Are American lives worth more than other lives?

[Baculus]

In emergency or dire situations, most folks won't think about nationalism, where and who the victims are, etc. If a person needs help, the average person with morals will simply try to aid that person. (This also includes war, with soldiers even trying to rescue enemy combatants.) Perhaps there are certain attributes that will affect who they may save or value first, such as a child or gender (women and children first, as an ex.), But generally, when push comes to shove, minor details really don't matter if you're just reacting to save another human being. That's why "value" is such a difficult situation, since such value may change, and almost vanish, in certain scenarios. If you came upon an airplane crash, I would venture that most of us wouldn't think about who the victims are, where they are from, etc. You react - at least for those of us who believe we would make, or have made, an effort to save another person's life even at the risk of our own.

The question if value isn't easy, since it depends on what sort of situation that the value applies, and to whom.

[BlueTalon]

Originally posted by The Chief

Unless it is discovered that tribalism is reflexive behavior, like many other behaviors geared towards self-preservation.

Well, you can believe whatever you want -- you're entitled to your religeo-philosophical beliefs. But your statement "...unless it is discovered..." basically means you believe it without any evidence, or even in spite of the available evidence.

I'm not sure what this fixation is on tribalism is.

[Barney B]

Originally posted by BlueTalon

But your statement "...unless it is discovered..." basically means you believe it without any evidence, or even in spite of the available evidence.

Yes, thanks for telling me what it means to you.

To me it means, "Let's politely tell this guy that psychologists have a way to go before they're verifiably able to explain human behavior, and as scientific rigor is increasingly applied, the evolutionary models are gaining momentum."

Your assertion that

EVERYONE in the field of phsychology attributes human behavior to consciousness, to the ability to think abstractly, to make decisions, to exercise our higher mental abilities in some form or another.

would seem to be outdated. The internet reveals a host of scholarly supporting literature dating back as far as the 80's. Here's a smattering, along with some authors:

Origins of the Social Mind

Evolutionary thinking has entered the mainstream of academic psychology...

Genes on The Couch

The Evolution of Scientific Psychology and Public Policy - On Violence and It's Antidotes by Richard W. Bloom

Richard W. Bloom

Dr. Richard W. Bloom is Dean, College of Arts and Sciences; Professor, Political and Clinical Psychology; and Director, Terrorism, Intelligence, and Security Studies, at Embry- Riddle Aeronautical University, Prescott, AZ. Dr. Bloom has worked for the United States Government as an intelligence operations manager, intelligence analyst, special operations planner, special planner, politico- military planner, and military clinical psychologist.

Simon Baron Cohen

Simon Baron-Cohen is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at the University of Cambridge and Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge. He is Director of the Autism Research Centre (ARC) in Cambridge.

David Buss

After completing his doctorate in 1981 at the University of California, Berkeley, David Buss spent four years as Assistant Professor at Harvard University. In 1985, he migrated to the University of Michigan, where he taught for 11 years before accepting his current position at the University of Texas in 1996. His primary interests include the evolutionary psychology of human mating strategies; conflict between the sexes; prestige, status, and social reputation; the emotion of jealousy; homicide; anti-homicide defenses; and stalking.

The Adapted Mind

Leda Cosmides

Leda Cosmides is best known for her work in pioneering the new field of evolutionary psychology. She developed her interest in rebuilding psychology along evolutionary lines while an undergraduate at Harvard, where she got her A.B. in biology (1979) and her Ph.D. in cognitive psychology (1985). Cosmides did postdoctoral work with Roger Shepard at Stanford and was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, before moving to the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she has been on the faculty since 1991. Cosmides won the 1988 American Association for the Advancement of Science Prize for Behavioral Science Research, the 1993 American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology, and a J. S. Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. In 1992, with John Tooby, she published The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture, an edited volume designed to be a state of the art survey of the new field. Leda Cosmides is currently Professor of Psychology at UCSB. She and John Tooby founded and co-direct the UCSB Center for Evolutionary Psychology.

I could post links all night, but you get the idea.

[BlueTalon]

Look, start another thread if you want to go on about this.