One of the exceptional characteristics inherent in humanity–and absent in all other known life forms–is our moral agency. We, and only we, work out what is right and what is wrong based on a rational–and one must also say, emotional and sometimes irrational–contemplation, debate, reasoning, etc. Only we come up with moral principles. Only we have the capacity to work out methods to temper the injustices that strict adherence to principle can occasionally cause, what was known in English law as “equity.” Only we have the capacity to deliver true mercy.
Where does this uniquely human capacity come from? That it is inherent in us as a species is clear. But why? David Brooks contemplates the matter in today’s NYT. From his column, “The Moral Naturalists:”
Where does our sense of right and wrong come from? Most people think it is a gift from God, who revealed His laws and elevates us with His love. A smaller number think that we figure the rules out for ourselves, using our capacity to reason and choosing a philosophical system to live by.
Moral naturalists, on the other hand, believe that we have moral sentiments that have emerged from a long history of relationships. To learn about morality, you don’t rely upon revelation or metaphysics; you observe people as they live.
The latter group look at morality as just another evolved trait:
By the time humans came around, evolution had forged a pretty firm foundation for a moral sense. Jonathan Haidt of the University of Virginia argues that this moral sense is like our sense of taste. We have natural receptors that help us pick up sweetness and saltiness. In the same way, we have natural receptors that help us recognize fairness and cruelty. Just as a few universal tastes can grow into many different cuisines, a few moral senses can grow into many different moral cultures.
Brooks notes the reductionism:
For people wary of abstract theorizing, it’s nice to see people investigating morality in ways that are concrete and empirical. But their approach does have certain implicit tendencies. They emphasize group cohesion over individual dissent. They emphasize the cooperative virtues, like empathy, over the competitive virtues, like the thirst for recognition and superiority. At this conference, they barely mentioned the yearning for transcendence and the sacred, which plays such a major role in every human society.
Obviously Brooks couldn’t do justice to the moral naturalists’ thinking in a short opinion column. But it doesn’t compute. Not all societies embrace “fairness” as we do in the West, for example. The concept of justice also varies widely, which seems to me is much more than differences in taste preferences. Indeed, some societies allow murder as appropriate in certain circumstances. The Roman system of pater familias, for example, permitted a husband to kill his wife and children without consequence because they were his property. Some fundamentalist Muslim cultures today allow so-called “honor killings” as a means of suppressing women. Moreover, there certainly widely divergent views on what constitutes “cruelty.” Just look at the animal rights debates.
Perhaps I am wrong, but moral naturalism seems to go hand in hand with those who deny human free will, who claim morality is a fiction dictated to us by our genes and chemicals, which we have discussed here before.
As a non scientist/expert on evolution–I think those who use the biological theory of Darwinism as a way to explain the uniqueness of human moral agency stretch the theory of random natural selection beyond the breaking point. Something happened to us when we evolved/were intelligently designed/were created as a conscious and rational species. That “something” was a remarkable change from all other life that removed us from the pure Darwinian mode of raw survival to the point that we sought meaning and purpose and strived to create rules governing how best to live.
Some might call that evidence of a divine spark. Others not. But it sure is part of what makes us exceptional. Those who try to push us into a mold that would make us less than the sum of our capacities–that is, as unexceptional–miss the mark.
July 23rd, 2010 | 2:56 pm
From my religious viewpoint:
God created the earth with animals and plants and all three obeyed him. To humans he gave agency.
July 23rd, 2010 | 3:41 pm
Funny, this is pretty much what Bret and I were getting on about in the other thread.
In short I maintain that human morality (including systems of social rights and responsibilities) has evolved as a tool for furthering the welfare of the human race.
I see the development and growth of morality paralleling the evolution of language: that is, most languages have the same basic concepts, just expressed differently.
Also, each individual moral code (ethos?), like any language, has a tendency towards idiosyncracies that are not easy for outsiders to accept.
I’ve dealt with systems that were designed and systems that evolved, or as some would say, “just grew.” Designed solutions are more elegant and efficient and stable and serve narrow purposes, while evolved systems are more complex and handle broader situations through constant adjustment.
