Nayef Al-Rodan
Nayef Al-Rodhan is a philosopher, neuroscientist and geostrategist.
The notion of innate knowledge (including moral knowledge) is rejected, but that of moral sensitivities is accepted.
Those who are outside the centres of power, because of the need for a positive and not simply a stable identity, are likely to find an independent identity appealing.
Addictive drugs misuse the brain’s existing pre-programming, activating reward mechanisms and extreme feelings of pleasure. When stimulated, the brain’s pleasure centres emit signals to repeat the behaviour. In this sense, the brain is pre-programmed to feel good.
Harmonious interstate relations will be guided by the paradigm of Symbiotic Realism that stresses the importance of absolute rather than relative gains.
All policies should be packaged with full awareness of the limitation of human nature (amorality, emotionality and egoism) in both the short- and the long-term.
Institutions should focus on educating against clashes of culture and the promotion of a culture of tolerance and peace.
Justice is paramount to civilisational triumph because of its centrality to human dignity needs, the success of individual geo-cultural domains and the well-being of human civilisation.
Knowledge is also inferred from what is accepted as established knowledge, with new knowledge being based on the best explanation. This includes possible truths subject to proof.
In other words, it is my view that the brain is preprogrammed to feel good (i.e., to seek a sense of well-being/gratifcation). This is what I term the gratification principle. This usually occurs as the result of instinctive salient/relevant acts or what we normatively decide are salient/relevant acts.
There is a physical neurobiological substrate to all human knowledge, including thoughts, memories, perceptions and emotions. To this end, mental states and thought processes are physical.
All knowledge is acquired through the application of reason and has a physical basis.
By promoting justice and thus the interests of the international community as a whole, a state will be able to make its influence over others sustainable and achieve its own national interest.
Security, stability and prosperity will depend on the application of the multi-sum security principle that captures the multi-dimensional aspects of security and insists on the centrality of global justice for lasting security.
Focusing purely on extremism, whether in the Arab-Islamic world or the West, will not alleviate the root causes of tensions between members of different cultures. It will only alienate those who do not recognise themselves in those stereotypes, and generate fear and misunderstanding.
Knowledge about things beyond our immediate environment may be acquired through deduction, if the initial premises are believed to be correct.
Each high point in the history of human civilisation has taken place where the conditions were ripe and has borrowed and built on the achievements of other cultures whose golden age may have passed.
One challenge is to agree on minimum criteria of good governance that are not perceived as a threat to cultural traditions and to draw on moral concepts that are indigenous to specific cultural settings.
In my view, most human beings are innately neither moral nor immoral but rather amoral. They are driven by emotional self-interest and have the potential to be either moral or immoral, depending on what their self-interest dictates, and will be influenced in their choices by emotions and socio-cultural contexts. Circumstances will determine the survival value of humankind’s moral compass in that being highly moral in an immoral environment may be detrimental to one’s survival and vice versa. Indeed, our neuronal architecture is pre-programmed to seek gratification and feel good regardless of the reason. All apparently altruistic behaviour serves self-interest at some level.
Human and societal security should be seen as complementary to state security, and security must be thought of in multi-sum and multi-dimensional terms (human, national, transnational, environmental and transcivilisational).
Many of the great achievements in history that are commonly attributed to one geo-cultural domain often owe a great debt to those of others. In this sense, some of the greatest achievements of human civilisation have been collective efforts and are part of the same human story.