tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post6906645819460039093..comments2024-03-28T08:57:53.180+00:00Comments on Darwinian Conservatism by Larry Arnhart: Sympathy, Natural Sociality, and Mirror NeuronsLarry Arnharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14619785331100785170noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-67794819758249460742009-12-10T00:04:08.919+00:002009-12-10T00:04:08.919+00:00How can a place like New York City be famed both f...How can a place like New York City be famed both for its callousness and its cosmopolitanism? Perhaps you are not implying this, but it doesn't strike me as likely to be true that New Yorkers of different ethnicities are able to get along with each other simply because they have expanded their sense of empathy and ingroupness. Something more is needed to understand why human beings actually respect the rights of others than simply empathy, or the fellow feeling that Hume describes. In fact, it might actually be the ability to turn off one's empathy and ignore people that you don't know and aren't part of your crowd that actually allows for, in practice, respect of rights in diverse societies. This might imply, as well, that people who are low in agreeableness, but not pathologically so, are not moral strangers, but that their understanding of the world(which I suspect may have kinship to Machiavelli's?), is vital to sustaining a society which actually respects rights, even if those people are callous enough to see the world outside their family as little more than a power struggle. Which I think would make your defense of moral sentiment as a firm basis for natural rights a little more complicated, as in practice they actually come about through the conflict of men who would be tyrants.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03918578746540002029noreply@blogger.com