Read An Introduction to Evolutionary Ethics Online
Authors: Scott M. James
Tags: #Philosophy, #Ethics & Moral Philosophy, #General
Further Reading Kitcher, Philip (1985)
Vaulting Ambition: Sociobiology and the Quest for Human Nature
(MIT Press).
Moore, G.E. (1903)
Principia Ethica
(Cambridge University Press).
Stratton-Lake, Phillip (2003)
Ethical Intuitionism: Re-Evaluations
(Oxford University Press).
Warnock, Mary (1966)
Ethics Since 1900
(Oxford University Press).
Fans of horror films have come to expect that signs of a villain's demise are almost always premature. It's always a bad sign when the hero drops his weapon after battle and slumps to the ground in exhaustion, his back to the motionless villain. We know it's not over. So long as there's some chance (remote as it may be) that the villain is not dead, we don't move from our seats. And the next shot is invariably a hand twitching or an eye fluttering open. Here we go again …
Well, you guessed it: there's life left in Social Darwinism. The reason is not so much that the view has undergone a makeover, but that the attacks on the view have been questioned. In the absence of fatal counter-arguments, we have to acknowledge that there's some chance (remote as it may be) that the view is not dead. So, yes, you're stuck in your seat for at least little while longer. In this chapter, we'll raise questions about Moore's Open Question Test and reconsider Hume's Law. Will these attacks-on-the-attacks put Social Darwinism back on a solid footing? Probably not. But intellectual honesty requires us to be forthcoming about the limitations of the objections to Social Darwinism. Let me start with Moore.
9.1 Some Preliminary Doubts about the Open Question Test How good is the Open Question Test? On the one hand, it seemed to deliver the right verdict when it came to bachelors and triangles and fruit. “An object is a triangle, but does it have three sides?” is not an open question. We're therefore supposed to conclude that triangles are identical with three-sided objects.
Check
. “An object is a piece of fruit, but is it sweet?”
is
an open question. We're therefore supposed to conclude that pieces of fruit are not identical with sweet things. Again,
check
. So far so good. But let's move outside our comfort zone a bit.
Imagine how a member of a primitive tribe in Africa might conduct the Open Question Test. Rumors have circulated within the tribe that water is really this more basic group of substances called H
2
O. Having never seen this more basic group of substances, this tribesperson is dubious, but she's willing to pursue the matter in the interest of truth. She's familiar with Moore's Open Question Test (don't ask how) and knows that this test can reveal important identities in nature. So she collects a cup of water and asks herself this question: “This is water, but is it H
2
O?” For all she knows, water might be H
2
O, but her task is simpler than this. All she has to do is determine whether or not this question is
open
. That is, could there be any doubt about this substance's constituents?
In other words, is the question about water like this one: “Grace is my sister, but is she female?” Or is it like this one: “This is fruit, but is it sweet?” Well, this is easy. Her question about water seems like the latter. It's most definitely an open question. This is a serious problem for the Open Question Test. Here's why.
If Moore is right, then this tribesperson has determined that water is not in fact H
2
O. And she's justified in believing that these two substances are not identical. But, wait, they
are
identical! The tribesperson is just mistaken. The Open Question Test has delivered the
wrong
answer. Less exotic examples can work just as well. Try this one.
Suppose that I tell you that Jay-Z is really just Sean Carter. To determine whether or not I'm speaking the truth, you run the Open Question Test. You pull up an image of Jay-Z (just to be sure) and ask: “This is Jay-Z, but is he Sean Carter?” Well, that may well seem like an open question to you. You could quite easily imagine that that person (Jay-Z) is
not
Sean Carter. So, on the basis of the Open Question Test, you are allowed to conclude that Jay-Z is not one and the same person as Sean Carter. But I'm here to tell you: Jay-Z
is
Sean Carter. Those are two names for the same guy. The point, however, is that the Open Question Test leads us in the wrong direction, by allowing us to conclude that the two are not identical. All this raises the question: if the Open Question Test does not test for identities, what does it test for? After all, there seem to be at least a handful of cases it gets
right
.
9.2 What Things Mean vs. What Things Are Philosophers have diagnosed the above situation in a variety of ways, but at the heart of the matter seems to be a failure to distinguish between the relationship that exists between words and the relationship that exists between – well, things. Take any two terms (or words), A and B. One thing we can do is ask about their
semantic
relationship, that is, the relationship between what A means and what B means. Take “bachelor” and “unmarried.” As we all know, part of what it means to be a bachelor is to be unmarried. Your understanding of bachelorhood is built out of simpler conceptual components. So here we could say (if, that is, we wanted to impress our friends at a party) that the concept of bachelor is
semantically reducible
to unmarried (marriageable) male. Being a bachelor is
nothing more than
being an unmarried (marriageable) male. They're identical. Examples like this are tempting. They tempt us into believing that A cannot be identical to B unless there is an appropriate
meaning
relationship that connects the two. But this is not the only kind of relationship that exists between terms A and B.
