A lemon market for poachers

[My new post at the Recon Hub, which I'll repost in full here...]

Ashok Rao has a provocative suggestion for stopping the rampant poaching of elephant and rhino. Drawing on insights from George Akerlof’s famous paper, “A Market for Lemons“, he argues that all we need to do is create some uncertainty in the illegal ivory trade:

Policymakers and conservationists need to stop auctioning horns and burning stockpiles of ivory, they need to create this asymmetry [which causes markets to break down under Akerlof's model]. And it’s not hard. By virtue of being a black market, there isn’t a good organized body that can consistently verify the quality of ivory in general. Sure, it’s easy to access, but ultimately there’s a lot of supply chain uncertainty. 

There is a cheap way to exploit this. The government, or some general body that has access to tons of ivory, should douse (or credibly commit to dousing) the tusks with some sort of deadly poison, and sell the stuff across all markets. Granting some additional complexities, the black market could not differentiate between clean and lethal ivory, and buyers would refrain from buying all ivory in fear. The market would be paralyzed.

I really like Ashok's proposal… Not least of all, because it is virtually identical to an idea that Torben and I had whilst out for a few drinks one night! (This includes the invocation of Akerlof, by the way.) The big difference being that we didn't go so far as to suggest that the ivory should be poisoned: In our minds, flooding the market with “inferior”, but hard-to-detect fake product would do the trick.

To see why this might be the case, consider the economic choices of an individual poacher. Poaching is a risky activity and there is a decidedly non-negligible probability that you will be imprisoned, severely injured, or even killed as a result of your illegal actions. However, it still makes sense to take on these risks as long as the potential pay-off is high enough… And with rhino horn and ivory presently trading at record prices, that certainly happens to be the case. However, all that an intervention like the one proposed above needs to achieve, is to drive down the price of ivory to a level that would cause most rational agents to reconsider the risks of poaching. What level would this be exactly? That’s impossible for me to say, but I'm willing to bet that poachers are highly price sensitive.

A final comment before I close, inspired by another blog post that has also commented on Ashok's proposal. Jonathan Catalán correctly points out that one of the most valuable aspects of original “lemons” paper, is to force us to think carefully about why asymmetric markets don’t generally collapse into the degenerate equilibrium implied by Akerlof's theory. Perhaps the best answer to that is one hinted at by Akerlof himself: institutions like money-back guarantees, brand reputation, etc.. In light of this, Jonathan wonders whether the black-market wouldn't simply just adopt practices to weed out the counterfeit goods? My feeling, however, is that it is misleading to compare the ivory and rhino horn trade to other illegal markets in this respect. In the drug industry, for example, cartels are able to test the quality of a cocaine shipment simply by trying it themselves. Drugs have a very definite effect on us physiologically and so “quality control” (so to speak) is relatively easy to do. In comparison, we know that crushed rhino horn has no medical efficacy whatsoever… whether that is with respect to treating cancer or healing regular aches and pains. I therefore strongly suspect that it would be much harder for a buyer of powered rhino horn to verify whether their product is the real deal or not. The placebo effect will be as strong, or weak, regardless.

PS -- Legalisation of the ivory and horn trade is another economic approach to solving the poaching problem. Proponents of this view see it as creating opportunities for a sustainable market that both incentivises breeding and undercuts poachers. I am favourably predisposed towards this particular argument, at least in the case of rhino since they are easier to farm. However, I am not convinced that it will put an end to poaching, which will continue as long as the rents are there to be captured. There also remains the question of how demand will respond to a surge in supply, as well as issues related to a biological monoculture (i.e. rhinos will be bred solely on the basis of increasing their horn size). However, those remain issues another day.

Rhino poaching... Hope on the horizon?

A few months ago, I discussed the staggering increase in rhino poaching that is plaguing Southern Africa. According to the Dept. of Environmental Affairs, a record 448 rhino were poached last year in South Africa alone. Even that record is now under threat, as 159 of the country's rhino had already suffered the same fate within the first four months of 2012.

Source: Business Day

My preferred, economic solution would involve overturning the CITES ban on rhino trade, which has not only failed to stop poaching, but has rather encouraged the reverse. The ban has simply succeeded in limiting the supply of rhino horn, thereby driving up the price and making them more valuable to would-be poachers. I'd like to see this perverse set of incentives replaced with something more reasonable. As I wrote wrote back in 2011: "[T]he ability to legally farm and 'harvest' these animals generally would bring the same positive effects that hunting does for wildlife conservation. That is, it establishes a profit motive that incentivises the preservation of valuable animal species."

