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Object of the Objections...

In my previous post I pulled one nugget from an otherwise flawed defense of the idea of objective morality -- a worldly and empirical definition of morality. The easiest assault on a proposed definition is to find a counter-example, and I can't think of any. Perhaps critics can do better, but I doubt it.

In fact the critics of this project seem to focus on oddly quixotic targets. PZ Myers, no shrinking violet in defense of science, fixates on the moral atrocities committed by scientists in the name of science. I guess he thinks that this disproves the idea that morality could be empirical and therefore subject to science? I don't really get it. His argument could be "if morality is a subject of science, then everything scientists do must be moral, and it isn't, therefore not," but that makes no sense. It instead seems to be an emotional appeal that if we let science get into morality then -- slippery slope! -- daycare centers will be run by modern-day Dr Mengele.

Patricia Churchland (via B&W) makes the weirdly reductionist -- and weirdly common -- leap from moral concepts directly to evolutionary biology:

It did seem likely that Aristotle, Hume, and Darwin were right: we are social by nature. But what does that actually mean in terms of our brains and our genes? To make progress beyond the broad hunches about our nature, we need something solid to attach the claim to. [pp 2-3]

What is it about 'science' that makes otherwise rational people jump from observing social relations to the assumption they can be explained or understood by genetics and biology? Can we maybe stop at one of the many levels inbetween where explanation can make sense? Like sociology, or psychology, or game theory even? So many instead seem to have this obsession with the idea that if science is going to probe human questions it has to be by scanning people's brains. It shows a terrible misunderstanding of science, among other things.

(Harris has this same problem, to some extent, so the reaction could be partly to what he wrote. I don't want to defend Harris specifically, however, and each individual involved is responsible for what they wrote in any case.)

The stupid objections aside, what can be made of the reasonable objections?

The definition contains the term 'wellbeing' that some may argue is poorly defined. That's true, but the concept is nonetheless subject to scientific revision. The physical aspect of wellbeing is called 'health', but no one argues that medicine isn't an objective, scientific field. In fact our definition of health evolves with new scientific knowledge, and so can the idea of wellbeing.

Another complaint often raised is the challenge that scientific morality might gore one of your own scared cows. "What if studies showed that hitting children was actually good for them," they sneer. "Would you support it just because of that?" The answer is "yes". I have the courage of my convictions -- please test my long-held ideals and make sure they are actually good. If I learned that an activity I held dear was hurting people, or a sanction I felt strongly about was actually counter-productive, I would totally change my ideas, feelings and actions. Wouldn't everyone?

The question, however, is deeply ignorant of history. Corporal punishment has been the cultural norm for thousands of years. No lesser authority than the Bible demands that we beat our children lest they be "spoiled." What started to change the consensus, only recently and incompletely, was scientific research. In fact, if we study outcomes, we find that hitting kids reduces their long-term wellbeing. That's why corporal punishment is slowly and surely becoming morally unacceptable. That's how morals change.

This is the starkest frame that anyone can face. Is any one of us so committed to an ideology that we would reject a valid scientific result that shows that our moral values are hurting our children? Some may reject the study, others may reject the result, but no one can accept the result and persist in the behavior. That is the ultimate demonstration that what we call morality is -- in fact -- objective.

- jack*

Objective Moral Questions...

I was excited to read Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape. I'm sympathetic to the project, contra Hume, of seeking empirical grounding for moral stances. Sadly the book is really bad. Harris glosses glibly over philosophical objections that should be handled in depth, defends his arguments with bizarre contra-factuals and strawmen, and makes predictions for a future of scientific morality that manages only to perplex and repulse readers. This is all sad because this signature failure has undermined the project itself.

But he did do one thing really well: he formulated a tentative definition of morality, a non-circular definition related to measurable states in the world. Specifically what he proposed is that moral questions are those that relate to the wellbeing of conscious creatures. A conscious creature being in a state of greater or lesser wellbeing is independent of moral concepts like right or wrong, and yet Harris is tying these together. All things being equal, greater wellbeing on the part of conscious creatures is a better moral outcome than lesser wellbeing.

People who agree with Hume of course challenge this definition. Ophelia Benson (also linked above, because this was the thread that got me thinking about this again) takes a crack at it:

Morality is about taking externals into account – other people; animals; the ecosystem we all depend on. It rests on the awareness that the self is not all there is. It’s a corrective to pure selfishness.

Note the circularity. 'Selfishness' is a morally-loaded term, and doesn't really aid in understanding. So what we're left with is that moral decisions are those that affect others. But that's no good because that includes almost all decisions, and not all decisions are moral ones. What to get my wife for her birthday affects other people, but it is not a moral decision. Landon in the comments tries to help:

I took the point of your broad statement to mean something like “any decision that affects others necessarily involves a moral assessment, even if we determine that the moral impact is negligible.”

Again circular. How do you make the 'moral assessment' to determine the 'moral impact'?

But I really don't need to argue this point. Harris has offered a definition and has done some of the hard work (albeit imperfectly) in justifying it. The critics have a much easier job. If you think Harris is all wet, if you think his definition is bunk, all you have to do is find a counter-example. The proposal on the table is 'moral decisions are those that relate to the wellbeing of other conscious creatures.' (I'll stipulate Ophelia's "others".) One counter-example will demolish the proposal and send people like Harris and myself back to the drawing board.

A counter-example would be a decision that most people consider to be moral that doesn't relate to the wellbeing of other conscious creatures. Another would be a decision that relates to the wellbeing of other conscious creatures, but that most people would not consider a moral question.

One counter-example of either type is all that's needed. Just one. If Harris is as naive as they all claim it should be easy.

- jack*

UPDATE: more...