The Future of Moral Science

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Err...really? Is it not more broadly that within species individuals who can propagate their genes more than others within their species will flourish and the ones that produce fewer of their own genes will be weeded out?

Evolution "cares" not about species. It only "cares" about genes. Natural_selection^WP deals with populations.

Indeed which means it makes little sense to simply watch what happens in evolution and declare the winner "moral". Yet that seems to be the upshot of all this talk of evolutionary normative ethics.

Morality is a label applied to what works for a society to survive and grow.

I would like to see some evidence for this claim.

There are no societies in which rape is an active driver of the society. You don't rape your sisters. You can however rape the "others" -- those who are not party of your society.

Besides, whether or not a society will exist in the long-term is hardly a useful metric for determining (in most cases) what counts as a moral or immoral act.

There are acts which negatively impact a population's existence. There are acts that contribute to a population's existence. These are labeled as "moral" and "immoral" respectively.

And? I am not even sure what these random observations have to do with the subject at hand.

Game Theory proves that co-operation provides an advantage to groups that co-operate. We label such acts in human societies moral acts.

Swans, among other creatures, mate for life because this provides an evolutionary advantage. At some point in the past, proto-swans did not mate for life. Evolution selected for what we label as morality.

 

[angrysoba]

Evolution "cares" not about species. It only "cares" about genes. Natural_selection^WP deals with populations.

I have never disputed that.

Morality is a label applied to what works for a society to survive and grow.

Says who? What if I declared that a particular society behaved immorally?

There are no societies in which rape is an active driver of the society. You don't rape your sisters. You can however rape the "others" -- those who are not party of your society.

"Active driver"? You seem to be saying something other than what you said before which is: "Human evolution has selected against rape at both a genetic level and, to some extent, on a sociological level. Societies in which rape is prevalent do not survive." I want some evidence to back that up not some irrelevant musings that are themselves of questionable veracity.

There are acts which negatively impact a population's existence. There are acts that contribute to a population's existence. These are labeled as "moral" and "immoral" respectively.

Again, according to whom? Where are you getting these labels from? They most certainly are not self-evident and are not the usual definitions of morality in which case you seem to be talking about something more like "customs" or "legislation".

Game Theory proves that co-operation provides an advantage to groups that co-operate. We label such acts in human societies moral acts.

Who's "we"? And what does this have to do with normative ethics? I can perhaps see some application to descriptive ethics, but that is not in dispute in this thread.

Swans, among other creatures, mate for life because this provides an evolutionary advantage. At some point in the past, proto-swans did not mate for life. Evolution selected for what we label as morality.

Eh? So does this mean that homosexuality and not having offspring is immoral?

Why is morality only about propagating offspring? If the human race were suddenly rendered infertile would this mean that there could no longer be any moral or immoral acts?

 

[The Atheist]

* Historic Trends: Violence is going down, poverty is going down, intelligence is going up, etc. This is largely driven by the first step. Forces against this, from those who deny the recognition in the second step, seem to be getting weaker, over time; giving more fuel for Prediction #1.

Violent crime is down in some places; violence in wars has shown a strong up-tick in the past couple of years, and the poverty question is not straightforward at all. The numbers went up considerably immediately after the GFC, although the long-term trend is down.

Also, the trend on violence is so new as to be irrelevant, plus the bare numbers don't factor in the reason no major wars have happened since 1945: nukes.

You seem to be accumulating pieces of evidence that support your theory rather than the more traditional method of examining the evidence properly first.

I agree with your wider hypothesis that science can solve moral questions, though. Either way, it's worth a crack, considering how awfully the other options have gone.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

You don't get it, do you?!!
This is the game:
"We, the scientists, can with evidence explain how evolution within a population ought to go."
Me as a pain in *** skeptic: No, you can't!

