Is there a moral fact about the function of cultural moral norms and our moral sense?
In moral philosophy, a moral fact has often been taken to be something like what we imperatively ought to do what we ought to do regardless of our needs and preferences. While our moral intuitions are that such facts exist, there are no widely convincing arguments for their reality.
But there is another potentially useful kind of moral fact.
Consider past and present cultural moral norms and our moral sense.
Cultural norms whose violation is commonly thought to deserve punishment here, moral norms - are present in all societies. And almost all people, except psychopaths, have a moral sense that motivates them to act unselfishly in common circumstances, to punish immoral actions by others, and experience feelings of shame and guilt when they perceive they have acted immorally.
Why do cultural moral norms and our moral sense exist?
If the reasons they exist are predominantly culturally dependent, as has often been assumed, then such facts are, by definition, not moral facts.
But what if they have 1) a universal function and 2) their cultural diversity, contradictions, and strangeness are merely different applications of that single function? That would be a fact that is independent of opinion or culture, and, as the function of cultural moral norms and our moral sense, a kind of moral fact.
There has been a growing scientific consensus in the last few decades that, based on its explanatory power, it is provisionally true that past and present cultural moral norms and our moral sense exist because they solve cooperation problems within groups. We can also state this premise as cultural moral norms and the biology underlying our moral sense were selected for by the benefits of cooperation they produced within groups.
If this scientific hypothesis became commonly accepted as provisionally true by moral philosophers, could this kind of moral fact be useful?
I propose that this moral fact could help resolve disputes about:
Morality when blindly acting according to moral principles such as the Golden Rule, Kants moral imperative, or simple Utilitarianism is innately immoral. (Here, innately immoral describes acts that contradict the function of cultural moral norms and our moral sense. Moral principles advocate innately immoral behavior when they advocate actions that will predictably create cooperation problems rather than solve them. Examples of innately immoral acts include Freeing the criminal because you would like to be set free if imprisoned, Not lying to the murderer about where his next victim is, and Killing one person to harvest their organs to save or improve the lives of five people.)
Enforcement of cultural moral norms by revealing the shameful, to modern sensibilities, origins of cultural moral norms such as women must be submissive to men, homosexuality is evil, and abortion is always immoral. (These cultural moral norms can increase the benefits of cooperation within favored ingroups, but at the cost of exploiting outgroups. They solve cooperation problems within groups while creating them between groups, and therefore can only be descriptively moral.)
The relevance of moral intuitions.
Limitations:
The proposed moral fact about morality as cooperation only addresses the morality of interactions between people. It is a fact about moral means and is essentially silent about moral ends. It will have only some relevance, and in some cases be irrelevant, to important broad ethical questions such as How should I live?, What is good?, and What are my obligations?.
Do you agree that the scientific hypothesis about morality as cooperation could be useful to moral philosophers without any need to derive an ought from an is? If not, why not?
But there is another potentially useful kind of moral fact.
Consider past and present cultural moral norms and our moral sense.
Cultural norms whose violation is commonly thought to deserve punishment here, moral norms - are present in all societies. And almost all people, except psychopaths, have a moral sense that motivates them to act unselfishly in common circumstances, to punish immoral actions by others, and experience feelings of shame and guilt when they perceive they have acted immorally.
Why do cultural moral norms and our moral sense exist?
If the reasons they exist are predominantly culturally dependent, as has often been assumed, then such facts are, by definition, not moral facts.
But what if they have 1) a universal function and 2) their cultural diversity, contradictions, and strangeness are merely different applications of that single function? That would be a fact that is independent of opinion or culture, and, as the function of cultural moral norms and our moral sense, a kind of moral fact.
There has been a growing scientific consensus in the last few decades that, based on its explanatory power, it is provisionally true that past and present cultural moral norms and our moral sense exist because they solve cooperation problems within groups. We can also state this premise as cultural moral norms and the biology underlying our moral sense were selected for by the benefits of cooperation they produced within groups.
If this scientific hypothesis became commonly accepted as provisionally true by moral philosophers, could this kind of moral fact be useful?
I propose that this moral fact could help resolve disputes about:
Morality when blindly acting according to moral principles such as the Golden Rule, Kants moral imperative, or simple Utilitarianism is innately immoral. (Here, innately immoral describes acts that contradict the function of cultural moral norms and our moral sense. Moral principles advocate innately immoral behavior when they advocate actions that will predictably create cooperation problems rather than solve them. Examples of innately immoral acts include Freeing the criminal because you would like to be set free if imprisoned, Not lying to the murderer about where his next victim is, and Killing one person to harvest their organs to save or improve the lives of five people.)
Enforcement of cultural moral norms by revealing the shameful, to modern sensibilities, origins of cultural moral norms such as women must be submissive to men, homosexuality is evil, and abortion is always immoral. (These cultural moral norms can increase the benefits of cooperation within favored ingroups, but at the cost of exploiting outgroups. They solve cooperation problems within groups while creating them between groups, and therefore can only be descriptively moral.)
The relevance of moral intuitions.
Limitations:
The proposed moral fact about morality as cooperation only addresses the morality of interactions between people. It is a fact about moral means and is essentially silent about moral ends. It will have only some relevance, and in some cases be irrelevant, to important broad ethical questions such as How should I live?, What is good?, and What are my obligations?.
Do you agree that the scientific hypothesis about morality as cooperation could be useful to moral philosophers without any need to derive an ought from an is? If not, why not?
Comments (111)
Try applying this to theoretical reason. I suppose the analogous statement would be something like: "our senses, reason, and our sense of truth/veracity developed because they help promote survival and reproduction."
Does it follow that theoretical facts (i.e. non-aesthetic or moral facts) should be judged in terms of survival and reproduction? That is, I judge a fact, like "Moscow is the capital of Russia," using faculties developed to aid in reproduction, therefore the fact itself should be judged in terms of whether it aids reproduction or not?
I imagine you can see the difficulty I am trying to get at here. It would be the same for aesthetic reason. We wouldn't necessarily want to judge a painting in terms of survival and reproduction, even though that's presumably the selection factor for our having eyes to see paintings.
Nonetheless, we might ask: "why does this seem somewhat absurd for theoretical and aesthetic reason, but plausible for practical reasoning?" And my suggestion would be that it's because the human good is related to what man is. What man is helps to define the good of man (the relationship of formal and final causality). Hence, how man came to be man, sheds light on man's ends. Indeed, this goes along with the intuition that organisms are equipped to seek the end proper to them.
That said, I do think this gets things somewhat backwards. Man has a moral sense to aid cooperation, perhaps, because this aids survival and reproduction. But it doesn't follow from this that the human good is limited to cooperation (or survival, or reproduction). Cooperation is not sought for its own sake, but rather as a means. Hence, cooperation cannot be the measure of the good; we should cooperate just when it is truly best to do so.
I think this is not true. Certainly not true of me and a lot of people I know who are not psychopaths. If there is a moral imperative to care for, look after, and protect our fellow humans, I dont see that it has any connection with a motivation to punish other people for behaviors we dont like.
Quoting Mark S
Can you provide some evidence of this growing scientific consensus? Can you provide some examples. The way you stated it sounds very simplistic to me - to the point of being trivial, almost tautological. Of course humans evolved to live in social situations. Of course social norms work to deal with problems in the community. Perhaps you can provide more detail.
I am mostly on board with this, although I dont think you go far enough. You should give us humans more credit. We treat others with kindness and compassion because we like each other. The fact that we came to like each other through the actions of natural selection doesnt change that fact.
I don't think that's an idle or theoretical question. In my own life, I'm not aware of caring much about humans as such, or how we might fare in the future. It's implausible that the things I do care about morally are only tricking me, so to speak, into acting for the species' well-being. Or if that is in fact the case, it seems quite reasonable for me to reject this goal in favor of doing what good I can for the actual beings around me. That this in turn might further our generic human well-being would be morally irrelevant.
But your OP is complex, and if I've oversimplified or misunderstood, please say so.
Quoting T Clark
This makes a similar point.
Why not? Moral philosophy comes attached to a range of worldviews. It's not unified, and it shifts over time. So there's room for all kinds of foundational justifications, from religion to secularism, scientific thinking to postmodernism. Most Western societies are pluralistic and have to balance competing views. They do so pretty well.
