This semester, I am teaching a graduate seminar on "American Political Novels." Right now, we are reading Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead. Reading Rand reminds me how Rand's individualist ethics rests upon the sort of biological teleology that I have defended as part of "Darwinian natural right."
The best statement of Rand's ethics is "The Objectivist Ethics," the first chapter of The Virtue of Selfishness. In that essay, she declares: "It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil." Inanimate entities cannot have any values because they have nothing to gain or lose. But living organisms have values because they have the capacity for self-generated, self-directed action.
"Life can be kept in existence only by a constant process of self-sustaining action. The goal of that action, the ultimate value which, to be kept, must be gained through its every moment, is the organism's life.
"An ultimate value is that final goal or end to which all lesser goals are the means--and it sets the standard by which all lesser goals are evaluated. An organism's life is its standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil."
It is often assumed that modern science denies any teleological conception of nature and therefore denies the teleological basis for Aristotelian natural right. Leo Strauss suggested this, for example, at the beginning of Natural Right and History. But I have argued--in Darwinian Natural Right--that Darwinian science actually supports a modern biological conception of teleology. By natural selection, living organisms are designed for survival and reproduction, and thus they are designed for goals or purposes. Some animals pursue their goals consciously. Human beings pursue their goals through conscious reasoning. As Rand puts it, man is "a specific organism of a specific nature that requires specific actions to sustain his life." "Since reason is man's basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil."
The Darwinian basis for Rand's ethics as rooted in biological teleology is elaborated in some of the writings of Harry Binswanger--particularly, his book The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts and his article "Life-based Teleology and the Foundation of Ethics" in The Monist (January 1992). Binswanger shows how ethics presupposes the goal-directed action of all living organisms as products of natural selection, and "where there are goals of any sort, life as an ultimate goal is presupposed." We reach the realm of ethics in the strict sense when we come to human volition. Unlike plants and animals, human beings must deliberately choose to pursue their goals over their entire life-span. And their fundamental choice is between courses of action that are life-denying and those that are life-affirming. The drama of Rand's fiction turns on this choice.
Some of my previous posts on the biological teleology of ethics can be found here, here, here, here, and here.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Friday, February 29, 2008
William F. Buckley and Darwinian Evolution
William F. Buckley, Jr. died two days ago. In many respects, he was the most influential leader of the American conservative intellectual movement since World War II. The obituary in the New York Times is a good survey of his life.
One of his many activities was his long-running PBS television program "Firing Line." One of the most famous of his programs was a debate broadcast from Seton Hall University in 1997 on the topic: Resolved: The Evolutionists Should Acknowledge Creation.
On the affirmative side of this resolution, Buckley joined Phillip Johnson, Michael Behe, and David Berlinski. On the negative side--supporting evolution--were Kenneth Miller, Michael Ruse, Eugenie Scott, and Barry Lynn. A transcript of the entire debate can be found here.
It's remarkable how evasive and uncertain Buckley is about his position. When Michael Ruse asks Buckley "why are you on that side rather than ours?", Buckley is unclear. He seems to say that he opposes Darwinian evolution only if it is interpreted as denying any role for God as Creator. But when Ken Miller quotes from Pope John Paul II's endorsement of the theory of evolution as "more than a hypothesis," Buckley responds that he accepts this. Miller and Buckley are both Catholics, and they seem to agree on the Pope's statement.
In the exchange with Barry Lynn--who argues for the compatibility of theism and evolution--Buckley seems to concede the possibility that God could have used the evolutionary process to carry out His will. Buckley's concern is to reject the atheistic materialism of people like Richard Dawkins. But he seems to be open to a theistic evolution such as was endorsed by the Pope.
At the end of the debate, Buckley praises his opponents for their "repudiation of materialist explanations," which would seem to agree with his position that "the notion of creation has not been invalidated by whatever loyalty is shown to the idea of evolution."
What one sees in Buckley's struggles with the idea of evolution is typical for many conservatives. They worry that if Darwinian evolution is interpreted as necessarily dictating an atheistic materialism that rejects any First Cause, this will deny religious belief in human beings as created in God's image, which has dangerous moral and political consequences. And yet conservatives like Buckley can see that Darwinian evolution can be interpreted as leaving open the question of the ultimate causes of nature, and thus allowing for a theistic conception of evolution like that endorsed by John Paul II.
Of course, I have often argued that questions of ultimate explanation must be left open by Darwinian science, which permits the religious believer to accept Darwinian natural evolution while also looking to God as the uncaused cause of that natural evolutionary process. At the same time, skeptical conservatives--like Friedrich Hayek, for example--can accept evolutionary science while assuming that the order of nature is the self-sufficient ground of all explanation, and that "life has no purpose other than itself."
It should also be noted in this "Firing Line" debate that the critics of evolution here follow the strategy of negative argumentation--criticizing evolutionary theory but offering no alternative theory of their own. David Berlinski, for example, says at the end of the debate: "I find scientific flaws with the Darwinian theory. I don't have a replacement." Similarly, Behe and Johnson fail to offer any clear positive theory of their own.
One of his many activities was his long-running PBS television program "Firing Line." One of the most famous of his programs was a debate broadcast from Seton Hall University in 1997 on the topic: Resolved: The Evolutionists Should Acknowledge Creation.
On the affirmative side of this resolution, Buckley joined Phillip Johnson, Michael Behe, and David Berlinski. On the negative side--supporting evolution--were Kenneth Miller, Michael Ruse, Eugenie Scott, and Barry Lynn. A transcript of the entire debate can be found here.
It's remarkable how evasive and uncertain Buckley is about his position. When Michael Ruse asks Buckley "why are you on that side rather than ours?", Buckley is unclear. He seems to say that he opposes Darwinian evolution only if it is interpreted as denying any role for God as Creator. But when Ken Miller quotes from Pope John Paul II's endorsement of the theory of evolution as "more than a hypothesis," Buckley responds that he accepts this. Miller and Buckley are both Catholics, and they seem to agree on the Pope's statement.
In the exchange with Barry Lynn--who argues for the compatibility of theism and evolution--Buckley seems to concede the possibility that God could have used the evolutionary process to carry out His will. Buckley's concern is to reject the atheistic materialism of people like Richard Dawkins. But he seems to be open to a theistic evolution such as was endorsed by the Pope.
At the end of the debate, Buckley praises his opponents for their "repudiation of materialist explanations," which would seem to agree with his position that "the notion of creation has not been invalidated by whatever loyalty is shown to the idea of evolution."
What one sees in Buckley's struggles with the idea of evolution is typical for many conservatives. They worry that if Darwinian evolution is interpreted as necessarily dictating an atheistic materialism that rejects any First Cause, this will deny religious belief in human beings as created in God's image, which has dangerous moral and political consequences. And yet conservatives like Buckley can see that Darwinian evolution can be interpreted as leaving open the question of the ultimate causes of nature, and thus allowing for a theistic conception of evolution like that endorsed by John Paul II.
Of course, I have often argued that questions of ultimate explanation must be left open by Darwinian science, which permits the religious believer to accept Darwinian natural evolution while also looking to God as the uncaused cause of that natural evolutionary process. At the same time, skeptical conservatives--like Friedrich Hayek, for example--can accept evolutionary science while assuming that the order of nature is the self-sufficient ground of all explanation, and that "life has no purpose other than itself."
It should also be noted in this "Firing Line" debate that the critics of evolution here follow the strategy of negative argumentation--criticizing evolutionary theory but offering no alternative theory of their own. David Berlinski, for example, says at the end of the debate: "I find scientific flaws with the Darwinian theory. I don't have a replacement." Similarly, Behe and Johnson fail to offer any clear positive theory of their own.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Guns Save Lives
In some of my recent postings on the NIU shooting, I have raised the question of what unarmed citizens should do when they are attacked by gunmen. There is no easy answer to that question because obviously gunmen have an unfair advantage when they attack unarmed citizens. These unarmed citizens can call the police. But by the time the police arrive, many people are already dead.
This problem becomes acute particularly for "gun-free zones" like schools and shopping malls, which have become the favorite places for crazed gunmen to go looking for easy victims.
There is an alternative: allow citizens to defend themselves by carrying concealed handguns. In fact, as John Stossel has argued in a recent essay, there have been some recent cases where gunmen going to schools and malls have been stopped by citizens with guns.
If there are any natural rights at all, there must be a natural right to defend oneself against homicidal violence by using whatever weapon will stop the aggressor. So why shouldn't law-abiding citizens have the right to use guns to defend themselves?
This problem becomes acute particularly for "gun-free zones" like schools and shopping malls, which have become the favorite places for crazed gunmen to go looking for easy victims.
There is an alternative: allow citizens to defend themselves by carrying concealed handguns. In fact, as John Stossel has argued in a recent essay, there have been some recent cases where gunmen going to schools and malls have been stopped by citizens with guns.
If there are any natural rights at all, there must be a natural right to defend oneself against homicidal violence by using whatever weapon will stop the aggressor. So why shouldn't law-abiding citizens have the right to use guns to defend themselves?
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Liberal Learning Through Peer-Response Journal Writing
Having vented my scorn for the intellectual emptiness of higher education today--particularly, as manifested in auditorium classes and power-point lecturing--I should offer some practical ideas for alternatives.
Over the past 10 years, most of my classes have been organized around peer-response journal writing. I first picked up this pedagogical technique from George Gopen, the "writing-across-the-curriculum" professor at Duke University. This always works for me in elevating the intellectual level of every class I teach.
Here's how it works. For each week of class, there is a reading assignment from some classic text. At the first class of each week, each student must bring to class three copies of a two-typed page journal entry on the reading for that week. This journal entry must show some kind of intellectual struggle with the reading. If a student doesn't understand the reading, he must explain what it is he doesn't understand. One copy of the journal entry is for me. The other two copies are for the other two members of the student journal group. Then, at the second class of the week, each student comes to class with two one-typed page journal responses to the two journal entries that he received earlier in the week. In these responses, he must respond somehow to the writing of the other two members of his journal group. By the end of the semester, each student has written over 60 typed pages of journal writing.
