How to resolve conflicting loyalties?

[Elder]

We live in tribes and the question of loyalty to our tribes often comes up, usually conflicting with our other loyalties: to immediate family, extended family, work-group, religion, political party, social organizations, country, race, species and life.

Do you have an ethical principle to guide you when you are facing a conflict between loyalty to:

- yourself and family?

- family and country?

- country and humanity?

- humanity and other species?

One example: at Nuremberg, claims of loyalty to country did not excuse crimes against humanity.

[Lagayscienza]

...at Nuremberg, claims of loyalty to country did not excuse crimes against humanity.

And rightly so.

I think we can resolve conflicts of loyalty by getting as many as possible of the background non-moral facts right and then pursuing the course of action that would produce the most good or the least harm in circumstances where harm cannot be avoided. We need to get the background facts right or we'll get the moral stuff wrong. For example the Nazis believed Jews and gypsies and gays were hardly even human and harmful to Aryans (itself a fallacious category) and being thus mistaken they reasoned that gassing them was ok. Good science would have told them that all humans are the same in any morally relevant way. But the Nazis were infected with mumbo jumbo. Unfortunately, the the vast majority of people are still infected with mumbo jumbo today.

[Elder]

I have worked out some guidelines that I have found useful in my own life. No one can follow them with absolute perfection, because human beings have conflicting motivations: what Edward O. Wilson called individual-level selection and group-level selection in our evolutionary process (The Meaning of Human Existence). The result of individual-level evolutionary selection predisposes us to favour our own and our progeny’s survival over the interests of our group. The result of the group-level evolutionary selection motivates us to serve the interests of the various groups we are part of. As he so eloquently states:

We are unlikely to yield completely to either force as the ideal solution to our social and political turmoil. To give in completely to the instinctual urgings born from individual selection would be to dissolve society. At the opposite extreme, to surrender to the urgings from group selection would turn us into angelic robots - the outsized equivalents of ants.

...and that is the dilemma most often face with people who are struggling with conflicting loyalties.

How far am I willing to go, committing acts I consider unethical, to protect myself or my family?

When is the ethical price too high?

Here is one example:

This is a real life situation from WW2.

A small group of soldiers got trapped behind enemy lines. They were hiding away in an old farmhouse. An enemy soldier wandered in, unaware of their presence. They captured him, tied him to a chair and gagged him.

They planned to sneak back to their own side during nightfall, but they had a problem.

They had to move in absolute silence, so they could not risk dragging an unwilling prisoner with them.

They did not dare to leave him there either, just in case he would be found and then sent his buddies after them before they were back in safety.

They did not dare to shoot him because of the sound of the gunshot would be heard by the enemy.

They had only 2 options:

- cut his throat with a knife - surrender to the enemy

Question: how many of you think that you would have been able to walk up to an unarmed man, your age, tied to a chair, totally helpless, and cut his throat with a knife while he was watching you?

[Wilson]

There's no right or wrong answer to such questions. Both our sense of morality and our actions are guided by the degree of empathy we feel for each individual involved, but the results wouldn't necessarily be the same. As an example, we might feel that choosing to let one's brother live by sacrificing ten strangers would be immoral, but many of us would do so, anyway - perhaps even more likely to do so for a significant other.

Sometimes there is a conflict and negotiation between self-interest (or the interests of those close to us) and what we see as the proper moral action. Sometimes one's selfishness is more powerful than his desire to be good. An argument could be made that the choice between letting one's brother die or ten strangers comes down to imagining which would be more painful in the future as you face what you did and the results of that action - which demons would be worse.

In the scenario above, and assuming that there really was no other way to ensure the group's safety, I think that I and most people would cut the throat of the enemy, and live with the nightmares later. In war we place enemy combatants on the other side of our empathy line - except that when you are forced to see that soldier as a real human being, you develop a degree of empathy for him - but still much less than for your comrades.

-- Updated June 10th, 2015, 12:17 am to add the following --

By the way, I do feel that evolution gave us our social sense and our compassion for and cooperation with others through group selection, and that was done by extending our empathy to others. And it isn't just self-interest on the one hand and selfless concern for the group on the other, there are degrees of empathy depending on family ties, affection, and the commonality with various groups, including those with the same race or religion.

