732
throat, one hectare at a time, has no reconciliatory solution under the aegis of natural selection? We may well ponder—tens of millions of people have—how God can
exist beside an Auschwitz, and another to be perplexed by the notion of a “natural”
natural selection that vouchsafes vast ecological horrors. Add time to the equations
of bewilderment, more than four billion years of time, and we might pose the prospect that at the cosmic level, there can be no derivative meaning from earth. Only
ephemeral events of zero consequence. This is not to attribute a value to zero, plus
or minus. Only an interregnum spanning infinite neutralities, frustratingly neutral.
If these misanthropic calculations test probabilities, even plausibilities within a
confined time frame, any ethical virtue remains, at best, something like the square
root of obscurity. What set of numbers are disposed toward goodness? Can we
equate probability theory with empathy, noting that the mix of observations concerning compassion in our species and countless others, is a genetically fixed menu
of perceptions; the methodologies employed predicated upon untested other formulae of personality, observer background, and the stilted language of science or literature that seeks to convey what is ultimately an opinion?.
34
One likely answer, the
real story, is something quite different than we might hope for.
35
Rather than somehow personally grappling with the apparent toxic burdens of evolutionary biology,
we could defer to the underlying molecular and genomic storylines. To do so would
be to believe in such data and accompanying scenarios. Belief, beneath the aegis of
a skeptical presence, an unhappy state of being, places the ambivalent God within
the center of our deliberations; or relegates the atheist, or disinterested, the
maleffected anger and depression of ecological fall-out to an (arguably) inoperable
guise of potential, or de-conscience. Alternatively, one might develop a thesis that
recognizes the paramount differentials separating individuals, at least in part, from
their species.
36
34 See, for example, Culture of Ambiguity – Implications for Self and Social Understanding in
Adolescence, by Sandra Leanne Bosacki, Sense Publishers, Rotterdam The Netherlands, 2012; See
also, “Compassion and the rule of law,” by Susan A. Bandes, International Journal of Law in
Context, 13,2, Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 184–196, https://doi.org/10.1017/
S1744552317000118, http://www.susanbandes.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/compassion_
and_the_rule_of_law.pdf, Accessed January 20, 2020; See also The Ethics of Ambiguity, by
Simone De Beauvoir, Translated by Bernard Frechtman, The Philosophical Library, New York
1948; What We Owe to Each Other, by T. M. Scanlon, Belknap Press, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, Mass., 2000; Morals by Agreement, by David Gauthier, Oxford University Press,
New York 1987; Anarchy, State, and Utopia, by Robert Nozick, Basic Books, New York 2013; The
Community of Advantage: A Behavioural Economist’s Defence of the Market, by Robert Sugden,
New York, Oxford University Press, 2018; and Moral Differences – Truth, Justice and Conscience
in a World of Conflict, by Richard W. Miller, Princeton University Press, Princeton New Jersey
1992.
35 For a discussion of regret theory, see Loomes, G.; Sugden, R. (1982). “Regret theory: An alternative theory of rational choice under uncertainty”. Economic Journal. 92 (4): 805–824. https://doi.
org/10.2307/2232669. JSTOR 2232669.
36 See two of the Authors’ previous works, The Theoretical Individual: Imagination, Ethics and the
Future of Humanity, Springer New York, 2018; and The Hypothetical Species: Variables of Human
Evolution, Springer New York, 2019.
80 Temptational Obscurity That Brings Hope to Life
throat, one hectare at a time, has no reconciliatory solution under the aegis of natural selection? We may well ponder—tens of millions of people have—how God can
exist beside an Auschwitz, and another to be perplexed by the notion of a “natural”
natural selection that vouchsafes vast ecological horrors. Add time to the equations
of bewilderment, more than four billion years of time, and we might pose the prospect that at the cosmic level, there can be no derivative meaning from earth. Only
ephemeral events of zero consequence. This is not to attribute a value to zero, plus
or minus. Only an interregnum spanning infinite neutralities, frustratingly neutral.
If these misanthropic calculations test probabilities, even plausibilities within a
confined time frame, any ethical virtue remains, at best, something like the square
root of obscurity. What set of numbers are disposed toward goodness? Can we
equate probability theory with empathy, noting that the mix of observations concerning compassion in our species and countless others, is a genetically fixed menu
of perceptions; the methodologies employed predicated upon untested other formulae of personality, observer background, and the stilted language of science or literature that seeks to convey what is ultimately an opinion?.
34
One likely answer, the
real story, is something quite different than we might hope for.
35
Rather than somehow personally grappling with the apparent toxic burdens of evolutionary biology,
we could defer to the underlying molecular and genomic storylines. To do so would
be to believe in such data and accompanying scenarios. Belief, beneath the aegis of
a skeptical presence, an unhappy state of being, places the ambivalent God within
the center of our deliberations; or relegates the atheist, or disinterested, the
maleffected anger and depression of ecological fall-out to an (arguably) inoperable
guise of potential, or de-conscience. Alternatively, one might develop a thesis that
recognizes the paramount differentials separating individuals, at least in part, from
their species.
36
34 See, for example, Culture of Ambiguity – Implications for Self and Social Understanding in
Adolescence, by Sandra Leanne Bosacki, Sense Publishers, Rotterdam The Netherlands, 2012; See
also, “Compassion and the rule of law,” by Susan A. Bandes, International Journal of Law in
Context, 13,2, Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 184–196, https://doi.org/10.1017/
S1744552317000118, http://www.susanbandes.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/compassion_
and_the_rule_of_law.pdf, Accessed January 20, 2020; See also The Ethics of Ambiguity, by
Simone De Beauvoir, Translated by Bernard Frechtman, The Philosophical Library, New York
1948; What We Owe to Each Other, by T. M. Scanlon, Belknap Press, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, Mass., 2000; Morals by Agreement, by David Gauthier, Oxford University Press,
New York 1987; Anarchy, State, and Utopia, by Robert Nozick, Basic Books, New York 2013; The
Community of Advantage: A Behavioural Economist’s Defence of the Market, by Robert Sugden,
New York, Oxford University Press, 2018; and Moral Differences – Truth, Justice and Conscience
in a World of Conflict, by Richard W. Miller, Princeton University Press, Princeton New Jersey
1992.
35 For a discussion of regret theory, see Loomes, G.; Sugden, R. (1982). “Regret theory: An alternative theory of rational choice under uncertainty”. Economic Journal. 92 (4): 805–824. https://doi.
org/10.2307/2232669. JSTOR 2232669.
36 See two of the Authors’ previous works, The Theoretical Individual: Imagination, Ethics and the
Future of Humanity, Springer New York, 2018; and The Hypothetical Species: Variables of Human
Evolution, Springer New York, 2019.
80 Temptational Obscurity That Brings Hope to Life