As a result, every student must come to class not only having read the assignment but also having thought enough about the assignment to write something about it. The students must also enter into a written conversation about the readings with other members of their journal groups. This prepares them for class discussion, because they are primed with questions and comments that have already come up in their journal writing.
Students learn how to read classic texts. They learn how to write about those texts and the questions they raise. And they learn how to talk about those texts and questions.
The classroom discussions are so lively that I never have to lecture, which is my objective. Reading the journal entries helps me to prepare for class, because I can see what the students are thinking, and I can come to class with questions for discussion based on the journal writing. Sometimes I will start a class by saying, I see that John and Susie are taking a position directly opposed to the position of Sally and Dan, so what's the debate here?
Of course, some students drop out of my classes immediately when they see this writing requirement in the syllabus. But that's good, because it means that the students who remain are ready to do some serious work. Many of my students say this is the most stimulating experience they have ever had in any college class.
This works best in small classes. But I have regularly done this in classes with enrollments of up to 50 students. To make the reading manageable for me, I don't write many marginal comments on the journals. But my comments will come out in the class discussions.
If this can work at a large state university like Northern Illinois University, it can work anywhere.
Over the past 10 years, most of my classes have been organized around peer-response journal writing. I first picked up this pedagogical technique from George Gopen, the "writing-across-the-curriculum" professor at Duke University. This always works for me in elevating the intellectual level of every class I teach.
Here's how it works. For each week of class, there is a reading assignment from some classic text. At the first class of each week, each student must bring to class three copies of a two-typed page journal entry on the reading for that week. This journal entry must show some kind of intellectual struggle with the reading. If a student doesn't understand the reading, he must explain what it is he doesn't understand. One copy of the journal entry is for me. The other two copies are for the other two members of the student journal group. Then, at the second class of the week, each student comes to class with two one-typed page journal responses to the two journal entries that he received earlier in the week. In these responses, he must respond somehow to the writing of the other two members of his journal group. By the end of the semester, each student has written over 60 typed pages of journal writing.
As a result, every student must come to class not only having read the assignment but also having thought enough about the assignment to write something about it. The students must also enter into a written conversation about the readings with other members of their journal groups. This prepares them for class discussion, because they are primed with questions and comments that have already come up in their journal writing.
Students learn how to read classic texts. They learn how to write about those texts and the questions they raise. And they learn how to talk about those texts and questions.
The classroom discussions are so lively that I never have to lecture, which is my objective. Reading the journal entries helps me to prepare for class, because I can see what the students are thinking, and I can come to class with questions for discussion based on the journal writing. Sometimes I will start a class by saying, I see that John and Susie are taking a position directly opposed to the position of Sally and Dan, so what's the debate here?
Of course, some students drop out of my classes immediately when they see this writing requirement in the syllabus. But that's good, because it means that the students who remain are ready to do some serious work. Many of my students say this is the most stimulating experience they have ever had in any college class.
This works best in small classes. But I have regularly done this in classes with enrollments of up to 50 students. To make the reading manageable for me, I don't write many marginal comments on the journals. But my comments will come out in the class discussions.
If this can work at a large state university like Northern Illinois University, it can work anywhere.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Auditorium Classes as Educational Fraud
It is not surprising that the campus shooting at Northern Illinois University last week occurred in Cole Hall 101. This room is actually a huge auditorium with a stage for the teacher and a huge screen for power-point projection. With hundreds of students enrolled, classes in this auditorium have to be organized around lectures with almost no discussion at all. Many students do not bother to come to class. Those who do are passive. Many sleep. Others surf the internet on their laptops. Standing on the stage and shooting down into the deep auditorium, the gunman knew it would be easy to target his passive victims.
Cole Hall will be closed this semester and even into the fall semester. Administrators say that they will decide what should be done with the building, with the thought of doing something that would honor the memory of the students who were killed there.
I have a proposal. Cole Hall now houses two huge auditorium halls. Why not replace these auditorium halls with small seminar rooms for classes with fewer than 25 students? Why not even prohibit all auditorium classes across the university? Wouldn't it honor the memory of these dead students to declare that never again would NIU students have to sit in auditorium classes that promote listless passivity rather than intellectual exchange?
Of course, such a proposal has no chance of being taken seriously. At large universities like NIU, it is economically efficient to herd hundreds of students into auditorium classes. With few exceptions, these classes have almost no intellectual content.
Recently, one of my colleagues at NIU was explaining to me why we needed to have large auditorium classes. He said that undergraduate students are only "warm bodies" to give us good enrollment numbers and to pay the tuition that finances our graduate programs and our leisure for professional research. Administrators and faculty members would never say this in public, but this really is the attitude that supports auditorium classes.
As part of a "strategic planning" process at NIU, faculty were recently asked to submit proposals for reforming education at NIU. I wrote a proposal for a "Great Books" program--a curriculum of small classes organized around the close reading of classic texts in all fields of the liberal arts. The written response to my proposal was that "Great Books programs are based on elitist notions of 'great literature' based on white middle class values."
Gathering hundreds of "warm bodies" in an auditorium for a course of lectures and power-point projections is not real education. But it surely does escape any charge of "elitism."
Cole Hall will be closed this semester and even into the fall semester. Administrators say that they will decide what should be done with the building, with the thought of doing something that would honor the memory of the students who were killed there.
I have a proposal. Cole Hall now houses two huge auditorium halls. Why not replace these auditorium halls with small seminar rooms for classes with fewer than 25 students? Why not even prohibit all auditorium classes across the university? Wouldn't it honor the memory of these dead students to declare that never again would NIU students have to sit in auditorium classes that promote listless passivity rather than intellectual exchange?
Of course, such a proposal has no chance of being taken seriously. At large universities like NIU, it is economically efficient to herd hundreds of students into auditorium classes. With few exceptions, these classes have almost no intellectual content.
Recently, one of my colleagues at NIU was explaining to me why we needed to have large auditorium classes. He said that undergraduate students are only "warm bodies" to give us good enrollment numbers and to pay the tuition that finances our graduate programs and our leisure for professional research. Administrators and faculty members would never say this in public, but this really is the attitude that supports auditorium classes.
As part of a "strategic planning" process at NIU, faculty were recently asked to submit proposals for reforming education at NIU. I wrote a proposal for a "Great Books" program--a curriculum of small classes organized around the close reading of classic texts in all fields of the liberal arts. The written response to my proposal was that "Great Books programs are based on elitist notions of 'great literature' based on white middle class values."
Gathering hundreds of "warm bodies" in an auditorium for a course of lectures and power-point projections is not real education. But it surely does escape any charge of "elitism."
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Anastaplo on the NIU Shooting
In my previous posts on the NIU shooting, I have suggested that it is not healthy for us to assume that when a gunman bursts into a classroom, the best response for the teachers and the students is to run away. Wouldn't it be better for our campus communities to make it clear that gunmen will be aggressively attacked by their potential victims? Wouldn't this provide a healthy deterrent to potential criminals who think they can intimidate us and achieve a perverse kind of glory by their power over us?
A similar line of thought has been expressed by George Anastaplo (Professor of Law at Loyola University of Chicago) in the following "letter to the editor" that he has sent to various newspapers:
"The fiendish attack last week on a hall full of Northern Illinois University students by a heavily-armed madman provoked typical resposes by potential victims: by and large, people dove for cover or ran for exits. It is obviously difficult, when assaulted thus, to resist the natural impulse to flee or to hide, even if one may become thereby a much easier target.
"It would usually be healthier, spiritually as well as physically, if potential victims in such dreadful circumstances had been taught (well before such a crisis) to rush the gunman, shouting vigorously and throwing things at him (backpacks, books, bottles, chairs, clothing, laptops, lunchboxes--whatever is at hand). Putting out the lights might also help. (Arming other students on a campus would probably be, to say the least, counterproductive--and not only because it can 'send the wrong message.')
"It would probably help, in any event, if a would-be gunman (no matter how demented) should be helped to recognize (as he makes his plans) that his hoped-for victims can no longer be counted on to remain simply targets, but might even take him alive. he yearns for, and indeed depends upon, much more uncontested control of the situation than he should be permitted by properly-prepared fellow students to count on."
A similar line of thought has been expressed by George Anastaplo (Professor of Law at Loyola University of Chicago) in the following "letter to the editor" that he has sent to various newspapers:
"The fiendish attack last week on a hall full of Northern Illinois University students by a heavily-armed madman provoked typical resposes by potential victims: by and large, people dove for cover or ran for exits. It is obviously difficult, when assaulted thus, to resist the natural impulse to flee or to hide, even if one may become thereby a much easier target.
"It would usually be healthier, spiritually as well as physically, if potential victims in such dreadful circumstances had been taught (well before such a crisis) to rush the gunman, shouting vigorously and throwing things at him (backpacks, books, bottles, chairs, clothing, laptops, lunchboxes--whatever is at hand). Putting out the lights might also help. (Arming other students on a campus would probably be, to say the least, counterproductive--and not only because it can 'send the wrong message.')
"It would probably help, in any event, if a would-be gunman (no matter how demented) should be helped to recognize (as he makes his plans) that his hoped-for victims can no longer be counted on to remain simply targets, but might even take him alive. he yearns for, and indeed depends upon, much more uncontested control of the situation than he should be permitted by properly-prepared fellow students to count on."
Monday, February 18, 2008
Prozac, Nietzsche, and the NIU Gunman
The mystery of Steven Kazmierczak--the NIU gunman--deepens. In an interview conducted by CNN, Jessica Baty--Kazmierczak's girlfriend--has added at least two pieces of information. She indicates that he was on Prozac, but had gone off the drug "because it made him feel like a zombie." She also reports that after the shooting, she received mailed packages from him with various books--including Friedrich Nietzsche's THE ANTICHRIST, which he had been reading in recent weeks.
Prozac is one of the best-known of the anti-depressant drugs, which works by blocking the removal of serotonin from between nerve cells. As I indicated in Chapter 10 of DARWINIAN CONSERVATISM, there is controversy over the reliance on drugs like Prozac to manipulate neurotransmitters in the brain to deal with depression. Using such drugs can be evasive and self-defeating because it does not really solve the problem, which is something wrong in the mind or in the social environment of the patient. Moreover, going off such drugs can have severe consequences.
