Morality, ethics and atheism

[Brian Peacock]

Can we not simply say that the children displayed individual and group behaviours L'Emmy? In order to determine if the children behaved morally, surely one first needs a moral framework by which to judge them?

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I feel we tend to assume that 'the moral' or 'the ethical' are ideas or actions imbued with some special quality or ingredient, something which sets then apart from regular, has-itch:scratch-arse behaviour if you like. It's not surprising given the intellectual history of the exploration and articulation of the good, the noble, the virtuous, etc, from Aristotle to Kant and beyond.

Let's say that the has-itch:scratch-arse behaviour is an evolved trait or capacity. I don't think that's a controversial thing to say. Children don't have to be taught about itches or trained how to respond to them. It's just an 'is', so to speak. Nor would we generally think about scratching our itchy arses as being a matter for moral deliberation, even if we could, intellectually speaking, argue "It is good to scratch your itchy arse" (perhaps things would be different if Aristotle's infamous Treatise On Itchy Arses hadn't been lost to the void of time!).

Where has-itch:scratch-arse does become a subject for moral consideration though is in circumstances where scratching an itchy arses is considered a bad, even if our haemorrhoids are peeling like the bells of St Pauls. For example, 'digging a hole to Denmark' would not be considered appropriate while we politely waited in-line to meet the Queen, and thus, in certain circumstances, has-itch:scratch-arse is an impulse:response that becomes imbued with moral weight, and perhaps even a certain amount of moral necessity - specifically, the moral necessity of not 'giving in to temptation', which becomes a good all right-minded moral agents should acknowledge and aspire to. If we were to transgress this circumstantial moral standard by, say, clawing at our hoop while looking Her Majesty in the eye, then that would surely be something which brought harm to us (shame, embarrassment, guilt, dishonour) as well as to others (embarrassment, revulsion, an entitlement to condemn, anger) - not to mention our possible summary dispatch to the Tower of London.

OK, so the point I'm tippy-toeing towards is this: we assume that what passes for 'the moral' and 'the ethical' are things which appeal to a certain kind of virtue - kindness, compassion, altruism, some kind of social or communal good, etc - but they also include things which involve and invoke social stigma, taboos, denigration for some perceived or actual personal or social weakness, and other things that fall under not following the rules. Which in turn makes a virtue of 'not weakness', which here is a synonym for 'following the rules' - or as I like to call it: Power.

Shame, embarrassment, guilt, denigration, revulsion, anger etc, are the shock-collar society uses to impose norms and standards upon itself. The conditions of these norms and standards are defined and enforced by Power, and it calls them morality and ethics even as it sets up two competing sets of virtues: it's good to be compassionate and altruistic, but it's also good to be accepting and conform, and, importantly, it is good to have power and to be powerful. If Power is virtue interchangeable with kindness, compassion and altruism etc, then Power doesn't need to appeal to any wider moral principles beyond itself. In other words, Power justifies itself as moral and ethical because it defines and enforces those norms and standards as goods.

This is the morality of the patriarch, the sheriff, the courts, the state, the monarch, and the supreme celestial dictator. It isn't Power that stops us casually killing others, but Power does stop us scratching our itchy arses, as well as telling us that bombing a hospital from the air is a good thing if there is a terrorist on its roof.

As atheists, we question and ultimately reject the Power of celestial dictators to define and enforce their moral whims. As secularists, we question and ultimately reject the idea that the votaries of any and all celestial dictators are entitled to enforce Power over us. And yet, as members of society we buy into the moral whims of Power in so many ways we rarely notice it. Why is that?

[rasetsu]

I have surmised that you are equating 'moral values' with 'objectively true moral values.' You have not corrected that surmise. Maybe I'm mistaken, but if not an objective source is required. We can hypothesize that human morality has always been nothing more or less than a generally agreed set of values held by a community. Absent an objective source that hypothesis has not been disproved.