The rest is in part always an indirect or direct version of:
Someone: I am with evidence rational and right and you are wrong.
Someone else: No, I am with evidence rational and right and you are wrong.
Me: Scientific/objective/rational/logical or what ever you want to call it evidence doesn't work on morality/ethics and value judgements.

The rest is subjectivism, which is always denied because objectivity, reason, logic, objective evidence and so on is good and subjectivity is bad. The problem is that is subjective and a value judgement. In the end nobody has yet been able to come up with an objective method for value judgement.

 

[Leumas]

You don't get it, do you?!!
This is the game:
"We, the scientists, can with evidence explain how evolution within a population ought to go."
Me as a pain in *** skeptic: No, you can't!

The rest is in part always an indirect or direct version of:
Someone: I am with evidence rational and right and you are wrong.
Someone else: No, I am with evidence rational and right and you are wrong.
Me: Scientific/objective/rational/logical or what ever you want to call it evidence doesn't work on morality/ethics and value judgements.

The rest is subjectivism, which is always denied because objectivity, reason, logic, objective evidence and so on is good and subjectivity is bad. The problem is that is subjective and a value judgement. In the end nobody has yet been able to come up with an objective method for value judgement.

Those are nothing but manifestations of the BIOLOGY of the organisms that display or think about them.

Thus it applies that they can be studied and researched by the same tools that have so far been extremely successfully (as judged by their results) utilized to study other BIOLOGIES of things.

 

[epepke]

Says who? What if I declared that a particular society behaved immorally?

Rather blindly obviously, that would quickly become a meta-statement of your morality. If you be influential enough, it might come to be a statement of your culture's and society's morality. The "who" in "says who" effectively is anyone with sufficient influence.

Of course, even pointing this out is vile from a moral context, a context exclusively about what people think ought to be. In order for a study to be scientific, however, in fact in order for the category of science to make the slightest sense at all, it must be concerned with what is. That is, how morality actually functions in practice. If that is in conflict with how you or a culture believes or embodies ideas of what ought to be, then tough noogies.

 

[angrysoba]

Rather blindly obviously, that would quickly become a meta-statement of your morality. If you be influential enough, it might come to be a statement of your culture's and society's morality. The "who" in "says who" effectively is anyone with sufficient influence.

Of course, even pointing this out is vile from a moral context, a context exclusively about what people think ought to be. In order for a study to be scientific, however, in fact in order for the category of science to make the slightest sense at all, it must be concerned with what is. That is, how morality actually functions in practice. If that is in conflict with how you or a culture believes or embodies ideas of what ought to be, then tough noogies.

Yes, exactly. And that is why the idea of the science of normative ethics is a busted flush.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Those are nothing but manifestations of the BIOLOGY of the organisms that display or think about them.

Thus it applies that they can be studied and researched by the same tools that have so far been extremely successfully (as judged by their results) utilized to study other BILOGIES of things.

Okay, here is the game for the word science. You can choose to explain it or ask me. I can then in advance tell what happens for a statistically signification number of people explaining science and morality. Someone will confuse subjective and objective and claim that which is subjective is really objective. That is it.

"I am objectively and with truth right!" In practice it doesn't matter how I frame it; i.e. it is always subjective when it comes to the is-ought problem and it doesn't matter whether you or I claim religion, politics, science, philosophy or what not. There is no objective evidence possible for morality/ethics. You can learn to do it differently by using what other people have figured out about that, but you can't avoid this one:
"Man is the measure of all things: of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not" - Protagoras.

With regards

 

[epepke]

Yes, exactly. And that is why the idea of the science of normative ethics is a busted flush.

Yes, but even more than that. Science would be perfectly fine for descriptive ethics/morality/whatever. I mean, you'd have to get over the homo fecit of such sources as the Stanford Encyclopedia that define even descriptive morality as a code, but still, it could be done and might be interesting and perhaps even enlightening.