Reading Nietzsche being associated with homicidal violence by young men has a long history. In the famous 1925 case, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb read Nietzsche and decided that they were "supermen" who were "beyond good and evil." To show this, they decided to commit a murder--killing Bobby Franks, the young son of a rich family in Chicago. Of course, reading Nietzsche by itself is not going to make young men homicidal. But it is likely to be unhealthy for young men who otherwise are mentally disturbed. I say this as someone who regularly teaches Nietzsche, but who worries that certain kinds of students would be best not to read Nietzsche.
We need to know much more about Steven Kazmierczak. In particular, we need to know more about his use of Prozac, and about the dangers of such anti-depressant drugs.
Prozac is one of the best-known of the anti-depressant drugs, which works by blocking the removal of serotonin from between nerve cells. As I indicated in Chapter 10 of DARWINIAN CONSERVATISM, there is controversy over the reliance on drugs like Prozac to manipulate neurotransmitters in the brain to deal with depression. Using such drugs can be evasive and self-defeating because it does not really solve the problem, which is something wrong in the mind or in the social environment of the patient. Moreover, going off such drugs can have severe consequences.
Reading Nietzsche being associated with homicidal violence by young men has a long history. In the famous 1925 case, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb read Nietzsche and decided that they were "supermen" who were "beyond good and evil." To show this, they decided to commit a murder--killing Bobby Franks, the young son of a rich family in Chicago. Of course, reading Nietzsche by itself is not going to make young men homicidal. But it is likely to be unhealthy for young men who otherwise are mentally disturbed. I say this as someone who regularly teaches Nietzsche, but who worries that certain kinds of students would be best not to read Nietzsche.
We need to know much more about Steven Kazmierczak. In particular, we need to know more about his use of Prozac, and about the dangers of such anti-depressant drugs.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Campus Gunmen and the Need for Courage
If an armed man breaks into a classroom intent on killing as many people as he can, what response should we expect from the teacher and the students?
At Virginia Tech and at NIU, the response of both teachers and students was to run away, out of fear of being killed, while calling for aid from armed law enforcement officers.
Is there any moral justification for expecting something more? Should we expect that some of the teachers and students would charge towards the gunman to stop his shooting, and thus risking their lives to save the lives of others?
Or have we decided that unarmed citizens with no special training in law enforcement or military service are not morally obligated to risk their lives in stopping a gunman?
The moral virtue of courage is displayed when people risk their lives for the sake of some cause worth dying for--like defending one's country or defending innocent people against attack. Should we expect college teachers and students to display courage when they face a gunman in their classroom? Or have we decided that this is an unreasonable expectation for unarmed citizens?
These are difficult questions. I must admit that I personally don't know how I would react under these circumstances. If I had been lecturing on the auditorium stage of NIU's Cole Hall 101 on Thursday afternoon, and Steven Kazmierczak burst onto the stage with his weapons readied for action, I hope that I would have had the courage to charge towards him to stop his attack. But I cannot honestly be sure that I could have done that. I am sure that I would have felt the same fear of dying that everyone felt in that classroom, and that fear of dying might have so overcame me that I would have been a coward. But if I had acted in a cowardly way, I would have felt ashamed of myself.
Or, again, have we decided that unarmed citizens are not morally required to show courage in risking death to stop a gunman to save the lives of others?
At Virginia Tech and at NIU, the response of both teachers and students was to run away, out of fear of being killed, while calling for aid from armed law enforcement officers.
Is there any moral justification for expecting something more? Should we expect that some of the teachers and students would charge towards the gunman to stop his shooting, and thus risking their lives to save the lives of others?
Or have we decided that unarmed citizens with no special training in law enforcement or military service are not morally obligated to risk their lives in stopping a gunman?
The moral virtue of courage is displayed when people risk their lives for the sake of some cause worth dying for--like defending one's country or defending innocent people against attack. Should we expect college teachers and students to display courage when they face a gunman in their classroom? Or have we decided that this is an unreasonable expectation for unarmed citizens?
These are difficult questions. I must admit that I personally don't know how I would react under these circumstances. If I had been lecturing on the auditorium stage of NIU's Cole Hall 101 on Thursday afternoon, and Steven Kazmierczak burst onto the stage with his weapons readied for action, I hope that I would have had the courage to charge towards him to stop his attack. But I cannot honestly be sure that I could have done that. I am sure that I would have felt the same fear of dying that everyone felt in that classroom, and that fear of dying might have so overcame me that I would have been a coward. But if I had acted in a cowardly way, I would have felt ashamed of myself.
Or, again, have we decided that unarmed citizens are not morally required to show courage in risking death to stop a gunman to save the lives of others?
Friday, February 15, 2008
More on the NIU Shooter
As more information about the NIU shooter comes out, the case looks ever more confusing and disturbing. His name was Steven Kazmierczak. As an undergraduate at NIU, he was a double major in sociology and political science (my department). He also took a graduate course in the political science department as a graduate student in sociology. Although I did not have him as a student, some of my colleagues remember him as an "exceptional" student. He received a "Dean's Award" for his 3.86 GPA in sociology. He was admitted to my department's MPA program, but he decided to go to the University of Illinois for a social work program.
So he was a young man of some academic accomplishment.
We need to know much more, particularly about the reports that he was on psychiatric medications, and that he had recently become erratic after going off his meds. We might wonder whether he was paranoid schizophrenic.
So he was a young man of some academic accomplishment.
We need to know much more, particularly about the reports that he was on psychiatric medications, and that he had recently become erratic after going off his meds. We might wonder whether he was paranoid schizophrenic.
Without Conscience: The Shootings at Northern Illinois University
I teach at Northern Illinois University. Yesterday, I left campus shortly before a gunman entered a large auditorium lecture hall with a shotgun and two handguns and began shooting at the students. After killing six people and wounding many others, he killed himself. Some of the wounded are now are critical condition and might die. The gunman has been identified as a former sociology graduate student at NIU who was enrolled at another university.
Along with the Virginia Tech shootings last year, this reminds us again of our vulnerability to attack from mentally disordered people who become predators who kill without conscience.
In various writings, and on this blog, I have written about the naturally evolved moral sense as the ground of moral experience. One way to think about the character of that moral sense is to look at those who lack it, who are literally without conscience. Pure psychopaths exemplify this condition. They are people who lack the moral emotions of shame, guilt, and sympathy, and so they can injure and even kill other people with no remorse. These are the people Darwin identified as "unnatural monsters." My chapter on psychopaths in DARWINIAN NATURAL RIGHT elaborates on this.
Of course, it is too early now to know anything about the psychological profile of this gunman. But we do know that he was a young male. And we can reliably predict that he was unmarried and solitary. We can also predict that he was emotionally flat. One of the students who survived the attack described the gunman this way: "His face was blank, like he wasn't a person. He was a statue, aiming."
Most human beings are not like this. If they were, social order would be impossible. But it seems that in every human society, there is a small minority of people who do take on the emotionally flat temperament that makes it possible for them to kill without conscience.
One of the most important projects for the social sciences and moral philosophy is to understand the nature and nurture of the moral sense and of the conditions that explain why some people have no moral sense.
Along with the Virginia Tech shootings last year, this reminds us again of our vulnerability to attack from mentally disordered people who become predators who kill without conscience.
In various writings, and on this blog, I have written about the naturally evolved moral sense as the ground of moral experience. One way to think about the character of that moral sense is to look at those who lack it, who are literally without conscience. Pure psychopaths exemplify this condition. They are people who lack the moral emotions of shame, guilt, and sympathy, and so they can injure and even kill other people with no remorse. These are the people Darwin identified as "unnatural monsters." My chapter on psychopaths in DARWINIAN NATURAL RIGHT elaborates on this.
Of course, it is too early now to know anything about the psychological profile of this gunman. But we do know that he was a young male. And we can reliably predict that he was unmarried and solitary. We can also predict that he was emotionally flat. One of the students who survived the attack described the gunman this way: "His face was blank, like he wasn't a person. He was a statue, aiming."
Most human beings are not like this. If they were, social order would be impossible. But it seems that in every human society, there is a small minority of people who do take on the emotionally flat temperament that makes it possible for them to kill without conscience.
One of the most important projects for the social sciences and moral philosophy is to understand the nature and nurture of the moral sense and of the conditions that explain why some people have no moral sense.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
The Birthday of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin
On February 12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born in Hardin County, Kentucky. On the same day, Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, England. So next year, February 12, 2009 will be the bicentennial of the birthday of both men.
As I have noted on this blog previously, there are many remarkable similarities between Darwin and Lincoln. Both believed in a universe governed by natural causes. Both accepted the idea of evolution. Both were accused of denying the Biblical doctrine of Creation. Both spoke of God as First Cause. Both appealed to the Bible as a source of moral teaching, even as they also appealed to a natural moral sense independent of Biblical religion. Both abhorred slavery as immoral. Darwin followed the news reports of the Civil War with great interest and cheered Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863.
For some of my previous posts on these points, go here, here, here, and here.
As I have noted on this blog previously, there are many remarkable similarities between Darwin and Lincoln. Both believed in a universe governed by natural causes. Both accepted the idea of evolution. Both were accused of denying the Biblical doctrine of Creation. Both spoke of God as First Cause. Both appealed to the Bible as a source of moral teaching, even as they also appealed to a natural moral sense independent of Biblical religion. Both abhorred slavery as immoral. Darwin followed the news reports of the Civil War with great interest and cheered Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863.
For some of my previous posts on these points, go here, here, here, and here.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
More on Is/Ought
There continues to be discussion of whether a Darwinian ethical naturalism fails to overcome the is/ought gap. Rob Schebel assumes that G. E. Moore's "naturalistic fallacy" argument is an insuperable objection to any naturalistic ethics.
In Chapter 4 of DARWINIAN NATURAL RIGHT, I have argued for a Humean naturalism that is compatible with Aristotelian and Darwinian views of morality. Far from denying that moral judgments are judgments of fact, Hume shows that moral judgments are accurate when they correctly report what our moral sentiments would be in a given set of circumstances. Moral judgments do not have cosmic objectivity in the sense of conforming to structures that exist totally independently of human beings. Yet neither do moral judgments have only emotive subjectivity in the sense of expressing purely personal feelings. Moral judgments for Hume have intersubjective objectivity in that they are factual judgments about the species-typical pattern of moral sentiments in specified circumstances.