[Sy Borg]

Where are we heading? I think we have to look at emerging systems. Everything is heading either towards greater aggregation and development of larger, emergent systems, or towards disaggregation/dissolution.

Larger systems (ergo social groups) offer improved survival and opportunities but reduced personal freedom. With each level of grouping - family, life, region, state, country - you see those improvements and restrictions.

To live in a system as an underling without being a saboteur is tacit endorsement, a moral compromise as you give permission to have your own values dominated by that of the group. As groups get larger they become more specialised, complex and integrated - great for the survival of the emerging entity and its leaders, but increasingly restrictive for the rest, and disastrous for the "disposable" people at the bottom for whom the group cannot find productive use. Once a group is large or powerful enough to go beyond subsistence and move towards empowerment, increasingly it becomes a case of "fit in or f--- off".

For instance, try justifying governments and media victimising the unemployed when economies rely on an unemployment rate of around five percent. Yet this is the system we tacitly endorse if we don't stir the pot. Mind you, "stirring the pot" is not so easy with a dominant conservative media and billions of competing pages online and those who strongly disagree with large systems must take serious risks to ensure being heard. However, the destruction of one's security and safety is a high price to pay for perhaps a 30-second news piece, probably slanted in the worst possible way and quite likely overshadowed by the next big football game. Bread and circuses.

Of course, if you succeed in seriously cutting through you can expect a lifestyle like that Salmen Rushdie, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden - or perhaps Karen Silkwood or Martin Luthur King. Of course this stuff has been going on in China and other heavily populated Asian nations for a long time. I see those nations as a glimpse of the future as the west becomes increasingly densely populated. I expect that, in the next couple of decades, an increasing number of people in the west will "disappear".

I think it's fair to say that nations and large organisations tend to have the collective morals of a parasitic worm. They rationalise that they are moral and loyally serving their citizens and shareholders, but those justifications are just a means of reducing dissent and cementing power.

Looking at the intensification of our networking, if the environment and some civilisations hold up, the inevitable result will be complete integration, effectively turning society into a superorganism and individuals into cells. I suppose we are in a fairly early stage of that development. Perhaps intelligent life will, like the mitochondria, surrender its individuality to power a relative superintelligence? That prospect instinctively feels abhorrent to me, but my lifestyle may well seem abhorrent, incomprehensible and caged to early Homo sapiens. Still, I'd like to think that these "superintelligences" will eventually develop morality.

In the light of this, right and wrong appear to depend on whole interests hold primacy. All we can do is use our personal judgement and it's fraught business. What if you saw your child do a terrible crime? I have no idea how I'd deal with that.

[Jklint]

Ideally I would call it the Art of compromise because it's only functional up to a point. It denotes equilibrium by mutual consent. If it cannot be arrived at by shared interests then force, one way or another usually through the medium of considerable trauma, resets the relationship which is very different from the outcome mediated by compromise.

In human affairs these so-called ethical principals you mention are more like a deck cards in a poker game. Those with the upper hand can invariably force a compromise in their favor. They are ethical in name only and usually function in the service of whatever is deemed expedient at the moment. In short, the word 'ethical' amounts to nothing more then being self righteously opportunistic. History has confirmed that tendency in human nature from the beginning.

[Elder]

Here is another scenario -- hypothetical this time.

I used to like Ayn Rand when I was a lot younger and a lot more ignorant. Her insistence on basic principles appealed to me. She would say something like the following:

‘Laissez Faire’ Capitalism is the only ethical social system imaginable. Who could argue with the basic ethical principle that no human being has the right to force another human being to do anything against his own (perceived) self interest. If we allow a human being to ‘initiate’ force against another, to force him act against his interests, then we have approved of dictatorships of the worst kind.

One of the many reasons I disagree with her now is the question of compassion.

For illustration purposes, think about the following ‘thought experiment’:

What if I were walking on the bank of a river and saw a child drowning, feet away from a healthy young man fishing in a boat? What if I saw that this young man ignored the child’s screams for help and kept on fishing? What if, when I asked him to save the kid, he refused? I know that this young man is not blind, deaf, or otherwise handicapped, he is a good swimmer and able to rescue the child; he merely chooses to exercise his ‘right’ not to act on my pity.