Quoting T Clark
I agree. People are conditioned to feel certain ways, based on culture and upbringing, but I doubt it is innate. This is skating close to an essentialist account of human psychology.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Yes, and we can certainly (and have) cooperated to achieve violent and oppressive goals which cause mass suffering.
Agree. And also, what constitutes 'beneficial to the species' is itself contested. Maybe its better to say that morality may have established itself as part of human cooperative ventures, but this still leaves us needing to have conversations about which values we wish to uphold and what constitutes beneficial (flourishing). So we're back at the beginning.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Count, I essentially agree and see my OP as consistent with your point. For example, I said:Quoting Mark S
Also, when thinking about the relevance of reproductive fitness to the evolution of morality, I suggest you keep in mind that increased reproductive fitness is merely how morality was encoded in the biology underlying our moral sense. What was encoded in our moral sense was cooperation strategies. Confounding the means (reproductive fitness) of encoding morality in the biology underlying our moral sense and what was actually encoded (cooperation strategies) can be a serious error when discussing human morality.
If morality is conceived as just that, sure. I don't think anyone means that when they speak about morality though. I mean, most people think it comes from Divine Revelation, so there's that spanner .
Quoting T Clark
Hi T, the scientific claim about our moral sense is that the reason it exists is because it motivates cooperation strategies. Without punishment, free riders would destroy cooperation by exploiting others' efforts to care for, look after, and protect them. By exploit, I mean accepting help and not reciprocating. Punishment of exploiters is a necessary part of cooperation strategies.
Punishments necessary role in morality is an example of how science can illuminate morality.
Quoting T Clark
I am not satisfied with any summary of the state of the field, but Oliver Curry offers a useful, but much more complex, perspective in Morality as Cooperation: A Problem-Centred Approach
January 2016. You may be able to access a free pdf on
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281585949_Morality_as_Cooperation_A_Problem-Centred_Approach
Among recent workers in the field, he quotes:
Jonathan Haidt Moral systems are interlocking sets of values, virtues, norms, practices, identities, institutions, technologies, and evolved psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate selfi shness and make cooperative social life possible (Haidt & Kesebir, 2010 )
Michael Tomasello Human morality arose evolutionarily as a set of skills and motives for cooperating with others (Tomasello & Vaish, 2013 )
Joshua Greene [The core function of morality is to promote and sustain cooperation
(Greene, 2015 )
Curry also quotes philosophers about cooperation and morality:
John Rawls The circumstances of justice may be described as the normal conditions
under which human cooperation is both possible and necessary (Rawls,
1971 , p. 126)
John Mackie Protagoras, Hobbes, Hume and Warnock are all at least broadly in
agreement about the problem that morality is needed to solve: limited
resources and limited sympathies together generate both competition
leading to conflict and an absence of what would be mutually beneficial
cooperation (Mackie, 1977 , p. 111)
The Morality as Cooperation idea is way older than these references.
Protagoras, in Platos dialogue of the same name, patiently explained to Socrates that our moral sense exists to enable cooperation. Thereby, he implied how one can teach morality by teaching how to better cooperate in society. It seems to me that science can enhance our ability to cooperate.
What is new are advances in game theory that reveal powerful cooperation strategies encoded in our moral sense and cultural norms but not consciously understood. Game theory shows, for instance, the necessity of punishment and the role of marker strategies such as sex, food, and dress norms that increase cooperation by marking membership in a favored, more reliably cooperative, ingroup.
The long list of strange moral norms recorded in Leviticus were just a bunch of nonsense to me before I realized they were marker strategies.
Quoting J
As I said to Count,
Quoting Mark S
You may not care about the species, but I expect you will find you prefer to live in a cooperative society.
Quoting Tom Storm
As I said to T,
Quoting Mark S
From my OP
Quoting Mark S
And yes "we can certainly (and have) cooperated to achieve violent and oppressive goals which cause mass suffering".
Right. Our cultural moral norms and moral sense advocate and motivate cooperation with few restrictions on what people want to cooperate to do. Morality as Cooperation explains why this happens, why people can consider it moral, and why some descriptively moral cultural norms can have such horrific consequences.
That might be a useful understanding when you are trying to reason with someone who holds such views.
In science, facts (of sciences usual provisional kind) can be established by criteria such as explanatory power, simplicity, no competitive hypothesis, consistency with established science, and the like. That is the basis for claiming it is provisionally true that the function of cultural moral norms and our moral sense is to solve cooperation problems.
Morality based on Divine command theory is also explained by Morality as Cooperation. Who better than an all-seeing, evil-punishing, all-powerful divinity to motivate people to act morally? Whether the divinity is real or not does not matter to believers' motivation to act morally..
Right, and that might certainly be part of it, but does this ground the whole of morality or practical reason? For instance, we feel a strong moral commitment to our children. And yet often, we are not [I] cooperating[/I] with them, but rather they are an unhelpful burden to us, one who returns little in positive cooperation. Indeed, in the toddler years (and surely after too), good parenting can seem more like a battle of wills than cooperation (I've always liked Charlotte Mason's remark here, that the "strong willed child" is really weak willed, because they are unable to overcome their impulses). So too for being a teacher who cares deeply about their students, and so works to overcome their bad habits rather than cooperating with them within the context of their established vices.
More to the point, when we do something out of love, we often want nothing in return. There is the desire to communicate goodness to the other for its own sake and for their sake, even if they are incapable of cooperating with us (e.g. care for the severely disabled), and even though we stand to gain no benefit.
Now, I suppose that the goal here is cooperation, in a sense, but it's a very broad sort of cooperationthe attainment of virtue and ability to participate in a common good. Man is more fully fulfilled in social rolesparts of a "good life" will tend to involve being a good father, wife, doctor, deacon, leader, citizen, etc. and so there is a benefit for the individual, but also the whole, through [I] participation[/I] in the common good and the realization of freedom in the positive communication of goodness to others.
However, this sort of notion is generally much wider than the theories of evolutionary psychology allow (TBH, the field has always seemed to me to tend more towards Homo oecononimicus than Homo sapiens, at least in many tellings). If cooperation is understood as its representation in common evolutionary game theory models, or those of economics, it seems too shallow, precisely because it tends to focus on the individual reproducing organism or the utility maximizing (or satisfying) agent, and not the pursuit of any truly common good.
There is also the seeming counter example of genetic predispositions towards psychopathy, which is a sort of inherited tendency to game fellow humans' collective commitments. Hence, it does not seem that the evolutionary process by which man becomes more cooperative is itself necessarily oriented towards cooperation or the good, but merely whatever "works."
I suppose I am also somewhat skeptical of attempts to bracket off moral reason from practical reason. Both ultimately deal with ends, and so the Good, and they are often deeply intertwined. But practical reason involves the whole of the appetites, e.g. the good of food, or sleep, etc. as much as friendship and citizenship. Romantic love is a perfect example of where the two seem to become ineluctably bound up together. The Enlightenment idea of a sui generis moral good seems to make the Good itself strangely undesirable and alien to the world.
The theology of the largest denominations has both intrinsic and extrinsic groundings for morality. The good of man flows from man's essence, and in this sense man seeks the good by nature, and the good of man can be known by natural reason. So too, man has the telos essential to all rational natures, and so is oriented to the Good and True as such, through the rational appetites of the will and intellect respectively. God is involved in this intrinsic orientation as first cause and principle, not as extrinsic agent. However, God is [I]also[/I] involved extrinsically, as the final end of man and, as you say, through revelation (this distinction is also why Saint Thomas' Fifth Way is actually very different from "Intelligent Design").
Hence the distinction between natural law, which can be understood by natural reason, and the divine law of revelation.
Well, I would say that man, in virtue of his rational nature, possesses both will and intellect and is thus oriented towards the Good, the Beautiful, and the True, as such, by their rational appetites, but that's a whole different case to make.
In terms of evidence for this, I would just point out that history is full of people eschewing cooperation, or all social contact, to pursue what they think is truly best. And this extends to the denial of all the appetites (asceticism), reproduction (celibacy, monasticism), accepting ostracism, forgoing social contact entierly (hermits), taking great risks and enduring great hardships for ideologies one will never benefit from (e.g. Marxist revolutionaries), and even accepting torture and martyrdom.
I'm fairly familiar with game theoretic interpretations of cooperation from economics, but as far as I can tell the thin anthropology they rest on would make much of human history unintelligible, unless the whole of "acting for higher principles," is rolled into the black box of "utility."