Hume compares moral judgments to judgments of secondary qualities such as colors. My judgment that this tomato is read is true if the object is so constituted as to induce the impression of red in human beings with a normal visual system viewing it under standard conditions. Similarly, my judgment that this person is morally praiseworthy is true if the person's conduct is such as to induce the sentiment of approbation in normal human beings under standard conditions. Just as an object can appear red to me when in fact it is not, so a person can appear praiseworthy to me when in fact he is not. The moral judgment whether some conduct would give to a normal spectator under standard conditions a moral sentiment of approbation is, Hume insists, "a plain matter of fact." The moral sentiment itself, however, is a feeling or passion rooted in human nature that cannot be produced by reason alone.
The importance of the moral sentiments becomes clear as soon as one considers those who have no moral sentiments--pure psychopaths. As I have indicated in Chapter 8 of DARWINIAN NATURAL RIGHT, we must treat psychopaths as moral strangers who are incapable of responding to moral appeals because they lack that moral sense that makes morality possible for normal people.
Darwin's contribution to this tradition of naturalistic morality rooted in natural moral sentiments was to show how the human nature of such morality could have evolved.
This Humean and Darwinian naturalism seems more reasonable to me than G. E. Moore's claim that "good" belongs to some transcendental realm of non-natural objects. I cannot see how moral standards could exist independently of the facts of human nature.
In my Darwinian account of morality, moral values are rooted in moral facts--the psychological facts of the human species, such as our disposition to sympathize with our fellow human beings and feel resentment against those who harm others without justification.
Although his terminology differs somewhat from mine, I largely agree with Alex Walter's elaboration of these points in his article "The Anti-naturalistic Fallacy: Evolutionary Moral Psychology and the Insistence of Brute Facts," which can be found
here.
In Chapter 4 of DARWINIAN NATURAL RIGHT, I have argued for a Humean naturalism that is compatible with Aristotelian and Darwinian views of morality. Far from denying that moral judgments are judgments of fact, Hume shows that moral judgments are accurate when they correctly report what our moral sentiments would be in a given set of circumstances. Moral judgments do not have cosmic objectivity in the sense of conforming to structures that exist totally independently of human beings. Yet neither do moral judgments have only emotive subjectivity in the sense of expressing purely personal feelings. Moral judgments for Hume have intersubjective objectivity in that they are factual judgments about the species-typical pattern of moral sentiments in specified circumstances.
Hume compares moral judgments to judgments of secondary qualities such as colors. My judgment that this tomato is read is true if the object is so constituted as to induce the impression of red in human beings with a normal visual system viewing it under standard conditions. Similarly, my judgment that this person is morally praiseworthy is true if the person's conduct is such as to induce the sentiment of approbation in normal human beings under standard conditions. Just as an object can appear red to me when in fact it is not, so a person can appear praiseworthy to me when in fact he is not. The moral judgment whether some conduct would give to a normal spectator under standard conditions a moral sentiment of approbation is, Hume insists, "a plain matter of fact." The moral sentiment itself, however, is a feeling or passion rooted in human nature that cannot be produced by reason alone.
The importance of the moral sentiments becomes clear as soon as one considers those who have no moral sentiments--pure psychopaths. As I have indicated in Chapter 8 of DARWINIAN NATURAL RIGHT, we must treat psychopaths as moral strangers who are incapable of responding to moral appeals because they lack that moral sense that makes morality possible for normal people.
Darwin's contribution to this tradition of naturalistic morality rooted in natural moral sentiments was to show how the human nature of such morality could have evolved.
This Humean and Darwinian naturalism seems more reasonable to me than G. E. Moore's claim that "good" belongs to some transcendental realm of non-natural objects. I cannot see how moral standards could exist independently of the facts of human nature.
In my Darwinian account of morality, moral values are rooted in moral facts--the psychological facts of the human species, such as our disposition to sympathize with our fellow human beings and feel resentment against those who harm others without justification.
Although his terminology differs somewhat from mine, I largely agree with Alex Walter's elaboration of these points in his article "The Anti-naturalistic Fallacy: Evolutionary Moral Psychology and the Insistence of Brute Facts," which can be found
here.
Friday, February 01, 2008
A Response to Rob Schebel on Is/Ought
Rob Schebel has written a long comment on my post "Moving from 'Is' to 'Ought'." Before responding to him in this new post, I will begin by quoting his entire comment.
"The only justification you give for the good being the desirable is that Aquinas said so. It would seem that you are trying to skirt the 'is/ought' distinction by simply appealing to the most overarching 'ought' possible: that we ought to follow what is desirable. But this does not overcome the 'is/ought' problem because you simply pick one notion of the overarching good, that the good is desirable, without further justification. If you were to examine this notion further, you would continue to run into the 'is/ought' problem.
"Also, it is difficult to agree with your definition of the good as the desirable, especially considering that 1) people disagree as to what is desirable, 2) the universal desires Brown lists are only universal on a general cultural scale, not for individuals, 3) you pick and choose certain universal desires, and ignore 'negative' desires such as the desire to do violence to others, cheat on our partners, kill our own children, make war, and wield power unjustly, 4) you give insufficient weight to environmental and cultural traditions that contribute to each individual's personality and sense of happiness, and 5) the constellation of human desires can itself be altered through biotechnology.
"So my questions would be:
"1) How can you use the desirable as a standard when there is no universal agreement on what is truly desirable? Also, at what level are we considering the concept of 'desirable'? The individual? The group? The species? All living things? The answer to this question could lead you to highly divergent ethical domains, from ethical egoism to preference utilitarianism.
"2) How do you account for the lack of universality of Brown's universals on an individual scale, especially if your theory is supposed to help individuals make moral choices?
"3) By what standard have you picked the twenty desires over any of the others? It seems you would have to use a standard outside of the 'desirable,' considering you are making a kind of meta-level choice about the desirability of desires themselves.
"4) Even if we agree that the general constellation of desires is partly a product of evolutionary inheritance, environmental factors still play a great role in the moral make-up of any individual. You give weight to tradition and culture in Darwinian Conservatism, but how do we weigh competing political claims within a culture, especially when opposing factions use differing definitions of human happiness? If two factions disagree about happiness because they give weight to differing universal desires, how do we resolve their conflicts?
"5) Lastly, in light of the revolution in bioethics, by what standard do you choose desires when human nature itself is up for grabs? How does Darwinian natural right assist us in deciding whether or not to alter what is naturally desirable? By an appeal to what is currently desirable? Why is the currently desirable superior to the potentially desirable?"
I have raised and answered these questions in Darwinian Natural Right (DNR) and Darwinian Conservatism (DC). So here I will only briefly indicate the answers that are elaborated in those two books.
1) Yes, Schebel is right, "people disagree as to what is desirable." As I have indicated, there are four sources of moral disagreement: fallible beliefs about circumstances, fallible beliefs about desires, variable circumstances, and variable desires (DNR, 44-49). Because of these four sources of moral uncertainty and imprecision, morality depends on the exercise of prudence, which is the practical wisdom for judging how to satisfy the variable desires of human beings in the variable circumstances of action. We need prudence to judge the appropriate expression of each desire as varying according to the social and physical conditions of particular individuals in particular societies. We also need prudence to judge how best to resolve conflicts among the natural desires. In my Aristotelian emphasis on prudence, I reject the common assumption of many contemporary philosophers that the purpose of moral philosophy is to find universal normative principles--Kantian, utilitarian, or whatever--to resolve all moral conflicts in some abstract way. I believe that moral judgment lacks the precision and certainty of mathematics or formal logic because of the contingency of moral circumstances. In many cases, moral problems produce tragic conflicts that cannot be perfectly resolved by appeal to universal, formal rules. Much of my writing studies such tragic conflicts--for example, differences between men and women (DNR 123-60) and the debate over slavery (DNR 161-210).
What's Schebel's alternative? Does he have a set of universal normative principles from which he can logically deduce the resolution of moral conflicts? If so, what are those principles? And how would such principles logically resolve our conflicts?
2) Schebel questions me about the individual variability of the universal desires. This is something that comes up a lot in my writing (DNR, 29-44). In the case of each desire, I speak of what human beings "generally" desire, because I am speaking of general tendencies or proclivities that are true for all societies but not for all individuals in all circumstances. There can be individual exceptions for every natural desire. A few individuals might have little or no sex drive, for example. There is great fluctuation in sexual interest across the human life span. And in extreme cases of physical deprivation and suffering, all people might find their sexual appetite suppressed by other appetites. But this does not deny the fact that the desire for sexual pleasure is a natural desire for most sexually mature people under the normal conditions of life, which is why every human society must have rules for the proper expression of this desire.
What's Schebel's alternative? Is he suggesting that given such individual variability, the general tendencies of human nature are morally irrelevant? Is he suggesting some kind of moral solipsism?
3) I don't understand what Schebel means when he says that I ignore the "negative" desires--"such as the desire to do violence to others, cheat on our partners, kill our own children, make war, and wield power unjustly." Much of my writing is devoted to elaborate studies of such desires. I identify war as a natural desire (DNR 34). I consider the circumstances for infanticide (DNR, 38, 40, 119-21). I comment on the problems of sexual promiscuity and infidelity (DNR, 123-37, 149-60). I have a chapter on psychopathic desires (DNR, 211-30). And I comment extensively on how the desire for dominance can lead to tyranny and slavery (DNR, 137-43, 161-210; DC, 68-84). If Schebel can explain specifically where I have gone wrong on these various topics, then I can respond.
What's Schebel's alternative? How would he deal with "negative" desires? Does he have some way to manage these desires through a universal logic of moral principles? If so, how would that work?
4) Schebel asks, "how do we weigh competing political claims within a culture"? Well, again, that's what I have tried to do in surveying various moral and political conflicts--such as debates over slavery, property, and familial arrangements (DNR, 89-210; DC, 46-67). If he can specify where he thinks I have gone wrong on any of these topics, then I can respond.
What's Schebel's alternative? How would he resolve such competing claims?
