About Rationally Speaking


Rationally Speaking is a blog maintained by Prof. Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher at the City University of New York. The blog reflects the Enlightenment figure Marquis de Condorcet's idea of what a public intellectual (yes, we know, that's such a bad word) ought to be: someone who devotes himself to "the tracking down of prejudices in the hiding places where priests, the schools, the government, and all long-established institutions had gathered and protected them." You're welcome. Please notice that the contents of this blog can be reprinted under the standard Creative Commons license.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Science, morality, and genital mutilation

by Massimo Pigliucci

As readers of Rationally Speaking know, recently Michael Shermer and I have had a friendly debate over the role of science in answering moral questions. I commented on an initial article by Michael, invited him to respond on these pages, and provided a point-by-point commentary on his response. We then both appeared at the 2013 Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism, where Julia Galef moderated a spirited but, I think, informative discussion between Michael and me on the same topic.

A couple of days ago, Michael tweeted the link to the podcast episode, with these two comments:

Can science tell us what is ‘moral’? Shermer (yes) v. Pigliucci (no, not sure, don’t know, maybe, depends, doubtful)

and:

Is female genital mutilation wrong? Shermer (yes) v. Pigliucci (depends, sometimes, in some cultures yes in others no)

I was a bit surprised by this, as well as taken aback. Surprised because I thought I made very clear, during the live discussion, that I do think female genital mutilation is wrong, and gave my reasons for it. Taken aback because, frankly, tens of thousands of people may now think that I am a moral relativist (including my 16 years old daughter!), which I am most definitely not, and that I have no principled objection to female genital mutilation, which I definitely do.

After an email exchange with Michael, we both agree that I would publish this post to rectify the record, and that he would tweet it to his followers, with the same aim. Below you will find three items: first, a transcript of the bits of the podcast where I explain my position on female genital mutilation; second, a transcript of the bits of the podcast where I explain my position on the relationship between science and philosophy when it comes to ethical issues; third, a question that Michael sent me directly, asking me to include it in this post, and my response.

I want to thank Michael for yet another example of how to conduct civil and productive discourse in the skeptic community. We will continue to disagree, but hopefully our thoughts will stimulate discussion and understanding.

1. On female genital mutilation

@15:20 [Michael] So Massimo, back to my opening example. Would you say that in some cultures female genital mutilation is morally acceptable? You think it’s ok.
[Massimo] No, I don’t.
[Michael] Why? On what basis?
[Massimo] I don’t because I don’t think it is ethical to force especially a child, especially somebody who cannot actually object to it, to undergo pain for arbitrary reasons that are not useful to the person. It’s okay to undergo pain for reasons that are not arbitrary and are good for you. Like, you know, if you have to have an operation to get a tumor out of the way, well that’s going to cause you pain. And if I have to do it on a child, even without her consent, I think that’s ethically acceptable. But in [the other] case I don’t. Now, this was the short story, then we can get into a more complex discussion because in fact the choice of the child, the welfare of the child, is not just as simple as a question of, as a matter of, pain or not pain. There is also the societal context, because as it turns out if you don’t do it the children will suffer because they live in a certain society. Now I still think that doesn’t outweigh the idea that genital mutilation is wrong, so I still think it should be objected to.

@18:19 [Michael] I think we can do better than what you just said about female genital mutilation. I think we can do better than that. Than just say well, you know, in Western democratic cultures it’s wrong, but for those other cultures...
[Massimo] That is not at all what I said. I said that it is wrong, period.
[Michael] How do you know that it’s wrong period?
[Massimo} I think I explained that I think it’s wrong to impose pain for arbitrary reasons. And those are arbitrary reasons, as I said, as opposed to I’m going to cure you of a tumor.
[Michael] What are you basing that on?
[Massimo] That’s not based on any empirical evidence whatsoever, because what empirical evidence would that be, that people don’t want to feel pain and want to feel pleasure? If that were all the basis to our morality we could just hook ourselves to a drug machine for the rest of our lives. we would be very happy and not in pain. And yet most of us don’t think that’s a reasonable thing to do. Why not?

