Beyond good and evil (Schmidt-Salomon)

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Beyond good and bad - Why we are better people without morals is a non-fiction book by the German philosopher and publicist Michael Schmidt-Salomon published in 2009 . Central is the subject of free will and objective morality as harmful illusions.

The work has been translated into Polish.

content

overview

According to Schmidt-Salomon, there is no such thing as “ bad ” or “ good ”, but rather a “delusional idea”. The “good and bad scheme” and the associated “moral triumvirate” of “guilt, atonement, punishment” are archaic thought patterns. Paradoxically, he hopes that by renouncing these patterns a strengthening of ethical awareness and at the same time a "more relaxed [...] worldview", not in the sense of a "paradise on earth" without conflicts, but a more sensible, relaxed and humorous one Basic attitude of people. The book is directed against two theses, which the author pathologizes as the "Fall Syndrome":

  • “Good” and “bad” would exist as objective moral categories.
  • Humans are the only living beings who have free will .

Schmidt-Salomon uses the biblical Fall of Man as a basic metaphor, as this story illustrates the two theses and makes them the basis of the Christian doctrine of original sin . Consequently, he names the first part of the book, in which he pleads for the elimination of the syndrome, "The new fruits of knowledge". The first chapter, “Farewell to good and evil”, is devoted to refuting the first thesis, according to which moral ascriptions could be made objectively. The second chapter, “Farewell to Free Will”, tries to convey a clear picture of the condition of human will and action by presenting various scientific studies. The third chapter, “Wrong Consequences”, analyzes free will and the thesis of objective morality as cultural patterns that would damage the responsible self-development of people. The three chapters of the second part - "The relaxed self", "Relaxed relationships" and "The relaxed society" - are intended to provide a blueprint for what a life without the influence of the Fall Syndrome could look like. In reference to Milan Kundera , Schmidt-Salomon describes this design as “The new lightness of being”. He examines the three levels of individual conscience, the mutual relationship and society, and calls for a reduction in tension and conflicts for all levels, as he has shown in the chapter "Wrong Consequences". Finally, the final chapter, “The Good News for Naked Monkeys”, looks at the human level. If the existence of mankind is understood not as part of a cosmic struggle between good and evil, but as a tiny and accidental episode in natural history, worrying about the moral value of one's own behavior instead of worrying about its real consequences would appear ridiculous.

Farewell to good and bad

Schmidt-Salomon first determines how dominant the pattern good vs. Evil in pop culture (such as in entertainment cinema) is. The rhetoric of this struggle also has a firm place in politics - the former US President George W. Bush and his way of speaking about the " axis of evil " or the so-called " rogue states " serves as an example . A comparison with the behavior of animals in particular apes , however, show that animals also commit acts that are among people as evil, such as wage wars, rape, steal, cheat; however, among animals they are considered natural.

The book suggests selfishness and altruism as naturalistic alternatives to good and evil that actually determine behavior. Based on the example of the wicked stepmother in the fairy tale , Schmidt-Salomon explains Hamilton's rule : According to this rule , people behave more altruistically than egoistically, the closer they are to the recipient of the action biologically. The contradiction between altruism and egoism is only superficial, altruism is based on rational, social and emotional reasons. Firstly, altruistic behavior within the framework of the “ tit for tat ” strategy increases profits. Second, altruistic behavior promotes one's own social prestige among conspecifics and thus promotes one's own reproduction. Third, because of human empathy or compassion, altruistic behavior elicits positive feelings in the actor himself.

According to Schmidt-Salomon, a gap between egoism and altruism only arises when these motives are eliminated through ideology . Schmidt-Salomon now looks at the world religions from this point of view . According to the book, these use the psychological and biological principles of group behavior and exclusion : While one should be good to the believers in one's own group, the merciless fight against the enemy is propagated. The distinction between good and bad can be made against this background with reference to a controversial theory of cultural evolution as a " meme ", i. In other words, to understand it as an intellectual, self-replicating genetic material that offers ideologies and religions a selection advantage. Anti-Semitism is mentioned as an example of the centuries-long development of memes and the increase in their influence . On the basis of diaries and statements from Nazi leaders, Schmidt-Salomon comes to the conclusion that the crimes against humanity that they committed during the Nazi dictatorship and with the Holocaust were perceived by them as “good” and morally correct. "Good" and "bad", so the conclusion of this chapter, are therefore purely subjective ascriptions that depend on external circumstances such as group membership.