Moral codes are definitely in the “just grew” category, developed by trial and error over centuries. That’s one of the unique things about humans – we try new stuff.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 3:53 pm
But it isn’t a passive kind of thing. We design.
July 23rd, 2010 | 5:02 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vince Humphreys and Stand In The Gap, Wesley J. Smith. Wesley J. Smith said: David Brooks: Where Does Morality Come From? » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog http://shar.es/mPNGf [...]
July 23rd, 2010 | 9:46 pm
The growth of moral systems is not passive at all, but it’s not designed either. It’s reactionary and evolutionary. When you design something you know what the finished product will look like. Every once in a while somebody does a good job of codifying the moral system up to that point and maybe adding a few refinements, but even that takes a person the caliber of Hammurabi or Thomas Jefferson. You can write a master plan, but most won’t last long. Our Constitution is one of the best, but after 200+ years we’re running into situations that they just couldn’t anticipate.
Most of the time moral systems just sort of pile things on top of the traditional base. Oh, somebody invented an Internet? Well, we’d better make some rules about it. And that becomes part of our ethos.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 23rd, 2010 at 10:12 pm
padraig: I quite disagree. Right now, in bioethics for example, a designed “quality of life” ethic is being promoted to replace the equality/sanctity of life ethic. Peter Singer is very clear about that in his book Rethinking Life and Death. The environmental movement promotes a morality that is designed, not reactionary or evolutionary. The abolitionists by promoting black/white equality were designing what was a radical change in morality. Christianity was not evolutionary. When Paul said that there is no man no woman, no Jew no Greek, no master no slave, but that all are one in Christ Jesus, that was a radical and unprecedented call for equality that was designed.
Now people react to advocacy, either accepting–as in Jefferson–or rejecting–as now appears to be happening with regard to society’s former views involving gay issues. But they are brought along by leaders with intent. That is active by definition.
July 24th, 2010 | 1:02 am
Morality is just like many other human traits: it has a strong biological basis but its exact expression is affected by environmental (i.e. cultural factors). Moral intuitions (at their most basic level) tend to be rather similar across different cultures – what does vary remarkable is the intellectual and cultural environment in which those moral intuitions are to be expressed and this, in general, is what gives rise to the observed cross-cultural differences in moral judgements.
For instance, every society has prohibitions against murder (the unlawful taking of an individual’s life) but societies differ when it comes to deciding what counts as a “significant person” or what, given the reality of day-to-day life in that culture, truly counts as a culpably unlawful killing (is extreme anger or intoxication a mitigating factor? what degree of provocation absolves the killer of blame? etc). These differences generally arise from the specific social and intellectual histories of the societies involved and do not detract from the relative constancy of the underlying moral intuitions.
Consider the Judeo-Christian tradition. The ancient Israelites supposedly received the injunction against killing directly from Yahweh (though, as many people have pointed out, it’s unlikely that they arrived at Mt Sinai believing murder permissible). This however did not stop them from embarking on what we would now consider to be divinely sanctioned genocidal wars. Their prohibition against killing applied primarily to members of their own group. The Founding Fathers in their turn famously wrote of a universal (and inalienable) right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness but they obviously didn’t feel that these “rights” applied to their slaves.
Moral judgements change when we start to widen the circle of those who are like us . Men come to accept that women are not psychologically inferior, Caucasians come to appreciate that their black slaves are actually “men and brothers”, heterosexuals concede that sexual orientation is largely due to innate factors and that gay sex will not lead to The End of the World As We Know It . . . these are not primarily changes in ethics – they are rather intellectual shifts on which subsequent moral judgements depend.
This “cognitive loading” (the fact that being self-consciously “ethical” is such an intellectual task) accounts for the animal-human moral difference. The difference between Man and the other animals is not so much an ontological moral one as a general cognitive one. We are verbal creatures with complicated societies and so necessarily we have moral systems of corresponding intricacy. Other animals with reasonably complex social systems also show degrees of moral reasoning appropriate to their social needs.