For instance, Socrates is the opposite of cooperative during his trial in the Apology, refuses to be helped in escaping in the Crito, etc. Rather, the gadfly annoys Athens into executing him (for their own good) and the only thing he cooperates in is drinking the hemlock.
In the first instance, I was not suggesting that we can get anywhere on the facts we see. "that a lot of people agree" is simply no way to establish a fact. And morality has nothing better. In fact, it has worse, because that can only be applied 'locally' in most cases. The cases which aren't that specific (kicking puppies is wrong) speaks out an emotional response, not a fact of any kind. No one loves kicking puppies, but says it's also wrong.
In the second instance, No. It is explained by those individuals deeply-held belief that the Divine revelation is, inarguably, the only source of moral guidance and is infallible. This has lead to the least co-operative aspects of the entire human project, consistently.
I take almost everything here (and its underlying discussions in things like Boethius and Aquinas) as essentially post-hoc nonsense justifying what is self-evidently bad reasoning. These are all aspects of a belief system which relies on Divine command for its supporting structure. There is no kind of reasoning that can get us to a Divine morality without a Divine source. Otherwise, you're talking about something other than Divine Revelation as a basis for morality among hte religious. And that's fine too! Just not at all what I'm talking about. The vast, vast, vast majority of religious people are not theologians and base their morality on an instruction booklet written by morons.
A Hobbesian position. You're arguing that there is 1) morality and 2) it's implementation, which are made up of two separate domains - cooperation and coercion. Sure, you can argue that coercion is needed to ensure compliance by certain society members. But this is an entirely separate project from what constitutes morality. Whether punishment is necessary for morality to function effectively is a separate philosophical claim, isn't it? Morality can stand alone and whether people follow it or not is separate matter to identifying what morality is.
In the West, I would argue that what we have is a code of conduct derived from moral positions. These might also be described as community standards and they are enforced by penalties, fines and prison time (unless you can bypass these through discreet use of lawyers, usually based upon your personal wealth). It's the poor who tend to disproportionately cop the penalties.
I think you're suggesting that "cooperation strategies" is how we ought to fill in "universal function," above. The point of the evolutionary work is to inculcate these strategies. That may be so. But doesn't the standard objection still apply? Suppose I don't prefer to live in a cooperative society, or even actively prefer to do what I can to harm it? Is this immoral because it goes against our evolutionary imperatives, or because there is actually something wrong about it? I think it's clear at this point that we can't simply collapse the difference and say that "wrong" just means "against the evolutionary imperatives," yes?
I like that.
Id say, mystically, human beings are the moral fact in the universe. Conscience is a sui generis, aspect of human being that exists nowhere else in the universe. The only reason to care what I think is because you are human too and might be able to see something similar as what I see. So a moral fact, that would work like other facts work, would only be derived from contact with other human beings and their consciences.
Eyes sense and organize light for the consciousness.
Conscience detects other human beings (minds), and compares what such human beings actually do (actions) with what such creatures minds appear to be doing (intent) and finds ought in between them.
We can analogously say that dog is being bad but that is metaphor, because dogs dont seem to have a conscience at all.
So finding moral conscience awareness in evolution or survival, finding moral facts outside of human beings, overlooks the fact that only a human mind can sense or detect the difference between what is and what ought to be.
I don't find this a convincing argument. You don't have to punish bad guys, you just have to stop them. There doesn't need to be a moral judgment to protect vulnerable people.
Quoting Mark S
How the hell does he know? How would you possibly demonstrate that? Evolutionary biology is full of what Stephen J. Gould called "just-so stories" about how specific behaviors evolved for specific purposes. That's not science, it's just "seems to me," speculation.
Here's something you might be interested in. I think it's relevant. First, a link to a "The Moral Baby," an essay by Karen Wynn.
https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/campuspress.yale.edu/dist/f/1145/files/2017/10/Wynn-Bloom-Moral-Handbook-Chapter-2013-14pwpor.pdf
Also - a link to a 60 Minutes episode that discusses Wynn's work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRvVFW85IcU
When I first watched the show, it knocked my sox off. I guess it could be seen as an argument against my position. I'm not sure about that.
Yes. You're talking about morality from an entirely different perspective than I am. We're using entirely different language. I think you and I have had this conversation before in other threads. I don't see any empty spaces where we can fit anything about evolution into your argument.
Quite the contrary, you can fit evolution in via the "metaphysics of goodness" in Aristotle, the "Neoplatonic tradition," Thomism, Schelling, and Hegelianism in a number of interesting and satisfying ways. Charles Sanders Peirce and Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov represent two appealing directions (both being students of the Patristic/Scholastic tradition and German Idealism), although I'm more partial to the latter. David Bentley Hart is pretty good about this topic too.
It seems to me if morality developed biologically through evolution then it could have developed differently than it did. How is that not relativism? Or do we have nothing against relativism?
2. What ought to be the case is manifestly not inevitably what is the case.
The prosecution rests.
Yes. And if one is content to say that morality "just means" whatever evolution equipped us with in terms of group behaviors, there'd be no argument; sure it could have been different, if conditions were different. But that is not what (most of us) want to know about morality. We want to know, in addition to any evolutionary facts, whether there is something actually good or right about the behaviors it encourages. Or are we foolish to use words like "good" and "right," misunderstanding them to mean this special something, which doesn't really obtain apart from Mother Nature's adaptations?
I would say moral theory is more sociology than philosophy. Morals fill a social and political role. Then again, I guess that statement is moral philosophy.
Quoting J
Im not sure its foolish, but it does seem like people want to have it both ways.
The ones who like evolutionary explanations of morality, but also hold out for the traditional meanings, do want to have it both ways, yes. That's one reason I don't think we should spend much time on the evolutionary (or sociological) question. It will never get us the philosophical answers we're looking for. The same thing applies to the point @Count Timothy von Icarus was making earlier about theoretical reason: No doubt there's an evolutionary explanation for that too, but it doesn't actually explain any of the interesting problems about rationality.
Do you mean we shouldnt spend much time as philosophers, or in general?
Beyond that, I disagree. I think the sociological or biological explanation undermine the basis for some moral positions. I have stated several times here on the forum that I see most of what we call morality as a form of social control, meant to grease the gears.
Oh, as philosophers. The scientific questions are important and interesting, but best left to the appropriate specialists.
Quoting T Clark
Yes, this is the key question. If we did have a convincing sociological or biological (I'll just say "scientific" from now on) explanation for why people form moral beliefs, would that also show us that the content of those beliefs must be mistaken, or at least misunderstood by those who hold them?
Probably to get any further with that, we'd need to be more specific about which moral positions we're talking about. I notice you say some moral positions. Which do you think are most vulnerable to scientific deconstruction here?
I think we do have a convincing, or at least plausible, incomplete scientific explanation.
Quoting J
A good question. Heres my personal take. I see most public morality as a form of social control, there to lubricate the wheels of social interaction. There are good reasons to follow the rules of society 1) to show respect for our community, 2) to keep from being punished, 3) because we think the rules are reasonable and effective. But sometimes there may also be good reasons not to follow those rules, or at least to question them. When that happens, the difference between morality and social control is important. Theres a difference between doing whats right, and doing whats expected of you.
Yes, I think so too. So what we're asking is, Is that "difference" also something that can be subsumed under the same scientific explanation from which we derive the theory of morality as social control? Maybe I'm not getting exactly what you mean yet, but it seems to me that is impossible. Doesn't the theory have to account for all we want to say about morality? How can it leave an escape clause for things that are actually right, as opposed to learned or evolved rule-following behaviors?
Exactly my view. And I think this is true for non-human animals as well. A walking horse will not step on this bird that is sitting on the ground along the path; the horse prefers to not kill that bird. One could call this behaviour "behavouristic". But that's no answer. Actions are accompanied by feelings. I think it doesn't matter whether the "mechnical reflex" is caused by the feeling or vice versa -- or if it's just a correlation. The feeling of "liking something" is just there and it's very powerful.
I wouldnt call it a theory. I think its more a value judgment. I do believe there is a biological basis for all the things we think and believe. Thats not to say its the only contributing factor. I dont see moral judgments or beliefs as any different from any other human judgments or beliefs.
Quoting J
I guess I havent been clear enough. Ill say it this way. It makes a difference to me whether Im doing something because I think its right rather than only because its whats expected of me.
