The latest conversation with my friend and colleague Dan Kaufman (he of The Electric Agora) was on what, exactly, science can tell us about morality, meaning not the trivially misguided notion that somehow ethics can be reduced to neuroscience, or evolutionary biology, or whatever, but rather the more nuanced question of whether and how science can inform philosophizing about ethics.
After a brief bout of self-advertising about my forthcoming book (How to Be a Stoic, available for pre-order at Amazon), we began by identifying the different types of science that may have claims at telling us something interesting about ethics: evolutionary biology, cognitive and developmental psychology, and neuroscience.
From which we proceed to ask the questions of whether morality is “baked” into our biology, and whether comparative primatological studies can tell us where it comes from. Dan expresses skepticism, based on the fact that people don’t even agree on what exactly morality is; my position is a bit more open, but with a number of caveats, simply due to the fact that there aren’t a hell of a lot of closely related species to compare our behavior to.
Next we suggest what I think is an interesting way in which Kant and moral psychology, while at first sight at odds with each other, actually nicely complement. We also talk about Nietzsche, whose moral philosophy Dan suggests may be a problem for any scientific account of the phenomenon, but there too I suggest there are ways to overcome or at least diffuse the apparent tension.
Toward the end of the video we discuss why looking at primates closely related to us, such as chimpanzees and bonobos, actually tells us very little about the biological roots of our moral instincts, and we explain just how difficult it is to carry out sound experiments investigating innate moral responses in human infants.
Footnotes to Plato 
It was explained quite explicitly in the dialogue in the latter section, when we talked about insects.
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Totally off subject: Over 375 episodes of “Firing Line” are now available on youtube. Here, for example, is a 7 part interview with a young Chomsky in 1969.
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Forgot the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k9aTeoDBxw
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As to our vast difference from even the closest primate species (chimps and bonobos): systematic genocide on all primates approaching our level of sentience (hence appearing as rivals) would perhaps account for the gap. Something of this kind has occurred in the historic period, i.e. the various degrees of genocide perpetrated in the Western Hemisphere after 1492. Not all of this was deliberate extermination, of course, as disease was also a factor, but the end result was severe native depopulation, and in the middle and southern continents, extensive intermarriage, resulting in a mestizo population. It’s conceivable that another extensive period of isolation would have eventually produced one or more distinct human species in the Western Hemisphere, which would have been quite culturally advanced, developing out of the Incan and Mayan civilizations.
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On another note, human development seems to recapitulate evolution. At a certain age, babies achieve a standing position by well-known stages, and start walking and talking. In the absence of any adult prompting, they will do these things when they get around to it, but the inevitable encouraging and rejoicing that greets their efforts is one of the beginnings of their education, and moral features are part of the same process. So one answer to the question “Where do our moral values come from?” is that we are continually inventing and communicating them all the time.
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Insects, jokes between Dan and Massimo aside, are a red herring. Nobody really considers them to be conscious, to have a theory of mind, to have true emotional states, etc.
Dan, do you think that’s a serious rejoinder??
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WTC, file under assimilation rather than extermination — there are some genetic hints that in sub-Saharan Africa, at least, early Homo sapiens may have mated with Homo erectus.
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Yes, and also, I believe, all of us not from Africa have some small percentage of Neanderthal genes. Golding’s “The Inheritors” presents a vivid hypothesis of our early encounters with this species.
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Socratic, note that my comment on the Western Hemisphere post-1492 suggests that assimilation is part of the process in the historical period.
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Yes, Socratic, given that I am not using it towards that end. Indeed, I think it is the potentially the strongest argument of the bunch. I rehearsed it pretty explicitly with Massimo in the dialogue. Here’s how I put it in the discussion thread over at BHTV, in an exchange with a clinical psychologist:
“The problem is that proto-social behavior is evident across the animal kingdom, including in animals with which we bear no meaningful genetic connection at all, like insects. What that seems to suggest is that it is so ubiquitous across the animal world that the fact that it appears in primates may not say anything particularly interesting about us. In short where something is biologically ubiquitous — or at least, very, very widespread — pointing to a biological source becomes much less informative regarding the thing one is trying to explain, which is human moral life. It’s almost as if one were to say, “Human moral life, yeah, because …. nature.” “
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Dan, given that insects have no TOM or consciousness, I’ve never imputed moral behavior to them. Given that primates, dolphins, elephants go beyond the most basic reciprocal behavior of insects, I think it’s a disconnect, at a minimum, to try to lump all such behavior together, because, well … because, as I just said, it’s …
NOT biologically ubiquitous. Nor are biological behaviors related to it.
The idea that two ants would behave over two berries as do two chimps is laughable. And that would start with the fact that the two ants, unlike the two chimps, wouldn’t even treat each other as “individuals.”
Whether it started with you or that clinical psychologist .. to me, seems a pretty clear version of a bulls-eye fallacy.
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I’m going to pick up further on calling human moral development a “kludge.” Maybe the idea of human moral uniqueness in not just degree but type is the latest “last refuge.”
First, of course, was the idea of many, and not just the conservatively religious, that man was unique. Then came “Origin of Species.” But that didn’t include us. Well, then came “Descent of Man.” Etc., etc.
Then came consciousness. And emotions. In both cases, while there’s obviously still a gap, we’ve seen that some other animals have at least some degree of consciousness, and at least some degree of true emotions.
So, that leaves moral development as the next “bastion” or whatever of human uniqueness.
Maybe it’s not, either.
