In a modern society, we live according to a social contract that is supported by a legal-rational authority. Underlying our legal-rational authority are cultural theories about the universal and over-riding desires of those within that society. These cultural theories can be supplanted by scientifically validated truths about fundamental human nature in order to design a better society.
In his article for the Journal of Evolution and Technology, Bill Hibbard writes : “this social contract is based on assumptions we rarely question: that all humans have roughly the same intelligence, that we have limited life spans and that we share a set of motives as part of our human nature. The technologies of mind and life will invalidate these assumptions and inevitably change our social contract in fundamental ways.” Assuming he is correct, how do we go about determining how to devise our laws - should they be developed to serve the specific interests of the few or to serve the immutable desires of all citizens?
According to the principles of direct democracy – the will of the majority provides the underlying authority for public policy. However, separation of church and state requires that our societal authority is not based upon religious theories but upon those that are scientifically validated - for only science can produce knowledge that is verifiable to all within reason (universally verifiable.) Therefore, if the majority believes something – it isn’t necessarily true in the sense that it can provide the rationale for public policy.
In his famous treatise on political science, Thomas Hobbes argues in ”Leviathan” that when the legal-rational authority ceases to provide for the ‘peace and defense’ of the people and their values - that it becomes null and void as a social contract and in essence a dictatorship. Thomas Jefferson later puts this thinking into practice within the United States declaration of independence - and there are many other examples of this logic within public policy. Jefferson posited that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are universal desires of human beings and that our society should be based upon the initiative to optimize these aspects of life. According to Jefferson, it is the right of the people to ‘alter or abolish’ government that becomes destructive of these ends. However, is it true that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are the universal desires of human beings?
How would Jefferson’s theories stand up to scientific scrutiny?;
1. Life - humans will give up their lives if they believe that something beneficial will happen for them - either to be remembered positively, gain rewards in an afterlife, or prevent something that they believe will effect them even after their death. However, human attributional error creates the belief that there will be some sort of continued existence even after death for those who sacrifice themselves for a cause. Before cultural theories are implanted - a human in a controlled environment will avoid death as much as they are able.
2. Liberty - humans give up choices for something that will be subjectively beneficial to them in the future - it isn’t liberty that we seek but an increase in subjective happiness and decrease of involuntary suffering based upon our projections. Here again we can see that beliefs about the future and it’s projected rewards in the form of cultural theories compel humans to do something which is for a greater good – though beliefs about the future do not change the basic underlying drive. The opposite of liberty is involuntary suffering.
3. Happiness - before we are culturally programmed to believe that specific things will achieve specific results in terms of personal happiness we can be proven to avoid pain and seek greater subjective positive affect.
How do we go about separating cultural theories from scientific observations? It’s useful to remember the concept of tabula rasa - that children are devoid of knowledge at birth and have only genetic predispositions. We can observe that the basic drives do not change as humans become enculturated but that our beliefs about the future (our projections) determine how our drives are expressed. Modern science has shown that humans are terribly inept at determining how their actions will effect their future happiness and have inherent attributional errors.
The Abolitionist Prime Ethical Directive
While I think that Jefferson was very wise and well-read his theory about the universal human desires should be further clarified as;
1. the lessening of involuntary suffering
2. the increase of subjective happiness
3. continuing this process through continued existence
To put it more succinctly : society should be designed in order to optimize lifelong individual happiness for all it’s citizens equally as the opposite of involuntary suffering is happiness.
In the spirit of Jeffersonian democracy, I’d like to offer the challenge to debate this theory about what constitutes a universally valid ethical directive using logic. The term ‘Abolitionist’ is here used to denote the abolition of involuntary suffering as we cannot put a predetermined limit on how much involuntary suffering can be eliminated, nor can we put a predetermined limit on lifespan or happiness. The “Abolitionist” prime ethical directive can be debated publicly here.
Through open public debate using logic and rationality we can further our understanding of political science and the inherent needs of human beings as we develop the means to fulfill our desires in the coming biotechnological revolution.
Sean Henderson is co-founder and coordinator of the
Abolitionist Society .
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