We can also ask after their
ontological
relationship. That is, we can ask whether A is the same as B as a matter of
mind-independent existence
. This latter notion is just a philosopher's way of identifying things as they are, independently of the way we think about them. For example, this book's existence does not depend on your thinking it exists or desiring that it exists or caring that it exists. Even if all sentient life were suddenly to end at this moment, this book would not suddenly disappear. Why? Because its existence is part of what we call a mind-independent existence. (Santa Claus, alas, is
not
part of this mind-independent existence. If everyone stopped thinking about him, Santa Claus would not exist.) As an example of ontological relationships, take “water” and “H
2
O.” The former is ontologically reducible to the latter. Thanks to the work of nineteenth-century chemists, we know that water is nothing other than H
2
O. They're identical.
But here's the really important point. Just because an ontological relationship (like identity) holds for two terms (like water and H
2
O) does not entail that a semantic relationship holds between those two terms. Arguably, this is what Moore failed to note. Just because water
is
(as a matter of fact) H
2
O does not entail that water
means
H
2
O. Clearly it does not. If it did, then we'd have to say that young children and primitive tribes (not to mention
everyone
prior to the discovery of the atomic constituents of water) do not know what “water” means. But that's absurd. Surely they grasp the concept (wet, clear, potable, liquid, etc.) What they fail to understand is what water
really is
. But failing to understand that does not disqualify them from understanding the word. Let me state the general point as clearly as I can: A can be identical to B even though A does not
mean
in part B – even though, that is, A is not semantically reducible to B.
1
9.3 Implications for Social Darwinism The implications for Social Darwinism should be pretty obvious. Insofar as Social Darwinism attempts to establish a
semantic
relationship between, say, conduct that promotes social harmony and conduct that is morally good, the attempt fails. It's at least arguable that the latter does not
mean
the former. By claiming that “the conduct to which we apply the
name
good” (emphasis added) is “the relatively
more evolved
conduct” (2004/1879: 25), Spencer seems to open himself to this interpretation. He seems to be asserting a kind of semantic relationship between the two. But if Social Darwinism is being put forward as a claim about the
ontological
relationship between morally good conduct and evolution, then the view escapes Moore's criticism. That is, if it's being claimed that “morally good conduct”
is
, as a matter of mind-independent existence, “more evolved conduct,” then the view is not obviously mistaken. For in this case, it's a claim about what morally good conduct is, not a claim about what the concept “morally good conduct”
means
.
Now how would a Social Darwinist go about establishing this claim? Great question. At this point, we have no reason to believe that the Social Darwinist can succeed here. Insofar as our deeply held moral commitments provide data that a moral theory must explain, Social Darwinism has an uphill climb. For as we saw in the last chapter, some “more evolved” conduct or conduct that's good for the overall species does not comport with our deeply held moral commitments (e.g., killing off 90 percent of the population without their consent). Until Social Darwinism can convince us to give up these commitments, the view is stalled. But if our criticism of the Open Question Test is on track, then neither is the view fatally flawed.
9.4 Forays across the Is/Ought Gap: Searle The philosopher John Searle believes (
pace
Hume) that we
can
span the Is/Ought Gap. He believes that we can construct a deductively valid argument whose premises describe only how things
are
, but whose conclusion dictates how things
ought to be
. Here's his argument (1964):
1.
Jones uttered the words, “I hereby promise to pay you, Smith, five dollars.”
2.
Jones promised to pay Smith five dollars.
3.
Jones placed himself under (undertook) an obligation to pay Smith five dollars.
4.
Jones is under an obligation to pay Smith five dollars.
5.
Therefore, Jones ought to pay Smith five dollars.
According to Searle, the premises are purely factual. The conclusion, however, is moral. Apparently, how things are in this case deductively entail how things ought to be. How does Searle pull off this (apparent) deduction? He relies on the institution of promise-making. For creatures like us, uttering the words “I promise” is sufficient to place one under a certain kind of obligation, the obligation to do what one promises. But to be under an obligation to do what one promises entails that one
ought
to do what one promises. Because Hume overlooked the existence of “normative institutions” (that is, institutions that have rules somehow built into them), he imagined an unbridgeable gap between fact and value. If Searle is right, Hume suffered from a failure of imagination.
But is Searle right? Have we really deduced a moral conclusion from purely descriptive premises? Things are actually more complicated than they appear. The philosopher J.L. Mackie (1977) argues that the introduction of institutions like promise-making poses a dilemma for Searle. On the one hand, we can evaluate the institution of promise-making from
outside
the institution, as an alien might do. From such a perspective, the alien would need to be told of the following rule:
1a If one utters the words “I promise that I will
x
” from
within
the institution, one has
within
the institution promised to
x
.
What the alien thus learns is that this rule holds within the institution. It's like being told that when you're playing chess, a pawn can be promoted to queen when it reaches the opposite side of the board. Similar rules will need to be explained to the alien in order for him to deduce (4) from (2) – and (5) from (4). According to Mackie, then, when the alien concludes that Jones ought to pay Smith five dollars, he has
not
in fact deduced a moral claim from purely factual claims. Instead, what he has deduced is yet another factual claim. It's a
description
of what Jones ought to do
within that institution
, according to the rules that have been explained to him. What doesn't follow is the claim that Jones ought pay Smith
full stop
. When I say that my pawn ought to be promoted to a queen because it's reached the opposite side of the board, what I've said is actually shorthand for saying that my pawn ought to be promoted according to the rules that are part of the institution of chess.
On the other hand, if we were to evaluate the argument from
within
the institution, then reaching the conclusion will require accepting (as premises) certain “ought” statements. For example, “One ought to conclude, on the basis of uttering the words ‘I promise to
x
,’ that one has promised to
x
.” In effect, one is smuggling in an inference rule. And rules, by their nature, tell us what we
ought
to do. If this is right, then the argument indeed derives an “ought” conclusion but at the price of relying on “ought” premises.
As you might imagine, this response to Searle prompted further counter-responses, which in turn prompted further counter-counter-responses until the thread of the dispute has been unwound and tangled. For our purposes, it is enough to say that Hume's Law may not have closed the door on getting from facts to values. Indeed, a cottage industry, straddling several sub-disciplines in philosophy, has taken on the supposed fact/value distinction. Some have argued that science – a field that supposedly trades only in facts – secretly trades in values. Others argue that values will ultimately prove to be illusory, so no (true) moral claim follows from
any
set of premises.