That was the subject of my previous post. No, I'm not equating moral values with objective moral values. Things that are useful are not in and of themselves moral. That requires an additional something which you have yet to provide. A screwdriver has utility. That doesn't give it moral significance. You made the mistake at the beginning of your reply by assuming that I was suggesting murdering you was consistent with altruism toward the species. That's assuming altruism toward the species is valuable. That's not a valid assumption and is just an arbitrary value. I can substitute what's best for me and there's nothing you can say about it other than, "Well, that's not my druthers." They're equally as moral because they're equally useful to whomever is doing the valueing. A species doesn't have any interests so trying to derive a value from humankind's interest as a whole doesn't work. So you're morality becomes "whatever satisfies some idea of utility" which means that everything is moral which means that nothing is as there's no longer any distinction. Our morals, in theory, serve the goal of increasing the number of instances of our kind. Why is that morally important? You haven't said. Basically by referring it back to culture and evolution you're saying, "It's morally important because it's morally important." It's purely circular reasoning and therefore vapid.

I don't actually have a problem with evolution as an explanation for why we have moral instincts and I think it's highly plausible that's all there is to it. It's just that, like eliminative materialism with consciousness, when you explain things having moral significance as just an illusion, a drive manifested by a blind process, anything recognizably moral is no longer present. Consciousness, free will, morality -- these things as they're commonly conceived are all likely to disappear once we understand the processes well enough. It's no longer recognizable as what it is. To continue to call these things morals after having removed the curtain which gave them the appearance of something other than blind processes is just an attempt to hold onto a bit of culture that serves no purpose. How are you going to justify locking somebody up for bad behavior? "We're locking you up because if we do this consistently, more humans like us will eventually be born." That's not a moral justification. That's just holding onto the label after the substance has slipped through your fingers.

[rasetsu]

I once saw a presentation by Dan Barker wherein he explained that moral judgements are just something that a healthy brain does. There's no particular reason behind it. With a healthy brain, you get one set of morals. With an unhealthy brain, you get something else, probably a different set of morals. There's no "moral" reason to prefer the behaviors of a healthy brain to an unhealthy one. The process is biased towards producing healthy brains that produce that behavior because that's simply how the process behaves. There's nothing moral about the fact that a clock keeps ticking because that's how that process behaves. Processes doing things by necessity doesn't yield anything remotely resembling morals. I suspect without free will the concept of morals simply evaporates. Your computer isn't good or bad because it computes this or that, it simply is what it is. Likewise, people aren't good or bad either by doing what the process of evolution and biology made necessary, they just are what they are. Continuing to call that morality is just an anachronism.

Besides, we don't even know that our morals serve the interests of our species. They could be hindering the prospering and flourishing of the species rather than helping. Evolution operates by chance and opportunity. If a feature never appears, it can never be nurtured. It isn't demand driven. We could be dealing with a set of moral machinery that evolved millions of years ago, but hasn't evolved in any relevant way since then. There's nothing that says that our morals serve the interest of our species. They could be a better fit for some ancient primate and actually present some friction toward the prosperity of our currently evolved state. You don't know. Ideally, they would be efficient promoters of our species, but that's not how evolution works. Things don't have to evolve. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't. So you can't even say that our morals serve the interest of our species. They're adequate as far as we can see. But for all we know, they're slowly killing us, and if we don't abandon them and institute arbitrary killings based upon some other criteria than morality, some other species is going to come along and outcompete us.

[rasetsu]

With the above in mind, would you say that the children were exhibiting instinctive behavior or cultural behavior in this study?

The following would indicate that the behaviour is socialised:

In the case of the friendly puppet, the children largely refused to observe how it suffered. However, in the case of the antisocial puppet, the six-year-old children's preference was to reject the stickers and spend their coins witnessing the punishment was significant. They even experienced pleasure by watching him suffer, shown in their expressions. In contrast, the four- and five-year-old children did not show this behaviour.

It's not clear that it does. It simply shows that whatever mechanism enabled the change in behavior had not developed prior to that time. It doesn't indicate whether that mechanism was cognitive (culture) or physiological (brain development). Take object persistence as an analogy. Up until a certain age, children do not recognize that an object which went behind some barrier is the same object that emerges from behind the barrier. To them, the emerging object is new, and they express surprise or whatever at its appearance. At a certain stage in development, object persistence develops in which we recognize that the emerging object is the same as the object that disappeared behind the barrier. Nothing indicates that we learned or were socialized to treat objects emerging differently than we had prior to that age and the consensus is that object persistence represents a development in the brain's cognitive behavior, not an elaboration of existing brain behavior (learning). The emergence or extinction of a behavior in a developing animal does not in itself say whether it is nature or nurture.