This is from what is an instinct by William James. A bit florid
It takes, in short, what Berkeley calls a mind debauched by learning to carry the process of making the natural seem strange so far as to ask for the why of any instinctive human act. To the metaphysician alone can such questions occur as: Why do we smile, when pleased, and not scowl? Why are we unable to talk to a crowd as we talk to a single friend? Why does a particular maiden turn our wits so upside down? The common man can only say, of course we smile, of course our heart palpitates at the sight of the crowd, of course we love the maiden, that beautiful soul clad in that perfect form, so palpably and flagrantly made from all eternity to be loved!
And so probably does each animal feel about the particular things it tends to do in presence of particular objects. They, too, are a priori syntheses. To the lion it is the lioness which is made to be loved; to the bear, the she-bear. To the broody hen the notion would probably seem monstrous that there should be a creature in the world to whom a nestful of eggs was not the utterly fascinating and precious and never-to-be-too-much-sat-upon object which it is to her.
Count, so many cogent points!
First, I reiterate that the hypothesis is that cultural moral norms and our moral sense can virtually all be explained as parts of cooperation strategies - moral means. The hypothesis is essentially silent about moral ends.
This hypothesis is consistent with the three common observations of moral behavior you and others mention as follows:
1) Biology triggered motivation to help others out of love as evolved by kin altruism and sexual selection for bonding.
The initial step of the powerful cooperation strategy indirect reciprocity (which underlies much of human morality) is helping others without expectation of reciprocity from that person (which includes a child or a disabled person). The hypothesis is silent on the reason the motivation exists. That evolutionary source could be kin altruism, pair bonding, or reproductive fitness increased by cooperation within groups of unrelated people (the common focus in game theory).
Also, for indirect reciprocity, delays in reciprocity and any eventual reciprocity being to people other than the initial helper are normal. Kin altruism for immature kin can be understood as cooperation between generations.
2) Forming a goal to do good or live a good life based on rational thought and, in morally interesting cases, "acting for higher principles"
Again, the initial step of indirect reciprocity is helping others, independent of the source of that motivation. Helping others based on rational thought ("acting for higher principles") does not contradict the hypothesis.
Also, the hypothesis is essentially silent about ends, it describes means. So neither the hermit whose goal is isolation, nor Socrates whose goal to live consistently with his moral judgements leading to drinking the poison, are counterexamples to the hypothesis. The hermit and Socrates simply have, or had, different goals than their societies.
But some goals (such as those preferred by psychopaths or implied by some versions of egoism) can include, as a matter of indifference, exploitation of others to the extent exploitation benefits oneself. In these cases, it is the means that morality as cooperation identifies as innately immoral, not the goals.
3) What about cultural moral norms that have nothing to do with reproductive fitness?
The biology underlying our moral sense was selected for by the reproductive fitness benefits of the cooperation strategies it motivated.
But what motivates groups to choose, advocate for, and enforce cultural norms? Groups choose moral norms based on whatever benefits of cooperation appeal to them reproductive fitness is generally not explicitly considered. Hence, cultural moral norms can be directly counter to reproductive fitness while still being parts of cooperation strategies.
Tom, it is not a Hobbesian view, but there are two categories of descriptively moral behaviors. As I described, the first category of moral norms increases cooperation within an ingroup but can exploit (sometimes coerce) outgroups. The second category solves cooperation problems within ingroups and does not exploit outgroups - as Golden Rule and so forth.
When I describe a behavior as innately immoral, I mean that it creates cooperation problems. Moral norms that exploit outgroups are, in that aspect of evolutionary morality, acting in an innately immoral way even though their behaviors are descriptively moral. Morality as cooperation offers an explanation of why moral relativism should be an unappealing idea. I also remind you that the morality as cooperation hypothesis has no innate bindingness as scientific truth. Any moral bindingness comes from our choosing it as a preferred moral reference.
Getting back to the punishment of moral norm violators, immoral people might see that punishmnent as coercion. However, game theory shows that punishment (of at least social disapproval) is necessary to maintain cooperative societies. Otherwise, they are taken over by free-loaders and morality motuvated cooperation is destroyed.
You might check my answer to Count, who made some of the same points.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/997480
Quoting T Clark
I did not find any contradictions between the study's results and morality as cooperation. The behaviors the babies exhibited that were identified as moral were parts of cooperation strategies.
However, morality as cooperation expands on our innate moral motivations (the paper's focus) to include and explain cultural moral norms - norms whose violation is commonly thought to deserve punishment.
And, even in infants, they found disapproval of perceived harm to others - be root of punishment of violations of moral norms.
Quoting unenlightened
The prosecution is making a category error.
The scientific hypothesis Morality as Cooperation, which is about cultural moral norms and our moral sense, makes no claims about what ought to be.
Claims about what ought to be binding come from people based on their goals and how they choose to accomplish them.
OK, I see that. I hope our moral understanding can support that difference.
A good, interesting discussion, which helps lay bare just how far down the difference in perspective goes. Let me quote two things:
Quoting Mark S
Quoting Mark S
Now you have every right to describe morality and immorality in this way, and you are scrupulous in calling the behaviors "descriptively moral" rather than just "moral." If there is nothing further to the idea of the moral than a certain group of behaviors that assist humans in cooperating, such a description sounds plausible to me.
But what I'm claiming, along with a few others here, I think, is that this misses entirely what "moral" means, except as a sociological or biological description. When I ask, "Is X the right thing to do?" I'm not posing a question about whether X is consistent with the evolutionary strategy you describe. Of course, nine times out of ten -- perhaps 99 out of 100 -- it may well be. Cooperation, the Golden Rule, etc. are usually very consonant with what I will decide is the right thing to do.
But there are two problems. First, trivially, this is not always the case, unless we mandate the equation by stipulative definition. More importantly, when I choose what I think is right, I do so for ethical/philosophical reasons that do not refer back to cooperation or ingroups and outgroups. Or if they do, I have to ethically justify that connection, rather than merely describe or assert it. In other words, if you ask me, "Why do you think X was the right thing to do?" and I reply, "Because it increases cooperation within an ingroup," you have every reason to persist and ask me, "But why is that a good thing? Is it always? Why in this case?" etc.
I'm trying to avoid putting this in terms of "is can't generate ought," but that's what it comes down to. Mother Nature is what she is, but ethical questions are about what I ought to do. It takes an independent argument to establish that the two are the same.
Then it is inadequate. Nazis cooperate. Mafias cooperate. That is not what anyone wants to mean by morality well that's too strong, it's not what anyone ought to mean by morality.
Quoting Mark S
But of course, claims about anything come from people, and this claim comes from you, but I don't think much of it. I think we ought to have a shared goal in discussion to get as close as we can to the truth, and this shared aim is what grounds the morality of our interaction. Now if someone does not share this aim, there is nothing to be done, but to ignore what they say, and move on, unless we can somehow persuade them that the truth must be their goal in communication in general or communication loses its meaning, value, and function.
It is. In Chapter 28 of Leviathan, Of Punishments, and Reward, he writes that without fear of punishment people would simply follow their own interests and ignore the common good. It's a view held by many. But so what? So you share a view with Hobbes (and you like game theory).
Neither option matches my personal understanding of morality. Ive talked about this on the forum before. Heres the quote I always use. Its from Ziporyns translation of the.Chuang Tzu.
What I call good is not humankindness and responsible conduct, but just being good at what is done by your own intrinsic virtuosities. Goodness, as I understand it, certainly does not mean humankindness and responsible conduct! It is just fully allowing the uncontrived condition of the inborn nature and allotment of life to play itself out. What I call sharp hearing is not hearkening to others, but rather hearkening to oneself, nothing more.
Many people find that unsatisfactory.
I think people find it unsatisfactory when they listen to themselves reciting and performing according to the image they have of themselves. They do not listen to the emptiness, but fill it with theory and listen to that.
This may be way out of left field, but it reminds me of Kant. Chuang Tzu is saying, What you do is morally irrelevant, or at least secondary. What matters is why you do it. For him, the "why" is a rather mystical expression of authenticity and oneness. For Kant, it's the good will, also rather mystical in the end.
Quoting unenlightened
Good. The inner chatter is surely not what Chuang Tzu has in mind.
The note I usually add when I use that Chuang Tzu quote is Easier said than done.
I dont think this is nitpicking - rather than why I would say how. How do I know what to do next without reference to conventional morality or expectations?
