[Return to writing page]JournalThe following are short essays I have written that did not seem long enough to
necessitate their own page. 1/22/00 Making a decision is like discovery. In the first stage, I have several wants but I have not evaluated which is the winner. At this point it is like the fact that I don’t know what the weather will be tomorrow. I can wait and see. The knowledge will become apparent after tomorrow arrives, and then I will know. If I wait, the inevitable decision will happen in my mind and I will become aware of it. Maybe this is saying that decisions happen, so don’t worry.
1/25/00 From Snare I feel like I better understand what is happening when philosophers argue. We have a language to discuss difficult concepts like morality, knowledge, existence, etc. There is an assumption that the concepts of which we can speak and the connections between them are isomorphic somehow to reality. What a philosopher tries to do is make generalizations – almost as a scientist would – about the nature of these concepts in reality. Rather than experimental data, however, the philosopher’s data set is the set of all rational-sounding sentences. Suppose philosopher X tries to generalize about moral notions, as in the hypothesis "moral good is defined to be what I want." The response (Moore’s argument) is based on another philosopher Y finding a sentence that most agree would make sense, yet seems to not fit X’s hypothesis: "Is everything that I want also good?" There is an implicit understanding that we know how to use tough concepts even if we do not know how to describe them. This philosopher tries to describe in words something we all use, just as a scientists might describe lightning in terms of electrical charge with the assumption that the laws of physics are stable and the scientific method will return valid results. If science presents us – as it does in the case of my question – with a new notion of one of these difficult concepts, the proponents must acknowledge the philosophers. Science must show how the way we think about morality when we use sentences like Moore’s is erroneous by re-interpreting what we mean when we use these "counterexamples." ---------------------------------- Many people react to non-traditional or pessimistic interpretations of morality with illogical assumptions of the consequences. For example, one might say, "If morals are nothing but a set of evolved tendencies, then why don’t we all just kill ourselves?" Another response might be "If there is nothing really wrong with anything, why don’t you lie and cheat and steal, since there are no consequences?" Let us call the first type of response irrational pessimism and the latter irrational misbehavior. Neither of these behaviors are likely to occur, nor to I feel much more compelled to follow them since my conversion to moral skepticism. Irrational pessimism is a ridiculous notion because we have no drive to do bad things to ourselves. With a few notable exceptions, we all want to live, and we all feel death is a bad thing. Recognizing the fact that these notions have biological roots does not change the fact that we feel them, and it certainly does not introduce new random temptations into one’s mix of wants. I fear death as much as anyone else. While I acknowledge that I will not become a bad person if I kill myself, that is far from saying I actually desire to kill myself. If none of my wants tells me to take action X, X will never happen. Actions follow my metawants, and every metawant begins as a want (see the essay What is the Conscience?). The same argument applies to irrational misbehavior, although perhaps to a lesser extent. In sixth grade, I felt (to simplify things) two competing wants: to have certain objects, and to be moral by not stealing the objects. Today, I recognise that the latter want is a product of genetic and cultural evolution. However, I still want it. It would take an effort to bring myself to steal, because I have a very strong want to not steal. The possible exception is that in deciding between my wants, I need to evaluate which desire I feel strongest. If I really feel like taking something that I "know I shouldn’t," I might tell myself now "it doesn’t matter if I do something "wrong" if nobody catches me. Often we follow morals because we want to not face the consequences of not following our conscience-wants. When there is no fear of reprisal, the evaluation of our wants to find the metawant might rate our moral desires as less important. In other words, I still feel a compulsion to do the things that my moral sense tells me to do, although my "will to be moral in the face of temptation" has probably been weakened. ---------------------------------- I don’t feel very comfortable with this last essay. It cuts to the core of my question – how should I behave now? Should I steal something if I want it? I tried writing as if I knew the answer to see what I would come up with, and as any reader can probably tell it is not very coherent. I believe what I said about irrational pessimism is true, however. In truth, I don’t know what to think about irrational misbehavior.
1/26/00 The question "why be moral?" is similar to "why obey God?" Both illustrate a misconception in our way of thinking. The expressions seek to rationalize behavior in terms of "reasons" in the sense of compulsion rather than explaination. However, there is no such thing as a reason that "should compel." There are only reasons that explain. One could cite why a person in practice did what they thought was moral or acted according to what they thought was God’s will. The primary thing here is a tendency. One has a tendency to do things we label as "moral." We misunderstand the direction of definition, saying that goodness is primary and people are somehow compelled to behave according to these rules. This makes philosophers wonder why one would be compelled to do good. In reality, morality is defined by certain tendencies of behavior we have. Of course people sometimes act good, because goodness originates with what people want.