Would you agree that their behavior displayed a grasp of moral values or at least indicates an inclination to holding such values?

The children's behaviour very likely displayed a grasp of moral values or at least indicates an inclination to holding such values. As for the chimpanzees' behaviour, I cannot say without reading some reviews/critiques of the original study, which is paywalled.

Full text of study

[rasetsu]

As an aside, and perhaps a springboard to a different discussion, I find the same problem with the idea of evolved morals as I do with humanism. Sure, it's meaningful to us to put humans at the center of our concerns and elevate the existence of humans as goal/value above all else, but it's equally meaningful to promote the existence of a particular species of bacteria or a virus. Meaning is assigned, which means that nothing is inherently meaningful. So there's nothing inherently better about being humanist than say being a literal misanthrope. Likewise there's nothing inherently meaningful about the morals we have and have developed. We choose to give them that meaning. But we're free to make other choices. But that's not typically how morals are conceived. To paraphrase Syndrome, "When all choices of morals are super, no choice of morals is super."

[pErvinalia]

But for all we know, they're slowly killing us, and if we don't abandon them and institute arbitrary killings based upon some other criteria than morality, some other species is going to come along and outcompete us.

No need to be arbitrary about it. I maintain that killing conservatives would be great for the species!

[L'Emmerdeur]

I have surmised that you are equating 'moral values' with 'objectively true moral values.' You have not corrected that surmise. Maybe I'm mistaken, but if not an objective source is required. We can hypothesize that human morality has always been nothing more or less than a generally agreed set of values held by a community. Absent an objective source that hypothesis has not been disproved.

That was the subject of my previous post. No, I'm not equating moral values with objective moral values. Things that are useful are not in and of themselves moral. That requires an additional something which you have yet to provide. A screwdriver has utility. That doesn't give it moral significance. You made the mistake at the beginning of your reply by assuming that I was suggesting murdering you was consistent with altruism toward the species. That's assuming altruism toward the species is valuable. That's not a valid assumption and is just an arbitrary value. I can substitute what's best for me and there's nothing you can say about it other than, "Well, that's not my druthers." They're equally as moral because they're equally useful to whomever is doing the valueing. A species doesn't have any interests so trying to derive a value from humankind's interest as a whole doesn't work. So you're morality becomes "whatever satisfies some idea of utility" which means that everything is moral which means that nothing is as there's no longer any distinction. Our morals, in theory, serve the goal of increasing the number of instances of our kind. Why is that morally important? You haven't said. Basically by referring it back to culture and evolution you're saying, "It's morally important because it's morally important." It's purely circular reasoning and therefore vapid.

I don't actually have a problem with evolution as an explanation for why we have moral instincts and I think it's highly plausible that's all there is to it. It's just that, like eliminative materialism with consciousness, when you explain things having moral significance as just an illusion, a drive manifested by a blind process, anything recognizably moral is no longer present. Consciousness, free will, morality -- these things as they're commonly conceived are all likely to disappear once we understand the processes well enough. It's no longer recognizable as what it is. To continue to call these things morals after having removed the curtain which gave them the appearance of something other than blind processes is just an attempt to hold onto a bit of culture that serves no purpose. How are you going to justify locking somebody up for bad behavior? "We're locking you up because if we do this consistently, more humans like us will eventually be born." That's not a moral justification. That's just holding onto the label after the substance has slipped through your fingers.

In reply to most of what you have written I refer back to something in the section of my post that you quoted: The hypothesis that morals are nothing more or less than a generally agreed set of values held by a community. It isn't solely up to you or me to say, 'that's not my druthers.' It highly dependent on the values of the community. While each individual will hold moral values, authoritative morality is determined by their community.

I do not claim that morality serves the goal of increasing the number of instances of our kind. You have taken my hypothesis beyond its remit. What has apparently served the survival of our species are the qualities that JimC has cited as the underlying basis for human morality (with which I agree). An inclination or tendency toward empathy, compassion, and respect, among other qualities. I think that this inclination very likely precedes anything we would recognize as morality.

