Survivalism

In the following article by Dan Polansky, let survivalism refer to various attempts to reduce philosophical problems to the concept of survival, or continuing existence, of various entities such as humans, their genes and their ideas. An alternative name could be viabilism, referring to viability of entities. The problems may include those in epistemology, ontology and ethics. Wikipedia has a different concept of survivalism; on the other hand, Merriam-Webster's "an attitude, policy, or practice based on the primacy of survival as a value" is close enough to the concept chosen in this article.

The word "survival" contains the morphological/etymological elements of sur- + viv- + -al, perhaps pointing to staying alive past an event endangering life. For our purposes, it creates a slightly misleading effect since the entities whose continuing existence is analyzed need not be living things/organisms; they can be e.g. genes or elements of culture. Furthermore, the concept of survival seems to point to some event or accident that is to be survived, but there are also uses of the word where the reference dangerous event is not pointed to.

The word "survival" appears in the phrase "the survival of the fittest" in the fifth edition of Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Darwin borrowed the phrase from English philosopher Herbert Spencer. There may be some connection between survivalism and various concepts or ideas named by a phrase containing the word "Darwinism".

The first application of survivalism is to skepticism. A person who is a deeply radical skeptic may refuse to believe there is a hole before their eyes, but once they fall into the hole, they may realize this form of skepticism is impractical. A person whose radical skepticism leads to their premature death cannot realize as much, provided there is no afterlife. The person who has fallen into a hole may maintain that they do not mind and that that is fine; a person who has died does not have this option. The only widely adopted genuinely held epistemic stances are those that do not result in quick death of their holders.

The second application of survivalism is to the problems of value and ethics. Persons can debate what is intrinsically valuable and ultimately morally good, but only as long as they are alive. Put differently, dead people do not debate what is valuable, worthwhile, morally good, meaningful, etc. This appears to skew all debates about these things toward an implied objective of the continued survival or existence of the debate participants. However, a more careful analysis reveals that also those incapable of speech do not debate these things, implying an objective of the continued ability to speak, or more specifically, to participate in the debate. Therefore, as a general principle, debates about values, goods and morals appear to be biased toward the continued ability of the debate participants to debate. Thus, one might think that values of idle debaters will be better represented in the debates than the values of more busy people.

However, debates about what is good are not the only means by which value stances are revealed. Other actions, including purchases of goods and services on the market, also reveal what people value. Using similar analysis as above, these will tend to be biased toward the ability to participate on these purchases rather than being as if unbiased and random.

Another connection can be made between survival and the concept of good, namely the survival of a particular rendering of the concept of good itself in a particular culture. One approximation of that rendering may be phrases and sentences pointing to that rendering, but they are not the only item of the sort. What it tells us is that some concepts of good are viable in that the cultures hosting them are viable. What it does not tell us is that the survival of a particular concept of good is a good thing or the true ultimate objective. At some level of analysis, the choice of the ultimate good or the ultimate objective to pursue appears open; what is not open are the consequences of the choice.

One thing the various forms of survivalism appear to have in common is that they appear connected with the notion that might makes right, but that needs to be clarified:

• The notion of might makes right is ambiguous and requires an explication. Based on that explication, we would see whether the result is a form of survivalism.
• The concept of morally right may be different from morally good; this requires a clarification.
• There is possibly a concept of objectivelly morally right to which the various cultural concepts are mere approximations or variations. If so, an entity having a might can be in the position to control or dictate statements about right, but not the concept of objectively morally right.
• The survival of an individual, the copying of genes and the copying of concepts of the good are three distinct things and it is unclear why they would all point to the single concept of might makes right.

It appears that the various forms of survivalism fail to lead to satisfactory epistemic and moral philosophies, yet they appear not completely irrelevant:

• The accuracy of a model of reality (e.g. Newtonian physics) does not appear to be guaranteed by the fact that the model serves survival or practical applications well; the concept appears to involve more than that. (A model of empirical reality can be more or less verisimilar or truth-like, or empirically adequate.) If a falsifying (refuting) observation against the model is known and unresolved, we do not think the model is accurate as long as we survive well; rather, we consider the falsifying observation to be a problem showing the model to be imperfect.
• The validity of a set of norms does not appear to be justified by the fact that the set serves the survival of the holder or holders of the norms well. In particular, the norm that one ought not kill another for one's benefit only because no one is looking and will never find out does not seem derived from the objective of one's survival, and is sometimes contrary to it.