Farewell to free will

With numerous studies in the fields of neurology , psychology , biology and sociology , Schmidt-Salomon tries to refute so-called “ free will ”. For him, it is not so much a question of whether human action could in principle be free, but rather that both modes of behavior and motives for action are dependent on external influences. A neurological case serves as a hook. Schmidt-Salomon reports on a man who began to abuse children for no apparent external reason . When a brain tumor was found and surgically removed, he no longer showed any tendency to do so. The book makes the claim that the majority of violent and sexual offenders have such neurological deformations.

The book also criticizes the dualism of body and soul , which is still widespread in popular psychology and used to explain freedom of will . With reference to the famous Libet experiment , the thesis is put forward that decisions take place as processes in the brain before they are consciously made. From this it is concluded that these processes are also to be set higher in the explanation of decisions than conscious decisions of the ego . Arthur Schopenhauer is cited with regard to the incompatibility of even a relative freedom of will with the “universal causal structure of the world”, i.e. a deterministic scientific explanation of nature.

The book advocates replacing free will with freedom of action : “To be free means to be able to do what you want - it does not mean to be able to want something other than what you want at a certain point in time.” He makes a distinction between “ external freedom of action ”( basic rights , laws , codes of conduct ) and“ internal freedom of action ”(through a healthy brain ). The latter could be affected by neurological diseases or psychological disorders such as anxiety disorders . The memes can also be an external as well as internal impairment. So would the followers of Nazism actually do nothing else can , because they had been marked by an "anti-Semitic Memkomplex" and of authoritarian structures. Nevertheless, Schmidt-Salomon does not want to absolve Adolf Eichmann , whom he cites as an example, of any responsibility. Rather, it is a matter of drawing right and wrong conclusions from the assumption that free will and objective moral values ​​are fictions.

Wrong consequences

He continues to assume that free will does not help people but leads to problems. It leads to psychological pressure, since every person is fully responsible for his own fate, both in a positive and in a negative sense. This psychological pressure leads to the fact that many people fear their own alleged freedom and put themselves in the hands of other people like dictators . This is one of the reasons why so many people obey religious authorities.

It also raises the question of what freedom actually means. Three principles are necessary for the individual to be free:

  • "I need to know which different options for action actually exist in a specific situation."
  • "I have to be able to assess the respective consequences of the various alternative courses of action in order to identify the most sensible alternative for me."
  • "I have to have the means to implement the preferred option in practice."

In the next step, the principles of chance and causality are explained. It is shown that every smallest event is only one cause in a chain of effects that runs from the beginning of the universe and in which the smallest change unfolds large effects (“ butterfly effect ”). Schmidt-Salomon defends himself against religious beliefs that this chain is predetermined by a divine force. The will and thus also the decisions are exposed to this principle. As a result, extremists and criminals could not act differently than according to how they were shaped by their environmental factors.

Now, however, the question arises whether it would not be logical, based on this conclusion , to treat all cultures and traditions equally and not to declare human rights to be universal. Schmidt-Salomon denies this question, however. The fact that human rights allow different traditions is what makes them so precious. They would show that basically all people with a similar need strive for a good life. Therefore it is right that human rights should come first.

How reasonable a meme complex (cultural, traditional, mindset, etc.) is ultimately depends on logic and empiricism . The farewell to good and bad is in no way associated with a farewell to ethical principles, since ethical action in no way means blindly following moral commands or prohibitions , but always reassessing the positive or negative consequences of a decision.

The conclusion of the first part of the book is that free will is an illusion , good and bad a moral fiction for which there is no longer any use in reality. As a consequence, the moral guilt / atonement principle is no longer applicable.

The relaxed me

It is now assumed that the imagined free will only leads to one's own dissatisfaction. Because in this way people blame themselves for every wrongdoing and every failure, although they cannot do anything about it. In the opposite case, this is also harmful, because if he succeeds in something, he tends to be arrogant and dignify other supposedly worse people. In contrast, turning away from free will could lead to a new “ease of being”. If people “no longer take themselves too seriously”, they could on the one hand simply do their best and no longer be afraid of failure and on the other hand respect other people even when they are unsuccessful.

Even with a crime, there is a big difference between feelings of guilt and feelings of remorse . Feelings of guilt would lead to depression , addictions and other illnesses , while repentance would be about admitting your own mistakes and trying to remedy or avoid them as best as possible.