2. On the relationship between science and philosophy as it pertains to ethics

@19:54 [Massimo] By the way, I should, again, just in case there is some doubt, I should reiterate that I don’t think science is irrelevant. In fact, no moral philosopher thinks science is irrelevant, or [that] empirical evidence is irrelevant to these discussions. It’s a question of how do we balance things out.

@23:09 [Michael] Why not add [science]? It’s a great tool.
[Massimo] But who is arguing against adding it?
[Michael] You seem to be.
[Massimo] No, I don’t think so. We need to be careful about making this distinction. Again, I don’t think any reasonable moral philosopher would object to importing empirical evidence, empirical issues, into discussions of morality. The question is how much does that empirical information weigh.

@23:53 [Massimo] As I said during my talk before this discussion here, the major distinction, or a major distinction, between science and philosophy, and the reason I do think that they really do need to both work together on these and other issues, is that science deals with the empirical world, and philosophy tends to deal with logical possibilities. ... Logical possibilities are much broader than empirical possibilities, which is another way to rephrase Julia’s question a minute ago. Which is science constantly will underdetermine, the empirical information, will constantly underdetermine our ethical problems, because our ethical problems are a question of conflicts of values. We need to explain to ourselves and to others why is it that certain things need to take priority over others. The empirical information is relevant, but it doesn’t determine a unique answer.

3. Michael’s question and my response

Massimo, you and I agree that Female Genital Mutilation is morally wrong, but can you say that it is absolutely, objectively wrong? That is, can you do more than say you personally think it is wrong but you acknowledge that other people in different cultures than ours think it is acceptable, and that being the case you cannot condemn their actions against women as immoral? The point I was trying to make in my lecture and in our discussion is that I go so far as to say that there is no moral universe (culture, worldview, etc.) in which FGM is not immoral, based on the fundamental moral principle of not harming individuals. I argue that the individual is the fundamental moral agent because the individual is the primary target of natural selection, and thus it is in our nature to survive and flourish, and so actions that permanently rob us of our nature are immoral. Thus, I can deduce that permanently mutilating women robs them of their right to flourish as fully human individuals. Likewise, banning gays from getting married is immoral (and, conversely, gay marriage is moral) because it robs these individuals of their right to survive and flourish according to their nature. You apparently reject my argument for this basis of morality. You and I agree on these two issues (FGM is immoral, gay marriage is moral), but I think our disagreement is in WHY. I claim that FGM is absolutely and objectively morally wrong, and that we can defend this position in a solid scientific argument. You apparently disagree with this. If so, can you explain WHY you think FGM is wrong?

Michael, let me unpack your claim, before I explain (again) my position on female genital mutilation, gay marriage and the like. Your argument seems to be:

1. The individual is the primary target of natural selection.
2. (1) Makes the individual the fundamental moral agent.
3. Natural selection favors human survival and flourishing.
4. From (3), human nature demands the survival and flourishing of the individual.
5. Anything that violates (4) is immoral.
6. FGM (or the prohibition against gay marriage, or other things) violates (4).
7. Therefore, (from 2, 5 and 6) FGM is morally wrong.

Premise (1) can be questioned. Indeed, it is a well known problem for individual-based selection theories to explain the evolution of altruism and of moral sentiments more generally. Some sort of group selection seems necessary, though I don’t have a definitive position on that. Still, I will let this premise stand for the sake of argument.

To derive (2) from (1) is a non sequitur. Since natural selection has targeted every individual of every other species, and yet the category “moral” seems to apply only to human beings (and perhaps a few other species), something is clearly missing in your account. I suggest that what is missing is the evolution of a brain capable of self-reflection, as well as the entire phenomenon of cultural evolution. Those are crucial conditions that have to occur in order to be able to talk about morality. Nonetheless, let’s proceed as if.

(3) is clearly wrong: natural selection promotes the survival and reproduction of individuals, the concept of flourishing doesn’t enter into it. (Notice that already at this point your argument has crumbled, since all one has to show is that one or more of the premises is untenable. But let’s continue.)

(4) would indeed logically follow from (3), except for the fact that (3) itself is not true.