5) Schebel objects that I have not considered the possibility that biotechnology could change our natural desires. But I have a chapter on biotechnology (DC, 130-42). If we keep in mind the adaptive complexity of human nature, I argue, we can foresee that biotechnology will be limited both in its technical means and in its moral ends. It will be limited in its technical means, because complex behavioral traits are rooted in the intricate interplay of many genes interacting with developmental contingencies and unique life histories to form brains that respond flexibly to changing circumstances. Consequently, precise technological manipulation of human nature to enhance desirable traits while avoiding undesirable side effects will be very difficult if not impossible. Biotechnology will also be limited in its moral ends, because the motivation for biotechnological manipulations will come from the same natural desires that have always characterized human nature (for example, the desire of parents to have healthy and happy children). Does Schebel disagree with this? If so, how?
What is Schebel's moral alternative for handling biotechnology? Does he think we can appeal to some abstract logic of morality that is not rooted in human nature? If so, how exactly would that moral logic constrain biotechnology?
[Pertinent to this points is my later post on moral reasoning through hypothetical imperatives.]
"The only justification you give for the good being the desirable is that Aquinas said so. It would seem that you are trying to skirt the 'is/ought' distinction by simply appealing to the most overarching 'ought' possible: that we ought to follow what is desirable. But this does not overcome the 'is/ought' problem because you simply pick one notion of the overarching good, that the good is desirable, without further justification. If you were to examine this notion further, you would continue to run into the 'is/ought' problem.
"Also, it is difficult to agree with your definition of the good as the desirable, especially considering that 1) people disagree as to what is desirable, 2) the universal desires Brown lists are only universal on a general cultural scale, not for individuals, 3) you pick and choose certain universal desires, and ignore 'negative' desires such as the desire to do violence to others, cheat on our partners, kill our own children, make war, and wield power unjustly, 4) you give insufficient weight to environmental and cultural traditions that contribute to each individual's personality and sense of happiness, and 5) the constellation of human desires can itself be altered through biotechnology.
"So my questions would be:
"1) How can you use the desirable as a standard when there is no universal agreement on what is truly desirable? Also, at what level are we considering the concept of 'desirable'? The individual? The group? The species? All living things? The answer to this question could lead you to highly divergent ethical domains, from ethical egoism to preference utilitarianism.
"2) How do you account for the lack of universality of Brown's universals on an individual scale, especially if your theory is supposed to help individuals make moral choices?
"3) By what standard have you picked the twenty desires over any of the others? It seems you would have to use a standard outside of the 'desirable,' considering you are making a kind of meta-level choice about the desirability of desires themselves.
"4) Even if we agree that the general constellation of desires is partly a product of evolutionary inheritance, environmental factors still play a great role in the moral make-up of any individual. You give weight to tradition and culture in Darwinian Conservatism, but how do we weigh competing political claims within a culture, especially when opposing factions use differing definitions of human happiness? If two factions disagree about happiness because they give weight to differing universal desires, how do we resolve their conflicts?
"5) Lastly, in light of the revolution in bioethics, by what standard do you choose desires when human nature itself is up for grabs? How does Darwinian natural right assist us in deciding whether or not to alter what is naturally desirable? By an appeal to what is currently desirable? Why is the currently desirable superior to the potentially desirable?"
I have raised and answered these questions in Darwinian Natural Right (DNR) and Darwinian Conservatism (DC). So here I will only briefly indicate the answers that are elaborated in those two books.
1) Yes, Schebel is right, "people disagree as to what is desirable." As I have indicated, there are four sources of moral disagreement: fallible beliefs about circumstances, fallible beliefs about desires, variable circumstances, and variable desires (DNR, 44-49). Because of these four sources of moral uncertainty and imprecision, morality depends on the exercise of prudence, which is the practical wisdom for judging how to satisfy the variable desires of human beings in the variable circumstances of action. We need prudence to judge the appropriate expression of each desire as varying according to the social and physical conditions of particular individuals in particular societies. We also need prudence to judge how best to resolve conflicts among the natural desires. In my Aristotelian emphasis on prudence, I reject the common assumption of many contemporary philosophers that the purpose of moral philosophy is to find universal normative principles--Kantian, utilitarian, or whatever--to resolve all moral conflicts in some abstract way. I believe that moral judgment lacks the precision and certainty of mathematics or formal logic because of the contingency of moral circumstances. In many cases, moral problems produce tragic conflicts that cannot be perfectly resolved by appeal to universal, formal rules. Much of my writing studies such tragic conflicts--for example, differences between men and women (DNR 123-60) and the debate over slavery (DNR 161-210).
What's Schebel's alternative? Does he have a set of universal normative principles from which he can logically deduce the resolution of moral conflicts? If so, what are those principles? And how would such principles logically resolve our conflicts?
2) Schebel questions me about the individual variability of the universal desires. This is something that comes up a lot in my writing (DNR, 29-44). In the case of each desire, I speak of what human beings "generally" desire, because I am speaking of general tendencies or proclivities that are true for all societies but not for all individuals in all circumstances. There can be individual exceptions for every natural desire. A few individuals might have little or no sex drive, for example. There is great fluctuation in sexual interest across the human life span. And in extreme cases of physical deprivation and suffering, all people might find their sexual appetite suppressed by other appetites. But this does not deny the fact that the desire for sexual pleasure is a natural desire for most sexually mature people under the normal conditions of life, which is why every human society must have rules for the proper expression of this desire.
What's Schebel's alternative? Is he suggesting that given such individual variability, the general tendencies of human nature are morally irrelevant? Is he suggesting some kind of moral solipsism?
3) I don't understand what Schebel means when he says that I ignore the "negative" desires--"such as the desire to do violence to others, cheat on our partners, kill our own children, make war, and wield power unjustly." Much of my writing is devoted to elaborate studies of such desires. I identify war as a natural desire (DNR 34). I consider the circumstances for infanticide (DNR, 38, 40, 119-21). I comment on the problems of sexual promiscuity and infidelity (DNR, 123-37, 149-60). I have a chapter on psychopathic desires (DNR, 211-30). And I comment extensively on how the desire for dominance can lead to tyranny and slavery (DNR, 137-43, 161-210; DC, 68-84). If Schebel can explain specifically where I have gone wrong on these various topics, then I can respond.
What's Schebel's alternative? How would he deal with "negative" desires? Does he have some way to manage these desires through a universal logic of moral principles? If so, how would that work?
4) Schebel asks, "how do we weigh competing political claims within a culture"? Well, again, that's what I have tried to do in surveying various moral and political conflicts--such as debates over slavery, property, and familial arrangements (DNR, 89-210; DC, 46-67). If he can specify where he thinks I have gone wrong on any of these topics, then I can respond.
What's Schebel's alternative? How would he resolve such competing claims?
5) Schebel objects that I have not considered the possibility that biotechnology could change our natural desires. But I have a chapter on biotechnology (DC, 130-42). If we keep in mind the adaptive complexity of human nature, I argue, we can foresee that biotechnology will be limited both in its technical means and in its moral ends. It will be limited in its technical means, because complex behavioral traits are rooted in the intricate interplay of many genes interacting with developmental contingencies and unique life histories to form brains that respond flexibly to changing circumstances. Consequently, precise technological manipulation of human nature to enhance desirable traits while avoiding undesirable side effects will be very difficult if not impossible. Biotechnology will also be limited in its moral ends, because the motivation for biotechnological manipulations will come from the same natural desires that have always characterized human nature (for example, the desire of parents to have healthy and happy children). Does Schebel disagree with this? If so, how?
What is Schebel's moral alternative for handling biotechnology? Does he think we can appeal to some abstract logic of morality that is not rooted in human nature? If so, how exactly would that moral logic constrain biotechnology?
[Pertinent to this points is my later post on moral reasoning through hypothetical imperatives.]
Thursday, January 31, 2008
The Aristotelian Prudence of Bonobos
In the Department of Political Science at Northern Illinois University, we have "Politics and the Life Sciences" as a field of study at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Many of our Ph.D. students have combined "biopolitics" with political theory and other traditional areas of research in political science. Andrea Bonnicksen, Rebecca Hannagan, and I are the three faculty members who teach in this area. One of the things we do is compare human politics with the political behavior of other primates--particularly, chimpanzees and bonobos.
The Milwaukee County Zoo has the largest group of bonobos in captivity. And so I have taken some of my students to visit the Milwaukee Zoo to see the bonobos. This semester Bonnicksen will be taking some of her students there.
Many people find it weird, if not ridiculous, that political scientists would be looking for political behavior among apes. But for me, this is an extension of Aristotle's biological science of political animals.
Last year, Jo Sandin published a book--Bonobos: Encounters in Empathy--on the Milwaukee bonobos. Dr. Harry Prosen is a psychiatrist who has worked with the bonobos there for some years. Sandin reports that Prosen's colleagues in the psychiatric community have been impressed by his accounts of the practical judgment shown by some of the bonobos. In particular, Lody--until recently, the alpha male--is said by Dr. Prosen to show "evidence of wisdom, in the Aristotelian sense: the ability to see life in all its aspects and to act in a way that benefits others." According to Prosen, "Lody's empathetic behaviors and ability to use good judgment in parenting skills, discipline and, in many instances, the demonstration of altruistic behaviors have had a powerful impact on the development of the juvenile males in the bonobo group" (Sandin, pp. 51-52).
Many people would dismiss as silly the idea that apes might exercise prudence or practical judgment, which Aristotle regarded as the primary intellectual capacity for moral and political life. But Aristotle's biological writings would suggest that he himself would take this seriously. After all, he often attributes prudence (phronesis) to nonhuman animals--and particularly, to those he identifies as political animals. Although he does not speak of apes as political, he does recognize their remarkable similarities to human beings and suggests that they are the animals most closely related to human beings.
As I have suggested in previous posts, the importance of prudence--judging what is best in the particular circumstances of particular individuals--across many animal species shows the complexity and contingency of animal behavior, so that we cannot predict animal behavior with precision. The failure to achieve predictive power in the scientific study of human politics shows a pattern that holds across all animal behavior. A biological science of political animals would be a historical science of particular individuals and groups with complex cultural traditions.