If for some reason I couldn’t save the child (I was in a wheel chair, behind a chain link fence), and if I carried a gun, would I threaten the man in the boat?

When I first thought of this scenario, I was shocked to find that my ‘gut reaction’ was: yes, without hesitation!

Would I actually have pulled the trigger if he refused? If I were sure I could get away with it? I am sure I would not. I was raised to recoil from killing. But I would wish I could. It would be my most basic instinct to destroy this traitor to humanity.

Before you all recoil in horror and yell : “Murderer!”, let me remind you that most of the heroes of your country were honored for the unquestioning murder of fellow human beings who were the ‘enemy’ at the time - as decreed by your government.

One more question for those who wouldn’t: what would you do if the child were your own? You still don’t think you would be tempted to use the gun?

Let me emphasize at this point that I most emphatically do not approve of violence of any kind to solve social problems - the example is only an illustration of a moral dilemma.

The question is: how much do we owe each other?

Where to draw the line?

This example contains many conflicting loyalties and you might find it difficult to sort them out when confronted with a situation like it.

[Sy Borg]

I would definitely use the gun in an effort coerce the young man to save the girl in that situation. If he didn't save her and she drowned, then I would use the gun coerce him to report to the police station. If I was pissed off enough I might shoot the b* in foot hehehe. Mind you, I've not used a gun before and would probably miss him and hurt myself with the recoil.

If it was a child of my own then I can't imagine being rational unless I had a delayed reaction. I could not guarantee my actions, and I don't know how anyone can unless they have great control of their fight-or-flight response under duress.

[Elder]

One reply I received recently to this question, on another forum, was:

"Why do you hate freedom?"

[Elder]

Once I tried to work out a systematic approach to the dilemma of conflicting loyalties.

The suggestions I am making here should be read as guidelines that I have found useful in my own life. No one can follow them with absolute perfection, because human beings have conflicting motivations: what Edward O. Wilson called individual-level selection and group-level selection in our evolutionary process (The Meaning of Human Existence). The result of individual-level evolutionary selection predisposes us to favour our own and our progeny’s survival over the interests of our group. The result of the group-level evolutionary selection motivates us to serve the interests of the various groups we are part of. As he so eloquently states:

We are unlikely to yield completely to either force as the ideal solution to our social and political turmoil. To give in completely to the instinctual urgings born from individual selection would be to dissolve society. At the opposite extreme, to surrender to the urgings from group selection would turn us into angelic robots - the outsized equivalents of ants.

With these caveats, I will attempt to define human morality in a logical and systematic way that should serve as compass for future scientists when they struggle with the conflicting loyalties that they will unavoidably encounter.

Let me know what you think?

We live in tribes (nations) and the question of loyalty to our tribes often comes up, usually conflicting with our other loyalties: to family, humanity, religion, etc. The human species is a tribal species, just like the wolves and the gorillas. We depend on each other for our survival. The relationship of our social concepts can be seen as follows:


The relationship of our social concepts can be seen as follows:

1./ Nature created us near identical, with near identical needs of survival.

2./ Our near identical needs created near identical values.

3./ Our near identical values created a set of ethical rules (do-s and don’t-s)

4./ Our dependence on each other created a need for loyalty to our ethical rules

5./ Our loyalty to ethical rules created an unwritten social contact. This contract is not the same as the laws of the land as defined by the ruling elite. As a matter of fact it can be diametrically opposed to it. The laws are specific to one culture or one nation-state. The unwritten social contract, recognizing our human interdependence, is universal. All cultures through history have known that murder, rape, incest and theft are wrong. Being aware of the rules of this social contract is called our ‘conscience’. Sometimes it is described as knowing right from wrong. This universal concept of ‘right conduct’ is called morality.

6./ The unwritten social contract created standards of socially acceptable behaviour. Any act or attitude that enhances the chances of survival for the group is good. Any act or attitude that harms the chances of survival for the group is bad. Since individual members accept the protection and nourishment of the tribe, the only moral conduct is to seek individual survival/welfare only through the survival/welfare of the tribe. If the two are in conflict, the needs of the tribe come first. Primitive human tribes take this for granted, only ‘advanced’ human beings want it both ways. We call those who consistently demonstrate their willingness to defend the tribe, even at great personal sacrifice, ‘heroes’. Those who betray the tribe for personal gain we call ‘traitors’ and treason is usually punishable by death or expulsion.