Ethical considerations notwithstanding, I did have some lingering concerns over the practicals implications of farming these animals, and whether doing so would actually lead to a collapse in poaching. Breeding rhino remains a very expensive business and poachers would still be able to capture substantial "resource rents" as long as they don't bear the burden of the investment costs. In the same way that cattle theft hasn't stopped despite our massive consumption of beef and dairy products. Of course, the potential gains -- i.e. the rents -- are also far higher when it comes to rhino. That being said, it seems unquestionable to me that the economic incentives for sustainable populations are much better aligned under a system of legal trade.

Thus far, the SA government is pretty tight lipped on the legalization of farmed horn. They are, however, considering the sale of horn stockpiles, which have been accumulated from thwarted poaching operations over many years. I maintain that the farming option is necessary to ensure ultimate sustainability. Nevertheless, we could think of the stockpile sale as akin to the auction markets for organ donors and other "ethical repugnant" goods. The pioneer in this area is the economist, Alvin Roth, whom I briefly discuss here.
Anyway, I've been thinking about how I might turn this rhino question into a legitimate research topic and, possibly, one of my dissertation essays. Trouble is, the basic concept is so simple that any of the standard bioeconomic models would suffice i.t.o. providing a theoretical framework. In other words, you probably wouldn't be making enough of a theoretical contribution for it to be considered worthy of publishable (i.e. doctoral) research.

To be considered of suitably high standard then, you'd need to supplement standard theory with empirical evidence. And here we run into another problem. What data could one use, beyond basic descriptive statistics? Moreover, how would you control for all the problems that typically come with empirical research -- identification, causation vs correlation, establishing a counterfactual, etc? In short, turning this into an original and insightful research project probably requires the use of some kind of natural experiment. Perhaps a policy change that affects some countries in the region, but not others. Hmmm...

Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, Namibia and Angola are heading for a collision with rhino conservationists after it emerged that their governments had agreed to the sale of rhino horn powder in clinics and pharmacies. 

The governments of the five states that form the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (Kaza) met in Namibia last week and resolved to sell rhino horn powder in their fight for the survival of the species which is fast heading for extinction.

Okay, it's probably not quite what you're looking for. Most obviously, legalizing the sale of powdered rhino horn in these five African states would have a negligible impact on satiating overall demand. The situation will probably only improve once the reform reaches the major Asian markets, such as Vietnam. Still, I'm very tentatively going to call this a step in the right direction.

For more on this whole rhino debate, here is a recent article worth reading.

Rhino horn! Homeopathy! Psychics!

A few weeks ago, the South African government announced that it was appointing a team to reconsider the ban on the trade in rhino horn. In short, the idea is that SA could kill two birds with one stone by capitalising on what is effectively an extremely lucrative market. Since a single rhino horn is estimated to fetch $500,000 on the Asian black market, government stock piles of the stuff (from culling and thwarted poaching operations) could actually bring in substantial revenue towards conservation efforts.

Take things a bit further and you could easily argue that the ability to legally farm and "harvest" these animals generally would bring the same positive effects that hunting does for wildlife conservation. That is, it establishes a profit motive that incentivises the preservation of valuable animal species.

Save a horny friend?

The libertarian journalist, Ivo Vegter, penned a provocative column shortly thereafter in support of the government announcement. Unsurprisingly, the essay captures some of the essence of free-market environmentalist thinking. Contrasting the fortunes of sheep with dwindling rhino numbers, he writes that the ban on rhino horn has undermined market incentives for managing these animals:

If they want rhino horn, let's sell them some 

Sheep aren't endangered, because farmers farm them. They have a vested interest in making sure that they breed and stay healthy. The profit motive ensures that sheep are either kept alive (in the case of the woolly kind) or get killed less frequently than they get born (in the case of the eating kind).

Most economists would fully appreciate the logic of utilizing these types of incentives and market signals. I readily agree with the notion that ending the ban on rhino horn could be a boon for the rhino population. However, I do have problems with a subsequent paragraph:

Many environmentalists and armchair liberals are of the view that “we” merely need to educate the backward Orientals about the lack of medicinal qualities of rhino horn. This is rich coming from a group that routinely advocates the use of unproven herbal remedies. It is also supremely condescending. Imagine the Chinese coming to Africa and telling us to stop using muti, or better yet, instructing wealthy elites about the superstition that homeopathy works. We'd tell them to mind their own business and sod off back to China, and rightly so. Even if the Vietnamese and Chinese are wrong about rhino horn, re-educating half a billion people is as tyrannical as it sounds. And even the communists failed at that.