It also poses the question of what people need in order to be happy. Schmidt-Salomon has three attitudes towards life:

  • The hedonism , d. H. the enjoyment of life. But this is only possible if you don't convince yourself to feel guilty, if you treat yourself to something. With many religions, however, it is the case that enjoyment is seen as decadence and as something bad.
  • To put action for other people or life “in the service of a higher cause”. But he does not mean religion, but everything that goes beyond private life, such as commitment to the environment. If humans were no longer afraid of failure, they would also rather dare to make the world a better place.

Schmidt-Salomon says: "Let's learn to endure, to be who we are, in order to work on it at the same time, to become who we could ideally be."

Relaxed relationships

Schmidt-Salomon emphasizes that honest criticism is a gift that should not simply be turned down. However, free will leads to people feeling worse in discussions, for example, if their arguments are refuted. Because if there were free will, that would mean that they are responsible and "guilty" for all misconceptions themselves. Nobody deviates from his opinion in discussions because nobody can admit that he is wrong. On the other hand, if the principle of free will were abandoned, it would be easy to allow criticism and to follow new arguments. This would ultimately help everyone involved.

He also wants all those people to be forgiven who have committed terrible crimes such as murder or rape , since people would only burden themselves with thoughts of hatred and revenge, while forgiveness is best for the good of the soul. Studies and examples are also given for this thesis. With the appeal to free will, crimes are even worse, since it is assumed that the perpetrator has freely decided to act. Schmidt-Salomon, on the other hand, insists on a new way of dealing with criminals and calls this the “paradigm of innocence”, since he assumes the fundamental innocence of every human being.

The relaxed company

The various consequences of the “new lightness of being” are cited on the basis of criminal law and economic systems as well as international politics . There are three factors to consider in a new criminal law:

  • The function of punishment. Without free will, there is no function of revenge and atonement . The focus is on protecting society and its legal norms .
  • Dealing with the perpetrator. This is not a "victim of society" as some would see it. However, it is also largely a product of its biological and cultural environment. As a result, he was punished twice: On the one hand, it was harder for him in life, because he had no luck with these two factors and now he would be punished for it. By realizing that criminals could not act any differently than they ultimately did, one can work much better with convicts. Intensive measures should be used to rehabilitate the perpetrators so that they no longer relapse. This helps both the perpetrator and society .
  • The importance of crime prevention . It is important that there are no crimes in the first place. Extensive preventive measures are therefore necessary, such as the hiring of more social workers , an early warning system for abused children or the consistent implementation of the broken window theory . Only through such a “humanistic social policy” would everyone involved be helped.

A rethink is also required in economic policy . Free will would promote social inequality , since each of his fortunes and poor would be responsible for their own situation. This view should be abandoned. However, Schmidt-Salomon rejects a “selection towards mediocrity”. Instead, he insists on equal opportunities . Everyone should be encouraged and challenged according to their talents. Achievement orientation and competition are a positive thing because they correspond to human nature.

In international politics, such a rethinking away from free will leads to a policy of détente , since there is no longer any good or bad, only people and peoples with different interests.

The good news for naked monkeys

In the last chapter, the fundamental self-image of humanity is called into question. Schmidt-Salomon describes the idea that man is the “ crown of creation ” as a megalomania . Man is actually only an insignificant species that has only existed for a few thousand years and will disappear again in a few thousand years. In addition, the earth is only a "speck of dust" in the universe . This fact is not devastating, but liberating. The thought that man is the “crown of creation” makes himself unhappy because he wants to meet a claim that is completely exaggerated. Instead, people should rather be grateful and happy that they are alive at all and are making the best of their lives.

Reviews

The bioethicist Edgar Dahl describes Beyond Good and Evil in the journal Brain & Spirit as an “entertaining monograph ” on the wisdom of life “Man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants” by Arthur Schopenhauer . According to Dahl, “philosophically trained readers” would possibly miss “a discussion of the arguments of Ansgar Beckermann , Michael Pauen , Geert Keil and many other experts”. Anyone who would therefore want to familiarize themselves with “the current state of neuroethics ” should “go to use other specialist books ”.

According to Barbara Dobrick from DeutschlandRadio Kultur , Schmidt-Salomon pleaded with his book "in a winning and convincing way for an enlightened view of self and the world". Winning because he formulates “easily understandable, elegant and humorous”, convincing because he argues “stringently and interdisciplinary” and thereby pre-buttoned “those problems” that would “particularly concern” us.