As for Kant - I dont know enough to say, although, when it comes to morality, I havent yet forgiven him for the categorical imperative.
No, that's good, and it can extend to Kant as well. His "good will" is very much a "how" thing, at least on my reading. Kant did think we needed to know all the conventional moral strictures, but he argued that if we followed them because of some aim -- even our own happiness, or the happiness of others -- we were off-track. We have to will all our actions because, and only because, they follow the moral law. I call that a "how" thing because, if you actually ask yourself what that would mean, what it would look like in practice, it seems to require enormous centeredness and self-transcendence.
The bad news is, he thought this was another way of stating the categorical imperative!
I think the "good will" is useful as an excuse to avoid draconian penalties when something went wrong. As cooperation is an essential stabilization factor in a society, "good will" is an indication of that cooperation. Humans make mistakes; one cannot keep a society alive and at the same time decimate that society by draconian penalties. So these mistakes need to be accepted to a certain degree. This also allows a continuous "learning from mistakes". These are all stabilization factors and evolutionary motors. The "good will" is a requirement for this system. This doesn't work in fascistic systems where every living creature needs to function like a machine and where nobody trusts anyone. Such systems are not stable in the long run.
Kant had something different in mind, though arguably it would also be grounds for not blaming people when things go wrong. He talked about "will" as in "power to choose freely" (roughly). He thought we had to exercise this freedom and choose the good for the correct reasons. And for Kant, the only such reason was, "Does my action conform to the moral law?" which in turn meant, "Am I acting in such a way that I could advise anyone in my shoes to do the same? Is what I'm doing generalizable?"
The latter is one way of expressing the categorical imperative: no special pleading, no appeal to personal preferences. The law's the law. This characterization leaves out about 17 important points, but that's enough for this thread!
Yes, I know Kant's categorical imperative. I find that concept useless. It might be of some use when implemented in A.I. though, as machines have no feelings.
Those were the days, when we believed we all had knowledge of good and evil because of something we ate. But now we have to defer to some Chinese ancient saying the same things, because it turned out not to be fruit tree, but an evolutionary tree.
Exquisite comparison. And the difference between the two trees is the concept of sin in the one plant and the absence of intimidation in the other.
Also, the religious story appeals to the individual, whereas the evolutionary story does not. The categorical imperative of evolution is "survive". But individuals do not survive. "Why should I reproduce?" has no answer for the individual from evolution, and so cannot justify any morality, and the species or perhaps 'society' is the moral agent, of which the individual is a mere temporary and dispensable cell. All hail the market, or the party!
Because love and sex feel good.
That's a good way of highlighting the shortcomings of evolutionary explanations of morality. We're being asked to see morality as a kind of trick on us, designed to get us to care about the survival of the real "agent", our species.
Love and sex do feel good, usually, so the trick is very effective, on this view. But what if they don't feel good to me? Or what if I don't care about feeling good? The moment we redirect the question to the individual, the theory is left with nothing to say.
And besides, just cos it feels good, doesn't mean it is good.
So I hear.
But that's why we do reproduce, not why we should. The obligation is "for the survival of the species" whereas the individual reason is "to feel good" Total disconnect. The biology makes sense, but the morality is completely absent.
Quoting J
Not so fast. Seems it would first be necessary to determine the origin and structure of affect and its relation to values, knowledge, ethics and will. Some will argue that answering this question reveals affective valuation as primary and grounding.
I think morality is qualitatively overrated. The normative "should" lies in the feelings and not in those man-made books. The Do is the Should, and the Should is the Do. It hurts me when I hurt you, I'm glad when you are glad. My feelings guide me. I need no book.
Sure. I only said that we can't conclude, without further argument of the sort you describe, whether feeling good is what moral good means.
I think there's no universal moral, and that makes the whole morality question superfluous. Yes, there are certain moral elements that are very popular, like "save the children", for example, but they are not universal; there are millions of child abuse cases every day, and calling them "psychopaths" is just a linguistic filter to keep the universalism cosmetically clean. Morality is just an artificial construction. For every act you do and that others find ugly, you can construct a moral excuse. This is possible because life is infinitely complex. It contains so many parameters that can be put on one side of the moral scale, and on the other side you can put whatever compensational weight you need. There's always an excuse for everything.
Do you think there's a worthwhile purpose for the "artificial construction" of morality, or is that just sending the question back in a circle ("worthwhile" = "of moral value")?
My hypothesis: Within a group there are usually a few alphas and many betas. The betas are unsure about how to behave. The alphas give the betas the instructions and they call them moral rules, given by an alleged higher power the alphas invented (religion or ideology), and the alphas act as self-proclaimed bearers of those higher moral rules. The alphas have optimized these rules for their purposes. They are worthwhile insofar as they maintain the alphas' power. Fact is: Rules are constructions. The alphas must hide this fact, for example, by telling great religious or ideological stories which are fictitious, of course -- or by referring to certain nature observations: There are many hens on the ground and one cock on the fence. This shall be the rule in our town as well. It shall be "right" that one man is at the top, controlling many women that do the main work. Why? Because we see this rule in nature. -- I think this is nonsense. The truth is: This so-called moral rule is just the result of cherry picking. Here they pick the chickens. Why not the bonobos? Bonobos behave differently. And even if all creatures on earth were in fact behaving the same, proclaiming this fact as a "rule" is a naturalistic fallacy. I mean, there's no reason to behave like this just because this has been the way until now. Evolution is here for experiments. Unfortunately, conservative minds don't like experiments.
Ah, mere feelings? Are feelings overrated? I think they might be underrated, myself, by philosophy and her bastard child science alike.
We share common senses - hearing, colour vision, etc, and the fact that some people may be deaf and/or blind, does not lead us to dismiss vision and hearing as subjective. Why should we do so with the moral sense? Perhaps you are morally blind, or perhaps you have been persuaded to ignore your sensibilities, or perhaps I am full of shit. But if you don't have a moral commitment to truth, then I find you are not worth talking to because you will say anything that suits you.
Cooperation includes several dimensions and magnitudes, I think. It's not a "yes/no".
Short-term cooperation: Do just the bare necessities, forced by the tyrant (nazis, mafias)
Long-term cooperation: Do more than necessary, do it because you like it (trust, reliability)
Minimal cooperation (nazis, mafias)
Great cooperation (trust, reliability)
By these parameters the paradoxon gets resolved.
You continue to confuse moral facticity with inter-subjective agreement. A moral fact is not traditionally an 'imperative ought' where we ought to do something indpendently of our needs. A moral fact is a statement about reality that describes how it ought to be that corresponds appropriately to reality.
A million people socially accepting norms is not a source of facticity about anything. It would be a fact that they accepted it and that it is a norm, but the norm itself would be non-factual.
Is this "you" addressing me personally or is it a general rhetorical "you"? I'm not sure what you are arguing for or against -- or whether your comment is just descriptive, -- and what the purpose of that fecal sarcasm is.
Yep, at least empirically. Once we find non-human minds, this is going to get very interesting.
Robert Macfarlane asks seriously if rivers have rights. I think this is an interesting question. If they do, are rivers non-human moral beings? Honest question. Of course, rivers can't speak for themselves. They need human attorneys.
If we do.
But once we do, aside from tons of interesting differences, my sense is they will have to have the same ultimate questions and problems with these concepts. I dont think there is a God who can sort things out any differently. Its the fabric of personhood and moral existence. IMO.
Yeah, what's up with that? Here are the three formulations.
Kant says they're just different ways of saying the same thing. The first is the one that is most often talked about - the one that says it's not ok to lie to Nazis. I certainly like the second better and I have no idea what the third means.
J, thanks for your careful response.
I thought I was clear in my OP that the subject was the usefulness of understanding the function of cultural moral norms and our moral sense (what moral behaviors socially and biologically are) and NOT what we imperatively ought to do.
I then proposed that, even lacking any imperative oughts, this kind of moral fact could help resolve disputes about:
The relevance of moral intuitions.
Enforcement of cultural moral norms by revealing the shameful, to modern sensibilities, origins of cultural moral norms such as women must be submissive to men, homosexuality is evil, and abortion is always immoral.
Morality when blindly acting according to moral principles such as the Golden Rule, Kants moral imperative, or simple Utilitarianism is intuitively immoral.
I was hoping responses would focus on whether this knowledge could help resolve such disputes.
Any opinions?