Apart from being wonderfully ironic in highlighting his own condescension -- something, it must be said, that Ivo does not lack for when discussing "greens" or "liberals" -- this paragraph merely serves to sidestep some very important ethical issues. The morality of selling unproven (say nothing of cruelly obtained) substances for human well-being cannot be simply disentangled from its economic outcomes. Indeed, a commentator draws attention to the matter by asking: "How can it be it ethically conscionable to sell, at huge profit, a remedy that has been proven to have absolutely no efficacy? SA should peddle rhino horn to cancer patients . . . shall we also farm and sell African potatoes to people who believe they will cure AIDS? How about exporting a few of our local evangelists to exploit the gullible in exchange for miracle cures while we are about it?" (posted on Wed, 5 Oct 2011 at 12:12)

Ivo responds, but I rather think he draws a line on the wrong side of this issue. To quote the truism: Two wrongs don't make a right... And just because some new-age salesmen are able to peddle their snakeoil wares to Western consumers -- under false pretences and without accurate labeling -- does not provide satisfactory justification for encouraging (or even allowing) others to do the same. Moreover, suggesting that it does, is simply to argue your case by association.

In another sense though, Ivo is quite right because inconsistency can be a maddening thing. The difference between us, is that I would like to see consistency achieved via some form of standard regulation -- at the very least in terms of evaluating product claims and policing false advertising -- rather than a free-for-all. Given the vast asymmetries of information involved, these are the type of situations where Government (and, yes, civil society at large) can play a crucial role in improving market outcomes; by providing accurate information on product effectiveness and regulating products that might otherwise thrive on fraudulent claims. More to the point, this why precisely we expect our doctors and drugs to be licensed in modern democracies, and why we have empowered state authorities to do so on our behalf.

===

I was reminded of all this today when I saw this morning's xkcd strip, which might accurately be described as what happens when homeopathy gets into the book publishing business:

Sad, but true.

Also worth reading is the "tooltip text" that you can see if you hover over the image on the actual xkcd site. It explains the inspiration for this particular strip thusly: "I just noticed that CVS has started stocking homeopathic pills on the same shelves with -- and labelled similarly to -- their actual medicine. Telling someone who trusts you that you are giving them medicine, when you know you're not, because you want their money, isn't just lying -- it's like an example that you'd make up if you had to illustrate for a child why lying is wrong". [UPDATE: See this post.]

===

Let me leave you with one more story that has been making the rounds in the run-up to Halloween, which highlights that fine line between deception and self-delusion. A group of skeptics (not the climate change kind!) has been offering a million dollar prize to anyone that can prove, under scientifically acceptable standards, that they posses paranormal abilities. Not content to see their money go unspent, the skeptics have publicly courted a number of high-profile TV psychics (e.g. Britain's Sally Morgan) and invited them to take up the challenge.

And, would you believe it, none of these self-proclaimed psychics have responded to this wonderful opportunity to earn international fame and scientific respect... say nothing of the cool seven-figure cheque. I know, I know... Unbelievable. The brilliant Derren Brown sums up the situation thusly:

You’d think psychics would be very eager to prove they can really do it. There’s a million dollar prize fund to be won by any psychic who can show under reasonable and controlled conditions (which they can decide upon in conjunction with the scientists) that what they do is real. This is money that could be kept or given to charity of course, not to mention the likelihood of also receiving a Nobel prize and the ability to give the world vital new knowledge that would change us forever. Imagine that! If I woke up to find that I could really do it, I’d be a selfish and odd creature to offer it only to TV viewers and theatre audiences. I’d be out there, doing every test I could until the scientific establishment sat up and listened. You’d be forgiven for doubting my sincerity if I said I had better things to do. 

"I  see  hear dead people. LOL!"

