not as a means, are in conflict with those who strive for non-hedonistic goals. The different concepts of cultural utility are in competition and the outcome is unknown. Following some theses concerning the evolution of cultural utility:

Thesis 1

The biological utility function is decisive for cultural evolution.

The long-term success of a cultural goal is defined by the influence it has on the genetic success of its supporters. Example: religiosity has a positive influence on the fertility rate of a population [Blume]. Cultural goals serve the biological goal or disappear.

Thesis 2

Cultural evolution is non-Darwinian, i.e. largely independent from natural selection; it overrules the biological utility function.

1) If we assume that culture is the product of fundamental human characteristics, then the long-term cultural goal could be immortality.

a) The awareness of mortality and “death transcendence” endorse the prevailing norms of culture (…).

b) Initially uncorrelated attitudes and beliefs come to co-occur over time, eventually resulting in a coherent cultural whole.

[Schaller, 384 pp.]

2) The human self has a religious dimension which is, at its root, a longing for immortality [Metzinger, 294].

3) Culture is characterized by the proliferation of ideas (see The Meme Machine, by Susan Blackmore). Due to the progress in biotechnology genes might soon be proliferated in much the same way as ideas. Possibly we enter a new evolutionary period where genes are transferred across species, as it was before the beginning of the Darwinian period. The striving for immortality could result in new (man-machine) species and genes for longevity which are transferred across these species.

Thesis 3

Life is a struggle for negative entropy. Biological and cultural evolution are both subordinated to this physical process.

The brain can best be described as a complex system which permanently strives for an ordered state and thereby creates order out of chaos (i.e. increases negative entropy) [Metzinger, 193].

1. The general struggle for existence of animate beings is not a struggle for raw materials – these, for organisms, are air, water and soil, all abundantly available – nor for energy which exists in plenty in any body in the form of heat, but a struggle for [negative] entropy, which becomes available through the transition of energy from the hot sun to the cold earth (…)

2. Although life's dynamics may be argued to go against the tendency of second law, which states that the entropy of an isolated system tends to increase, it does not in any way conflict or invalidate this law, because the principle that entropy can only increase or remain constant applies only to a closed system which is adiabatically isolated (Entropy and life, Wikipedia).

Since our planet is not an adiabatically isolated closed system, the short-term development of entropy is unpredictable. Periods of decreasing entropy (cultural rise) are followed by periods of increasing entropy (cultural decay) in an unforeseeable manner. Arguments in favor of unpredictability are:

1. the power of contingency [Hampe].

2. the limitations of free will, see Eine interdisziplinäre Betrachtung zur Unfreiheit.

The influence of thermodynamics laws on cultural evolution is investigated by thermoeconomics, systems ecology and energetics.

4. The Evolution of Suffering

4.1 Suffering as Adaptive Trait

Obstacles to achieve happiness

The fact that suffering represents an adaptive trait (i.e. improves the survival value) makes it difficult to achieve happiness:

An evolutionary perspective offers insights into some major obstacles to achieve happiness. Impediments include

1. large discrepancies between modern and ancestral environments

2. the existence of psychological mechanisms which cause subjective distress, designed to solve specific adaptive problems.

3. the fact that evolution by selection has produced competitive mechanisms that function to benefit one person at the expense of others.

(The Evolution of Happiness, David M. Buss)

Biological mechanism and cultural analogue

1) The biological laws described in Utility and Pain in Biology are still valid within cultural evolution. The selection criteria for human mating are strongly influenced by the biological utility function [Buss].

2) The importance of pain increases in long-lived creatures with learning mechanisms. Cultural evolution so far increases the lifetime of humans. It also adds to the complexity of the environment and increases the need for adaptation so that learning mechanisms become more important.

Thesis: Suffering becomes a driving force of cultural evolution as well as pain became a driving force of biological evolution. As long as suffering is a driving force, the degree of suffering increases with cultural evolution.

Example: Humans with a higher sensibility are better equipped to master the challenges of cultural adaptation. As a consequence the survival value of sensibility increases.

4.2 Suffering as By-product

Counter-productive mechanisms

Most attempts to fight suffering produce undesirable side-effects. Examples:

1) Because of the increased risks in violent conflicts the cultural trend goes towards diminished physical violence; see Steven Pinker. The decrease in physical violence in turn may have to be “paid” by an increase in sadomasochism and pathological narcissism or by an increase in structural violence.

2) Medical progress has reduced child mortality and maternal help, but also lead to overpopulation and (as a consequence) to epidemics and civil wars

3) Medical progress has lengthened the average lifetime, but also lead to a tightened competition for medical resources and to an increase in the duration of suffering. The risk to become a victim of cancer increases with lifetime.

Increased risk

Short-term success in the fight against suffering distracts from increased risks and (as a consequence) long term failure. Success is visible and accompanied by applause; risk grows in the silent. Examples:

1) Atomic deterrence has successfully prevented a third world war, but nuclear know-how is proliferated and the risk of nuclear terror has increased.