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Socratic, you missed the point of the argument entirely. There is no “bulls-eye” fallacy involved. I have taught logic at the university level for decades. You can give me a bit more credit than making freshman level mistakes. I might be wrong, at the end of the day, but it won’t be that easy.
I’ll try again tomorrow. Gotta’ finish preparing my lectures on Kant’s Groundwork for tomorrow.
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Find another term for it, then. The analysis of wrongful “lumping,” by whatever name, I stand by it.
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Another nit to pick, going back to page 1 of comments.
Dan is correct that Hume (and other empiricists, especially among Hume’s fellow Scots) was wrong to appeal to some semi hand-waving “moral sense.”
However, per my claims that human moral development may still be seen by many as a “last bastion” of human uniqueness, it’s possible that for many of those many, some undefined “moral sense” is still held to as part of that human moral uniqueness.
THAT, in turn, put me in mind of Twain’s “Mysterious Stranger,” where he shoots ALL to hell the idea of some special human “moral sense.” (That’s also the book where he says its an insult to animals to talk about humans behaving like animals.)
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So, I guess it’s, “Human moral life, yeah, because …. emergent.”
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I would like to see some kind of marriage of moral philosophy and criminology, as an attempt to explain the essence of moral behavior and immoral behavior in humans, and the tenacity of both qualities.
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You “stand by it” even though I said you misunderstood the argument and would try to explain it better tomorrow?
Never mind. I can think of a lot better ways to use my time.
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Entertaining and enlightening. The discussion about bonobos and chimps, and then about insects, I think makes the point well. So animals engage in group activity, so what?
The lectures on emotivism by a certain physicist – heard them all before, nothing’s changed these past 2 years. What’s most interesting about this position (at least as presented here) is how utterly useless it is. I can’t think of a single discussion on practical ethics or politics or social history where it would come in handy.
One doesn’t need to be a moral realist to find discussion of ethics interesting or useful.
“The idea that two ants would behave over two berries as do two chimps is laughable.” Where’s Philosopher Eric these days, I’m sure he’d disagree….
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Socratic, “. . . its an insult to animals to talk about humans behaving like animals.” I’ll assume this quote is accurate. Watching the two+ minutes of the video of the monkeys, I found the human reaction as intriguing as the monkey behavior.
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Hi ejwinner,
It’s not supposed to be useful, its supposed to be true. And its notable how few counter-arguments there are to it.
But, actually, it does have huge utility in practical ethics since, if it is true, then vast swathes of practical moral discussion is misconceived, since it hankers after moral realism and an objective “what we should do”. For example, just about all of Singer’s utilitarian moral proclamations would be refuted.
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Dan,
Off topic, but an interesting question. I think it’s common knowledge that all observations are theory-laden. I don’t really see how a physicist can interpret experiments in ethics without having studied, analyzed and criticized the theories he’s implicitly or explicitly using. And that’s only the beginning. The experimental techniques etc. add another layer.
Not saying it can’t be done, but it would be damn hard.
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So what do people think about the experiments purporting that toddlers and some animals understand quantities? That the can tell the difference between one of something and three? Is this also a scientific failure because these beings cannot possibly form the concept of number or does it indicate that biological evolution has an effect on cognitive development?
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It seems the choice is between ethics as objective and ultimately absolute, or subjective, relativistic and emergent with the behaviors required to sustain society.
The problem seems to be most recognize the second, but some are not quite ready to admit to it and are looking for an ethical TOE, that can be presented as a cultural ideal. We have them. They are called religions. You just have to quit asking questions.
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Well, if anybody thinks they have something better to do, OK.
To riff on EJ’s observation of a previous comment of mine, plus my “last bastion” thoughts, it’s like some theorists on ethology, or animal psychology, or human developmental psychology, have decided, presumably in advance, to draw a Venn diagram with two non-overlapping circles: “animals” and “humans.”
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Socratic: “…it’s like some theorists on ethology, or animal psychology, or human developmental psychology, have decided, presumably in advance, to draw a Venn diagram with two non-overlapping circles: ‘animals’ and ‘humans.’ ”
You don’t seem to be agreeing with those theorists, but I’m not sure what alternative you would propose. My perspective would begin with a sphere, representing the entire material universe (a minute part of which contains our planet and us), an entity whose origin, age, dimensions, etc., are not totally known to us. This sphere, whose contents are essentially inert (though capable of motion and chemical interaction), contains another sphere containing the tree of life forms: Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukaryota, with animals, including humans, appearing as one of the last twigs. In my Venn diagram, the human circle overlaps with the animal one, and the non-overlapping portion contains the sphere of human culture, all the stuff we have invented, and that is the only part of the whole apparatus that doesn’t run by itself. This is obviously derived from Popper’s three world concept, but differs in some important points.
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I find it wrong that politics is not mentioned with respect to ethics.
Ethics in the large is politics.
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WTC, I would indeed agree with something like that.
I don’t doubt that a fair amount of human ethics has been developed through cultural evolution. I also don’t doubt that there’s a biological substrate below that, which your Venn diagram would reflect. A good discussion would be, “how much of the area is overlap,” whether for ethics, emotions, consciousness or whatever.
And, I’m working on a blog post about ethical uniqueness as the latest “last bastion” issue.
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Phillip,
Are you sure it isn’t that politics is the reason we need ethics?
Ethics is the ideal. Politics is the reality.
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Ethics are at the heart of the Indivisible/Resistance groups.
Ethics in the large.
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