As far as "forcing" he likes of Sally Morgan to take the test, this seems to be most unsatisfactory solution and one that would impinge on any number of individual rights. However, there is the lingering sense that it is simply very wrong to charge grieving people for a service that amounts to little more than selling them outright lies at particularly vulnerable times in their lives. (Although, perhaps comfort is more important than truth in some circumstances?) In that sense, I'm glad she's being called out... Though I don't hold any hopes of either side being convinced.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: You often hear it said that economics is not a morality play. Perhaps there's some cold comfort in learning that, apparently, neither is the psychic business.
___
[*] I do wonder about the practicals implications of actually farming these animals, and whether doing so would actually lead to a collapse in poaching. After all, poachers would still be able to capture substantial "rents" through their illegal actions, so long as breeding and raising a fully grown rhino remains an expensive exercise. That, however, is a subject for another day.

Snakes on a Plane: The (African) Sequel

Apologies for the lack of posting recently. To borrow a phrase, course work and project deadlines have been tearing me some new ones over the past two weeks. Pulled my first all-nighter in quite some time on Sunday, finishing up a group project. Productivity hit an all time low around 5:30am-6:30am. I must have been working on no more than five words an hour: The mental equivalent of a liquidity trap. It's going to be this way for a while, as getting to crunch time in terms of thesis delivery, etc. (I'm presenting a paper based on my thesis at a conference in May, so need to have all loose ends tied up by then... Cry me a river; I know.)

Anyway, to keep you interested, here's part of an email that I received yesterday from a buddy of mine, writing from (and I quote) "the departure hut of the Lubumbashi airport nestled deep in the Congolese jungle". We were housemates during my bachelors and he's been spending the last three years working on various projects in Africa. And I mean real Africa... Far, far away from the glamorous beaches of Cape Town, the high-rise office blocks and leafy suburbs of Johannesburg, or even the (relative) calm stability of Gabarone. As someone that has done my fair share of travelling in Africa, his emails always bring home the mixture of amazement, frustration and sheer madness that characterises life on the mother continent. Here's one story in particular that deserves retelling:

I have heard some great stories on good authority & I think you’ll find them interesting… This one really shouldn’t be funny, but I find it humorous in a sinister way so if you do too then don’t feel bad. If you think it’s a bit disturbing that I laughed when I heard it, then sorry. (Not really.) 

So, in August last year while flying on an internal flight a small 20 seater aircraft crashed into a house a few hundred feet from its destination airport. There were no distress calls from the pilot before impact & as far as the aviation authorities were concerned the crash was caused by a ”lack of fuel”. There were only two survivors, a Congolese man and a crocodile. Just so we’re all clear, a human & A CROCODILE. After a few days of lying in a comatose state the human awoke and revealed this remarkable story. 

What had happened was one of the passengers caught this juvenile croc in Kinshasa which he wanted to sell in Bandundu but didn’t want to pay the steep transport & licensing fees that would come with sending it up legally so he decided the best thing to do was buy himself a plane ticket to Bandundu and carry the half grown crock on the plane with him in a sports bag. Unfortunately for him (and all the other passengers), this brain surgeon didn’t bind it correctly and it somehow managed to escape from the bag just moments before the plane arrived at its destination. As it jumped free from its “enclosure", the croc startled the passengers who all jumped up from their seats and ran towards the cockpit to escape the gaping jaws of this prehistoric beast. The shift in weight on the small plane caused it to nose dive, the pilot was unable to correct in time and the plane hit a house and blew up. The crocodile was later dispatched with a blow from a machete. (Poor guy didn’t even get to tell his side of the story.) Very sad but really an amazing story! 

The workings of Africa are hard to comprehend unless you’ve truly experienced them, and don’t think to yourself “Well I live in Africa too” because, my friends, SA may as well be in a different solar system when you compare our fair land to the rest of Africa.

What you get if you search Google Images for "Crocodile on a Plane".

There are a few more great stories from the same email that I'd like to reprint here, especially eye-witness accounts to mind-numbing corruption and other acts of incredulity. However, in the interests of space, I'll leave it to this one for now. After having a good (i.e. very humorous) rant about some of political machinations at both local and national government level, my friend signed off as follows:

Let’s just say there are a few reasons I’m writing this email on the day that I leave the DRC... One being that I would very much like to make it out of here, the other is I would not like to return and this email will hopefully guarantee that.

While names and places have been removed, I hope that I'm doing my part to help his cause by spreading the word.

UPDATE: So I've done a bit of Googling and see that the story was covered by a number of news agencies and other sources at the time. I did not know that, Dude. (This email was the first that I've heard of it.)