I sympathize with the urge to fall back to standard ought questions like But why ought I avoid exploiting other people (causing cooperation problems) just because solving cooperation problems is the function of cultural moral norms and our moral sense?
The answer was clearly not as obvious as I had assumed.
You ought do so if you prefer following Morality as Cooperations prescription for moral means. And "prefer" would usually be because you prefer the consequences as an instrumental choice.
Why might it be your preferred moral means as a rational choice? It is
1) Arguably the most effective means for achieving common shared goals.
2) Universal to all cultures (and, in its game theory roots, arguably the one moral theory that is as innate to our universe as mathematics)
3) The moral theory that is most harmonious with our moral sense.
Tom, Hobbes is correct that purely self-interested agents will, without punishment, simply follow their own interests, leading to his description of pre-civilization life as nasty, brutish, and short. This necessity for punishment is why the feeling that moral violations deserve punishment is encoded as one of part of the cooperation strategies in our moral sense. Indeed, moral norms can be distinguished from other norms by the common feeling that violators deserve punishment.
But contrary to Hobbes, people are not purely self- interested agents. In the long-term company of small groups, particularly kin, people can act in highly unselfish ways with little punishment of immoral behavior required. Social punishment becomes more important for preserving cooperation when there are ingroups and outsiders (exploitable outgroups).
Morality as cooperation contradicts Hobbes understanding of our pre-civilization nature. It is not Hobbesian.
Hi Bob, I see a lot of ambiguity about what people mean by the term moral facts. Ill take your word for it that imperative oughts are not as common an assumption as I have perceived it to be. I expect we agree that such strange things are unlikely to exist.
Lets consider your definition: A moral fact is a statement about reality that describes how it ought to be that corresponds appropriately to reality.
Do you believe that someone has come up with a widely convincing argument that such a moral fact exists? Have I missed a revolution in moral philosophy?
The function of cultural moral norms and our moral sense, solving cooperation problems, is a statement about reality.
It is grounded in reality in two ways: 1) It explains why our moral sense and virtually ALL cultural moral norms exist and 2) its origin is in the simple mathematics underlying game theory which can be argued to be innate to our physical reality. It is the universality of this function and its innate to our universe origins that give it its power. How many people recognize it is irrelevant.
But even with that power, no oughts are attached to it yet.
But we could logically say We ought (instrumental) to use the criterion, does it solve or create cooperation problems, to refine our cultural moral norms with the goal of increasing the benefits of cooperation in our society.
I would appreciate your explanation of why you might think that understanding the function of what virtually all people (except philosophy majors) everywhere and everywhen consider morality is not useful or relevant.
This is a discussion forum about ethics.
Ethics includes the morality, or lack of it, of our moral senses intuitions and past and present cultural moral norms.
Our moral intuitions are foundational to moral philosophy. I am interested to hear how you defend the idea that understanding why our specific moral intuitions exist is not relevant to moral philosophy.
My main goals here are to clarify why morality as moral means (cultural moral norms and our moral sense) exists so we can 1) refine cultural moralities to better meet our need and preferences, 2) separate out the search for moral ends that are the other part of the larger subject, ethics.
What is your goal here?
I wasnt arguing your whole model was Hobbesian.
I certainly generally agree with all that!
Only a statement can be true (or false). You're talking about truth. In your comment I'm literally missing the statement that needs to be true. What statement needs to be true?
Or are you confusing the term "truth" with the term "reality"?
I really like this. It makes a great starting place by indicating that we have intuitions and make moral judgements not only with them but also of them.
Quoting Mark S
I don't. Here for random example, we discover that infants have intuitions about fairness that relate closely to the needs of a cooperating social animal for mutual trust. Clearly this can give rise to some internalised conflict with the appetites of the individual, and so sets up the endless psychodrama between the individual and society, and explains why conflict sociologists find that the more internalised conflict in a society, the less external conflict, such that a polarised society tends to descend into violence, whereas one of individuals with conflicting loyalties will be more peaceful.
Quoting Mark S
My goal in this discussion is the same as my goal in every discussion, to arrive at the truth together. But particularly to this topic it is important to me to point out that our communication is necessarily a moral endeavour. And thus I close the circle back to those intuitions by which we judge the very investigative discourse on which we are embarked. Are our goals moral?
It is this circularity that allows ethics to take flight and transcend mere biology to become that which can stand in judgement of nature itself.
And thanks for yours.
I definitely want to reply in depth to your points -- you're right, for one thing, that I'd forgotten the thrust of your OP -- but will shortly be offline probably till "my" tomorrow. (it's 8:45 am EDT, USA, now, where I live). So, since I don't want to do a hasty job .. . till then.
Yes, and it's the third one that connects with a "pure" good will that does not consider ends to be reasons for acting.
Bob, your definition of moral fact is ambiguous with respect to the kind of ought it refers to.
You assured me that this ought does not refer to What we ought to do regardless of our needs and preferences..
It also obviously does not refer to an instrumental or intuitive ought. Right?
Perhaps it refers to What we ought to do as a universal rule with a motivating source of bindingness. And that motivating source of bindingness could be rational thought.
But its universality, as required of a fact, would then be equivalent to what is imperatively moral.
What do you say the ought in your definition refers to?
Quoting J
J, no rush. I find that the quality of discussions on complex issues improves if I refrain from replying immediately. My responses to you may often be delayed by a day or two, and sometimes more.
You were. Thanks for pointing me back to it. You're doing a careful job of trying to find a way to separate out the idea of a "moral fact" as a universal fact about humans, from the idea of a "moral fact" as a value about what is right and wrong. If I'm right that this is your program, I don't think it quite succeeds.
You argue that "moral sense" equates to "what moral behaviors socially and biologically are." I think you mean that it follows that therefore, if anyone refers to their moral sense, they are referring not to actual questions of right and wrong as usually discussed in ethics, but rather to the built-in behaviors that our species is endowed with, both biologically and culturally. OK, fair enough.
So when we return to the question of individual behavior, you rightly ask why one should choose to adopt these built-in cooperation strategies -- since, however hardwired they may be, we know we can act against them
Quoting Mark S
But now we're right back in the middle of ethics as usually discussed. Here are the good reasons for following a particular maxim, and here's Ornery Joe saying, "Well, I don't prefer the consequences." Is there something further that Morality as Cooperation can say to Joe? Is he "wrong"? I don't see how he can be. He sees the universal "moral fact" about cooperation and claims he doesn't give a toss.
So . . . the question I'd put to you is, Does this matter? Can we get the most out of "moral facts" and use the Cooperation thesis to point a path forward, without worrying about the likes of Joe, and the usual disputes about ethical reasons? You could, for instance, say something like, "Look, we understand how 'morality' came about -- it's a way of improving cooperation and helping cultures thrive -- and that's plenty good enough. Some people will never get it, and insist on a different kind of reason for what they call moral behavior, but that's irrelevant. We can still use the 'moral fact' of a universal cooperative strategy to help us decide many important questions about how we ought to behave. When uncertain, we'll try to discover which choice will most advance cooperation."
I put a lot of words in your mouth, but is that close to your position?
Of course, my goal here is also to arrive at truth. In aid of that, I am doing my best to honestly portray the data, as I understand it, about cultural moral norms and our moral sense, and how it can be explained as parts of cooperation strategies.
My intermediate goal is to identify how understanding cultural moral norms and our moral sense, as parts of cooperation strategies, can be a useful reference for refining cultural moral norms with the ultimate goal of increasing flourishing my ultimate utilitarian goal.
So yes, my goal, and I assume yours, is moral. Also, specifically, my means of achieving that goal is moral by Morality as Cooperation.
Not quite right about not referring to actual rights and wrong. If anyone refers to their moral senses judgments, they are referring to what is at least descriptively right and wrong. If one does not like the consequences of conforming to those judgments, they can violate those judgments without acting irrationally. When you say actual questions of right and wrong are you thinking of judgements justified by rational thought and violating them would be irrational?
Quoting J
If Joe does not prefer the consequences of acting morally (according to Morality as Cooperation) or using it to refine cultural moral norms in his culture, then there is not much to be done. I can add that Joe is morally wrong to violate what is inherently moral in our universe (the cooperation strategies underlying cultural moral norms and moral sense that solve cooperation problems without creating cooperation problems with outgroups). However, I cannot say that his choice is irrational.