The historian Klaus-Jürgen Bremm describes Beyond Good and Evil in the magazine Glanz & Elend as an attempt to prove that “morality and guilt, two central religious categories, prevent us from a better and more humane life” and therefore “on the rubbish heaps of ideas belong ”as well as the“ old-fashioned ideas of heaven and hell ”. However, Schmidt-Salomon had to relate “all of his evolutionary prerequisites” also “metacritically to his own statements”. Even the “denial of free will” cannot be “made as a statement claiming the truth”, because it is “itself completely determined” and thus “epistemologically irrelevant”. Schmidt-Salomon's “ mechanistic - deterministic approach” can also be criticized from a “scientific- theoretical perspective” because he “quite obviously ignores the findings of quantum physics ”. The claim to offer his readers a “better” way of life could not be met with arguments because he himself had given up every absolute ethical standard. Ultimately, he could not formulate his “positions without contradictions”.

Tim Hofmann sums up in an article in the Freie Presse that Schmidt-Salomon is spreading his theses in an “undogmatic and relaxed way”. Schmidt-Salomon wanted to open up a “new view of the world” which, with “its change of perspective” alone, called for a certain “flexibility in thinking” without “always having to be right”. In many places he affords himself “the luxury” of “tearing his thoughts in a shirt-sleeved manner”, for example when he integrates “ spirituality and mysticism into his godless universe”. Above all, he advocates a “relaxed self-image, less doggedness and tolerance”. The fact that the author occasionally uses “provocative examples” does not seem particularly biting, but rather emphasizes “his concern”. All of this makes Beyond Good and Evil a “remarkable and ultimately helpful contribution to the current debate about values ​​and morals”.

The biologist Ulrich Leinhos-Heinke is of the opinion in the International Journal for Philosophy and Psychosomatics that “the presentation of scientific principles is decidedly too thin and too one-sided” to provide “reliable background information”. The “examination of the good-bad paradigm” is based on “strongly trivializing assumptions”; the “ criticism of religion and the argument in favor of a scientifically founded atheism” is “far too undifferentiated” and the conclusions proposed by Schmidt-Salomon for “individual, culture and society” are based on more “esoteric foundations” and “do not go beyond the level "The ubiquitous" life guide "and" promise of happiness "on the book market. They are therefore unproductive for the "psychologists, doctors, educators or lawyers who are confronted with the challenges of practice". Taken together, Beyond Good and Evil is a "rather dispensable publication". Leinhos-Heinke states a “know-it-all attitude which, regardless of the weaknesses in the content, repeatedly makes reading uncomfortable” as well as a downright embarrassing overestimation of himself when the author warns of “churches of innocence” that could arise from the foundation of his book.

literature

expenditure

  • Michael Schmidt-Salomon: Beyond Good and Evil. Why we are better people without morals . Pendo Verlag , Munich-Zurich (2009). ISBN 3866122128 .

Reviews and journalistic reactions

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Michael Schmidt-Salomon: Beyond Good and Evil Pando 2009, pp. 9–22
  2. ↑ Leinhos-Heinke 2009, p. 2
  3. ↑ Leinhos-Heinke 2009, pp. 4-6
  4. ↑ Schmidt-Salomon 2009, pp. 25-105
  5. ↑ Schmidt-Salomon 2009, pp. 107–156
  6. ↑ Leinhos-Heinke 2009, pp. 6-7
  7. ↑ Leinhos-Heinke 2009, pp. 7–9
  8. ↑ Schmidt-Salomon 2009, pp. 157-204
  9. ↑ Schmidt-Salomon 2009, pp. 207-252
  10. ↑ Schmidt-Salomon 2009, pp. 253-276
  11. ↑ Schmidt-Salomon 2009, pp. 277-302
  12. ↑ Schmidt-Salomon 2009, pp. 303-312
  13. ↑ Brain & Spirit : "The new lightness of being" , January 18, 2010
  14. ↑ Barbara Dobrick : "When morality becomes religious." In: DeutschlandRadio Kultur . October 21, 2009.
  15. ↑ Glanz & Elend, magazine for culture and criticism: “The emptiness of the good” , accessed on November 25, 2015
  16. ↑ Free press : "Gut gegen Böse? '" , December 11, 2009 (PDF; 238 kB)
  17. ↑ International Journal for Philosophy and Psychosomatics : “Beyond Science and Ratio” ( Memento of the original from November 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , from 2009 (PDF) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.philosophie.uni-mainz.de