"Africa Black and White" by Nick Brandt

Africa Black and White

HT: Barry Ritholtz

Meat and Veg(etarianism)

UPDATE: I stumbled upon this George Monbiot post today (Jan 24) from a few months back, discussing what seems to be a very interesting book by one Simon Fairlie: "Meat - A benign Extravagance". Fairlie apparently skewers a number of "green" myths concerning the environmental damage wrought by meat production; although he advocates a much different farming system than the one we currently have to prevent the environmental degradation and suffering that does occur from livestock farming. To his credit, Monbiot (an already admirable environmentalist and journalist in many ways) recants his previous views in light of Fairlie's evidence and research. Read the post; there's much food for thought (he he sorry) therein.

===

Something's been cropping up quite often in conversations that I've been having lately.

Vegetarianism.

Me? I eat lots of meat. Too much, I fear, and have recently endeavored to cut back on red meat in particular. Now, "Stickman" isn't a particularly ironic moniker so I guess you could say I'm doing okay in the weightiness department. However, there is good evidence to suggest that large portions of Western society consume more meat than is strictly healthy. Part of the problem is that we humans are outgrowing our biology, as we now consume certain foodstuffs in much greater quantities than the natural settings of our ancestors ever allowed. (More on that below.) I thus find myself sympathizing with a several pro-vegetarian arguments, although I don't think I'll be going full veggie any time soon myself. Still, a number of my friends have embraced the non-meat path and my discussions with them, as well as fellow carnivores like myself, seem worth jotting down.

Naughty.

To start, it seems biologically obvious to me that we are "meant" to eat meat. Humans are essentially the perfect omnivore. Our teeth are a nice mix of flat molars, premolars, incisors, etc that allow us to easily process both plant and animal material. Similarly, our digestive tract (intestines and all) is adapted to process and absorb the nutrients from all ends of the spectrum. Not only have our bodies evolved to deal happily with everything from rump steak to salad leaves, we actually require certain vitamins and nutrients that are only available in one food group or the other. In other words, we have to source some food from animals (e.g. certain B-vitamin complexes) and some from plant matter.

Can't we just talk about this?!

Of course, that last sentence only holds true in completely natural surroundings and, as I said earlier, I see the vegetarian debate is an example of us "outgrowing" our biology. The irony is that the consumption of meat played a pivotal role in the development of the human brain and broader civilization. The higher protein and calorific content of a partly carnivorous diet provides sustenance over longer periods, which among many other things allowed us time to plan and engage in other activities besides living literally hand-to-mouth. Perhaps most importantly, it fostered coordinated group action and communication between individuals, which were critical to tackling your average woolly mammoth.[*] And, indeed, doing pretty anything of substance ever since.

Getting back to what is "natural", I guess you could say that this is now a largely redundant concept. We don't live very naturally at all anymore... And, of course, this is part of the problem as we now have instant access to quantities of meat (and sugar and fat) that we would never have come across in such abundance in nature. Witness the rising trend in developed nations where more people are dying from diseases of lifestyle opulence and excess (e.g. heart attacks and obesity) than infectious diseases. The flip-side to this is that we are having to consciously curb our intake of certain foodstuffs that our bodies crave; something that I don't imagine has precedent for most of human history. The other aspect of having "overcome" nature in this way is that we now have all manner of supplements and products to make fully-fledged vegetarianism a viable and healthy lifestyle alternative. Or so I'm told.

And then you have to unpack the more tricky component of our evolved biological selves: Ethics.[**] While our physiology and human history provide very good reasons to dismiss the notion that we should be herbivores, there's no denying the strong moral compulsion that many people feel when it comes to killing animals. While it's hard to defend someone's distaste for hunting when they eat meat that comes all conveniently packaged from the supermarket, I do think that decent people can agree the suffering endured by many farm animals is abominable. (Watch Food Inc or the even more disturbing Earthlings - which you can see in its entirety online - if you're feeling up to it. On a quasi-related subject I plan to write something on GM crops sometime soon... I'm actually generally pro them for reasons that I shall explain.) It's not too much of stretch going from anti-cruelty to believing that we should not kill animals at all, although I do make this jump myself. Visiting my family in England (including my aunt who has been a vegetarian for decades), my cousin had an interesting thought. She mentioned how she'd been discussing vegetarianism with a friend and they'd pondered whether eating meat might suddenly become totally unacceptable in much the same way that slavery did. I think that this idea has more to it than face value, because it shows how dramatically  we can shift away from a norm that has been socially acceptable for the majority all of human history.

