Six weeks ago, on March 3, I asked whether anybody would like me to appear as a visitor in a course or before a group of students. Within 48 hours I had four takers, and I have now appeared in an undergraduate course at Laurentian University in Canada, at an adult education gathering in Eugene, Oregon, at a philosophy club at a community college in Connecticut, and in a graduate course at Georgia State University. Four delightful experiences, each one completely different from the other three. We are now close to the end of the spring semester so this may be a poor time to offer my services yet again, but here I am ready to put on my headset and talk via zoom with students anywhere in the world.
Along the way, I had an invitation to appear at the Oxford
Union, but unfortunately that 10 minute gig would have required me to appear in
person so I had to turn it down.
Susie and I go to Paris on June 3, returning June 18, so
that stretch it out, but other than that I am available.
9 comments:
Prof. Wolff,
Several posts earlier you proposed something new to generate discussion. You proposed that readers submit suggestions relating to various issues that interested them for you to address. You answered a few, but then another issue came out which you addressed in a separate post.
I submitted a question regarding a reductio ad absurdam argument relating to ethics. I would be interested in your response to the argument.
What was the question that the Oxford Union was debating that it invited you to speak on, or was there some other context?
Responding to Marc's comment (if that's okay!)...
Here (for reference) are the two premises you offered in your reductio:
(1) All core human morality is simply the product of the forces of Darwinian evolution.
(2) None of the ethical precepts which have evolved as a result of the process of Darwinian evolution can properly or rationally be regarded as "right" or "correct"; and nor can their negations be regarded as "wrong" or "immoral."
As you explain, your worry is that these two premises seem highly plausible, but also seem to imply that such moral truisms as "Genocide is wrong" are not properly regarded as "right" or "correct."
As I read it, the argument has a strong parallel in Alvin Plantinga's "evolutionary argument against naturalism" (EAAN). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_argument_against_naturalism)
The gist of EAAN, I think, is that we shouldn't accept the Darwinian account of the origin of our cognitive faculties, because that very account denies that our faculties were selected in virtue of their aptitude for yielding accurate perceptions and true beliefs; rather, the Darwinian account has it that our faculties were selected on account of their conduciveness to survival and reproduction. (And yet, the Darwinian maintains that these very truth-indifferent faculties have enabled us to formulate the Darwinian account!)
To me this seems very similar to your reductio: If our morality evolved the way it did on account of its conducing to survival and reproductive fitness - as distinct from its conducing to genuine moral insight - then why shouldn't we regard our "moral insights" as spurious?
I haven't read all of the Wiki article, but it mentions (and briefly summarizes) a collection of critical essays which might be of interest, Naturalism Defeated?. The insights of those essays would seem applicable not only to EAAN but also to your reductio.
I would guess that one good way to begin to refute EAAN (as well as your reductio) would be to suggest that our cognitive faculties (and likewise our moral faculties) have a high degree of evolutionary fitness because of their tendency to yield true (and morally sound) beliefs. In other words, why suppose that "merely" evolutionarily useful beliefs are, as such, unlikely to be correct beliefs? It doesn't seem obviously wrong to say that rational beliefs confer evolutionary advantage, e.g. by enabling us to correctly identify threats in our environment, and by instilling preferences for things that truly are in our interest.
Michael,
That is a great answer and I thank you for taking the time to write and post it.