(5) is a stipulation for which you give no argument. I may agree, but then again it is easy to come  up with counter examples: when we punish a member of society for wrong doing we usually deprive him of his ability to flourish (and sometimes to survive, via the death penalty). But surely you will agree that that is morally permissible. Except that to justify punishment for moral wrong doing we need to explain why we allow exceptions to (5). This would quickly lead us to a philosophical discussion of rights, justice, etc.

(6) is a stipulation, with which I agree. But not for the reason you give, since in your case it is based on (4), which in turn relies on (3), and I reject the latter. (See below for my positive reasons.)

Given all the above, your conclusion (7) does not follow logically from your premises.

And yet, as you noted, we do agree that FGM is wrong, so I need to explain why by way of a different account from your own.

To begin with, the way you asked the question seems to me to lead to a false dichotomy: either one thinks that FGM is “absolutely, objectively wrong,” or one is a moral relativist. But the options afforded by moral philosophy are much broader than that. Once again, I am not a moral relativist. But you seem to be a strong moral realist (“absolutely, objectively”), which is a very untenable position (ironically, it puts you in the company of Kant — though for different reasons from his own — and that should make you feel uncomfortable).

My position is that morality in the modern sense is the result of a process of evolution favoring pro-social behavior (not “flourishing”), which we can trace to other species of primates, followed by millennia of self-reflection and discussion among human beings (i.e., cultural evolution, which doesn’t enter into your scenario at all). As such, I think moral precepts are contingently (as opposed to absolutely) and non-arbitrarily (as opposed to “objectively”) true. Neither of those two qualifiers comes even close to moral relativism. The contingency arises from the fact that morality makes sense only for certain types of intelligent, conscious, social animals, like us. If we were a radically different type of organism we may have developed different moral norms, or perhaps no morality at all. Non-arbitrariness separates morality from, say, rules of etiquette. But ethics is often an issue of balancing contrasting rights and alternative norms of behavior, so that there may be more than one reasonable way to address a particular moral problem, and none of the reasonable alternatives may be objectively better than another one.

Let me give you a simple example before we finally turn to FGM. Consider Michael Sandel’s discussion of the recent practice of lobbyists in Congress to pay homeless or poor people to secure a place for them for a particular hearing in which they are interested (while presumably they have lunch at an expensive restaurant nearby). Some people consider the practice wrong, because it bypasses the standard system of queuing, which allows interested citizens (not just lobbyists) to attend congressional hearings. The idea is that buying a place in a queue goes counter to the egalitarian purpose of the queue, limits access to the democratic process by ordinary citizens, and undermines the integrity of the institution of Congress. Others, however, argue that the practice of queue-buying is justified because it deploys a market approach to the problem of limited seating (if you really want to go there, you show that by how much you are willing to pay), and it has the positive side effect of giving money to the poor or homeless.

Which view is absolutely, objectively right? Empirical evidence here simply doesn’t enter into it, since everyone agrees on the relevant facts (which, needless to say, are not “scientific” facts, but mundane, everyday observational facts). The way a moral philosopher would go about it (read Sandel’s chapter, it’s illuminating) is by unpacking the premises of the contrasting positions, exploring what they logically entail, thereby clarifying the problem. But at some point we need to decide what we value more: equal access by citizens to government, efficiency of the system, collateral benefits (such as money for the homeless), or what? There are plenty of wrong answers, but not necessarily a clear (absolute, objective) winner, and the empirical evidence — though relevant — underdetermines the problem.

And now back to female genital mutilation. As I said in the podcast (see transcripts above) I think it is wrong because I subscribe to a broader moral principle: that it is wrong to impose pain on others, particularly if unable to object, for arbitrary reasons. From the broader principle I derive my specific objection to FGM, since the reasons advanced by its supporters are indeed arbitrary. The qualification that followed during the podcast, and which may have engendered your confusion about my position, is that even though FGM is wrong, there are a number of consequences for girls who do not undergo the procedure when they enter the adult population, since they will be shunned by men in their own society. This sort of consequence very much affects the ability of those women to flourish, don’t you think? Still, I remain convinced that, on balance, and despite the risk of not being able to marry and have a family, FGM is wrong and needs to be condemned. In other words, I think those societies — and especially their male members — should revise their moral system. But this isn’t the result of any calculus about the women’s overall degree of flourishing, it’s the result of ethical reflection that leads me to condemn the practice despite the fact that women who do not undergo it, in those societies, will very likely have lower flourishing than they would otherwise.