Two previous posts on bonobos can be found here and here. Some of my posts on animal prudence can be found here, here, and here.
The Milwaukee County Zoo has the largest group of bonobos in captivity. And so I have taken some of my students to visit the Milwaukee Zoo to see the bonobos. This semester Bonnicksen will be taking some of her students there.
Many people find it weird, if not ridiculous, that political scientists would be looking for political behavior among apes. But for me, this is an extension of Aristotle's biological science of political animals.
Last year, Jo Sandin published a book--Bonobos: Encounters in Empathy--on the Milwaukee bonobos. Dr. Harry Prosen is a psychiatrist who has worked with the bonobos there for some years. Sandin reports that Prosen's colleagues in the psychiatric community have been impressed by his accounts of the practical judgment shown by some of the bonobos. In particular, Lody--until recently, the alpha male--is said by Dr. Prosen to show "evidence of wisdom, in the Aristotelian sense: the ability to see life in all its aspects and to act in a way that benefits others." According to Prosen, "Lody's empathetic behaviors and ability to use good judgment in parenting skills, discipline and, in many instances, the demonstration of altruistic behaviors have had a powerful impact on the development of the juvenile males in the bonobo group" (Sandin, pp. 51-52).
Many people would dismiss as silly the idea that apes might exercise prudence or practical judgment, which Aristotle regarded as the primary intellectual capacity for moral and political life. But Aristotle's biological writings would suggest that he himself would take this seriously. After all, he often attributes prudence (phronesis) to nonhuman animals--and particularly, to those he identifies as political animals. Although he does not speak of apes as political, he does recognize their remarkable similarities to human beings and suggests that they are the animals most closely related to human beings.
As I have suggested in previous posts, the importance of prudence--judging what is best in the particular circumstances of particular individuals--across many animal species shows the complexity and contingency of animal behavior, so that we cannot predict animal behavior with precision. The failure to achieve predictive power in the scientific study of human politics shows a pattern that holds across all animal behavior. A biological science of political animals would be a historical science of particular individuals and groups with complex cultural traditions.
Two previous posts on bonobos can be found here and here. Some of my posts on animal prudence can be found here, here, and here.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Moving from "Is" to "Ought"
In arguing for Darwinian conservatism, one of my fundamental claims is that there is a universal human nature shaped by natural selection that supports the natural desires that motivate moral judgment. More specifically, I argue that there are at least twenty natural desires that are universal to all human societies because they are rooted in human biology, and these twenty natural desires provide a universal basis for moral experience.
I agree with Thomas Aquinas that "something is good insofar as it is desirable" (Summa Theologica, I, q. 5, a. 6). If the good is the desirable, then the satisfaction of our natural desires constitutes a universal standard for judging social practice as either fulfilling or frustrating human nature, although prudence is required in judging what is best for particular people in particular social circumstances.
Many contemporary philosophers would complain that I am overlooking the distinction between "facts" and "values" or "is" and "ought." They would say that we can not infer moral values from natural facts because what we ought to do is not the same as what we actually do. So from the fact that we desire something, we cannot infer that it is good for us to desire it.
But I would say that there is no merely factual desire separated from prescriptive desire, which would create the fact/value or is/ought dichotomy. Whatever we desire we do so because we judge that it is truly desirable for us. If we discover that we are mistaken--because what we desire is not truly desirable for us--then we are already motivated to correct our mistake. In Darwin's account of the moral sense, he explains how deliberation can lead us to regret our past behavior, and thus how we can learn to judge our present choices in the light of past experience and future expectations.
Whenever a moral philosopher tells us that we ought to do something, we can always ask, Why? And ultimately the only final answer to that question, Because it's desirable for you as something that will fulfill you or make you happy. And if I am right about my list of twenty desires as rooted in human nature, then this would constitute a universal standard for what is generally good for human beings, although the specification of what is good for particular individuals in particular circumstances will vary.
Contemporary philosophers often don't see that the move from facts to values is not logical but psychological. Because normal human beings have the human nature that they do, which includes propensities to moral emotions, they predictably react to certain facts with strong feelings of approval or disapproval, and the generalizations of these feelings across a society constitute their moral judgments.
Although contemporary philosophers commonly attribute the fact-value or is/ought dichotomy to David Hume, I believe that Hume belongs to a tradition of moral naturalism that I defend, and that the sharp separation of natural facts and moral values derives not from Hume but from Kant.
I have elaborated some of these points in Darwinian Natural Right, especially pages 69-83 and 158-160.
Other posts on the is/ought dichotomy can be found here, here, here, here., here, here., and here.
I agree with Thomas Aquinas that "something is good insofar as it is desirable" (Summa Theologica, I, q. 5, a. 6). If the good is the desirable, then the satisfaction of our natural desires constitutes a universal standard for judging social practice as either fulfilling or frustrating human nature, although prudence is required in judging what is best for particular people in particular social circumstances.
Many contemporary philosophers would complain that I am overlooking the distinction between "facts" and "values" or "is" and "ought." They would say that we can not infer moral values from natural facts because what we ought to do is not the same as what we actually do. So from the fact that we desire something, we cannot infer that it is good for us to desire it.
But I would say that there is no merely factual desire separated from prescriptive desire, which would create the fact/value or is/ought dichotomy. Whatever we desire we do so because we judge that it is truly desirable for us. If we discover that we are mistaken--because what we desire is not truly desirable for us--then we are already motivated to correct our mistake. In Darwin's account of the moral sense, he explains how deliberation can lead us to regret our past behavior, and thus how we can learn to judge our present choices in the light of past experience and future expectations.
Whenever a moral philosopher tells us that we ought to do something, we can always ask, Why? And ultimately the only final answer to that question, Because it's desirable for you as something that will fulfill you or make you happy. And if I am right about my list of twenty desires as rooted in human nature, then this would constitute a universal standard for what is generally good for human beings, although the specification of what is good for particular individuals in particular circumstances will vary.
Contemporary philosophers often don't see that the move from facts to values is not logical but psychological. Because normal human beings have the human nature that they do, which includes propensities to moral emotions, they predictably react to certain facts with strong feelings of approval or disapproval, and the generalizations of these feelings across a society constitute their moral judgments.
Although contemporary philosophers commonly attribute the fact-value or is/ought dichotomy to David Hume, I believe that Hume belongs to a tradition of moral naturalism that I defend, and that the sharp separation of natural facts and moral values derives not from Hume but from Kant.
I have elaborated some of these points in Darwinian Natural Right, especially pages 69-83 and 158-160.
Other posts on the is/ought dichotomy can be found here, here, here, here., here, here., and here.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Political Animals--Rediscovering Aristotle's Political Biology
The New York Times has published an article by Natalie Angier entitled "Political Animals (Yes, Animals)." She surveys some of the latest research on the remarkable similarities between human politics and the political behavior of other mammals.
As the title of the article indicates, this is presented as a surprising new discovery of science. But as any reader of this blog would know, the comparative study of political animals began with Aristotle. From his observations of animal behavior, Aristotle concluded that some animals are solitary and others are gregarious. Of the gregarious animals, some are political. Some of the political animals have leaders, but others do not. The distinguishing characteristic of the political animals is that they cooperate for collective action.
Following in the tradition of Aristotle, I would argue that a true science of politics would have to be a biological science of political animals. For a few samples of my posts on this, go here, here, and here.
As the title of the article indicates, this is presented as a surprising new discovery of science. But as any reader of this blog would know, the comparative study of political animals began with Aristotle. From his observations of animal behavior, Aristotle concluded that some animals are solitary and others are gregarious. Of the gregarious animals, some are political. Some of the political animals have leaders, but others do not. The distinguishing characteristic of the political animals is that they cooperate for collective action.
Following in the tradition of Aristotle, I would argue that a true science of politics would have to be a biological science of political animals. For a few samples of my posts on this, go here, here, and here.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Nature's God and the Theology of Evolution
The Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine (January 19) has a good article by Jeremy Manier on attempts to reconcile biblical theology and evolutionary science.
The theological implications of Darwinian evolution has been a recurrent topic for this blog. Some of my previous posts on this can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
One of the good points made in this article is that Darwinian atheists like Richard Dawkins and intelligent design creationists like William Dembski agree in their understanding of God. "For both camps, the only God who makes sense is one who designed all life with exquisite attention to detail."
The main theme for this article is how some people who accept the truth of Darwinian science are questioning this understanding of God. If God must intervene miraculously to design every complex feature of life, then this would be incompatible with the Darwinian explanation of how living complexity could have evolved by natural law. But now some theologians and scientists are wondering whether this is really a correct conception of how God works. Is God unable or unwilling to work through evolutionary natural laws? If God must design everything down to every detail, does that mean that all of the evil in the world is a product of divine design? Or does God express His love by allowing the world to evolve without controlling all of the details?
What I find most interesting is how so much of this discussion is carried out without any careful attention to the Bible itself. If one were to read the Bible without any preconceptions, the Biblical God would not look much like the God assumed by the intelligent design creationists. The God of the Bible is not presented as concerned with designing everything down to the last detail. "In the beginning, God created heaven and earth" (Genesis 1:1). But He allows parts of His creation to develop on their own: "Let the earth produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants, and fruit trees on earth, bearing fruit with their seed inside" (Genesis 1:11).
Moreover, the Biblical God is presented as surprised by much of what happens in history. For example, having created human beings, God later regrets what He has done because they have become so wicked (Genesis 6:5-8). Noah's flood is God's attempt to start over again. In fact, throughout the Bible, God is depicted as experimenting with various arrangements without knowing for sure how they will turn out. If readers of the Bible don't see this element of contingency and uncertainty in God's actions, that's only because they come to the Bible with assumptions about God's omnipotence and omniscience--assumptions of traditional monotheistic theology that are not clearly dictated by the Biblical text.
Furthermore, as I have noted in previous posts, the Bible does not offer any precise dating for Creation and the history of the universe. Some editions of the Bible will have "4,004 B.C." as a date at the top of the first page of Genesis. But this date is not actually in the original Hebrew text of Genesis. This date comes from the work of Anglican Bishop James Ussher in the seventeenth century. Creationists who insist that the world was created 6,000 years ago get this not from the Bible but from a tradition of dating started by Ussher.