But I have yet to see a person who claims to be able to use science for normative ethics who isn't either 1) dead set against using science with respect to descriptive morality, or 2) proudly fails to understand the problem and covers it up with a great sputtering

It is almost as if such people

1) Know that their approach is not going to work on normative morality
2) Can figure out that any hypothetical approach that might work on normative morality would also have to work on descriptive morality
3) Feel deep down in their bones (and are probably correct) that no such approach can exist, and
4) Therefore do their damnedest to try to prevent scientific investigation into descriptive morality.

That is, no scientific approach would work on normative morality. It might work on descriptive morality, but in doing so, it would likely make it pretty obvious that it wouldn't work on normative morality. Therefore, examination of descriptive morality must be stopped. It is the enemy.

The major flaw I can see in the above is that it probably overestimates the intelligence of the likes of Harris and Dennett. They may simply be operating at the intellectual level of the pant-hoot. This is likely true of Harris who likes to dress up his pseudoscientific claptrap with photos of women with acid-burned faces. He probably isn't stupid enough not to understand that you don't need an MRI machine to tell you that concentrated acids are bad for your face, but it might be amusing to watch him confronted in public with this lunacy. Dennett, on the other hand, has had a few more years to learn to affect rational-seeming manners and perhaps fools more people.

 

[Dani]

Yes, but even more than that. Science would be perfectly fine for descriptive ethics/morality/whatever. I mean, you'd have to get over the homo fecit of such sources as the Stanford Encyclopedia that define even descriptive morality as a code, but still, it could be done and might be interesting and perhaps even enlightening.

But I have yet to see a person who claims to be able to use science for normative ethics who isn't either 1) dead set against using science with respect to descriptive morality, or 2) proudly fails to understand the problem and covers it up with a great sputtering

It is almost as if such people

1) Know that their approach is not going to work on normative morality
2) Can figure out that any hypothetical approach that might work on normative morality would also have to work on descriptive morality
3) Feel deep down in their bones (and are probably correct) that no such approach can exist, and
4) Therefore do their damnedest to try to prevent scientific investigation into descriptive morality.

That is, no scientific approach would work on normative morality. It might work on descriptive morality, but in doing so, it would likely make it pretty obvious that it wouldn't work on normative morality. Therefore, examination of descriptive morality must be stopped. It is the enemy.

The major flaw I can see in the above is that it probably overestimates the intelligence of the likes of Harris and Dennett. They may simply be operating at the intellectual level of the pant-hoot. This is likely true of Harris who likes to dress up his pseudoscientific claptrap with photos of women with acid-burned faces. He probably isn't stupid enough not to understand that you don't need an MRI machine to tell you that concentrated acids are bad for your face, but it might be amusing to watch him confronted in public with this lunacy. Dennett, on the other hand, has had a few more years to learn to affect rational-seeming manners and perhaps fools more people.

I haven't seen a single proponent of normative moral science against descriptive morality. Could you name one or two? Maybe I haven't been paying attention, but what I've seen so far is that proponents of "science can answer moral questions" tend to conflate descriptive and normative morality. Most of them explicitly acknowledge they're different beasts, but end up conflating both in their arguments anyway. Sam Harris did that, among many other things (the MRI bit made me chuckle, by the way).

Also, I admit I'm not sure about Dennett's position on this. I'm skeptical of your characterization, because he strikes me as a sophisticated enough intellectual to not make that mistake. Where have you seen him claim something along those lines?

 

[angrysoba]

I haven't seen a single proponent of normative moral science against descriptive morality. Could you name one or two? Maybe I haven't been paying attention, but what I've seen so far is that proponents of "science can answer moral questions" tend to conflate descriptive and normative morality. Most of them explicitly acknowledge they're different beasts, but end up conflating both in their arguments anyway. Sam Harris did that, among many other things (the MRI bit made me chuckle, by the way).

Also, I admit I'm not sure about Dennett's position on this. I'm skeptical of your characterization, because he strikes me as a sophisticated enough intellectual to not make that mistake. Where have you seen him claim something along those lines?

