Crime and punishment (was: Free will)

I believe it is a lot easier than that, we just have to skip the 19th century assumption that there is LOGIC involved in human behavior, there rarely is. Rather what we have here is HABITS (which ironically is what "ethos" means in Greek). This is how I locked my front door yesterday so if nothing new under the sun has happened, this is the way I will lock my door tonight as well etc. We act by using assumed default assumptions which we, just like other flock animals, have LEARNED from older members of our own tribe. Elephants and dolphins and apes do the same thing. The only time we possibly apply logic is when we encounter a brand new situation we have never encountered before. But we will still assume models of behavior we have practiced before as default options. This is how I do things so this is who I am, would be the proper Zoroastrian conclusion from this.

Ushta
Alexander

2011/7/27 Special Kain

Agreed, but it still doesn't solve the issue I was addressing: WHY do people act according to a common metaphysics? This is the key sociological question for which there are lots of different answers, both from sociologists as well as from criminologists.

So we agree on the basic notions: people expect others to act "as if", knowledge is what makes societies collapse etc., but the key sociological question is still open to debate. One of the answers that we often encounter in psychology and biology is that human beings are social animals and their existence requires cooperation. Because it is cooperation and win-win games that make the human race flourish and expand.


--- Alexander Bard schrieb am
Mi, 27.7.2011:

Von: Alexander Bard
Betreff: Re: [Ushta] Crime and punishment (was: Free will)
An: Ushta@yahoogroups.com
Datum: Mittwoch, 27. Juli, 2011 22:02 Uhr
I disagree with that cynical notion. We know perfectly well that lots of nasty things are going on all the time. The reason why we trust strangers has a lot more to do with a common metaphysics which permeats civil society, a kind of trust which in Zarathushtra's world is "Civilization": For example, a 100 euro-note is actually PHYSICALLY worth about three cents. But we expect others to accept it as worth 100 euros so we BEHAVE as if it is worth 100 euros. Which works. It is precisely when we start behaving according to our KNOWLEDGE that society collapses and falls into paranoia and distrust. Paranoid people are usually right about the facts, what makes them unhealthy is that they think people will be behave in accordance with knowledge rather than in accordance with an ETHICS which they sympathize and identify with. Ethics doesn't pay attention to what OTHERS do or think, it starts and ends with the question: "What would I do, what in all of this is me?". Places that obsess Parviz like Auschwitz are precisely places that LACK ETHICS, this results in the absence of asha as principle, replaced by druj (I kill you because I have already killed myself). Nietzsche used the word "ressentiment" for this.

Ushta
Alexander

2011/7/27 Special Kain

Even sociology and criminology cannot fully explain why people act according to social norms.
Some criminologists argue that it is "blissful ignorance" that keeps people from distrusting their neighbours and fellow citizens. Because people are less friendly and less polite when feeling unobserved. If we knew what happens behind doors, we would be a lot more distrustful.
It is a rather pessimistic and Machiavellian take on human nature: social order (norm conformity) requires "blissful ignorance", people need their fellow human beings as moral police officers, etc.
Isn't this exactly the struggle that Zarathushtra was addressing in The Gathas?