Now, you can ask me where the broader principle that causing pain for arbitrary reasons to non-consenting human beings comes from. There we agree that by nature human beings recoil from pain and suffering, so that other things being equal this should be avoided. But I frame this within the context of my preferred moral framework, virtue ethics, not on an evolutionary account (because natural selection doesn’t favor flourishing — Aristotle himself was big on human nature, obviously without any input from evolutionary theory). Notice, of course, that there are plenty of other things we could ascribe to human nature (e.g., violence, xenophobia) which I think are wrong on ethical grounds, but which you would have a hard time criticizing (since they did evolve, possibly by natural selection).

[I should add, to hopefully prevent further misinterpretation, that we hardly need “science” to give us the basic outline of human nature, just like we don’t need, say, an fMRI scan to tell us that a girl undergoing genital mutilation is in pain. That said, in some cases we may want actual science, especially psychology, to come to the table with empirically relevant input.]

Finally, FGM is a bad example for our discussion, since we both agree that it is wrong, though we arrive at that conclusion very differently. Much more informative would be to debate cases where we disagree on the ethical judgment itself (perhaps the queue-buying one mentioned above?). That would be more revealing of our differences, but I guess we’ll have to leave it for another time.

112 comments:

  1. >I argue that the individual is the fundamental moral agent because the individual is the primary target of natural selection...

    Aieee, what gobbledigook!

    Nobody tell him about Dawkins-style gene level selection, or he'll start gibbering about amino acids being the fundamental moral agents.

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  2. It's detailed, precise, studied, careful, rounded philosophy like this - and the bull-headed rejection of all of philosophy as a discipline by people like Shermer and others within the Skeptic community - that I've now shed myself of that self-identifier, despite sharing most of the goals, aspirations and even beliefs of the organised sceptical movement.

    It's astonishing to me how little many even high-profile Skeptics engage with the centuries of careful philosophical thought on what they profess to care most about. Fora like the JREF are awash with posters proud of rejecting all of philosophy in its entirety, even whilst professing "scepticism".

    If people like Shermer (and Harris for that matter) engaged with philosophy of all stripes more closely, I think the whole communtiy would be the stronger for it. It's great to see people like PZ Myers and Steven Novella actually willing either to do the philosophical work themselves, or at least defer to experts - but they're quite rare examples, it seems to me.

    This post, and the podcast itself have been utterly enlightening - it's jaw-dropping just how unsophisticated, sloppy and ill-considered the thinking of even these bastions of scpetical thought is. Shermer has been writing and speaking and thinking about these issues for a very long time indeed, but he comes across like a first-year undergraduate and Massimo is able to leave nothing but rubble of his arguments. It's a shame, because ultimately we're all on the same side - but really, scepticism needs some better champions, I think.

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    1. >Fora like the JREF are awash with posters proud of rejecting all of philosophy in its entirety, even whilst professing "scepticism".

      Part of the reason for that is that readers who know better, such as yourself, end up leaving the conversation.

      This generalizes to a lot of causes. Where are all the nuanced atheists? Well, one place they are *not* is spending 5 hours a day patiently arguing with trolls on r/atheism. They have moved on.

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    2. Yep. I just got exhausted and frustrated, particularly on issues more philosophically complex than the issues Shermer and Pigliucci have wrestled with here (animal rights, for example). It's impossible to have a philosophically-sophisticated discussion or even a debate with opponents who refuse to even accept they're doing philosophy.

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    3. Matthew, we seem to share the same disillusion as well as reached the same conclusions. What I still can't understand, (on top of the attacks on Massimo Pigliucci's arguments), is how it is possible for Sam Harris to hold a degree in philosophy from Stanford and the ideas he professes.