2) The higher the risks of terror, the more likely a restriction of privacy, the control of public places and the torture of terrorists will be accepted by the majority. This in turn increases the risk to be controlled and abused by a dubious government.

3) Persisting kinds of suffering can only be terminated by death. The striving for immortality theoretically creates the risk of hell on earth, i.e. the risk of eternal suffering.

Statistical normality and aberration

Undesired side-effects of cultural progress are tolerated and may even satisfy a need for sensation, as long as they concern a minority of the population only:

1. The higher velocity in transportation dramatically increased the number and cruelty of accidents.

2. Economic pressure motivates people to spend organs for money or to subject themselves to medical experiments.

3. Pathological narcissism is an undesired side effect of self-control and individualism.

In a pathologically narcissistic civilization - social anomies proliferate. Such societies breed malignant objectifiers - people devoid of empathy (The Psychology of Serial and Mass Killers, Sam Vaknin).

A similar mechanism leads to the proliferation of sado-masochism.

4. High-tech torture is an undesired side effect of palliative research. Experience has shown that it is almost impossible to prevent the abuse of technological know-how in the long run. See the history of torture. As a consequence the trend towards a qualitative increase in suffering cannot be broken.

Exclusion from benefits

For almost every kind of suffering which is culturally defeated, there remains a fraction of the population which is excluded from the benefits. Because of the overall increase in population size, this fraction is often bigger than the original number of sufferers.

Example: According to anti-slavery-organizations the actual number of slaves exceeds the number of slaves that were shipped from Africa to America (see Economics of contemporary slavery)

4.3 The Distribution of Suffering

Does biological evolution teach something about the evolution of ethics?

This honest admission — that nature is often (by our standards) cruel and that all previous attempts to find a lurking goodness behind everything represent just so much special pleading — can lead in two directions:

1) One might retain the principle that nature holds moral messages, but reverse the usual perspective and claim that morality consists in understanding the ways of nature and doing the opposite. Thomas Henry Huxley advanced this argument in his famous essay on Evolution and Ethics (1893): The practice of that which is ethically best — what we call goodness or virtue — involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence. In place of ruthless self-assertion it demands self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside, or treading down, all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect, but shall help his fellows. . . . It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence.… Laws and moral precepts are directed to the end of curbing the cosmic process.

2) The other argument, radical in Darwin's day but more familiar now, holds that nature simply is as we find it. Our failure to discern a universal good does not record any lack of insight or ingenuity, but merely demonstrates that nature contains no moral messages framed in human terms. Morality is a subject for philosophers, theologians, students of the humanities, indeed for all thinking people. The answers will not be read passively from nature; they do not, and cannot, arise from the data of science. The factual state of the world does not teach us how we, with our powers for good and evil, should alter or preserve it in the most ethical manner. (…)

If nature is nonmoral, then evolution cannot teach any ethical theory at all. The assumption that it can has abetted a panoply of social evils that ideologues falsely read into nature from their beliefs — eugenics and (misnamed) social Darwinism prominently among them.

(Nonmoral Nature by Stephen Jay Gould).

Positive trends

Following some indications that positive trends on the cultural level could overrule the biological trend:

1. Technological progress created writing, mass literacy and finally the current information technology. Each step in this process extended social networks and, in turn, induced an extension of empathy [Rifkin].

2. The increasing complexity of the system asks for an increasingly intense reflection. This in turn drives behavior away from its primitive biological roots and possibly breaks the traditional biological trend.

3. There are signs of an increasing global risk-awareness and a corresponding international cooperation.

4. There is an increasing interest in ethical issues; theoretical and applied ethics get more funds and improve in quality.

5. The number and quality of charitable organizations has reached a level never seen before.

Conclusion

In view of contradicting and overlapping trends we refer to the theses mentioned in chapter 3:

1) If the biological utility function decides about cultural evolution (thesis 1) then suffering and injustice will probably continue to increase (see Utility and Pain in Biology).

2) If cultural utility overrules biological utility (thesis 2), then there is a theoretical possibility to reduce suffering and injustice.

3) If cultural evolution is unpredictable (thesis 3) then the evolution of suffering and injustice is unpredictable as well.

4.4 The End of Suffering

Starting point

It is easier to make predictions about the entire system than to make predictions about a detailed parameter like the degree or distribution of suffering. In the following an attempt is made to assign probabilities to the end of suffering. These probabilities are based on evolving knowledge and may have to be revised.

Salvation by Non-Human Forces

Historical overview: Sin and Salvation

New concepts: New Religious UFO Movements

Probability: From a scientific point of view the probability for a salvation from outside is very unlikely, but science is limited by the following circumstances:

1) only a small part of reality is conscious

2) the conscious part of reality is shaped by the brain

It is dangerous though to use these limitations as an argument for salvation because they can be used for opposite visions as well.