You assert that the formulation you have made of my post, 'It's morally important because it's morally important' is vapid. As you have characterized my thoughts, I certainly agree, though I think your characterization is constructed specifically to be vapid. If put in such a simplistic formulation, I think 'It is morally important because our community has determined that it is morally important' would be much more accurate. Still vapid perhaps, but I see human morality as an integral aspect of human societies, without which they would not exist. Is 'It is morally important because our god says it is morally important' any less vapid?

Again, you have taken too much from my hypothesis. Revising your characterization of my supposed basis of justification to more accurately depict my thinking: 'We're locking you up because we have decided that people who do what you did need to be locked up.'

Noting that you have not offered any alternative formulation, let alone one that is not vapid. Feel free to complete the sentence to your own satisfaction: 'It is morally important because ...'

Regardless of the claimed basis for morality, it has meaning and power in human society. You state that I am holding onto the label of 'morality' after the substance has slipped through my fingers. Please elucidate. What is this substance of morality that I have let slip through my fingers?

[rasetsu]

I need some clarification first. Where do the behaviors of the community come from? Are they evolved, or were they specially created? Or do they have some other, unspecified origin? And how does morality arise from these evolved tendencies? Does it magically appear, or what?

[L'Emmerdeur]

I need some clarification first. Where do the behaviors of the community come from? Are they evolved, or were they specially created? Or do they have some other, unspecified origin? And how does morality arise from these evolved tendencies? Does it magically appear, or what?

Alongside the ability to articulate such concepts as 'right vs. wrong' I think morality will inevitably arise in a social species. Even before then a relatively intelligent social species must and will attempt to collectively regulate behavior. Contrary to what Hermit apparently believes, I believe that we can see this process at an early stage of development in troupes of chimpanzees and bonobos.

[Hermit]

With the above in mind, would you say that the children were exhibiting instinctive behavior or cultural behavior in this study?

The following would indicate that the behaviour is socialised:

In the case of the friendly puppet, the children largely refused to observe how it suffered. However, in the case of the antisocial puppet, the six-year-old children's preference was to reject the stickers and spend their coins witnessing the punishment was significant. They even experienced pleasure by watching him suffer, shown in their expressions. In contrast, the four- and five-year-old children did not show this behaviour.

It's not clear that it does. It simply shows that whatever mechanism enabled the change in behavior had not developed prior to that time. It doesn't indicate whether that mechanism was cognitive (culture) or physiological (brain development). Take object persistence as an analogy. Up until a certain age, children do not recognize that an object which went behind some barrier is the same object that emerges from behind the barrier. To them, the emerging object is new, and they express surprise or whatever at its appearance. At a certain stage in development, object persistence develops in which we recognize that the emerging object is the same as the object that disappeared behind the barrier. Nothing indicates that we learned or were socialized to treat objects emerging differently than we had prior to that age and the consensus is that object persistence represents a development in the brain's cognitive behavior, not an elaboration of existing brain behavior (learning). The emergence or extinction of a behavior in a developing animal does not in itself say whether it is nature or nurture.

Yes, you're right. I deliberately used the weasel words "would indicate", but even that was putting it too strongly.

Would you agree that their behavior displayed a grasp of moral values or at least indicates an inclination to holding such values?

The children's behaviour very likely displayed a grasp of moral values or at least indicates an inclination to holding such values. As for the chimpanzees' behaviour, I cannot say without reading some reviews/critiques of the original study, which is paywalled.

Full text of study

Thank you.

[Brian Peacock]

Are we saying here that the articulation of moral concepts has contributed to the success of our species, or even that the success of our species can be attributed to our evolved capacities for moral thought and judgement?

[pErvinalia]

Does the ability to communicate in complex forms, and the ability to record such communications, turbocharge the development of morals? Those two factors would have significantly contributed to our success as a species too.

[rasetsu]

I need some clarification first. Where do the behaviors of the community come from? Are they evolved, or were they specially created? Or do they have some other, unspecified origin? And how does morality arise from these evolved tendencies? Does it magically appear, or what?