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    4. Well said, Matthew. Yes, "Skeptic" is at risk of coming to mean little more than "self-promoting science ideologue, or follower thereof." Regarding the anti-philosophy aspect of the "Skeptic movement," I think it risks killing the movement in its current form. The reason is that the skeptical people who the attitude excludes (alienates) are generally a lot smarter about science and critical thinking than the people it includes. "Skeptic" will come to mean "dim-witted science fanatic who is always losing arguments." Who wants to be part of that? ;)

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    5. Agreed with commenters above. So-called "scientific skeptics" could, at the least, take a course in informal logic. They could also stand an overview of philosophy class, especially about skepticism the school of philosophical thought.

      Above all, it's mind-boggling indeed that Harris has a philosophy degree. Stanford must offer them for free at the bottom of the last webpage of their encyclopedia of philosophy.

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    6. Your thoughts echo mine Mathew.

      "Massimo is able to leave nothing but rubble of his arguments."

      I used to play chess and participate in tournaments. I never made grandmaster status, I wanted to have a life, but I did ok. At our local chess club we'd get new kids in and the unspoken rule was that you never go easy on someone who is just learning to play. You should always "go for the throat" and kill them off quickly and painlessly.

      In fact it was considered bad form to throw a game, even against a very young opponent. It harms them. They learn bad habits that way. You do them no favor by mollycoddling young players.

      I am just a lay person but I imagine that philosophy is a lot like chess. It's a blood sport where logic sets the rules and you do your worthy opponent no favors by pulling your punches. I don't know, maybe I have a romantic notion of things but that is how I look at it for the time being.

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    7. There's a critical difference between philosophy and chess: in chess, it's absolutely clear whether you win or lose. The rookie who gets trounced by the expert quickly realizes that he needs to rethink his game and has a lot to learn.

      That's not all the case in philosophy: whether or not Massimo actually reduced Shermer's arguments to rubble, chances are that *Shermer* doesn't see it that way, so he hasn't learned anything. A philosophical rookie simply isn't going to understand a subtle and sophisticated argument offered by a philosophical expert. Nor should we expect the rookie to understand such an argument - after all, a big part of what one learns in philosophy is how to appreciate subtler arguments that one didn't grasp before.

      For that reason, I think it's a mistake to think of philosophy as analogous to an adversarial game or sport. With that mindset, the interlocutors become more interested in "winning" the game and less interested in learning from one another.

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    8. But... isn't having an adversary important? In science you need others competing against one another in order to reach the truth. In the law we have an adversarial system that presumably helps to determine guilt. In athletics competition is how you decide who is the superior athlete. Competition for first chair in an orchestra is *brutal*. I had a friend who destroyed the tendons in her hands trying to reach the top and become first violin.

      Co-operation is absolutely important too of course but you need competition within accepted bounds in order to "get things done". I don't want to minimize other things but without an "adversary" would people ever do anything? I don't think they would and I believe that would be bad in the long run.

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    9. "This generalizes to a lot of causes. Where are all the nuanced atheists? Well, one place they are *not* is spending 5 hours a day patiently arguing with trolls on r/atheism. They have moved on."

      "Yep. I just got exhausted and frustrated, particularly on issues more philosophically complex than the issues Shermer and Pigliucci have wrestled with here (animal rights, for example). It's impossible to have a philosophically-sophisticated discussion or even a debate with opponents who refuse to even accept they're doing philosophy."

      This. I know that feel. LOL

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    10. Brenda, you're right that it's important for there to be disagreements and criticism within philosophy. If your position has any weaknesses, you want a sharp critic to point them out.

      My point was simply about the attitude or motivation one brings to doing philosophy. If your goal is simply to "win" the debate by smashing your opponent's arguments to smithereens, then the "pull no punches" approach makes perfect sense. But if you actually want to *convince* your opponent that he's wrong, you have to be willing to meet him halfway. You have to take a while to find common ground. You have to grant premises that you might not otherwise accept in order to point out more basic mistakes. It requires you to be very patient with your opponent (unlike competitions between lawyers or violinists, who have no need to be patient with their opponents).