Salvation by Human Forces

Technological progress becomes a vision when it is interpreted in the context of Paradise-engineering. The vision is based on the following ideas:

1) bio- and nanotechnology could be used to eradicate aversive experience in all sentient life, see Abolitionism (bioethics)

2) mental states like consciousness may not depend on biological substance. Some day life could be transformed into a spiritual form free from suffering.

3) Technological progress serves the hedonistic goal and is not used for power-seeking and domination.

Suffering then could be seen as a limited, intermediary state associated with the birth of an ecstatic or spiritual world. By this interpretation suffering receives a sense and a purpose. Evolution could be regarded as a project which reduces or eliminates (extreme) suffering, whereas otherwise it would persist or increase

Probability: From a scientific point of view it is unlikely that suffering will loose its role in evolution. More likely is therefore a symbiosis of biological and spiritual life with ongoing or new forms of suffering.

Following some indications how evolution could create new kinds of suffering:

1) deprivation from new forms of ecstasy (drug withdrawal)

2) refused access to prolonged lifetime

3) suppression or replacement of humans by machines

4) high-tech torture

Destruction by Human Forces

Conscious violent destruction

Some atheist or agnostic philosophers who have lost the hope for salvation (because they identify the human race or the mechanisms of life as the cause of suffering) developed a wish to destroy humanity or life as whole. The first promoter of conscious violent destruction may have been Hartmann (1842-1906). It is known that Hartmann used far eastern sources. But the old Indian philosophers, despite of their belief in the inseparable connection between life and suffering, never thought of destroying life - a fact that might be explained by the Hindu tradition of non-violence (Ahimsa). At the times of Hartmann the technology for destroying life was lacking, as well as in old India.

Destruction by unawareness, high risk tolerance or accident

Philosophical and religious extremists of any kind may wish to destroy life but (by the lack of access to technology) cannot realize their dreams. On the other hand global destruction could be caused by people who desperately want to live, e.g. the creators of the MAD doctrine, the millions of people who cause a climatic catastrophe or the transhumanist researchers who strive for omnipotence. The corresponding philosophy of apocalypse is therefore mixed with cynicism and irony (or it insinuates that there is a subconscious death wish), see U.Horstmann, Das Untier.

Probability: From a scientific point of view some qualitative statements about the probability of apocalypse have been made:

1) Estimated probability of complete destruction before 2100 A.D. = 50%, according to Martin Rees, Our Final Hour

2) Estimated probability of complete destruction before 2500 A.D. = 30%, according to John Leslie, The End of the World.(p.146)

The chances for a destructive development are substantially increased, if technological progress is used for power-seeking and domination.

Destruction by Non-Human Forces

Fatalist, Hindu, Buddhist, back-to-nature and other philosophies maintain the thesis, that suffering cannot be defeated on a global level. In order to release this world from suffering, life as a whole has to be terminated by natural causes.

Probability: According to actual physical theory life will be terminated by one of the following events:

1) Climate change as a result of volcanic explosion

2) Asteroid collision

3) Burnout of the sun

4) Burnout of the universe

With the restriction that nothing is absolutely certain (i.e. scientific theories are open to falsification) we can still say that above statement is close to certain.

Summary

Following some qualitative statements about the probability for the end of suffering:

global termination of suffering

by non-human forces

by human forces

by destruction

close to certain

possible

by salvation

very unlikely

unlikely

Destruction is more likely than salvation.

More arguments in support of this thesis can be found in Human extinction, Wikipedia

5. Conclusion

The evolution of suffering

1) On the biological level the increase in suffering with evolution is evident and seems to increase the survival value (biological utility). On the cultural level only the quantitative increase in suffering is evident.

2) Although there are many indications, that the degree of suffering increases as well, the system of culture is too complex to make a reliable prediction. The general situation is one of opposing and overlapping trends.

Thesis: The degree of suffering increases as long as the lifetime of the individuals and the complexity of the environment increase.

3) Unpredictability is no argument for optimism.

Thesis: As long as there is a potential for a higher degree of suffering (keyword technology) at least a minority will be affected by an unforeseen development or by hazard.

The end of suffering

Theses:

1) Destruction is more likely than salvation.

2) Suffering will end by the destruction of life by non-human forces.

References

1. Bentham, J., Value of a Pain or Pleasure (1778), in: B. Parekh (ed.): Bentham´s Political Thought, London 1973

2. Blume Michael, Religiosity as a Demographic Factor – An Underestimated Connection, Marburg Journal of Religion No.11, 2006

3. Buss David M. (2007), The Evolution of Human Mating, University of Texas, Austin

4. Hampe Michael, Die Macht des Zufalls, Wolf Jobst Siedler Verlag, Berlin, 2006

5. Hamzelou Jessica, The scanner that feels your pain, in New Scientist, 6 March 2010, p.6

6. Melzack Ronald (2007), Pain: Past Present and Future

7. Metzinger Thomas (2009), Der Ego Tunnel, Berlin Verlag

8. Schaller Mark, Crandall Christian S. (eds.) (2004), The Psychological Foundations of Culture, Mahwah, NJ