Could Joes rationality or irrationality when he acts immorally be a distinguishing characteristic (along with moral means vs moral ends) between the two kinds of morality under consideration: Cooperation Morality and traditional moral philosophys moral systems?
Quoting J
Yes, you have captured what I am proposing. Continuing my above thought, I am not proposing that it is irrational to violate Morality as Cooperation if you dont like the consequences of following it.
Quoting J
Yes, that is close to my position. Thanks for your comment.
Have you thought about cooperation in nature, apart from between humans? Bees and flowers, the symbiotic relationship that produces lichens, ant colonies, and so on; it seems there is in every aspect of relations between an organism and its environment elements of cooperation and of exploitation.
A tiger creeps through the long grass towards its prey, and the vertical stripes and slow sinuous movement convey its absence - 'just the grass rustling in the breeze'. Or the reverse deceit of the prey, as a stick insect stands immobile at just the right angle and in the right place to appear to be a dry twig. Examples of an evolved form that cooperates with the general environment to deceive, on the one side its prey, and on the other, its predator.
Or the icon of immorality - the cuckoo; that lays its eggs in another bird's nest and whose offspring will kill all the chicks of its host, and be fed by the unhappy parents 'til it is bigger than them and they are exhausted.
Good question. No, I wasn't wanting to bring rationality into it at this point. The comparison I'm inviting between "actual" and "descriptive" would be this: An actual question of right and wrong would not reduce to its description. And I admit that "actual" is probably tendentious; perhaps I should have said "traditional." In other words, traditional moral talk asks whether X is "really" good or "really" right. It doesn't explain those terms by describing them in some other terms. Whereas descriptive moral talk does just that. It proposes that the only "real" thing going on here is an evolutionary strategy that helps humans survive. X may be characterized in those terms, and it may be pointed out that X is therefore also, traditionally, considered a "moral" behavior, but "moral" is always in quotes, because it is a description, not a conceptual analysis.
Quoting Mark S
Again, I agree about the rationality question, and I wouldn't confront Joe on those terms. True, if we're going to say anything to him, we'd probably propose some reasons or arguments why he should prefer the inherently moral in our universe. But that can be done without claiming he's irrational to disagree. My question is, Are there any such arguments, given your thesis? It sounds like you agree that there are not.
Quoting Mark S
I don't think so, as above.
Quoting J
If I understand your OP question, this is a good result, or at least good enough. For my part, I think it leaves a lot of unanswered questions about what ethical choice is, largely because I'm a semi-demi-Kantian about ethics and I don't think we can leave anyone out -- it has to be universalizable. So if we can't earn Ornery Joe's assent, we haven't set the problem up correctly.
A whole other thread!
Unenlightened, I have thought about cooperation in nature.
The examples of bees/flowers, lichens (fungus and algae/cyanobacteria living together, each providing something the other needs) are good examples of mutually beneficial cross-species cooperation.
The detailed behaviors encoded in their biology maintain the benefits of cooperation (as well as for the single species examples, bees and ants) are selected for consistent with the simplest of the same cooperation problem solving strategies that humans use to gain the benefits of cooperation though it is unlikely the lichen are aware of game theory.
Stable ecosystems could be viewed as a cooperative venture (including the tiger /prey and perhaps even the icon of immorality, the cuckoo). Still, I dont see this as the most useful perspective. Stable ecosystems are better understood as stable competition with some examples of cooperation for mutual benefit.
I distinguish between cooperation in nature and morality in people based on if violations of the relevant norm are commonly thought to deserve punishment. Morality, as I understand it, is thus largely, but not entirely, a human phenomenon.
J, the meaning of Traditional moral talk is clearer.
To me, what is actually moral is closer to the subset of descriptively moral behaviors (cooperation strategies) that do not exploit outgroups as they increase cooperation in ingroups than traditional moral talk based on unverified (to date) speculations about moral premises.
I understand that there are arguments for and against the idea that acting immorally (based on one or another moral premise) is irrational. I expect posters here will have a range of opinions. But I am comfortable with the idea that acting morally sometimes, depending on ones goals, requires acting irrationally.
Morality as Cooperation is universal to all cultures and, due to its origin in the mathematics of game theory, universal to all intelligent species that form highly cooperative societies. That is more than enough universality for me.
That it sometimes advocates irrational behavior (depending on ones ultimate goals) is not a fatal flaw. As a part of science, it is what it is. Our preferences are irrelevant to its existence.
Have to disagree with this. Take a living human body as a typical fairly stable dynamic environment. Around half the cells in the body are non-human see here (The figures have recently been revised in favour of the human cells a bit, I think, but the ball park is little changed). And for most of us, most of the time, cooperation dominates, to the extent that without the right gut biome, for instance, one would be unable to digest food. When 'competition' sets in, one is ill, and sometimes one loses the competition and dies.
At the level of genes, game theory applies, and it does not require that participants understand the theory, merely that they have 'interests' (which in this case we impose on them because we are only interested in the ones that survive.) Genes themselves of course have no interest either way, they have an effect on the organism, and either survive to reproduce or not. We call those that survive 'winners' and call their effects 'self-interested'. And we call that equivalent behaviour in ourselves, 'rational'.
So let me put a little challenge to you, because what you say above about the predominance of competition is the received wisdom that founds also the terminology of game theory, and a deal of politics too: if self interest is rational, then reason it out for me. Because in fact game theory is symmetrical, and evolution works just as well if we call the survivors the losers; the aim of life is to go extinct and 99.9% have managed to find their rest sooner or later, and we are the unlucky ones who have to carry on a bit longer.
A human body is an organism, it would not be useful nomenclature to call it an ecosystem. Our gut and skin bacteria form ecosystems where competition reigns (with some necessary cooperative behavior with us, the host organism), but they are not part of the organism defined by a fertilized egg.
I was talking about ecosystems such as those composed of many organisms of many different kinds.
Rationality refers to choosing the best means, using logic and evidence, to achieve ones goals, whatever those goals may be.
Our goals are not necessarily the same as our self-interest, so acting in our self interest is not always rational.
For example, sacrificing our lives is usually not thought of as being in ones self interest. But we could have a goal of defending others at all costs. In that case, it would be rational to sacrifice our life.
99 .% of species have gone extinct because of a variety of environmental and competition reasons. I dont see the relevance of that.
I think you're going off-topic for this thread.
Quoting J
Yes, I enjoyed it also.
Then I wish you well and will not disturb you further.
Or, what about a cooperation that does away with the notion of out-groups entirely?
I've long had the idea of morality as cooperation strategy without knowing it has had any scientific validation. To me, the core of morally as cooperation has remained more or less fixed over time and space, what changes is who is in the in-group, and who remains in the outgroup. Our halting and uncertain moral progress over the centuries, if we really have had it, has consisted in an expansion of the in-group concept. When we regress, the in-group contacts, with typically tragic consequences.
Hi hypericin,
A lot of science has been done in the last 50 years on morality as cooperation.
Just this week, I came across a 2022 Master's Philosophy thesis that provides an excellent summary of the science of morality, specifically, morality as a form of cooperation. It is Escaping the Darwinian Dilemma with Cooperation-based Moral Realism by Frederico Carvalho.
https://www.proquest.com/openview/2ae1390e8bf5d68f04d4c0819ca8d9d0/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=2026366&diss=y
And though he holds a utilitarian, rather than a morality as cooperation, perspective, the philosopher Peter Singer's book "Expanding the Circle" describes the history of moral progress as expanding the circle of who is considered worthy of moral regard.
Well, how about that.
I see that Peter Singer is maybe even the founding figure in the animal rights movement. Someone actually translating philosophy into social change is rare indeed, impressive. Sadly, animals remain firmly in the out group of the overwhelmingly predominant animal species. At best pets gets in group treatment.
Perhaps the logical endpoint of moral progression is when not only all humans, not only all sentient animals, but future generations of humans and animals, are all accorded in group status. I'm afraid we are not going to make it there.
'Progress' is such a stupid term for moral workings. There's no such linear description of morality available to us without first ascertaining and objective, goal-oriented basis for morality. We could then try to figure out which goals are to be aimed at in an objective sense.
The above seems a subjective, hypericin-centered goal. That's fine, and that's how morality works on my view but I don't think this gets us anywhere near a reason to strive toward that goal, or any other tbf.
It would be pragmatically untenable to include several types of out groups (predators) within the centered group. I also think tihs runs against the nature of competitive speciation.