      Ultimately, you are still trying to show your opponent that he's wrong, so I suppose you could call him an "adversary" if you want. But this seems like an odd characterization of what's going on. Imagine, for example, that your friend believes he ought to commit suicide, and you are trying to convince him that he shouldn't. In a sense, this is a philosophical disagreement (about what your friend ought to do), but it would be weird to view your friend as a "philosophical adversary" whose position you are simply concerned with refuting. A better description is that you're trying to *help* your friend.

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    11. I know it’s late to come back on this, but I’ve only just read this thread, I hope someone out there is still listening…
      I feel that the ‘killer chess’ analogy gets to the heart of many of the aspects of sceptical discussions that worry me. I understand that there are related political fights going on out there – especially in the Us in relation to religion – where it’s no hold barred and devil take the hindmost. Still, I understand scepticism to be founded on rational discourse. That means that we need to do more the ‘win’ and argument; we need first to increase our own understandings, and then to persuade others of them.

      It seems to me that there ar (at least) two modes of argument; that of the systematic, careful reasoner, such as a good philosopher or scientist, and that of the demagogue, the blowhard politician. It’s the latter who aims to win at all cost, even at the expense of rationality or coherence. The former needs to take a different approach.
      I think that the principle of charity is central to this point “In philosophy and rhetoric, the principle of charity requires interpreting a speaker's statements to be rational and, in the case of any argument, considering its best, strongest possible interpretation.”
      Despite the name, this is nothing to do with religion or Christian love, and everything to do with what makes for good, valid arguments. At it’s simplest, it’s pragmatically wise to attack the strongest possible interpretation of you antagonist’s arguments so that you can be sure that you have really defeated that argument, and not just a distorted, weakened straw-man version of it, which would be a hollow victory, and leave you position wide open to being defeated by anyone who uses the ‘real-deal’ strong version. The demagogue politician doesn’t care about this, they just want to appear to win, now, in the short term, however dishonest and fragile the means.

      Of course, some people just treat these debates as a form of blood-sport,; they are just in it for the thrill of the chase. I’d say that skepticism can do without friends like that.

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  3. Wow, can we say "straw man," in addition to Ian's "gobbledigook"?

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    1. Yes, we can. But do you think it was me or Michael to engage in a straw man?

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    2. Oh, Shermer's, not yours! Sorry that wasn't clear. I thought that I had commented here enough, especially re Shermer, scientism, and related issues, you'd know whom I was pegging as having articulated a straw man.

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  4. So one critical comment here... the image accompanying this post is pretty horrible. Could we perhaps change it?

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    1. Agreed, I had doubts myself. Changed it.

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    2. Ian, be glad you weren't present at Shermer's NECSS talk which contained several similar images, including one so graphic I can only guess it was included to shock and disgust the viewer. I'm surprised Shermer resorted to these tactics, especially facing a group of skeptics who might interpret such a baldly emotional appeal as a red flag. Did he think his audience really didn't know what FGM consisted of, or did he not trust his own arguments and think they needed "bolstering" in such a crude way?

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  5. "I argue that the individual is the fundamental moral agent because ..." (Michael Shermer)

    Ayn Rand!

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  6. Massimo, I'm intrigued by your suggestion - on Shermer's point 1 - that individual-based selection theories cannot (fully) account for human altruism. Can you provide some sources for that? I was recently reading an essay by Stephen Pinker that defends the gene-centric view of evolution. I'm curious to read what the other side says about the limits to the Hamilton-Dawkins-Dennett view, particularly with respect to altruism.

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  7. This is a matter on which I have been personally involved through work with the UN in the Horn of Africa. Horrifying thing, really, practiced by both Muslims and (Coptic or Orthodox) Christians in places such as Eritrea or Ethiopia.