Alongside the ability to articulate such concepts as 'right vs. wrong' I think morality will inevitably arise in a social species. Even before then a relatively intelligent social species must and will attempt to collectively regulate behavior. Contrary to what Hermit apparently believes, I believe that we can see this process at an early stage of development in troupes of chimpanzees and bonobos.

I had three questions I needed to ask as I drifted off to sleep, but I've forgotten one of them. I'll try to recall the other later. Do you deny moral realism? Do you subscribe to metaphysical naturalism? If so, then everything I've said about your 'hypothesis' follows and what I said is not beyond its remit. You've simply changed the level of abstraction at which you're describing / discussing things. If the behaviors of the community and the 'inevitable' rise of morality is a natural process, then their purpose is to increase the number of instances of humans like those in the community, speaking functionally. You've tried to talk around the problem, but that's all you've done. You've not given an alternative to the behavior serving evolutionary goals by using words like community and need because communities reduce to individuals, and individuals reduce to evolved drives and tendencies. Either morals 'inevitably' arise from that, or they arise because something besides the naturalistic process of evolution is involved. Changing to a different level of abstraction doesn't alter that. I'm certainly willing to entertain that possibility, but I haven't seen you endorse the idea of something besides evolved behaviors being involved. Are you or are you not?

I remembered the third question. How is your view different from moral relativism?

Rereading your reply, I have another question. What are you referring to by 'morality' and how does that differ from collectively regulating behavior?

[rasetsu]

Reading the Wikipedia entry on moral relativism suggests a more direct question. Namely, how is your view not a form of moral anti-realism? I suggested that it was so early on in our discussion and you've done nothing to deny that it is.

[L'Emmerdeur]

I had three questions ...

Indeed. I too have questions, but you have failed to address them.

What is the substance of morality that I have let slip through my fingers? If you claim that there is a 'substance of morality' then you must have some concept of what that substance is. Instead of giving a clear answer to a clear question, you asked for further clarification. I did my best to supply that clarification and instead of responding with an answer you asked me further questions.

You also completely ignored this: Feel free to complete the sentence to your own satisfaction: 'It is morally important because ...'

The Socratic method is all very well, but I understand it as a dialog in which participants get to ask questions and have them answered.

Despite not receiving answers to my questions, in the interest of a good faith attempt at discussion I will answer your questions.

'Do you deny moral realism?'

What is your definition of moral realism? If you have been reading Wikipedia articles on this, you will be well aware that the terms can cover a fair bit of ground. A more authoritative source like the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy only adds to the complexity.

I believe that I have been pretty clear in expressing the opinion that morality is a human construct, nothing more and nothing less. To elaborate: We can observe phenomena and describe them. An instance of this is classical mechanics--a description of observable phenomena. In my view, moral truths do not exist in the same way that classical mechanics exist.

Defining moral realism as the position that there are objective moral truths which exist independently of our species, I would answer that I am unaware of evidence for such objective moral truths. Until evidence is available, I do not subscribe to moral realism as I have defined it.

The actions of human beings are confined to one planet, or one star system. It is not difficult to imagine that on another planet on which an intelligent social species resides, there would likely be something we would describe as morality, but the tenets of that morality could be very different than ours. Whatever moral truths our species might claim would not necessarily be true for another species. Of course there is variation in moral truths even within our own species.

'Do you subscribe to metaphysical naturalism?'

I have not encountered convincing evidence for the existence of the supernatural. If you want to call that metaphysical naturalism, OK. It does not necessarily follow that I agree that the purpose of morality is to 'increase the number of instances of humans like those in the community.' I have not made that claim, yet you continue to insist that it must be my position. If one accepts that human culture has moved beyond 'the naturalistic process of evolution' then human morality needn't be constrained by that process, and indeed, that is what the evidence appears to show.

'How is your view different from moral relativism?'

Again, how do you define moral relativism? For me it is the position that 'moral truth or justification is relative to a culture or society.' I think that I have been clear in supporting that position. I do think that human morality is dependent on the culture. To claim otherwise appears to require the existence of some objective source of moral truth.

'What are you referring to by "morality" and how does that differ from collectively regulating behavior?'

I do not have a special definition of morality--I accept the standard definition: that aspect of human culture which is 'concerned with right and wrong conduct, duty, responsibility, etc.' Morality manifests as a collective regulation of behavior in groups of people.