a stranger thanking me for holding the door—I don’t know them and don’t really care what status they assign me.
The “really” in that statement hides a lot of ambiguity. Here, the status assigned to you fails evolution’s consequentialist calculation, so one might say that evolution shouldn’t care what status strangers in a big city assign you. Your psychological adaptations might still care, in the sense that they get activated, not having recognized absence of evolution-relevant consequences.
On the other hand, the psychological drive may be seen as representing a terminal value, preference for accumulation of status for its own sake, irrespective of its effect on other people’s behavior or of the impact of their behavior on you. In that case, one may say that you should care. It would still be the case that you should care even if the relevant psychological adaptations don’t in fact activate, so that you happen to not care in the psychological sense.
The “really” in that statement hides a lot of ambiguity.
Not really. ;-)
It specifically meant, “I don’t care as long as they don’t assign me low status”, i.e., threaten my status with their response. That’s not a lot of ambiguity.
The “really” in that statement hides a lot of ambiguity. Here, the status assigned to you fails evolution’s consequentialist calculation, so one might say that evolution shouldn’t care what status strangers in a big city assign you. Your psychological adaptations might still care, in the sense that they get activated, not having recognized absence of evolution-relevant consequences.
On the other hand, the psychological drive may be seen as representing a terminal value, preference for accumulation of status for its own sake, irrespective of its effect on other people’s behavior or of the impact of their behavior on you. In that case, one may say that you should care. It would still be the case that you should care even if the relevant psychological adaptations don’t in fact activate, so that you happen to not care in the psychological sense.
Not really. ;-)
It specifically meant, “I don’t care as long as they don’t assign me low status”, i.e., threaten my status with their response. That’s not a lot of ambiguity.