I agree with you on all points.

From what I understand, it is pretty much uncontroversial that science can tell us something about descriptive morality, such as how moral sentiments developed, or even about how we might make moral decisions. Similarly, I don't think anyone would dispute that science can inform our moral decision-making; the more we know about the consequences of our behaviour in terms of, say, how our actions can be damaging to the environment the better we can apply it to our moral choices, and furthermore science can expand the scope in which moral decisions are possible. For example, if we can produce food with all the nutrients necessary for living, and indeed make the food taste better we may be able to move beyond any necessity of killing animals for food. I think that all of these things are pretty much uncontroversial and I don't know any philosophers or scientists who dispute this.

The problem, as you point out, is when someone glides from the descriptive to the normative such as by saying that science has discovered that we should not eat meat. This is something that is not a scientific finding in any way whatsoever, nor is it scientific to say we should help people in the third world, or that we should donate money to Oxfam instead of buying expensive gifts because science shows the money can improve the welfare of conscious creatures on a greater scale by donating the money than by buying the gift.

This is where people like Shermer and Harris always seem to get confused (and I think Wowbagger is too, although he may be correct in saying that Haidt is not among them). I think the confusion is even worse with those who think that because evolution did XYZ to people it follows that XYZ is moral. This seems to be even more of a confusion and in this camp I would put E.O Wilson and some posters on this thread.

As for Dennett, I also agree with you Dani that I have not seen him make this mistake. In fact, I am pretty sure I have seen him argue against it such as in his discussion with Pigliucci and Krauss. When this topic came up again I remember going back to Darwin's Dangerous Idea to find out which side he came down on. He actually gives an example of some way in which he thinks the calculation of well-being cannot even be performed in principle, which is against something that Sam Harris argued for in the Moral Landscape. He calls this the Three Mile Island Effect whereby we would not even know if Three Mile Island was a net gain or a net loss from a utilitarian point of view.

 

[Leumas]

Okay, here is the game for the word science. You can choose to explain it or ask me. I can then in advance tell what happens for a statistically signification number of people explaining science and morality. Someone will confuse subjective and objective and claim that which is subjective is really objective. That is it.

"I am objectively and with truth right!" In practice it doesn't matter how I frame it; i.e. it is always subjective when it comes to the is-ought problem and it doesn't matter whether you or I claim religion, politics, science, philosophy or what not. There is no objective evidence possible for morality/ethics. You can learn to do it differently by using what other people have figured out about that, but you can't avoid this one:
"Man is the measure of all things: of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not" - Protagoras.

With regards

But subjectivity/objectivity really has no bearing on this. Biologists research biological stuff all the time and biological research has yielded NUMEROUS benefits to humanity and I doubt anyone really cared much about subjectivity or objectivity as long as USEFUL RESULTS are the outcome of the research.

Obviously everything humans do is subjective but of course in some cases it is important to have "objectively" verifiable data. This is why scientists have come up with all sorts of methods to remove (or minimize) the element of subjectivity (e.g. double blind etc.).

Saying that we cannot resolve subjectivity and objectivity and thus it is impossible to scientifically research morality, ethics and value judgments is blatantly mistaken.

Those are manifestations of the biology of living beings and just as the sciences of biology and chemistry and neurology have researched SUCCESSFULLY and BENEFICIALLY many other aspects of biology regardless of the extent of subjectivity, it is obvious that those same sciences can and should research and apply their tools to the issues of morality et al.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

But subjectivity/objectivity really has no bearing on this. Biologists research biological stuff all the time and biological research has yielded NUMEROUS benefits to humanity and I doubt anyone really cared much about subjectivity or objectivity as long as USEFUL RESULTS are the outcome of the research.

Obviously everything humans do is subjective but of course in some cases it is important to have "objectively" verifiable data. This is why scientists have come up with all sorts of methods to remove (or minimize) the element of subjectivity (e.g. double blind etc.).