Another twist in the ethical tale is related to matters of resource use, loss of biodiversity to farming and (dum dum daaaa) climate change. I have several friends that have completely or to a large extent cut back on meat, because of such reasons. I admire the strength of their convictions, but can only see the general trend in meat consumption moving one way... particularly with the increased wealth and rising demand for higher protein, Western-style diets coming out of developing nations.

I'm about done here, but I thought I'd leave you with a final, macare thought. I'm not sure where this thought first came to me -- likely some low budget sci-fi film -- but I sometimes have this vision of aliens feasting around a dinner table in much the same way that we do in polite society. Except, rather than roast pork or skewered beef, the meal on display is a grisly composition of human parts. The fleeting image of an exposed human rib-cage ready for the offing might not be enough to permanently put me off my food, but it does cause me to take a depressing second thought about that rack of lamb I love so much.

Right, that's it for now. I'm off to lunch.

o-[O< 

(fat full Stickman)

[*] This is a major theme in Jacob Bronowksi's The Ascent of Man, which although dated in some minor aspects, is still a fantastic read. The other great book detailing the role of diet in driving civilization is, of course, Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond.

[**] I know many would contend that morality stems directly from a higher power. I would encourage you to view this post if you're interested in that debate.

God, morality and monkeys

And by "monkeys" I really mean "altruistic chimpanzees", but I'm a sucker for alliteration...

I stumbled on a really excellent opinion piece in today's New York Times: "Morals without God" by the Dutch primatologist and ethologist, Frans De Waal. I'm loathe to highlight any particular parts because the whole thing is so good, but here are three excerpts...

First up: Morality without God.

Can we envision a world without God? Would this world be good? Don’t think for one moment that the current battle lines between biology and fundamentalist Christianity turn around evidence. One has to be pretty immune to data to doubt evolution, which is why books and documentaries aimed at convincing the skeptics are a waste of effort. They are helpful for those prepared to listen, but fail to reach their target audience. The debate is less about the truth than about how to handle it. For those who believe that morality comes straight from God the creator, acceptance of evolution would open a moral abyss.

Echoing this view, Reverend Al Sharpton opined in a recent videotaped debate: “If there is no order to the universe, and therefore some being, some force that ordered it, then who determines what is right or wrong? There is nothing immoral if there’s nothing in charge.” Similarly, I have heard people echo Dostoevsky’s Ivan Karamazov, exclaiming that “If there is no God, I am free to rape my neighbor!”

Perhaps it is just me, but I am wary of anyone whose belief system is the only thing standing between them and repulsive behavior. Why not assume that our humanity, including the self-control needed for livable societies, is built into us? Does anyone truly believe that our ancestors lacked social norms before they had religion? Did they never assist others in need, or complain about an unfair deal? Humans must have worried about the functioning of their communities well before the current religions arose, which is only a few thousand years ago. Not that religion is irrelevant — I will get to this — but it is an add-on rather than the wellspring of morality. 

This very closely describes my own feelings. I've often tried to point out that morality derived from personal and social value systems just seems more genuine than morality which is (passively?) adopted as part of a religious system. If a religious person does something “good” because of the threat of hell -- or lure of heaven -- can this really be framed as a question of morality?[*] I doubt it... Now, obviously there are healthy reasons for keeping reward and punishment systems that protect the stability of a society as a whole, but the concept of "managed morality" still appears to me as little more than a lame oxymoron.

Next: Thoughts on Altruism.

Modern popularizers [have argued] that true moral tendencies cannot exist — not in humans and even less in other animals — since nature is one hundred percent selfish. Morality is just a thin veneer over a cauldron of nasty tendencies. [However], instead of blaming atrocious behavior on our biology (“we’re acting like animals!”), while claiming our noble traits for ourselves, why not view the entire package as a product of evolution? Fortunately, there has been a resurgence of the Darwinian view that morality grew out of the social instincts. Psychologists stress the intuitive way we arrive at moral judgments while activating emotional brain areas, and economists and anthropologists have shown humanity to be far more cooperative, altruistic, and fair than predicted by self-interest models. Similarly, the latest experiments in primatology reveal that our close relatives will do each other favors even if there’s nothing in it for themselves. 

[snip] 

Even though altruistic behavior evolved for the advantages it confers, this does not make it selfishly motivated. Future benefits rarely figure in the minds of animals. For example, animals engage in sex without knowing its reproductive consequences, and even humans had to develop the morning-after pill. This is because sexual motivation is unconcerned with the reason why sex exists. The same is true for the altruistic impulse, which is unconcerned with evolutionary consequences. It is this disconnect between evolution and motivation that befuddled the Veneer Theorists, and made them reduce everything to selfishness. 