If I understand your point correctly, the fact that many (all) our (i.e., homo sapiens’) beliefs are the product of evolution does not entail that none of those beliefs are true and accurate. They could be the product of an evolutionary process which favors survival of the fittest, and still be correct. The question is, how do we determine which among our beliefs are the true and accurate beliefs, and which only serve our survival , but are not necessarily true and accurate. For example, for centuries many humans believed that the Earth was the center of the universe and that the sun revolved around the Earth. This may have been a belief which was fostered by its effect on our survival, but it was false and ultimately was debunked by Copernicus and Galileo. However, it was not proved false because it was absurd. It was not absurd, it was factually wrong. In fact, none of the scientific beliefs which have ultimately been proved false were proved false because they were absurd. They weren’t. So, does the reductio ad absurdam argument regarding ethical beliefs, e.g., that it is morally wrong to bash in the skull of a newborn human; or it is morally wrong to dismember a human while the human is still alive, constitute a higher degree of proving the truth of the denials of these propositions as being true and accurate moral statements? But then we have the problem of how we decided among the propositions which some believe are absurd as to which are true and accurate and which are not. Right to life supporters believe that the proposition that it is not morally wrong to terminate a pregnancy prior to the second trimester is absurd; the pro choice advocates believe it is not absurd. But then there are certainly some propositions that most (all?) humans would agree is absurd, e.g., it is not morally wrong to bash in the skull of a newborn human; nor is it morally wrong to dismember a human while the human is still alive (however, drawing and quartering humans deemed to be traitors, e.g., William Wallace, was at one time regarded as an appropriate and moral sentence). But even if we cannot discern among moral propositions which are sufficiently absurd as to render their denial as true and accurate moral propositions, at least we will have demonstrated that there are some moral propositions, i.e, that conduct x is not immoral, are sufficiently absurd to be false. This is still a rejection of the Darwinian evolutionary premises which begin the argument - that there are no true and accurate moral propositions. The question remains what those true and accurate moral propositions are.
Prof. Zimmerman, any ideas?
Correction:
The sentence should have read:
“So, does the reductio ad absurdum argument regarding ethical beliefs, e.g., that it is morally wrong to bash in the skull of a newborn human; or it is morally wrong to dismember a human while the human is still alive, constitute a higher degree of proving the truth of these propositions versus their denials?"
The question is, how do we determine which among our beliefs are the true and accurate beliefs, and which only serve our survival, but are not necessarily true and accurate.
Good question! I can't say I've quite figured it out.
I wouldn't worry about evolutionary theory casting doubt on our beliefs, though. It seems reasonable enough (from my unscientific vantage point) to think of our evolutionary origins as giving us enough of the basic cognitive/conative equipment to progressively improve our belief-systems, even if we'll never perfect them (and even if our progress won't be adequate in the long run to prevent our self-inflicted extinction).
The word "basic" may be important, BTW. My earlier comment might create a strange picture of the evolutionary process as haphazardly plucking our beliefs out of the air (or "logical space"), so to speak, and then letting natural selection sort them out. I think this would seem a pretty far-fetched picture with regard to our more context-specific and idiosyncratic beliefs (e.g., geocentric versus heliocentric astronomy; "Allowing abortion is less problematic than forcing unwanted pregnancy" versus "Forcing unwanted pregnancy is less problematic than allowing abortion"), but much less so with regard to our more general and philosophically basic beliefs (e.g., the fundamentals of logic; Golden Rules or Kant-style categorical imperatives; "the greatest good for the greatest number").
So, I wouldn't want to think of our evolutionary programming as throwing us onto the stage with Marxist beliefs or anti-abortion beliefs, etc.; but it's easier instead to think of ourselves just as entering the scene with fairly serviceable problem-solving equipment. We wouldn't try to settle any Republican-versus-Democrat debates by asking which option has more evolutionary utility; but as far as I can see (without any deep scientific understanding), we can think of our options in the voting booth as a problem to be solved, and we can acknowledge that our problem-solving equipment (with all its imperfections) is a product of evolution. We just have to keep on arguing among our fellow problem-solvers, knowing that some people, through seeming flukes of nature, are better-equipped to do so than others (as with physical attributes like strength and quickness).
Just some things that occurred to me - might not be directly pertinent to your concerns.