Saying that we cannot resolve subjectivity and objectivity and thus it is impossible to scientifically research morality, ethics and value judgments is blatantly mistaken.

Those are manifestations of the biology of living beings and just as the sciences of biology and chemistry and neurology have researched SUCCESSFULLY and BENEFICIALLY many other aspects of biology regardless of the extent of subjectivity, it is obvious that those same sciences can and should research and apply their tools to the issues of morality et al.

My bold

Okay, apart for your need to use bold, I can ask these questions:
How do you know that a result is useful?
What is useful?
How does useful work?
Why does useful matter?

Okay, I will be honest - I don't care about science, unless it is useful to me. As a professional within my field, I in practice must be able to differentiate between natural science, social science and humane science, because in practice I do all 3 things applied as a practice. In that sense natural science is useful, but only in a limited sense, because for the following text-book example in my line of work, I have the legal responsibility to be able to answer with relevant methodologies for all 3 kinds of science:
You are observing a human on a bicycle and the person evades a lamp-post.
How does she/he do that?
Why does she/he do that?

So in short and in the absurd sense, I work in a line of work, where I have to maximize subjectivity

 

[Sophronius]

Yes, this is more along the lines of "discovered". If it was merely "chosen", it would not be very scientific, would it?

I might be wrong, but I think what Sophronius was trying to ask is if you meant descriptive as opposed to normative. From what I gathered, you're making the stronger claim, so in a way you're really saying "chosen", but that's probably not the best term to use in this context. Let's say, figuratively speaking, "chosen by science". Sophronius, am I wrong?

I meant: Are you saying that science can find out what people's moral preferences are, or that you can scientifically declare what someone's moral preferences ought to be? The latter is nonsensical as far as I can tell, so I assume wowbagger meant the former. Even the former is surprisingly contentious, however, since many moral relativists insist that you can just pick and choose your own moral preferences at will.

 

[Wowbagger]

Well, I still don't have any time, yet, to respond to the newer posts. Friday is looking like a good day for doing that, though. And, I do have a few things to say to those arguing my side, as well as those who are critical.

In the meantime, let me post an actual quote from my debate opponent from last year, Gregory Lopez:

...I can see more of what your saying as it was very clearly presented. I can specifically agree with your propositions 1 almost entirely, parts of 2a and some of 2b.​

So, that went over better than expected!

To be fair, I did not emphasize the normative aspects as much during the SkeptiCamp talk, which is the most contentious portion of this forum post. But, I did stress the diminishing role of philosophy into pure systematics, which implies the same general idea, sorta.

We didn't have time to talk much more about the details. I will keep you posted as I get more feedback.

 

[angrysoba]

Well, I still don't have any time, yet, to respond to the newer posts. Friday is looking like a good day for doing that, though. And, I do have a few things to say to those arguing my side, as well as those who are critical.

In the meantime, let me post an actual quote from my debate opponent from last year, Gregory Lopez:

...I can see more of what your saying as it was very clearly presented. I can specifically agree with your propositions 1 almost entirely, parts of 2a and some of 2b.​

So, that went over better than expected!

To be fair, I did not emphasize the normative aspects as much during the SkeptiCamp talk, which is the most contentious portion of this forum post. But, I did stress the diminishing role of philosophy into pure systematics, which implies the same general idea, sorta.

We didn't have time to talk much more about the details. I will keep you posted as I get more feedback.

But the normative aspects are really the only thing at issue.

I for one have no problem with the idea that most of what we can learn about morality will come from the natural sciences (biology, neuroscience) and maybe the social sciences (anthropology, psychology), driven by conceptual analysis (that is to say, philosophy). I'm not sure who you are arguing with there.

The problem, as I see it, is that you are choosing consequentialism as a basis for morality simply on the grounds that it is the value which is most amenable to calculation and therefore it is methodologically convenient. Yet this still neglects ideas about morality such as intentions which are not themselves consequences.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Hi all and not just you, Wowbagger.