1/27/00 From what I’ve learned in Snare and Murphy, I am not entirely alone in my views on morality. Neitzche, Freud, Marx, and Darwin all had theories of the cause of our moral feelings. However, all still supported a moral system, in seeming contradiction of their discreditations of morality.
2/1/00 Blackburn discusses the "Satan complex," a psychology in which a person knows what is good but desires to be bad. In this case I agree with the author. The individual has the usual desire to act in accordance with the "good" rules he has internalized. There is another desire present, however, which rebels against the first and suggests acting against the rules of "goodness", which he is aware of. One’s morals then are not the same as what one wishes to desire. A desire to desire some X may arise through any number of causes, but the desire to be good is on par with the other desires in one’s mind. It is also noteworthy that while one can envision one’s beliefs to change over time, a change in values (which are closely related to beliefs) seems worrisome. If the future me has different values than I do, then I would express this by saying that "I change." I am a different person. The self can thus be defined in terms of one’s values.
2/5 Here is one way to articulate the problem that is making me uneasy. We will begin with some definitions. Let us define good-A to be the quality most people commonly associate with "good." A good-A deed is one that I feel I ought to do because the action possesses this special property. Good-A-ness in an objective property of things. Good-B, on the other hand, is what I believe morality truly is. A deed is good-B if I have a desire to perform it, originating from my evolved sense of morality. Several years ago, before I became aware of the fact that "good" really meant good-B, I believed that things were good-A. After my realization, the things which I believed to be good-A became only good-B. However, I still am used to the idea that there are good-A things out there. When my sense of good-B-ness is not capable of making an challenging moral decision, I feel as if there must be a principle of good-A-ness out there to tip the balance. I am thus seeking something that is good-A, although I realize that no such thing exists. ---------------------------------- Although Blackburn does not come right out to say it, he suggests a very clear way to understand the evolution of morality. Consider the Prisoners’ Dilemma. Both prisoners end up in a sub-optimal state; they could each have a lighter sentence while maintaining their equal payoffs. However, if the prisoners each had a desire to be nice to their compatriot, the two can cooperate without communication to achieve the better situation of neither tattling. In effect, the payoff matrix has changed. Initially, the utility of each choice was determined by only the sentence. With the addition of a moral sense, however, the utility is determined by the sentence plus the moral desire to help each other. The units of the payoff matrix are exactly these net utility values. The values of the payoff matrix change in such a way that the situation is no longer a prisoners’ dilemma, but rather a clear and stable cooperation situation. As I discussed in my essay on the conscience, the conscience is summed up with other desires to produce a decision. Each behaves according to their net utility calculation, and the situation is resolved. Ethics solves the prisoners’ dilemma. If an individual was introduced that did not have this moral sense, he would win.
However, evolution does not care about success or failure of people. Rather, it
cares about failure and success of genes and memes. While a person might suffer,
the idea of cooperation succeeds more than the idea of individual selfishness. A society
with a moral sense would succeed much more than one without. Just as an in-between
tit-for-tat solution is stable in the iterated prisoner’s dilemma, so our peculiar
blend of altruism and hard justice is stable in evolutionary dynamics. 2/6 Humean ethics allows for me to say of a person P, "P should do action A" even if A has no desire to do A. I am simply voicing the result of my ethical evaluation function, as this function takes the circumstances as input and produces an output. P’s ethical judgement function is concurrently doing the same. P’s ethical function and other desires, although they are taking as input the same objective circumstances as my own desire functions, they produce a different evaluation. This difference is a result of differing perceptions, which could be a result of any number of differences in upbringing, genes, etc. In one sense, however, it does not make sense for me to say "P has a reason to do A." There is no transcendental reason, perceptible to anyone who tries hard enough, why A is the thing to do. I may say and think that A is right, without there being any line of reasoning - based only on natural facts - that results in an impartial evaluation of A as good. However, in another sense I can say that P has a reason to do A. None of P’s desires might suggest doing A. This fact might change, though, if P were informed of new aspects of the situation. If I perceive something in the circumstances that P does not, my telling P of this fact might introduce a new desire into his calculation of what to do. In this second sense, then, there is meaning in the statement "P has a reason to do A." Here, one might say, "I know what P wants better than P himself." I do not actually know any more objective truth of the universe than P; I simply have perceived a natural fact that P has overlooked. Of course, it is equally possibly that once P knows this new information I give him, that his opinion will not be swayed. We use the expression "P has a reason to do A" informally, without actually knowing if P’s opinion will change. People’s desire functions are so complicated and unpredictable that we can rarely know before hand if P’s opinion is actually subject to change with the addition of new information. ---------------------------------- Our desire functions are extremely complicated and unpredictable, and one can never seem to know in tough situations when enough facts are