Our “unique” moral capabilities have nothing to do with our being specifically human and everything to do with our being smart – and this is clearly demonstrated by the fact that some animals have greater moral capacities than some humans.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 24th, 2010 at 4:26 am
Being human has everything to do with our unique moral capacities precisely because they are inherent in us, and as far as we know, only us. We can’t prove how we became self consciously ethical, as you put it. We don’t know how, for example, our unique artistic and intellectual creativity came into being, which is another uniquely human attribute. Christians/Jews would say we were created in the image of God to fulfill a divine purpose. I am not familiar enough with Buddhism, but I would assume they believed it arose through repeated incarnations as we moved closer to self knowledge. Intelligent designers would say it came into being via a non random event or events, which could have been done with natural tools as opposed to supernatural miracles, while neo Darwinists would say that its appearance is, in the end, no different than the biological evolution of the turtle’s shell in that it aided in adaptability and survival.
For me, that doesn’t matter. What is important is acknowledging our unique status as having rights and duties.
Now where this comes from, if it is capable of empirical proof, is interesting but not critical.
I also think that the first two examples given by Brooks–divine or self selected–are compatible, because even if rights are God given, that still requires that we recognize and identify them, and then abide by them. Besides, just being smarter than any other animal theretofore in existence would not necessarily lead to the quest for meaning, which has much to do with morality.
As to the third, I think it is a way of punting by making our moral sense akin to good eyesight or feathers with which to fly. Such reductionism intends to deflate exceptionalism, without which there can be no intellectual support at for universal human rights, the value system selected over time by the West, which I feel is the most enlightened in known human history and, alas, in dire need of urgent defense precisely because those how deny HE would use that denial as a justification to exploit and oppress the most defenseless among us.
July 24th, 2010 | 3:07 am
But, padraig, you have to reflect on why it is, that morality is such a useful tool, as you put it. The best explanation, is that it’s true, with a capital T.
Also, yes, evolution of morality parrelled the evolution of language, and, I would add, logic and mathematics. But this does not make logic and mathematics are “creations”, and it doesn’t make morality our creation either.
But to be consistent, you may have to contend that logic, reason, and math, because they arose through an evolutionary process are no more objective discoveries than morality, but this would be self refuting in your own case. Why? Because you’re presupposing an objective logic to support your own case, that morality is NOT objective. But if logic is in the same boat as morality, your own logic, used to support your own contentions, have no foundation, so you’ve refuted your own position.
July 24th, 2010 | 9:45 am
Wesley, I agree that our moral capabilities are related to our being human (in that our “unique” intellectual abilities are part of what it means to be human) – they just aren’t determined by our humanity (i.e. there are other variables more relevant to an individual’s moral capability). A neonate is genetically just as human as a Professor of Bioethics but possesses less moral ability than an adult capuchin monkey. “Humanity” is important but “cognitive capacity” is the determining variable.
I appreciate that we are “exceptional” but (as I’ve said before) I fail to see how anything of consequence hinges on our being unique. We have rights and duties. That should be sufficient. We would still have these rights and duties if we discovered tomorrow that we are actually the second most advanced species on the planet (the most advanced having hidden themselves from us these many millennia to avoid hurting our feelings).
How is our commitment to universal human rights diminished by admitting that some other creatures are rights-holders? How could this possibly lead to “the exploitation of the most defenseless among us”?
(And, once again, who are these secret villains, ceaselessly plotting against the weak and infirm, seeding the world with subversive ideas as they attempt to bring their nefarious schemes to fruition? In the words of Coleman Silk: “Do they really exist – or are they just spooks?)
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 24th, 2010 at 9:56 am
Raven Chukwu: Were they just spooks. Do a search. We have bioethicists wanting to take organs from patients diagnosed as persistently unconscious and yearning for organ harvesting from fetuses gestated in artificial wombs. We have advocacy for a duty to die. We see futile care theory already enacted in some places as we move toward explicit health care rationing. Radical environmentalists support radical human depopulation and animal rights activists seek to destroy medical research on animals that would bring medical advancements to a screeching halt. Peter Singer supports infanticide and that evil is being practiced in the name of compassion in the Netherlands. Suicide clinics in Switzerland, biological colonialism in India, Pakistan, and China. Hardly spooks.
July 24th, 2010 | 10:12 am
“The growth of moral systems is not passive at all, but it’s not designed either. It’s reactionary and evolutionary.”
