Might Makes The Best Right
Does “might make right”? If we interpret “makes right” to be “causes more to believe in a certain view of what’s right”, then our theories of cultural evolution distinguish five kinds of things that “make right”: genes , lore, crowds, talk, and might. If we want future influence, we want to be biologically adaptive, and for that we want more of might makes right, compared to the alternatives. Here are those options:
Genes Make Right - Many of our moral inclinations, like aversion to incest and murder, appreciation of loyalty, and inclinations toward selfishness, present-orientation, and laziness, are probably encoded in our DNA. They can be overcome by cultural pressures, but without such pressures we likely revert to “natural” morals. As our DNA mostly changes slowly, these morals mostly change slowly
Lore Makes Right - Throughout history, by far the strongest force, besides DNA, that made people believe that things are right is tradition. We inherit opinions on morals from our parents, teachers, priests, and other authorities from prior generations. And it made sense to give lore a lot of weight; besides genes, we should only put weight on other sources to the degree that they reflect substantial signals of innovations or changes in which morals are adaptive. One concept of “conservatives” is that they warn against putting too much weight on sources other than genes and lore.
Crowds Make Right - When there is variation in the morals of others, we tend to copy morals that are popular and high status. At a small scale, this means copying a weighted average of local morals, weighted by individual status. For example, when education is high status, we copy morals of the well educated, including their delayed fertility. Now that the world is very connected via travel, trade, and talk, each region tends to copy average world morals, weighing higher status regions more. This creates a conformity pressure pushing the world toward a global monoculture, especially among elites, who have more world contact. This process is more adaptive the more adaptive are our status markers, and the wider a variety of crowds we have.
Talk Makes Right - In the modern era, cultural activists often fight hard to push morals in particular directions, and our highest heroes are the winners of such fights. While activists recruit many resources to such fights, they prefer to call our attention to their talk, wherein they offer moral arguments. Even though all arguments for moral conclusions must be based on shared moral premises. For example, the biggest cultural event of the 20th century was WWII. Though that started and ended pretty randomly, afterward the world adopted anti-Nazism as a key shared moral, which led then to anti-racism, anti-sexism, and more. Alas, in practice the forces that drive this process don’t seem very aligned with which morals are more biologically adaptive. Also, as following crowds is mediated by talk, and being led by talk happens in crowds, it can be hard to distinguish crowds from talk forces in particular cases.
Might Makes Right - We call those who win in war, population, and economic competitions “mighty”, and their behaviors, including their morals, tend to be more adaptive. By winning, they make their more adaptive morals more common. Groups who adopt mighty morals have more children, their descendants die less, and their firms and cities grow richer, attracting immigrants who then adopt their morals. As might-making-right is the main force inducing adaptive cultural evolution, it is the force we should most want to increase, to be adaptive. Crowds-making-right can multiply this process, but only if might is strong enough. Talk only helps when winning talker reforms correlate with adaption.
Today we seem to face a serious risk of our dominant cultures drifting into maladaption. Centuries ago the environment changed slowly, lore and might were strong, talk was weak, and crowds worked better due to more variety and maybe better status markers. But today the environment changes fast, lore and might are much weaker, talk is much stronger, and we have far less variety. What can we do?
Alas, we have neglected lore for too long for increasing it now to help much; that might stop morals from getting worse, but it won’t fix the maladaption already accumulated. More variety would help, at least of cultural variations that are hard to vary within a culture, such as via more cults, especially insular ones, and more respect for deep multiculturalism. More adaptive status markers would help, like maybe more weight on money, and less on education and cultural activism. Alas, these all seem like very big asks.
We could increase might by increasing the rate of wars, pandemics, and famines, but those cures may be worse than the disease. Full human level AI that faced strong Malthusian pressures and was free to evolve its own culture might work, but many hate that scenario. Also widely hated is the option to give capitalism full control over all areas of life and culture, including government and fertility. I have some hope for futarchy tied to a long term sacred goal in conflict with civilization collapse, like the date a million people live in space, but getting people to see such a goal as sacred is also rather big ask.
We haven’t yet found good options, but one thing seem clear: we want more of might makes right, compared to the alternatives.
Added Apr12: Imit riffs of this post here.
You're failing to make any distinction between what people *think* is right, and what actually *is* right. Surely, at least for empirical or mathematical facts, what people *think* is right may not actually be right. I hope you agree that might cannot make 2+2=5.
Nor can might make Biblical stories right - which a large segment of the world population believes to be closely tied to their values. If that segment of the population understood that their fables are factually incorrect, then at least some of their moral values would change. Factually, there was not an entity called God that banned humans from wearing mixed fabrics or doing many other things. If those who avoid wearing mixed fabrics knew this, then their moral value against wearing mixed fabrics (and doing many other things) would likely change.
Values depend on facts. If a person's values depend on false factual beliefs, then their values are wrong. Values can be wrong.
Values can be wrong for other reasons than that, too. Generally speaking, what a person values after lengthy reflection and consideration, is more legitimate than what they valued initially. What you *really* value is what you would value if you considered it until you reached reflective equilibrium. Any value that you wouldn't hold in a state of reflective equilibrium, is wrong. (Just as any fact you wouldn't hold in a state of reflective equilibrium - having seen all relevant evidence - is wrong).
Reaching a state of reflective equilibrium with respect to values involves learning more facts, resolving conflicts between values (a person can hold two mutually incompatible values without realizing it, but once realizing it they would want to resolve this tension) and trying to form justifications for why they ought to value a certain thing, referring back to facts, consequences, and more fundamental values.
The universal is that adaptation of all kinds is painful. Every item on your list.
Over the last 500 years, and especially since WWII, the western economies have been able to sand off the rough edges of life and mostly keep things like hunger, poverty, crime, disease, ecological degradation, rights violations, and war at a minimum. This relative comfort is not the norm for the vast majority of human existence, nor for life on Earth generally.
Which makes me wonder: Is it possible to get back to rapid adaptation while we maintain this comfortable life we've gotten used to?
Now Malthus might say: We can enjoy being fat and slow for the time being, but eventually we will bump into *some* hard boundary that will make us uncomfortable again, and this will force us back into adaptive mode. I can see why people would want to defer that.
The one place where we seem to still welcome ruthless competition (and "might makes right") is the economy. Maybe that is our out. If a system like futarchy can bring cultural issues into the economic sphere, that could increase our rate of adaptation.