Evolutionary moral pragmatism

The difficulty of arguing for an objective morality is not necessarily an argument against the validity of such a pursuit, since moral anti-realism, in its different forms, is also difficult to argue for. Furthermore, there is a sense in which we feel quite strongly, more so than we do for our taste in music, say, that morality is objective, and that one can be wrong about it. This feeling is almost as strong as the conviction that the chair exists, despite there being no inarguable philosophical argument in its favour.

But it must be confessed that the nature of moral objectivity, if it is not just an illusion, is very different from the fact of Newton’s laws or of 2 and 2 equalling 4. I would instead argue for what I call an evolutionary moral pragmatism, which aims to render the metaethical question of objectivity and subjectivity irrelevant, and strives rather to find the objectively best morality under certain conditions and based on certain premisses which are taken to be reasonable and easily agreed upon, in the same way that the objectively best medical operation is one which most effectively cures the given ailment, regardless of one’s eccentric taste for a different kind of success.  There is nothing in medicine that can impel a doctor to undertake an operation correctly other than the possibility of losing his job, an outcome which medicine itself cannot render undesirable.

If humankind is looked upon merely as a species, subject just like any other to certain immutable natural laws, then it is quite clear that its intelligence places it in a category of one. If we define intelligence as being the ability to transcend our instincts, then we are probably the only animals that possess intelligence. For those animals without such intelligence, it is reasonable to assert that to write out a moral system that maximises their ability to survive would be comparatively easy. It would simply consist of taking into account their other instincts and their physical attributes, and then algorithmically working out an answer. We need not take any moral preconceptions into such an endeavour, because our aim is little more than the selfish aim of all genes. So it is possible to have a species in which the males randomly kill their young, so long as there are other factors which make this not a dominant feature of their lives; and this killing would still not be considered “bad”, because it does not seriously jeopardize survival. It is possible to have a species in which rape is commonplace, indeed in which consensual sex is nonexistent, and such species do happen to exist (for instance, bottlenose dolphins and diving beetles). Again, such rape would not be “bad”, because its effect on the species’ ability to survive is negligible. For a species without the ability to think outside of the inherited framework of moral instincts, we need only prescribe a strong set of instincts, and nothing more is required. For the sake of my argument, an act is “good” if it implicitly works towards the survival of the species involves, and “bad” if it does not.

So far, so uncontroversial. But the development of intelligence is clearly a complicating factor, and bars us from a simple algorithmic calculation of morality. With intelligence comes culture, where culture is understood to be the environment in which intelligent beings cohabitate, along with the concomitant social norms, ethical or otherwise. This environment necessarily must at some point create rules, whether implicit or explicit, regarding behaviour, since intelligence almost necessitates that someone will one day make a convincing argument for killing. These laws thus, in the first instance, attempt to guarantee against the society’s self-destructiveness. The destruction of a neighbouring tribe is of no concern unless it affects the first tribe’s chances of internal peace.

I noted that society’s rules that are appended onto our most basic instincts can be both implicit and explicit. The explicit rules are obvious: these are simply the law of the land. The implicit rules are effectively the society’s culture, and its system of understandings or norms. These are perhaps more difficult to fully understand, or at least to comprehend the full consequences thereof. But they are the most relevant here, since law has no necessary connection to morality, and morality, among intelligent beings, is the same thing as the system of norms.

What is the significance of these implicit rules? I started with the definition that the best morality is the one that best promotes the survival of the species (though cultural norms apply more to society than to the whole species). It is perhaps not obvious that implicit rules have anything of value to say about a society’s chances of survival. After all, this set of rules need not be so sophisticated if it is to merely guarantee survival—all it needs is to be intolerant of murder and other acts that are obviously detrimental to survival, and the survival is, it seems, as guaranteed as can be against all predictable disasters. This set of implicit rules need not have anything to say, for instance, about rape, since if it does not physically harm the victim it cannot affect survival.

But it is possible to argue that in an indirect sense, some acts having nothing to do with binary life and death actually do affect the society’s survival chances in the long term. To assess the survival effects of a particular act on a society, one needs to think about what the long term consequences of accepting or not accepting that act would be. This often requires considering the initial motivation behind the act. In a previous post, I discussed the question of rape, and concluded that, although varied, it is generally an expression of the libido. However, it is an unhealthy expression of the libido, unlike consensual sex and acts of sublimation, like the creation of great art, invention, and (possibly) the practice of philosophy. Given that it is an unhealthy expression of the libido, and thus results in fewer positively productive men, society as a whole will lose out. Society’s consequent stagnation will render it more vulnerable when faced with other, stronger societies.

The above might be seen as a sort of sociological plea for what is now a commonsensical view: that we should express our energies positively and foster a healthy attitude to sex. Another view that is generally accepted now (and possibly throughout history, though it didn’t seem to find much expression in the period between classical Athens and the seventeenth century), is that all individuals have the right to be free. Perhaps this is necessarily a modern idea, because it requires a certain maturity of statehood to revert to our natural state[1]. But the question of its inherent rightness is irrelevant, since we are only judging to be good those things that aid the survival of the species. It is quite clear, then, that freedom is better than bondage, and that more freedom is better than less. This works both politically and economically. A curbing of freedoms is likely to lead eventually to frustration, revolt, unrest, instability, and social weakness; whereas the granting of freedom allows the existence of an intellectually flexible society able both to change more easily and withstand pernicious ideas more efficiently. Greater freedom also creates faster-moving economies better able to generate wealth and thus stronger against outside forces that might work to destroy the society.

None of the above deals with the question of is and ought, but it does shift the parameters slightly. Perhaps one can never go from an is to an ought in a strictly logical sense, and ultimately one cannot invent an argument so rigorous that a would-be murderer would be convinced not to proceed. Samuel Johnson, in Adventurer #137, imagines a moralist who publishes a book giving such an argument. But “let us look again,” he says, “upon mankind: interest is still the ruling motive, and the world is yet full of fraud and corruption, malevolence and rapine”.

Nevertheless, as I mentioned at the beginning, one need only grant a few premisses to see that an objective morality is possible in principle—it is the one that is objectively best for the survival of humanity.

The argument can be expressed as follows:

(1).  Our deepest instincts are rooted in the survival of the species.

(2).  Intelligence in a species is potentially self-destructive, as it makes a “mathematically perfect” system of moral instincts impossible or near-impossible.

(3).  Societies evolve cultures which foster certain understandings and instincts with the (implicit) aim of countering the potentially self-destructive consequences of intelligence.

(a).  A “negative” culture is one whose culture implicitly promotes little more than the society’s survival.

(b). A “positive” culture is one which seeks implicitly to thrive. These are more inured than negative ones against potentially damaging factors.

(4).  The survival of humanity is a thing to be desired, at least from humanity’s point of view.

(5).  It follows that we should, as far as is reasonably possible, foster a positive culture in which those instincts that promote society’s thriving and survival are vigorously encouraged.

The above argument is certainly not watertight. It does not prove that the survival of society is a thing to be desired, and the argument does not really work without it. Nor does it go to great lengths to show that a “positive” culture really is better than a “negative” one at surviving damaging influences. But it may provide a basis for a potential objective morality.