    Just two comments, not that I have any definite position on this but just because I am intrigued about Massimo's argument to brand that practice as immoral:

    1. FGM, it seems to me, is not an "arbitrary" institution. It is just a more awful manifestation of a more universal tendency to ensure exclusive sexual access to females, a tendency manifested for instance in jealousy, adultery laws, males fighting over females and fending off other males, chastity belts in the Middle Ages, burkas and other "modest" female dress styles, and so on and on. One may certainly oppose FGM, nay be horrified by it, but one cannot simply say it is "arbitrary". It is at least no more arbitrary than male jealousy and other manifestations of male demand for exclusive sexual access. It is obviously linked to paternity certainty, which in turn is an evolutionarily logical incentive for male parental investment. To have your girls properly mutilated before puberty is a way of reassuring your prospective son-in-law (and his family) that your girl is intact and virtuous, and would not have any unbecoming urge to seek other males. Are such reasons "arbitrary"? Why so?

    2. Suppose FGM were not practiced in the way it is normally practiced in the Horn of Africa, with rusty knives and no hygiene, but on a more "civilized" way: anesthetics, modern surgical procedures and protocols, spotless operating room, a doctor in charge, and so on. The patient would suffer no pain at all. All the best medical care in the world would be applied. That would certainly cause no "pain". In the absence of "pain", would such surgical procedure violate Massimo's fundamental principle (not causing gratuitous pain to children)?

    Allow me an extra one, say 3. Would those principles (infliction of pain and arbitrariness) be applicable to reject as immoral the ritual circumcision of male infants, especially if practiced in the traditional way by a rabbi? I reckon there is pain involved, and the practice seems not necessarily less arbitrary than FGM.

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    1. Hector, when Massimo says "arbitrary," I doubt he means that people do it just willy-nilly. By "arbitrary," he probably means that the action isn't justified by any *good* reasons. Of course, the people who practice FGM most likely *think* that they have good reasons for doing what they do, but my guess is that Massimo thinks it's possible to be mistaken about whether you have good reason to do something or not. (Note: I'm not endorsing this meta-ethical view, but it seems to me that Massimo has to say something along these lines to address your point.)

      Regarding your second point, I'm guessing that Massimo thinks FGM counts as harming somebody not simply because it can be painful, but also because it robs someone of valuable potential experiences. This isn't necessarily true of painless male circumcision, which, as far as I know, doesn't alter one's capacity for sexual pleasure nearly as much as FGM does. That being said, I think you're correct in saying that Massimo is committed to *painful* circumcisions being immoral.

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  8. Why do you get into specifics like FGM? What about any genital mutilations in general? Is male cicrcumcision just as immoral as female?

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    1. No because male circumcision has utility in promoting hygiene.

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    2. This has consistently been proven to be false (it aids the propagation of some STDs as much as it curbs the prevalence of others). It actually specifically counter-promotes hygiene, actually (since proper hygiene (and sex education) nullifies the slightly increased likelihood of contracting diseases.

      By the logic of circumcision, we could eradicate nearly all male STDs by lopping off their genitals entirely!

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    3. Circumcision is safe, causes no harm and contrary to your claims does promote general hygiene against the transmission of STDs like HIV. It is a cultural practice not unlike ritual scarification, tattoos or piercings and probably safer than those. Quite unlike FGM which is not safe and causes permanent harm and sexual impairment.

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    4. It absolutely causes harm (it's flatly ridiculous to suggest otherwise) and studies have indicated long-term effects from the mutilation. I'm not sure you understand what the word "promote" means, if you are advocating for a practice whose sole basis is "if people don't clean regularly, not having a chunk of their skin lopped off could cause issues if they aren't taught safe sex". Ritual scarification and tattoos done upon children unable to consent to barbarism doesn't elevate it to sensibility status because you can parallel it. The only reason FGM is "less safe" is because it is not widely accepted and streamlined by first world countries, otherwise it would be as openly espoused and seamless a procedure.

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    5. http://www.doctorsopposingcircumcision.org/DOC/statement06.html
      http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/moral-landscapes/201109/myths-about-circumcision-you-likely-believe

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  9. Massimo forgive my stupidity but I've been very confused about one thing about your moral take for a while. That is, I believe I understand it but I don't know how to categorise it, reading the definitions of moral realism and moral relativism on wikipedia or other sites I seem to think your view falls into both, or at least the weaker types of relativism.

    That said I just bought your book so I may be enlightened soon. But perhaps a comment would help others.