Princeton Bioethics Professor Peter Singer “has argued, repeatedly and emphatically, that parents should be able to euthanize their disabled babies — not just abort fetuses, but kill actual infants”.
https://fair.org/home/media-elevate-eugenicists-sideline-disabled-voices-in-discussions-of-covid-rationing/
Anonymous,
I am familiar with Prof. Singer’s controversial work, and I, and I suspect most people, find his conclusion objectionable. If it is defensible it is only defensible because he restrict his position to disabled children, such that killing them in order to avoid them having to live a life of severe pain and deprivation of enjoyment is actually doing them a service. In response, I could alter the proposition whose absurdity I have suggested to the following: “It is not immoral to bash in the skull of a newly born human being which has not indication of suffering from a disability or genetic disorder.” I feel confident that Prof. Singer, who has also advocated on behalf of animals and causing them pain as being immoral, would agree that this proposition is absurd.
And each of the propositions I cited could be adapted to account for counter-examples, for example given that historically some societies have condoned drawing and quartering human beings based on allegations of treason. The adapted proposition would be; “It is not immoral to dismember a human being while that human being is still alive and conscious, where there is no evidence that the individual has committed any crime in the society in question, and in fact has led a life of love and concern for others.”
That article probably has a misled/misleading take on Singer. (Unless his views have drastically changed in recent years.) Hopefully this conveys some idea of what his position is (was?) like:
These two quotes (dug up from an old college paper) originally come from the essay (co-written by Helga Kuhse) "Should All Seriously Disabled Infants Live?", which can be found in a book of Singer's work called Unsanctifying Human Life.
"[We] should not always try to preserve every infant's life[...] Once the decision has been made that an infant should be allowed to die, it will often be better to hasten death than to stand by and wait until 'nature' takes her often cruel course."
"[Epidermolysis bullosa] causes widespread and constant blistering of the skin. Lesions occur both on the outer surface of the body and on the skin within the body, such as the mouth and esophagus. Secondary growth retardation and severe anemia are part of the syndrome[...] [Stephanie Christopher, a victim of this disorder who lived for two months,] was repeatedly described as a 'burns victim' - a burns victim who was burning up every day."
And here's some of what I wrote in the paper just afterward:
Singer and Kuhse close their account by quoting the journal of one of the child's observers: "This is pure suffering. Is there any point to it?" They consider the argument that such suffering often does have a point: to permit the emergence of a valuable self-conscious being who will likely be satisfied with his or her existence, as many people with disabilities are[...] [T]his is equivalent to the pro-life argument from potential personhood - the argument that it is wrong to kill a human being who will otherwise become sentient and self-conscious[...]
Singer and Kuhse reject the pro-life argument from potential personhood, and proceed to claim...
that the interests of potential, not-yet-existent beings are not sufficiently important to override the interests of actual, existent beings[...] [and therefore that] infanticide can be morally permissible. In the case of infanticide, the potential being is the fully sentient and self-conscious organism into which the infant is set to develop, and the actual being is the non-self-conscious infant itself: Even if it is in the interest of the former to exist and experience a satisfying life, it is also in the interest of the latter not to suffer. Although the life of a human non-person is a necessary antecedent condition of the life of a human person, the two lives are separate and distinct; if the life of the former is bad, the potential goodness of the latter does not compensate for it[...] [In the] case of infants with severe disabilities whom parents allow to suffer on the chance of producing a satisfied person, Singer and Kuhse observe that "there is no mental continuity, and in this important sense, we are not, and never were, infants, fetuses, or embryos."
Now, I'm not saying all this is worry-free - it does draw startling and discomforting consequences from certain debatable ideas about personal identity, developmental continuity, etc. - but "startling and discomforting," IMO, is not a decisive objection when we're considering complex, extraordinary problems in which our strongest and clearest principles fail to deliver a clear and obvious verdict (e.g. severe cases of Epidermolysis bullosa). But anyway, I think it's pretty clear that Singer's position here is a far cry from "Parents should be allowed unconditionally to kill a healthy young child with Down Syndrome or autism" or whatever else along those lines.
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