The combination of high moral integrity and capability are what we know as Nobility. Integrity, meaning moral authenticity, is the essence of good character. One’s moral or “heroic” capability is known as Virtue; such as steel-hearted courage, sensitive empathy, and physical fitness; depending on what’s called upon at the time.

One may be ennobled by heredity, upbringing, or self-improvement.

Integrity [ symbolic img ]

Virtue [ symbolic img ]

Integrity vs Virtue

Because it simply refers to a lack of corruption, integrity is inherently good, whereas virtue is only “good” insofar as it’s used to counter evil (intelligence, for example, may be used for good or evil). However, someone may unintentionally do wrong due to having high integrity but imperfect virtue.

[ img: Complex trolley problem | text: In real life, “trolley problems” are complicated. Pulling the lever could make you legally culpable for resulting deaths, even though in doing so you saved many more lives. If you have high integrity, you might pull the lever anyway, because it seems like this would prevent as much suffering as possible, even if it comes at your expense. But if you don’t know how the rail system works (you lack the virtue of knowledge) you couldn’t have foreseen that diverting its course would result in a head-on collision with another trolley, killing 10s of people. ]

Integrity and virtue rely on each other for moral direction. That being said, no amount of virtue can make an evil person good, but a good person (one with high integrity) can usually increase their virtue. For example one with abundant empathy can choose to suppress it or only help others in order to alleviate personal discomfort associated with empathy, whereas someone with poor empathy may nonetheless place great importance on the interests of others in a genuinely selfless way and seek to improve their empathy in order to help them.

A person with low integrity in this scenario might’ve inadvertently caused less suffering by, out of selfishness, refusing to pull the lever. As this is purely circumstantial, it doesn’t detract from integrity’s intrinsic worth, but highlights the fact that integrity and “good intention” alone are insufficient and need to be combined with knowledge and other virtues.

Hereditary

Action which is most ethical, therefore traits which are most useful, in current conditions are more helpful than those which “would be” in ideal conditions. However, certain heritable traits may have been selected for historically in conjunction with noble character.

Neoteny

Historical Archetypes

Methods of survival followed by breeding groups of humans for long enough to have exerted substantial selection pressure.

The hunter-gatherer

Most of humankind’s evolution was spent nomadically, travelling in search of food in small, close-knit communities living off the land with hand-crafted technology. These communities were highly egalitarian. To earn social status and have better reproductive opportunities, individuals had to be genuinely valued by their community on a deep, personal level. Those perceived as tyrants didn’t last long. However, the relationship between communities (and species) wasn’t so egalitarian. Communities were far more isolated given the inability of the land to support dense populations of hunter-gatherers, therefore inter-group unity wasn’t always a strong factor in success. It was often more competitive to rape and pillage your neighbour than smoke a pipe with them. However, because everyone fought on a more-or-less even playing field, there was little in the way of supremacist sentiment over other humans or animal species.

The herder

Supremacist sentiment became natural and useful with the herder.

The Farmer

Efficient agriculture is chiefly responsible for civilization, allowing us to settle in one place with food surplus permitting us to focus on goals beyond nourishing ourselves, something which typically takes up the majority of a wild animal’s working hours. But civilization is far more tyrannical than jungles and steppes. Predictably, its apparent advantages to freedom have been reversed, with exploitative humans taking control of natural resources and using this to enslave the populace so the majority of humans have to spend even more time than their wild ancestors procuring food and shelter, most of their labour value stolen by their exploiters. Worse still, beneath enslaved humans lie enslaved animals, who can do little but eat and stay in their housing, and who face extreme suffering which would have otherwise been avoidable.

img: The triangle/pyramid, symbol of the elites of both ancient and modern civilization, reveals the few (elites) benefiting from domination of the many.

The diamond shape in Rebel Sun’s symbol reveals what’s hidden beneath the hierarchical, upward-pointing triangle – the marginalized few being dominated by the many, as well as the elites. Law of the jungle takes this shape too, with the smaller number of predators terrorizing the larger number of prey, and unlucky individuals being oppressed by both. Civilization only exacerbates the cancer. The spiral represents the long, winding escape route.

Civilization has selected for some ignoble traits, but also some noble ones.

Beauty and Attraction