It is clear, of course, that the Biblical God does intervene miraculously. But most of these miraculous interventions are part of salvational history rather than natural history. The Bible does not say that God had to miraculously create bacterial flagella. But it does say that God had to miraculously take on bodily form in Jesus for the sake of redeeming human beings. Such miracles are required not for the intelligent design of living nature but for the salvation of human beings.
In other words, the Bible is not a textbook of natural science but a story of God's dealings with human beings as creatures who have lost their way in the world and seek to return to their home with God.
Natural science can neither confirm nor deny this miraculous history of God's loving interactions with human beings. But natural science can study that intelligible order of nature that God has allowed to unfold in natural history, and such study should stir a sense of wonder before the beauty of that natural order.
The theological implications of Darwinian evolution has been a recurrent topic for this blog. Some of my previous posts on this can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
One of the good points made in this article is that Darwinian atheists like Richard Dawkins and intelligent design creationists like William Dembski agree in their understanding of God. "For both camps, the only God who makes sense is one who designed all life with exquisite attention to detail."
The main theme for this article is how some people who accept the truth of Darwinian science are questioning this understanding of God. If God must intervene miraculously to design every complex feature of life, then this would be incompatible with the Darwinian explanation of how living complexity could have evolved by natural law. But now some theologians and scientists are wondering whether this is really a correct conception of how God works. Is God unable or unwilling to work through evolutionary natural laws? If God must design everything down to every detail, does that mean that all of the evil in the world is a product of divine design? Or does God express His love by allowing the world to evolve without controlling all of the details?
What I find most interesting is how so much of this discussion is carried out without any careful attention to the Bible itself. If one were to read the Bible without any preconceptions, the Biblical God would not look much like the God assumed by the intelligent design creationists. The God of the Bible is not presented as concerned with designing everything down to the last detail. "In the beginning, God created heaven and earth" (Genesis 1:1). But He allows parts of His creation to develop on their own: "Let the earth produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants, and fruit trees on earth, bearing fruit with their seed inside" (Genesis 1:11).
Moreover, the Biblical God is presented as surprised by much of what happens in history. For example, having created human beings, God later regrets what He has done because they have become so wicked (Genesis 6:5-8). Noah's flood is God's attempt to start over again. In fact, throughout the Bible, God is depicted as experimenting with various arrangements without knowing for sure how they will turn out. If readers of the Bible don't see this element of contingency and uncertainty in God's actions, that's only because they come to the Bible with assumptions about God's omnipotence and omniscience--assumptions of traditional monotheistic theology that are not clearly dictated by the Biblical text.
Furthermore, as I have noted in previous posts, the Bible does not offer any precise dating for Creation and the history of the universe. Some editions of the Bible will have "4,004 B.C." as a date at the top of the first page of Genesis. But this date is not actually in the original Hebrew text of Genesis. This date comes from the work of Anglican Bishop James Ussher in the seventeenth century. Creationists who insist that the world was created 6,000 years ago get this not from the Bible but from a tradition of dating started by Ussher.
It is clear, of course, that the Biblical God does intervene miraculously. But most of these miraculous interventions are part of salvational history rather than natural history. The Bible does not say that God had to miraculously create bacterial flagella. But it does say that God had to miraculously take on bodily form in Jesus for the sake of redeeming human beings. Such miracles are required not for the intelligent design of living nature but for the salvation of human beings.
In other words, the Bible is not a textbook of natural science but a story of God's dealings with human beings as creatures who have lost their way in the world and seek to return to their home with God.
Natural science can neither confirm nor deny this miraculous history of God's loving interactions with human beings. But natural science can study that intelligible order of nature that God has allowed to unfold in natural history, and such study should stir a sense of wonder before the beauty of that natural order.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Pinker on The Moral Instinct
Steven Pinker has an article on "The Moral Instinct" in The New York Times Magazine (January 13).
This is an excellent survey of the recent research and theorizing supporting the idea of a moral instinct as shaped by evolution. It briefly surveys some of the work that is more elaborately stated in Marc Hauser's book The Moral Mind and in some of the writing of Jonathan Haidt. Much of the article will sound familiar to anyone who has read Pinker's book The Blank Slate. But one can also see how the recent work has clarified some points that remain a little obscure in Pinker's book.
One fruitful advance is Haidt's scheme for analyzing the moral instinct into five universal themes--harm, fairness, community, authority, and purity. Although these are universal themes for moral experience, moral diversity arises from cultural disagreement over the ranking or specification of these themes. Moral debate arises from such disagreement. Most of these themes are implicit in my account of the 20 natural human desires. But the theme of purity does not arise in my account. I'll have to think more about that.
Another advance is the use of brain imaging--particularly, fMRI--to uncover the neural basis for moral experience, which provides more support for the hypothesis that there are genes for morality that work by guiding the development of the brain.
As Pinker indicates, biological explanations of morality elicit much fear from people who think such explanations will subvert our moral motivation by leading to the conclusion that morality is just an illusion imposed on us by our genes working through brain mechanisms. Pinker rightly shows that this fear is not warranted because a biological explanation of morality helps us to see how moral experience is not culturally arbitrary or individually subjective, because we can see how this moral experience is rooted in human nature and the nature of things. Given our nature as social and rational animals, we generally benefit from finding ways to cooperate with one another. And those who are most successful in earning the benefits of cooperation are those who have the virtuous character traits that make them deserving of admiration.
But at the same time, this biological view of morality also helps us to understand why a few people have the evolved disposition to be cheaters because they can exploit the cooperative dispositions of most people. A few people are saints, and a few are dedicated cheaters. Most people are conditional cooperators who cooperate as long as they see that most other people in their group are cooperating and not cheating.
It should also be noticed that Pinker shows how the biological view of morality combines emotion and reason. Much of our moral experience turns on gut reactions: we have some immediate feeling that something is right or wrong, and then we grope for some reason to justify this feeling. But moral reasoning can criticize our moral emotions. For example, the practice of slavery was once supported by deep moral emotions, but eventually slavery was challenged by arguments that slavery was unfair in its exploitation of the slave, arguments that could elicit the moral emotions of fairness as reciprocity and direct them against slavery.
This is an excellent survey of the recent research and theorizing supporting the idea of a moral instinct as shaped by evolution. It briefly surveys some of the work that is more elaborately stated in Marc Hauser's book The Moral Mind and in some of the writing of Jonathan Haidt. Much of the article will sound familiar to anyone who has read Pinker's book The Blank Slate. But one can also see how the recent work has clarified some points that remain a little obscure in Pinker's book.
One fruitful advance is Haidt's scheme for analyzing the moral instinct into five universal themes--harm, fairness, community, authority, and purity. Although these are universal themes for moral experience, moral diversity arises from cultural disagreement over the ranking or specification of these themes. Moral debate arises from such disagreement. Most of these themes are implicit in my account of the 20 natural human desires. But the theme of purity does not arise in my account. I'll have to think more about that.
Another advance is the use of brain imaging--particularly, fMRI--to uncover the neural basis for moral experience, which provides more support for the hypothesis that there are genes for morality that work by guiding the development of the brain.
As Pinker indicates, biological explanations of morality elicit much fear from people who think such explanations will subvert our moral motivation by leading to the conclusion that morality is just an illusion imposed on us by our genes working through brain mechanisms. Pinker rightly shows that this fear is not warranted because a biological explanation of morality helps us to see how moral experience is not culturally arbitrary or individually subjective, because we can see how this moral experience is rooted in human nature and the nature of things. Given our nature as social and rational animals, we generally benefit from finding ways to cooperate with one another. And those who are most successful in earning the benefits of cooperation are those who have the virtuous character traits that make them deserving of admiration.
But at the same time, this biological view of morality also helps us to understand why a few people have the evolved disposition to be cheaters because they can exploit the cooperative dispositions of most people. A few people are saints, and a few are dedicated cheaters. Most people are conditional cooperators who cooperate as long as they see that most other people in their group are cooperating and not cheating.
It should also be noticed that Pinker shows how the biological view of morality combines emotion and reason. Much of our moral experience turns on gut reactions: we have some immediate feeling that something is right or wrong, and then we grope for some reason to justify this feeling. But moral reasoning can criticize our moral emotions. For example, the practice of slavery was once supported by deep moral emotions, but eventually slavery was challenged by arguments that slavery was unfair in its exploitation of the slave, arguments that could elicit the moral emotions of fairness as reciprocity and direct them against slavery.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Huck Finn Meets Abraham Lincoln
In response to my previous post, "Memetic Warrior" has observed that Huck Finn is torn between two moral commitments--one to the slave society in which he was raised and the other to the friendship he develops with Jim. A Darwinian account of morality would explain this as a tragic conflict between tribal loyalties. We are naturally social animals who cooperate with other members of our group against outsiders. But our deepest moral conflicts come when we are torn between competing group loyalties.
As I have indicated in my chapter on slavery in Darwinian Natural Right, the moral and political debate over slavery is a profound illustration of such a tragic conflict of interests. Mark Twain's Huck Finn experiences that conflict. In an 1895 lecture, Twain said that his novel supports "the proposition that in a crucial moral emergency, a sound heart is a safer guide than an ill-trained conscience," because a conscience "can be trained to approve any wild thing you want it to approve if you begin its education early and stick to it." Huck's conscience has been trained to approve slavery, and it is only his "sound heart" that allows him to see the injustice of slavery once he has become friends with Jim.
I would say, however, that Twain doesn't grasp the full complexity of the moral tragedy in American slavery, because he presents us with only two alternatives: either we're pro-slavery or we're abolitionists. When Huck goes to the Grangerford house in Kentucky (in Chapter 17), he sees a book of Henry Clay's speeches, but nothing is said in the novel about Clay's position on the slavery debate, although Twain's father and his brother Orion were supporters of Clay. Clay's statesmanship shaped the world of Huck Finn, because Clay was largely responsible for the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state, while forever forbidding slavery in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase territory above the latitude at the Southern border of Missouri. Clay denounced slavery as a great moral evil, but he was himself a Kentucky slaveholder who feared that any attempt at immediately abolishing slavery would destroy the Union and provoke a race war. He argued for enforcing the constitutional protections for slavery--such as fugitive slave laws--while working for the gradual abolition of slavery through voluntary emancipation and compensated colonization of freed slaves outside the United States. Abraham Lincoln adopted Clay's compromise position as a prudent way to avoid the extremes of pro-slavery fanaticism on the one hand and abolititionist fanaticism on the other.