But why should I obey it?
The “oughtness” of morality is what evolutionary accounts simply cannot explain. The best they do is tell us how we may have arrived at our moral sensibilities. But those sensibilities themselves do not tell us that we ought to follow them. Although there are general sentiments that most people hold (e.g., love of family, desire to live, etc.), not everyone has these sentiments. Some, in fact, consider these sentiments as weaknesses that must be overcome. Now, on what grounds should one choose the dominant sentiments over the less dominant ones? Why follow Ward Cleaver when you can follow Hugh Hefner? At the end of the day, you need a morality above the morality of evolution in order to arrive at a judgment.
Moreover, Brooks assumes–and I believe, correctly–that we have an obligation to follow the evidence wherever it may lead. But that obligation is in a sense moral, since it instructs us about what a virtuous person should do when it comes to the life of the mind. But if minds, like everything else in nature (according to the naturalist’s account), do not have intrinsic purposes with natural ends that are the perfection of their nature, then intellectual virtue makes little sense.
Brooks and the naturalists he cites are living off the borrowed moral capital of a metaphysical tradition that they reject. Eventually, the account will be empty.
July 24th, 2010 | 10:21 am
Wesley,
I apologise. I realised almost as soon as I had posted the last comment that given what you feel about most of these issues (suicide clinics, abortion, embryonic stem cell research etc) your reference to “preying on the defenseless” was largely defensible.
I still feel it’s unfortunate that you tend to portray movements and broad advocacy groups as if they were defined by their most radical fringes (as if those at the extremity somehow represent the true spirit of the movement, the radical agenda which will manifest itself in the fullness of time). For instance, you repeatedly make statements accusing right-to-die advocates in general of being perfidious and dishonest, not merely (from your perspective) misguided peddlers of dangerous ideas but active and willing spreaders of contagion, working secretly on their evils plans to re-shape the world. This, I feel, is unfair. As you well know, there are morally serious individuals on both sides of the ethical divide (for each of these issues). It would be nice if your blog posts reflected this more often.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 24th, 2010 at 10:29 am
Raven Chukwu: I don’t think I do portray movements as if they were defined by their most radical fringes. Peter Singer is at Princeton and, I think, the most influential philosopher of the last 30 years (animal liberation, infanticide, personhood theory, the Great Ape Project, etc.). Calls for harvesting organs from people in PVS are found in the world’s most reputable bioethics and medical journals, written by very influential bioethicists and organ doctors. Etc. As to radical environmentalism, what used to be the fringe, e.g., deep ecology, is moving toward the mainstream. The anti humanism of this sector is gaining strength in the popular culture, e.g. the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still in which the alien (Kenau Reeves) comes to earth to commit mass genocide to save the planet.
One of the good things about this blog is that people like you, serious, fair minded, deliberate, respond and provide a counter perspective. I appreciate your input.
July 24th, 2010 | 6:30 pm
Why ‘One Nation Under God’ Matters, by Steve Farrell…
I found your entry interesting thus I’ve added a Trackback to it on my weblog :)…
July 24th, 2010 | 7:57 pm
Clearly, as Raven points out, many primates have more moral traits than newborn humans. this does not, of course, mean that babies should have no rights. Precisely the opposite. The monkeys, indeed all conscious animals should have the right to life.
frankly, it’s very disconcerting that those who pride themselves on reasoned debate, and how humans are exceptional, refuse to accept the logically valid point, that we accept into the moral community, defective humans, and babies, who are no more moral than any animal. I hate to tiresomely fixate on this, but it’s important. Part of being a reasonable mature adult,is accepting the argument, wherever it leads, even if it leads to an area we dislike.
Disturbingly, this argument is not given the respect that it deserves. which leads me to an uncomfortable conclusion. Uncomfortable, because I like Wesley, and know that’s he’s done great good. But the conclusion is that Wesley and others would not change their views on animal rights, because they like having the views they have, and use arguments only as a smokescreen. I may be wrong. I hope I’m wrong.
July 25th, 2010 | 4:38 am
Francis:
The “obligation to follow the evidence wherever it may lead” is not a moral one. It’s rather based on our understanding that our long-term interests are fostered by that stance. Self-deception might occasionally have psychological benefits but an individual who became a habitual self-deceiver would find himself at a significant disadvantage.