known to ensure the final judgement will never change with the addition of new data. Suppose I am pro-life. Then, I learn that a foetus does not have human-like brain wave patterns until the third trimester. That new information might change my opinion so that I now believe abortion is okay until that point. How can I ensure that no new information will change my mind back the other way? The problem here is not an ethical one, but rather a factual one. In exactly the same sense I might ask when enough experiments have been performed to support a scientific hypothesis. There is no telling when some new piece of information will come along to change my opinion. I have to build up an intuition from experience with my opinion changing in other situations. This intuition will tell me how much faith to put in a theory given the amount of supporting data. The ethical analog is exactly the same. I must build up a sense of how likely my opinion is subject to change, based on past experiences with changes in ethical evaluation based on new information. ---------------------------------- There is no such thing as a moral dilemma. We cannot choose what our morals are. Rather, we can only use our morals in order to make decisions. When we use the term "moral dilemma" we are not deciding between which morals to follow. Rather, we are expressing a lack of factual information. If we had complete understanding of the facts of a situation we would not have difficulty making up our minds what to do. We only have this sense of moral uncertainty when we are missing important facts in a situation. Before now I thought that while this was often the case, there were still situations in which morals actually conflicted with each other. But now I realize there are no such situations! We do not have to worry about what our morals are, because we have no power over what our morals are. The moral sense is a mechanistic function that maps from the perceived situation into desires. It is a step removed from the actual reasoning process. There is nothing to worry about.
2/9 There is a difference between the thought "I value X" and actually valuing x. In the former, a factual assertion is made about myself. In the latter, an action is taken. All of my worries about what the right thing to do seem more related to the former. I am playing with statements about ethical properties using the rules of logic, while all the time I have been unconsciously applying ethics in my life constantly. Ethics is not about statements about my valuing of things, but rather about actually valuing and choosing. I want to know how to be a good person. Up to this point I have had the mindset that this enterprise was a forward-looking one. I would come up with a list of what the principles of right and wrong are, and then apply them when faced with difficult situations. Instead, I should be looking backwards. Talking about what I value doesn’t get me anywhere. I should rather look back on decisions I have made, and reflect on what went through my head as I made them and what in fact I have chosen to do. This will be an empirical means to determine what I value. I won’t find out what is good by looking in a book; I will find what is good by studying myself. ---------------------------------- Here is how I think Blackburn is able to have a sense of truth with his expressivist ethics. Suppose I believe X, where X is something like "abortion is wrong." Another person might believe ~X. It might turn out that for me, ~X is actually true. If I am unaware of certain factual matters relating to abortion, through discussion the other person might inform me better about the issue. My moral sense might reverse, to hold the opposite belief. In this case, my initial belief X was in a sense ‘wrong’ even though I did believe it and live my life by it. X was the decision my brain made at the time, but it was inconsistent in a way. Thus, we can still learn about ethics even though there is no transcendental truth to moral statements.
2/12/00 One important issue that has come up on several occasions is the difference between behavior – actually doing the ethical calculations and acting – versus talking about an ethical decision. In talking about a decision we can be perfectly unmoved to act. I think when I philosophize I am at this level. All the time I am actually making decisions and acting, but this is entirely removed from the intellectual discussion of what it is to be good. Because "good" is quasi-real (to use Blackburn’s terminology), meaning that it does have an observable natural basis in what we desire, then it is in fact measurable. My desires are subject to empirical study, as they are just a psychological variable. What is good is just what feels good. It seems wrong to kick babies for fun, so I can transfer this empirical fact to a statement about ethics: "Kicking babies for fun is wrong." To discuss ethics is to have a discussion about these properties of right and wrong which we thus assign to things. In a moral dispute, one side tries to convince the other that their assignment is wrong, by introducing new facts or presenting a new way of looking at things that the other perhaps did not realize. This would change the feeling of the other person, so that the ethical statement they would make would now change. This is the connection between moral words and moral action: the words reflect our actual desires, and they are meaningless if they are anything else. Plato might think he can derive the logical statement "kicking babies for fun is wrong," but as an ethical statement, it is simply not true unless my ethical sense tells me this as well. Antonio Damasio’s patients that lost their ability to make decisions were living in a world like this. They could construct moral sentences, but did not actually feel any moral sense. They would behave randomly, uninhibited by moral qualms, although they sounded perfectly logical in discussing morality. They could not make true moral statements, because they had no moral sentiment. To try to discuss morality with such a person would be futile, because there would be no common moral sensibility to appeal to. No argument I would make could change the other person’s opinion. |