[snip] 

Nature often equips life’s essentials — sex, eating, nursing — with built-in gratification. One study found that pleasure centers in the human brain light up when we give to charity. This is of course no reason to call such behavior “selfish” as it would make the word totally meaningless. A selfish individual has no trouble walking away from another in need. Someone is drowning: let him drown. Someone cries: let her cry. These are truly selfish reactions, which are quite different from empathic ones. Yes, we experience a “warm glow,” and perhaps some other animals do as well, but since this glow reaches us via the other, and only via the other, the helping is genuinely other-oriented.

Quite so. I'm tired of all the Ayn Rand types bleating on about selfishness all the time. Trust me, I get it: self-interest is very important... But I feel much of the Randian contribution these days is simply to fixate on meaningless semantics. Apart from the fact that altruistic acts often confer no obvious or immediate benefits to us, surely the exact point is that altruism is concerned with the well-being of others? "Altruism" exists as a singular -- and separate -- construct because it reflects a very specific set of actions and motivations.

Finally: Extending an olive branch to religion.

While I do consider religious institutions and their representatives — popes, bishops, mega-preachers, ayatollahs, and rabbis — fair game for criticism, what good could come from insulting individuals who find value in religion? And more pertinently, what alternative does science have to offer? Science is not in the business of spelling out the meaning of life and even less in telling us how to live our lives. We, scientists, are good at finding out why things are the way they are, or how things work, and I do believe that biology can help us understand what kind of animals we are and why our morality looks the way it does. But to go from there to offering moral guidance seems a stretch.

Even the staunchest atheist growing up in Western society cannot avoid having absorbed the basic tenets of Christian morality. Our societies are steeped in it: everything we have accomplished over the centuries, even science, developed either hand in hand with or in opposition to religion, but never separately. It is impossible to know what morality would look like without religion. It would require a visit to a human culture that is not now and never was religious. That such cultures do not exist should give us pause.

[snip]

Other primates have of course none of these problems, but even they strive for a certain kind of society. For example, female chimpanzees have been seen to drag reluctant males towards each other to make up after a fight, removing weapons from their hands, and high-ranking males regularly act as impartial arbiters to settle disputes in the community. I take these hints of community concern as yet another sign that the building blocks of morality are older than humanity, and that we do not need God to explain how we got where we are today. On the other hand, what would happen if we were able to excise religion from society? I doubt that science and the naturalistic worldview could fill the void and become an inspiration for the good. Any framework we develop to advocate a certain moral outlook is bound to produce its own list of principles, its own prophets, and attract its own devoted followers, so that it will soon look like any old religion.

As something of a secular humanist myself, I'll have to mull over the very last of these points. I strongly identify with many of the moral teachings that I've read in religious texts... But I also think that this reflects the innate strength of certain religions: They simply codified a set of moral guidelines that societies needed to "evolve" if they wanted to survive and flourish over the long-run. This, in turn, acted as the ballast for these religions to endure. The fact that we -- at least in Western societies -- seem far less concerned with certain rules than we might have been in previous years (e.g. don't eat shellfish, no sex before marriage) reinforces my belief that our morality will partly evolve with the times. (We even reject outright certain notions from religious texts, such as the right to own slaves.) Nevertheless, I completely agree that there is no need to insult someone who finds value in religion; provided their beliefs cause no demonstrable harm to others. And, as I have said previously, I look forward to the day when we come around to the idea that calling someone an "idiot" is not the best way of convincing them of your position.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Too much, I fear, in this piece to sum up in a few lines. Perhaps I can do no worse than...

Oh, oobee doo!

I wanna be like you (oo-oo-oo)

I wanna walk like you

Talk like you, too (oo-oo-oo)

You'll see it's true (oo-oo-oo)

An ape like me

Can learn to be human too!

[*] An analogy is the paradox of intrinsic versus instrumental ethics that you often hear about in courses on business ethics... The basic idea being that trying to “manage” the ethics of employees is a contradiction in terms: By subjecting ethical matters to regulation and management control, employees aren't necessarily doing something good because of it's innate goodness, but rather because they are told to so or suffer the consequences. Similarly, it could be argued that ethics derived from any authority – moral or otherwise – has some element of inherent contradiction.