Why should one obey a morality completely derived from blind evolutionary processes? How could such a system account for the “oughtness” of morality? This is one of the central questions of methaethics and applies to all ethical systems. Even if moral precepts represented something real, enduring and true about the structure of the universe, even if they had been handed down from a divine and benevolent law-giver one would still be faced with the question “why ought I to obey these laws?”. There might be a stronger pragmatic argument for obedience (e.g the precepts are structured such that obedience leads to better global outcomes, long-term personal happiness, satisfaction of divine whim etc) but these purely practical considerations hardly have the moral force we would require – they fail to do justice to our gut feeling that we ought to perform an action merely because it is right.
It is important to note, that naturalistic accounts of the development of moral intuitions reinforce the importance of “doing ethics”, of making the intellectual effort to work out precepts which ought to underlie moral action. Our moral intuitions are important to us but since they evolved merely to ensure the survival of our genes we should be prepared to set these intuitions aside when they come into conflict with our intellectual attempts to reach goals which the wider society has deemed acceptable. This is admittedly a dangerous idea and in practice, I feel, a complete dismissal of moral intuitions is neither possible nor desirable – but it is a point of view to which moral naturalism inexorably leads.
July 25th, 2010 | 10:59 am
Bret: “But if logic is in the same boat as morality, your own logic, used to support your own contentions, have no foundation, so you’ve refuted your own position.”
No, you’ve refuted the position you imputed to me without my consent. I’m not your straw man, Bret.
Or your philosophy professor, either, fortunately, or you’d get a D on that one.
July 25th, 2010 | 6:17 pm
I’m not sure if my previous comments went through, if not, I’ll resend.
July 25th, 2010 | 6:19 pm
Thanks, for the response, Padraig. Please don’t just assert, that i’m wrong, give me the reason, that I’m wrong, regarding your position. I stand by my assessment.
July 25th, 2010 | 7:09 pm
My goal is to be fair, Padraig. I respect you, and your intelligence, so i’m going to restate my view, regarding your view.
Morality, and rights, arose purely from evolutionary processes, according to you. Logic, also, would have to have arose from evolution. These things arose, not because they’re true, but because they’re useful. So how can we trust them?
When you argue, for yor position, you use logic, right? But this logic arose in a way similar to morality and rights, right? So my point, is that, how can you trust your OWN logic, when it arose, not to discover truth (according to the evolutionary account), but merely because it was helpful in our evolution?
I will concede, that it was too strong, for me to state that your position was “self-refuting”, that’s too strong, on reflection, you might be able to salvage it (maybe).
But it definitely undermines itself. Now, please don’t just complain, that you think I’m wrong, give me reasons, so we can have a fruitful debate.
July 25th, 2010 | 9:42 pm
Bret: “Thanks, for the response, Padraig. Please don’t just assert, that i’m wrong, give me the reason, that I’m wrong, regarding your position. I stand by my assessment.”
Bret, you’re putting words in my mouth and then asking me to defend them. Sorry. Not biting.
July 25th, 2010 | 9:47 pm
Me (uncredited): “The growth of moral systems is not passive at all, but it’s not designed either. It’s reactionary and evolutionary.”
Francis: “But why should I obey it?”
Because the moral system comprises the privileges and obligations of the society that supports you and makes the life you live possible. If you want to enjoy the privileges, you must accept the responsibilities, and live within the moral code, or risk loss of your societal rights.
July 25th, 2010 | 10:53 pm
I’m certainly not wanting to represent your position, unfairly, Padraig. I want to understand fully, where you’re coming from.
but when you simply claim that someone has misrepresented your views, and then refuse to specify what was misrepresented, the debate ends.
My hope is to engage in rigorous analysis of different positions. I am completely confident, after having reflected, studied, and written about this subject, for many years, and developed a secure philosophical rationale, for it, that I can show the flaws in competing systems, such as your own. So, when, or if you change your mind, Padraig, I’m reading for more debating!
August 16th, 2010 | 2:11 pm
[...] Click Here [...]
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact