Letters

I am sorry that AC Grayling regards philosophical criticism as a personal attack, to which he feels entitled to respond in kind.

The issue between us is not personal but philosophical. My question stands: what are we to make of Grayling's philosophy when it claims for itself a monopoly of truth, and when he treats the thinking of others (including most philosophers) with scorn and contempt?

I conclude this correspondence with some advice to Grayling, from Spinoza: "The wisdom of others comes alive when it is regarded neither with derision nor with lamentation nor detestation, but with understanding [intellegere]."

Robert Jackson
London WC2

Altruism & self-interest 1
3rd July 2007

Following AC Grayling, one might specify three forms of altruism:

1. Reciprocal altruism: "I scratch your back…" This is self-regarding.

2. Kin altruism: I sacrifice my life for my kin in order to preserve our common genes. This does not seem to be entirely other-regarding.

3. Pure altruism: a soldier blows himself to bits by hurling himself on top of a grenade in order to save his comrades. They are not his kin, and he certainly isn't going to be around to benefit from any reciprocity.

Recent research using MRI scans has shown that there is an area of the brain which correlates specifically with pure altruism.

Julian Dare
Oxford

Altruism & self-interest 2
28th June 2007

I am astonished that AC Grayling should attempt to reconcile altruism and self-interest without mentioning the theory of repeated games.

The theory tells us that when people who have no secrets from each other interact repeatedly, equilibria exist in which they will look after each other to the fullest possible extent. To say that a social understanding is in equilibrium means that no individual can further his own self-interest by deviating from the understanding unless someone else irrationally deviates first. In the situations to which this result applies, a society of Mr Hydes will thus be able to enjoy the fruits of co-operation no less well than a society of Dr Jekylls.

The reciprocity behind this result has been identified by philosophers down the ages as what holds societies together. Confucius is one authority and David Hume is another. The mathematical version dates to the 1950s. It is called the folk theorem, because several people realised simultaneously that it must be true after reading John Nash—the man with a Beautiful Mind—on what are now called Nash equilibria. The result was rediscovered in the 1970s by the evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers, who described it as reciprocal altruism.

The folk theorem doesn't say we are all Mr Hydes. It only says we don't need to postulate we are all Dr Jekylls to explain much co-operation. Most people will probably agree that most humans are mixtures of Jekyll and Hyde. Even Milton Friedman gave money to charity—or so he said when I asked him.

A hard-nosed explanation of this is to be found in Bill Hamiltons's theory of kin selection, which explains why it makes sense for evolution to programme us to care for those about us in proportion to the probability that they share our genes. Since most of us are willing to follow Friedman in contributing a tiny proportion of our income to charity, we are presumably programmed to regard almost everybody as a distant relative of some kind.

My book Natural Justice explains why I think these social mechanisms adequate to explain most altruism in the human species. They don't explain saints, but saintliness is rare.

Ken Binmore
University College London

Poker's face-off
9th July 2007

David Flusfeder describes the struggle of Derek Kelly, poker club proprietor, to prove in court that poker is a game of skill and not chance. Kelly might find inspiration in Mark Twain's short story "The Science vs Luck," a fictional account of an almost identical wrangle in 1860s Kentucky.

The defendant in Twain's tale proposes that the counsel for prosecution, and the judges, join a group of his most dedicated sharks for a game of seven-up (an old variant of poker). If it is just a matter of chance, he argues, the winnings should be even.

After a short and brutal game, the judges emerge and deliver their verdict: "During the entire night, the 'chance' men never won a game or turned a jack… we call attention to the significant fact that the 'chance' men are all busted, and the 'science' men have got the money.

"It is the deliberate opinion of this jury, that the 'chance' theory concerning seven-up is a pernicious doctrine, and calculated to inflict untold suffering and pecuniary loss upon any community that takes stock in it."

Matt Whitaker
Winnersh, Berkshire

My brother the bomber 1
26th June 2007

Your June editorial states, "No one has come close to solving the mystery of how… Mohammad Sidique Khan… became a jihadist." But anyone who has, like me, been a member of a group they came to believe was a cult knows what brainwashing is about—encouraging alienation from family, rewriting the past, using a person's life crises to build a wedge against friends and foster dependency. Few seem aware of these tactics, used to recruit and keep followers and, sometimes, to persuade them that their physical bodies are the only things keeping them from heaven.

Mary Candler
Morecambe

My brother the bomber 2
29th June 2007

I would like to thank Shiv Malik for his article about Mohammad Sidique Khan. My sister was one of the six people killed by Khan on the Edgware Road train. I have spent the last two years trying to understand what motivates somebody arbitrarily to take innocent lives. The shameful refusal of the government to agree to an independent enquiry into the bombings has meant that I and the hundreds of others affected have been forced to look elsewhere for answers.

Malik's article has helped me a great deal in understanding those motivations. It has helped confirm my view that simply to blame Iraq or social exclusion is a dangerous misunderstanding of the forces that lead to such acts. It is not easy to read about the man who killed my sister. But it is far more difficult to know nothing other than the enormity of the murder itself.

Robert Webb
Cardiff

Gordon Brown's religion
3rd July 2007

Richard Cockett asks whether Gordon Brown will be able to find a language to articulate his Christian faith in a way that bridges the divide between secularists and believers. Don't hold your breath.

Although Brown is happy to embrace values associated with the Presbyterian tradition—"duty, responsibility and respect for others… honesty and hard work"—there is nothing Calvinist about his theology; indeed, there is almost no theology at all. Brown quotes Isaiah in the way that he quotes Martin Luther King and even (though he does not name him) Ronald Reagan, as a colourful and succinct summary of his own beliefs.

Those beliefs, by contrast, are invariably set out using vocabulary of the Scottish Enlightenment. Christianity is held at arm's length. Brown speaks approvingly not of religion but of "the churches," which he sees as little Burkean platoons, vital to civil society not for their religious beliefs but because they implement what the common good requires.

This is why, despite coming from a quite distinct church tradition, Brown is happy to work with the Vatican, where in 2004 he became the first British cabinet minister ever to speak. He regards Rome as an effective international actor on issues of global poverty, partly because a huge percentage of clinics and schools in Africa are run by the church, but also because he understands that the churches are the organisations which turn out the most activists for campaigns like Make Poverty History and Jubilee 2000. Brown sees Rome as a powerful ally in the struggle to get the UN's millennium development goals taken more seriously.

In all this he reverts to a modernist universalism, by contrast with Blair, whose attitude to religion was distinctly postmodern. You will get no talk from Gordon about a post-secular society. Secularists will find this refreshing, but Muslims in particular will have difficulties; they do not buy into Brown's notion that Britishness must be predicated only on shared values, and want their cultural and religious identity acknowledged. Interesting times.

Paul Vallely
Associate editor, the Independent

Back to Bhutto
13th July 2007

If the Pakistan People's party (PPP) was "dynastic and elitist," as Anatol Lieven claims, it would not consistently win grassroots support. Our leader, Benazir Bhutto, was not allowed to contest the 2002 elections; despite that, and despite the election being rigged, the PPP won more votes than any other party, including General Musharraf's PML-Q.

The PPP focuses on issues affecting ordinary Pakistanis —employment, education and healthcare—rather than religious dogma. Between 1988-90, and 1993-96, the PPP's government built schools and healthcare infrastructure; created jobs; introduced privatisation. Compare this to Musharraf's record: 74 per cent of Pakistanis live on less than $2 a day; corruption is rampant; madrassas proliferate; extremism is expanding.

Lieven claims that the Islamic parties MQM and Jamaat-e-Islami are the only "real" Pakistani parties. But Islamic parties are a marginal force, and have never garnered more than 11 per cent in any election. The two major parties in Pakistan—the PPP and the PML-N—have significant grassroots support, and are committed to a democratic Pakistan.

More than two thirds of Pakistanis see extremism as a danger. But our counter-terrorism objectives cannot be achieved while the current regime depends on the religious right for political survival. The choice for Pakistan is not between Musharraf and a nuclear-armed fundamentalist government. The choice is between dictatorship and democracy, between despair and hope.

Sherry Rehman
Information Secretary, PPP