Thus, it appears that the concepts of truth of a statement, accuracy or verisimilitude of a model and validity of a norm are transcendent in some sense, going beyond the requirements of survival. And yet, believing the Darwinian and Dawkinsian theory, the brain structures able to identify or recognize things as true, accurate or valid have originated through Darwinian evolution by natural selection, by variation and elimination of various entities, including genes, gene complexes, patterns of organ growth, organ structures, functional designs, traits, and other entities we may have poor understanding of.

Let us clear some misconceptions about the kinds of entities that are to survive:

• The fittest. This is ambiguous, given the various meanings of "fit".
• The most genetically fit.
• The strongest.
• The most adapted.
• The most able to survive in various niches that keep on appearing and disappearing as the world is changing.

The last answer seems to be correct even if it approaches a tautology, a statement with no empirical content.

The following sources seem to point to some form of survivalism in relation to some entities:

• Herbert Spencer talks positively of "the survival of the fittest".
• Charles Darwin used the phrase "the survival of the fittest" in the 5th edition of The Origin of Species.
• Henri Poincaré: A quotation from Poincaré about aborigines loving loud colors and sounds of the drum, but the world being ruled by the lovers of intellectual duty, seems to point to survivalism.
• Karl Popper: His consideration about an Indian tribe that considered tigers so sacred that killing them would be prohibited, and then, the tribe would be killed by the tigers, points to ethical survivalism, whether genetic or rather cultural one. The relevant quotation is this:

  "[1]The method of trial and error is not, of course, simply identical with the scientific and critical approach--with the method of conjecture and refutation. The method of trial and error is applied not only by Einstein but, in a more dogmatic fashion, by the amoeba also. The difference lies not so much in the trials as in the critical and constructive attitude towards errors; errors which the scientist consciously and cautiously tries to uncover in order to refute his theories with searching arguments, including appeals to the most severe experimental tests which his theories and his ingenuity permit him to design.

  "The critical attitude might be described as the result of a conscious attempt to make our theories, our conjectures, suffer in our stead in the struggle of the survival of the fittest. It gives us a chance to survive the elimination of an inadequate hypothesis--when a more dogmatic attitude would eliminate it by eliminating us. (There is a touching story of an Indian community which disappeared because of its belief in the holiness of life, including that of tigers.) We thus obtain the fittest theory within our reach by the elimination of those which are less fit. (By 'fitness' I do not mean merely 'usefulness' but truth; see chapters 3 and 10, below.) I do not think that this procedure is irrational or in need of any further rational justification."

• Eric Berne: There could be something pointing to survivalism in Eric Berne, but I would have to find what it is.
• Ayn Rand: The following quotation from Philosophy, Who Needs It is suggestive: "Man's life is the standard of morality, but your own life is its purpose. If existence on earth is your goal, you must choose your actions and values by the standard of that which is proper to man—for the purpose of preserving, fulfilling and enjoying the irreplaceable value which is your life." The quotation and its context can be found in amberandchaos.net. Here, Philosophy, Who Needs It quotes Atlas Shrugged. amberandchaos.net features inter alia the following: "A being who does not hold his own life as the motive and goal of his actions, is acting on the motive and standard of death." Comment: From the gene-selfish/Dawkinsian perspective, it is not clear why one's own life would be the objective rather than, say, replication of the genes, which would often lead one to self-sacrifice to save one's children.

One may focus on the survival of humankind rather than human individuals, their genes or elements of human culture. Green 2019 sees the survival of humankind as a foundational ethical obligation. Similar idea is aired at Philosophy Stack Exchange.

An application of survivalism to ontology could be this. An ontological imprecision is acceptable as long as it does not threaten the survival of those making the mistake. A different take could be this. The innate brain structures that lead to ontological intuitions are a result of variation and elimination of the genes coding these structures, so the objective of survival (of the genes) is implied in them. On the other hand, if one distinguishes a gene occurrence from a gene copy, it is much more about gene copying than survival alone (compare token vs. type distinction).

Further reading

• Survivalism, wikipedia.org
• Survival of the fittest, wikipedia.org