7./ In our complicated world, individuals have simultaneous and often conflicting memberships in many tribes: immediate family, extended family, work-group, religion, political party, social organizations, country, race, species and life.

8./ Resolving conflicts requires prioritizing our loyalties.

9./ Since an individual group accepts the protection and nourishment of the larger group it depends on, the only moral conduct is to seek survival/welfare of a group ONLY through the survival/welfare of the containing group. If the two are in conflict, the needs of the containing group come first.

10./ In this sense our ultimate loyalty should be to life. Life on this Planet is the ultimate containing group. We are all part of it. It nourishes us all. If we betray it, if we destroy it, we will have destroyed ourselves.

[Gary S]

Concerning the hypothetical, your list contains erroneous entries. First, Gary is not against forcing the man to save his own child. I am one of the few who actually answered your hypothetical clearly (albeit, the answer was on the PhilosophyNow forum).

Maybe we can ask the hypothetical question again so we can see where everyone is?

In Ned's hypothetical concerning your own child, would you use the gun to force the man in the boat to save your child? In my mind, and at this point, this is a yes or no question.

No, such a law would be unenforcable.

So your words say you are for saving the child, which is well and good.

But as for action, you also say that society should not force the man in the boat to save the your child. Isn't this exactly what Rand would say about the situation?

[Elder]

No conflicting loyalties here, Gary -- I already answered the exact same post you made on the "Do we owe each other anything?" thread.

Oooops -- I forgot I made the same post here too!

Sorry!

But now I see that Greta also voted for threatening the man in the boat with a gun, to save the child. More consensus.

[Gary S]

Ooops, me too. I must have posted here instead of on the other thread by mistake. I had both of the threads open in different windows. I guess that is the danger of too much copying and pasting on forums. One tends to forget where he actually is! Heck, earlier today I thought I was on the "TheThinkingAtheist" forum and turns out I was on the "SkepticForum."

I am very interested in the topic "How to resolve conflicting loyalties." I have questions to ask and ideas to discuss concerning your points. However, at this time, I have not. Wonder why? Maybe not.

People put a lot of effort and valuable time in responding on forums, and I think it is fair to expect other posters to do the same. When it is discovered that a significant portion of the thought is "copy and paste" from other sources, it is a let-down. After all, we are expending effort, but the other guy is just hitting [CTRL c] and [CTRL v].

Perhaps folks would feel better if the sources of the copy/pastes were revealed? Perhaps I am being too emotional and human, but that is how I feel. Considering that on the other forums, more than just a few of the members took exception to the content delivery and execution, I am not the only one that feels this way. The way a person is received is more a product of perception than reality.

I have interest in this topic, and I will certainly devote time to it if I knew I would be participating in honest dialogue. Yes, it goes both ways. I suppose that a philosophy forum is a microcosm of society and it is what it is.

[Elder]

Gary, not every dialogue is feasible.

Sometime there is so much difference between background, assimilated information, and even attitude between different members that, even if both parties are doing their very best to be honest and open, the gap is too big to bridge it in a few exchange of posts. Even face to face discussions are hopeless sometime because first we would have to agree to read the same books recommended by the other and digest all that information.

On the other forum we both participated on, we had a profound difference of opinion about the nature of Capitalism and I just knew that the gap was too big to hope to bridge it, even though I knew that you were an honest debater and would counter my arguments one by one with yours.

However, it would have been too much work to dig up all the statistical data and factual references and then read your replies, so I respectfully declined to debate you on the subject.

I see where you are coming from, but we can't always resolve fundamental differences in the time frame and the methods available to us.

I hope you understand, but I am not a young man any more and my energy is sorely limited.

[Gary S]

Francis, thank you for that assessment. You present very interesting topics and you have obviously put much time and thought into your conclusions. I respect you for that. Very much.

Perhaps you and I would be better off discussing the best varieties of tomatoes and the best methods to grow them. If you remember my occupation, you will understand that I am also interested in your solar power system and its effectiveness. Of course, those are not topics for this forum.