The thoughtful reader of Twain's novel might question Twain's failure to appreciate the prudent statesmanship of Clay and Lincoln. Huck's "sound heart" is sentimentally appealing, but it disregards the importance of the rule of law and constitutional government. Huck decides to break the law by helping Jim to escape without considering the consequences of such lawlessness, because Huck's childish rebellion against adult society and attempts to "sivilize" him implies a utopian anarchism in which individuals live freely without government.
The dubiousness of Huck's position is apparent to any reader who notices how dependent Huck is on law and government. For example, he needs government to protect him against his abusive father. Moreover, the final chapters of the novel are taken up with Tom Sawyer's imaginary games for making Jim's escape "fun" for the boys. As a result, Tom is shot and almost killed, and Jim is recaptured. Jim finally gets his freedom only because Miss Watson--his owner--has emancipated him in her will, because she felt guilty about his enslavement. Such voluntary emancipation is what Clay and Lincoln hoped would eventually lead to the extinction of slavery without violence.
Of course, the fact that the final emancipation of slaves came only through Civil War might seem to indicate the ultimate failure of the Clay/Lincoln strategy of prudent compromise. The refusal of the confederate states to accept the outcome of the Presidential election of 1860 made peaceful, legal compromise impossible, and thus the moral conflict over slavery had to be settled by force of arms. But even so, the North could not have defeated the South if Lincoln had been a pure abolitionist, because then the border states of Missouri and Kentucky would have left the Union, and this probably would have allowed the South to prevail.
My general point here is that the American debate over slavery shows the complexity of tragic moral conflicts with moral emotions combined with prudential judgments. A Darwinian explanation of morality must capture the full complexity of such conflicts. Twain's novel conveys some, but not all, of that complexity.
As I have indicated in my chapter on slavery in Darwinian Natural Right, the moral and political debate over slavery is a profound illustration of such a tragic conflict of interests. Mark Twain's Huck Finn experiences that conflict. In an 1895 lecture, Twain said that his novel supports "the proposition that in a crucial moral emergency, a sound heart is a safer guide than an ill-trained conscience," because a conscience "can be trained to approve any wild thing you want it to approve if you begin its education early and stick to it." Huck's conscience has been trained to approve slavery, and it is only his "sound heart" that allows him to see the injustice of slavery once he has become friends with Jim.
I would say, however, that Twain doesn't grasp the full complexity of the moral tragedy in American slavery, because he presents us with only two alternatives: either we're pro-slavery or we're abolitionists. When Huck goes to the Grangerford house in Kentucky (in Chapter 17), he sees a book of Henry Clay's speeches, but nothing is said in the novel about Clay's position on the slavery debate, although Twain's father and his brother Orion were supporters of Clay. Clay's statesmanship shaped the world of Huck Finn, because Clay was largely responsible for the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state, while forever forbidding slavery in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase territory above the latitude at the Southern border of Missouri. Clay denounced slavery as a great moral evil, but he was himself a Kentucky slaveholder who feared that any attempt at immediately abolishing slavery would destroy the Union and provoke a race war. He argued for enforcing the constitutional protections for slavery--such as fugitive slave laws--while working for the gradual abolition of slavery through voluntary emancipation and compensated colonization of freed slaves outside the United States. Abraham Lincoln adopted Clay's compromise position as a prudent way to avoid the extremes of pro-slavery fanaticism on the one hand and abolititionist fanaticism on the other.
The thoughtful reader of Twain's novel might question Twain's failure to appreciate the prudent statesmanship of Clay and Lincoln. Huck's "sound heart" is sentimentally appealing, but it disregards the importance of the rule of law and constitutional government. Huck decides to break the law by helping Jim to escape without considering the consequences of such lawlessness, because Huck's childish rebellion against adult society and attempts to "sivilize" him implies a utopian anarchism in which individuals live freely without government.
The dubiousness of Huck's position is apparent to any reader who notices how dependent Huck is on law and government. For example, he needs government to protect him against his abusive father. Moreover, the final chapters of the novel are taken up with Tom Sawyer's imaginary games for making Jim's escape "fun" for the boys. As a result, Tom is shot and almost killed, and Jim is recaptured. Jim finally gets his freedom only because Miss Watson--his owner--has emancipated him in her will, because she felt guilty about his enslavement. Such voluntary emancipation is what Clay and Lincoln hoped would eventually lead to the extinction of slavery without violence.
Of course, the fact that the final emancipation of slaves came only through Civil War might seem to indicate the ultimate failure of the Clay/Lincoln strategy of prudent compromise. The refusal of the confederate states to accept the outcome of the Presidential election of 1860 made peaceful, legal compromise impossible, and thus the moral conflict over slavery had to be settled by force of arms. But even so, the North could not have defeated the South if Lincoln had been a pure abolitionist, because then the border states of Missouri and Kentucky would have left the Union, and this probably would have allowed the South to prevail.
My general point here is that the American debate over slavery shows the complexity of tragic moral conflicts with moral emotions combined with prudential judgments. A Darwinian explanation of morality must capture the full complexity of such conflicts. Twain's novel conveys some, but not all, of that complexity.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Huck Finn's Darwinian Morality
Many times on this blog, I have argued that Darwin's account of the moral sense as shaped by moral emotions and practical deliberation explains the evolved nature of morality, which does not depend upon religious belief. Mark Twain's Huck Finn illustrates that Darwinian moral sense at work. Twain's understanding of morality was deeply shaped by his reading of Darwin's Descent of Man, and Darwin's influence on his writing is set forth in Sherwood Cummings' book Mark Twain and Science (1988).
Darwin saw that since moral norms were largely shaped by social praise and blame, and since such social norms tended to favor one's own tribal group against others, the moral conscience could be distorted by deformed social traditions. The traditional acceptance of slavery was for Darwin a preeminent illustration of how socially learned traditions could distort moral judgment. And yet he saw moral progress as people recognized the humanity of slaves and felt emotions of concern for their condition. Eventually, the extension of sympathy to ever wider groups and the rational deliberation on principles of reciprocity would lead to recognition of the Golden Rule as a fundamental standard of morality.
In his Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain depicts the power of social learning in supporting slavery. People in antebellum America were taught in their churches that the Bible showed the sacredness of slavery, and they were reared to believe that racial differences supported the natural inferiority of black slaves. But Twain also shows how Huck's deepening friendship with the slave Jim leads him to see Jim's shared humanity and to feel a moral concern for his welfare.
And yet because of his rearing in a slave society, Huck feels guilty in helping Jim to escape from his slavery. In one of the greatest passages in American literature--in Chapter 31 of Huck Finn--we see Huck thinking about what he should do. He calls up before his mind his experiences with Jim and the deep feelings that he has for Jim, while weighing this against the guilt that will come from violating the religious norms of his society. He figures that if he helps Jim escape, he will go to hell for his sins. But he finally concludes: "All right, then, I'll go to hell."
This is a masterful depiction of Darwin's understanding of moral judgment--of how powerful social learning is for shaping and sometimes distorting our judgment, of how religious teaching can contribute to that distortion, and yet of how humanitarian sympathy and deliberate reasoning can lead sensitive and perceptive people to reject the callous and cruel behavior dictated by unwarranted social prejudices.
This also illustrates Darwin's understanding of the complex relationship betweem morality and religion. On the one hand, religion can reinforce exploitatiive social traditions such as those favoring the tyranny of masters over slaves. On the other hand, religion can also challenge such exploitative traditions insofar as religion warns us of the danger of human selfishness and teaches the widening of our moral sympathies to embrace all of humanity. And yet the capacity for moral judgment that Twain depicts in Huck reflects a naturally evolved moral sense that stands on its own regardless of religious belief.
Darwin saw that since moral norms were largely shaped by social praise and blame, and since such social norms tended to favor one's own tribal group against others, the moral conscience could be distorted by deformed social traditions. The traditional acceptance of slavery was for Darwin a preeminent illustration of how socially learned traditions could distort moral judgment. And yet he saw moral progress as people recognized the humanity of slaves and felt emotions of concern for their condition. Eventually, the extension of sympathy to ever wider groups and the rational deliberation on principles of reciprocity would lead to recognition of the Golden Rule as a fundamental standard of morality.
In his Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain depicts the power of social learning in supporting slavery. People in antebellum America were taught in their churches that the Bible showed the sacredness of slavery, and they were reared to believe that racial differences supported the natural inferiority of black slaves. But Twain also shows how Huck's deepening friendship with the slave Jim leads him to see Jim's shared humanity and to feel a moral concern for his welfare.
And yet because of his rearing in a slave society, Huck feels guilty in helping Jim to escape from his slavery. In one of the greatest passages in American literature--in Chapter 31 of Huck Finn--we see Huck thinking about what he should do. He calls up before his mind his experiences with Jim and the deep feelings that he has for Jim, while weighing this against the guilt that will come from violating the religious norms of his society. He figures that if he helps Jim escape, he will go to hell for his sins. But he finally concludes: "All right, then, I'll go to hell."
This is a masterful depiction of Darwin's understanding of moral judgment--of how powerful social learning is for shaping and sometimes distorting our judgment, of how religious teaching can contribute to that distortion, and yet of how humanitarian sympathy and deliberate reasoning can lead sensitive and perceptive people to reject the callous and cruel behavior dictated by unwarranted social prejudices.
This also illustrates Darwin's understanding of the complex relationship betweem morality and religion. On the one hand, religion can reinforce exploitatiive social traditions such as those favoring the tyranny of masters over slaves. On the other hand, religion can also challenge such exploitative traditions insofar as religion warns us of the danger of human selfishness and teaches the widening of our moral sympathies to embrace all of humanity. And yet the capacity for moral judgment that Twain depicts in Huck reflects a naturally evolved moral sense that stands on its own regardless of religious belief.
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