Quoting hypericin
He certainly is, and a hero to all of us working in that area.
Interestingly, his case for animal rights goes through even if you disagree with the utilitarian framework, as I do. The other one to read as a founding figure is Tom Regan, "The Case for Animal Rights." Regan is also a philosopher, originally specializing in G. E. Moore's ethics, which I prefer. And the illustrious Martha Nussbaum has now joined the chorus.
Stepping in only having read your OP, I would agree that cooperation of a kind is necessary in a moral situation (not everything is a moral moment). I would only question the desire that it need be factual, either innate or based on a (agreed/universal) response to the world. The human condition of being separate requires cooperation, but nothing (no fact) ensures it. Thoreau of course points out that sometimes doing what is moral requires us to not cooperate with society.
I previously introduced a discussion about norms (as rules) and facts in this OP.
Anthony, their nature and if moral facts exist is a big deal in moral philosophy.
My goal here is to explore Is there a moral fact about the function of cultural moral norms and our moral sense?
I argue there is.
Is that function required to be solving cooperation problems?
All species that are cooperative enough to build civilizations must solve the same cooperation problems that are innate to our physical reality. So yes, something like morality as cooperation (as humans implement it) is required for all civilizations from the beginning of time to the end of time.
I am not arguing that we do not cooperate (even, fundamentally), nor even that this is a fact (biologically/socially universal; say, formative of our humanity, or however else this wants to be framed). I am also not arguing for or against it being good, because, as youve pointed out, it is just something we do (a means), even inevitably, necessarily. But the import being claimed for that fact (implicitly perhaps) presumes a particular framework of morality that I would suggest we have not yet adequately considered. Deontology does have its place; we do have norms and rules and we do act on them or justify our actions based on them, judge others by them. But we have traditionally warped morality taking it simply (only) as justified norms of action, because we want to rely on the solidity of their ground (the more factual or logical the better) rather than examine our own part.
A few things to consider: we dont normally take all action as moral, so what categorizes a moral act? The modern answer (Nietszche, Wittgenstein, Austin, Cavell) is that it is when our norms and practices actually come to an end; when we are at a loss as to what to do at all and there is no guidance or authority for what is right. Thus there is no single process or level of justification because it happens at a particular case, with a specific context, and facts that are uniquely relevant.
You point to Rawls above; which brings up another facet of morality that people want to nail down (apart from having factual or rule-like norms), which is figuring it out ahead of time. Rawls would have justice be decided in a just process, only: beforehand. Now whether that is best or if science and biology is a better method is not my point. In a truly moral moment, we stake our future not in deciding it (agreeing on it, being agreed in it by biology), not thus turning on relative values or self-interest, but on our future responsibility for our current actions. Emerson will put this as Character is higher than intellect. We take a stand which we answer for, which characterizes who we will be.
I said I agreed that cooperation is part of morality, because it is a defining moment, and we can move forward together (in our further judgments and practices), or not (as has been said, sometimes the moral thing is to actually break with society). Our cooperation is our commitment to be intelligible to each other (even in disagreeing), without a pre-determined standard for reason, even without any guarantee of (or fact that requires) our success.
It is not merely other-regarding. There are multiple ideas here:
* The purpose of our moral intuitions is to facilitate cooperation.
* The moral intuitions consist in concepts around fairness and justice.
* These concepts are largely consistent across time and cultures.
* Differences in moral regimes primarily consist in differences as to whom these concepts are applied, and to whom they are not. Who is the in-group, who is out?
* What is commonly regarded as "moral progress" consists in a widening of the in-group circle
Quoting AmadeusD
Personally I'm interested in describing what morality is, how it works. Not in providing purported reasons for some individual to be moral. Yet, I am inclined to strive to treat every moral agent with fairness and justice. As an animal endowed with moral instincts, I am predisposed to do so. As a reasoning animal, I conclude that many of the delimitations defining in-groups are culturally bound, and largely arbitrary.
Quoting AmadeusD
Tell that to a woman or to a descendent of a slave.
On the other side adopting moral prescriptions is in the domain of facts. If such adoption promotes cooperation this should be matter of empirical investigation.
And there is a sense in which I find this plausible: by following through words and actions moral prescriptions on ones own initiative, one can signal to others their willingness to preserve this behavior at least if/until others do the same. And once this behavior is shared and habitual it grounds further forms of cooperation like collective production and exchange of goods and services.
There are three problems however:
1 - it is conceptually possible for an individual to act and speak in line with moral principles while being totally indifferent to how the others respond (a sort of ascetic example of morality).
2 - cultural norms, like moral principles, are acquired through education since we were kids. The source of such education is a mix of oral indoctrination, exemplar behavior, positive incentives and negative incentives. Our default moral code is never adopted as a conscious choice. So its education that promotes cooperation in individuals whatever cultural norms there are (see if someone is educated to become a mafia member)
3 - moral norms are taken to be universal in the sense that they must apply to all human beings anywhere and anytime. Take for example the moral prescription do not kill others, does that mean that we should exclude euthanasia as moral? What about killing for self-defense? Or death penalty for a mass-murderer? Or killing enemies invading ones own country? Notice also that prescriptions like do not kill can be also applied to a stricter scope e.g. do not kill member of your community. So if moral prescritions are taken to be universal, then they can promote cooperation in the sense of making it wider than prescriptions that would hold for in-group members but wouldnt be as categorical for out-group members. Yet Im not sure if universality can fully accommodate our intuitions about morality since we find more morally outrageous to kill ones own children than killing a random old dude in coma in a terminal state of a deadly disease or a serial mass-murder. But if universality is not part of our understanding of moral prescriptions then morality cant be be said to promote cooperation (between in-group members) more than competition (between in-group and out-group members)
It is. All the follow-on speaks to this. It's just other-regarding. No reason to call it moral (further, but less interestingly, I reject some of those claims anyway).
Quoting hypericin
It is also commonly not regarded as progress. This is just a perspectival restriction. No reason to think that group is 'right' any more than the one who wants to restrict the circle of care.
Quoting hypericin
I conclude the exact opposite. C'est la vie??
Quoting hypericin
Setting aside the clear and precisely manipulative intent of such a statement, I routinely mention this to women who tend to agree with me. Descendants of slaves have nothing to say. There is more slavery now. Not owning other people is progress in some ways, and a clawing-back from con-gress in some ways. It is not 'progress' unfettered. This, also, evidence by the extant slavery giving us sound reason to reject universality of "no slaves = morally good".
As to women, you're just not playing the game. Women largely agree: males aren't women and shouldn't be regarded so and afforded the rights of women. C'est la vie??
Are you asking if Epstein and Trump have a sense of social morality?
Plato gives us a story related to your question.
[/quote]The Ring of Gyges /?d?a??d?i?z/ (Ancient Greek: ????? ?????????, Gúgou Daktúlios, Attic Greek pronunciation: [??y???o? dak?tylios]) is a hypothetical magic ring mentioned by the philosopher Plato in Book 2 of his Republic (2:359a2:360d).[1] It grants its owner the power to become invisible at will. Using the ring as an example, this section of the Republic considers whether a rational, intelligent person who has no need to fear negative consequences for committing an injustice would nevertheless act justly.[/quote] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Gyges
Gyges does terrible things when he is invisible, and we are led to believe he is getting away with it, but in the end, things go bad for Gyges, and that brings an end to his wrongdoing.
It is like smoking and global warming. We know we should not be driving or flying with harmful fuels, and we should not smoke, but we live in a state of denial and rationalize what we are doing so we can do it even though we know it is bad.
The Greeks argued about whether something is good because the gods say it is good, or bad if the gods say it is bad, or do the gods say something is good or bad because it is good or bad? What are the consequences? Logos, reason the controlling force of the universe. What is the cause and effect? I believe morals are a matter of cause and effect.
I don't think this is remotely true, for most people. Ignorance is the more likely culprit. But more than this, I think most people are negotiating with their future self/selves. Most morality isn't considering self-regarding anyway, but that aside, most people make decisions in a negotiation. Not many people are 100% principled and most of those people end up on the losing end of most things because they refuse to adapt. Hence 'negotiation' being a bit of a default.
Is it not more reasonable to say that bad comes in degrees, as does good. We can muck with the ratios.. but at some stage, everyone has a ratio they cannot stomach (killing one, for one other vs killing one for 10 others should illustrate what I mean).