In short as philosophy, which would be a part of the general human condition, even if we didn't have the word and claimed we could in practice "remove/diminish" it, I am a pain in *** skeptic, so I will show you, how it is that you can't remove/diminish the role of philosophy in normative ethics. Now forget that I am using the word philosophy and explain the following exchange:
Someone: We can explain everything with truth.
Me: No!

Forget the word truth for a moment and replace it with hard facts/data.
Someone: We can explain everything with hard/brute facts/data.
Me: No!

Now forget those words and replace them with this:
Someone: We can explain and do normative ethics with consequentialism and natural science (in regards to all humans as we).
Me: No!

So since we ought to diminish philosophy, here it is as a practical question:
Can we remove the "five grounds of doubt"(Agrippa the Skeptic) and in practice find a foundational bedrock for normative ethics?
The short answer is no, because there is no universal we.
And in practice if "refutation by dissent" works, it works!

 

[Tassman]

But the normative aspects are really the only thing at issue.

I for one have no problem with the idea that most of what we can learn about morality will come from the natural sciences (biology, neuroscience) and maybe the social sciences (anthropology, psychology), driven by conceptual analysis (that is to say, philosophy). I'm not sure who you are arguing with there.

The problem, as I see it, is that you are choosing consequentialism as a basis for morality simply on the grounds that it is the value which is most amenable to calculation and therefore it is methodologically convenient. Yet this still neglects ideas about morality such as intentions which are not themselves consequences.

But it is reasonable to choose "consequentialism", which is class of normative ethics, as a basis for morality because, unless one is arguing for a non-existent absolute morality, consequentialism argues that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate guide for a judgment about the rightness or wrongness of an action. But such decisions must be qualified by a conditional conjunction - they cannot be classified as ‘moral’ in and of themselves.

Thus, one cannot simply say it is immoral to let poor people starve, because this is based solely upon subjective opinion whether or not it is wrong to let poor people starve. But we can say: "IF we want a more equitable society then it is moral to feed starving people, because research has shown that an equitable society is a more prosperous society. And it is in our mutual interests to have a prosperous society. Hence, the consequences of such conduct are right!" In short, the conduct is moral.

 

[angrysoba]

But it is reasonable to choose "consequentialism", which is class of normative ethics, as a basis for morality because, unless one is arguing for a non-existent absolute morality, consequentialism argues that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate guide for a judgment about the rightness or wrongness of an action.

And that's a false dichtomy.

But such decisions must be qualified by a conditional conjunction - they cannot be classified as ‘moral’ in and of themselves.

I sense a regress coming on.

Thus, one cannot simply say it is immoral to let poor people starve, because this is based solely upon subjective opinion whether or not it is wrong to let poor people starve.

Why not?

But we can say: "IF we want a more equitable society then it is moral to feed starving people, because research has shown that an equitable society is a more prosperous society. And it is in our mutual interests to have a prosperous society. Hence, the consequences of such conduct are right!" In short, the conduct is moral.

But you have simply created a new problem: why is it moral in and of itself to create a more equitable society?

Research shows that it makes us richer, but so what? Why is it moral in and of itself to be richer?

What if research showed that society would be more prosperous if we simply euthanized the poor and that it was in our mutual interest to kill them off? It is in our mutual interests to have a prosperous society...

*I now tap my magic sciency wand*

And hey presto: Hence, the consequences of such conduct are right!


On the other hand, I could say that intentions matter regarding whether or not an action is moral.

If for example, I decided that feeding starving people was an end in and of itself (because after all sciency research has shown that if you feed starving people then they aren't starving any more) maybe that would be more moral than your idea of feeding starving people in order to make us all richer because of some dappy Rube-Goldberg extemporations built in.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

In short - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knud_Ejler_Løgstrup