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    1. I wouldn't mind clarification (or a link to a relevant post I may have forgotten), either Massimo, as this is getting into metaethics. Your view seems to share some things in common with Scanlon's "What Do We Owe to Each Other", to my mind. Is that just me?

      Do you think the question of semantics (i.e. "What do moral statements mean?") is the wrong thing to ask? If it is not, then how do you get to moral realism? I can't see a way to answer that question other than Joshua Greene does in his dissertation (soon - I hope! - to be out as "The Moral Brain", I think), that there are no true moral statements but that (I'm vastly simplifying) because of our moral psychology, we don't need to appeal to the truth of morality for it to be useful to us.

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  10. It seems Michael Shermer is skeptical of the need to listen to those speaking to him. It's almost as if he was hearing some other voice speaking to him--from beyond?--and was responding to it, not you.

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  11. There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding going on; apparently Shermer was trapped in a false dichotomy. Hope he now found the way out. Of course morals are very much about values. Rationality can only inform us what is logically true or false, not what is desirable. Science can only inform us what is empirically true or false, not what is desirable.

    However.

    Premise (1) can be questioned. Indeed, it is a well known problem for individual-based selection theories to explain the evolution of altruism and of moral sentiments more generally. Some sort of group selection seems necessary, though I don’t have a definitive position on that.

    I am not an evolutionary biologist in the narrowest sense but my understanding is that group selection has been shown to be quite simply impossible. It seems much more sensible to assume that individual selection for "tit-for-tat until the partner starts to cheat" was the way things started; that behaviour would be beneficial but avoid the problem of freeloading. Anyway, the idea that morality ought to be about individual flourishing because the individual is the target of selection sounds about as logical as "the sky is blue, therefore you need to give me chocolate". Where did that ought come from?

    everyone agrees on the relevant facts (which, needless to say, are not “scientific” facts, but mundane, everyday observational facts)

    I think it would be hard to find a defensible way of defining scientific facts that reliably exclude everyday observational facts. Biologists are using everyday observational facts all the time, and in what sense is the gamma ray burst of a distant star suddenly not mundane and everyday just because we need an instrument to see it?

    Again you seem to want to box science into an artificially narrow circumscription which would exclude many things that undeniably are part of science. The thing is, for the purposes of this discussion you don't even need to do that.

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  12. I think female genital mutilation is a terrible example for discussions like these on a number of counts. First of all, it's a bad example because it's unclear what it means to say that female genital mutilation "is wrong." We hear that phrase ("is wrong") used most often in reference to wrongs committed by single individuals in a more-or-less autonomous way. ("You shouldn't steal candy. Stealing is wrong.") But "female genital mutilation" doesn't necessarily refer to an individual act; it (more often, I think) refers to a complex, self-sustaining set of institutional practices. So when we say "female genital mutilation is wrong," it sounds as if we're saying "people shouldn't commit individual acts of female genital mutilation," but we might instead be saying "the institution of female genital mutilation should not exist." These are hugely different claims, and one could plausibly believe one without believing the other, or feel more strongly about one than the other, for any number of complex and sophisticated reasons that are quite unrelated to the question at hand.

    Second, it's a bad example for discussions like these because, as Massimo now knows from experience, it means that participants in the discussion who are committed to intellectual honesty risk being cast as defenders of female genital mutilation.

    And third, I think it's problematic because it threatens to trivialize a practice that leads to an extraordinary amount of real suffering in the world by turning it into a kind of philosophical football.

    As a deep believer in freedom of intellectual expression, I'm not accustomed to making claims like that last one, but in this case I really think it's justified. I simply don't see the purpose of using female genital mutilation as an example in this discussion, apart from the intellectually dishonest purpose of making moral anti-realists feel uncomfortable defending their claims. It's just as easy -- no, much easier! -- to seriously discuss the merits and demerits of moral realism or anti-realism using a less emotionally charged example.

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  13. I can sort of see where Michael's confusion comes from.

    You're talking about is-ought problem, Eurythropo's Dilemma etc. and this would mean that if you studied nature, no such thing as morality would be found, except as ideas inside human brains. So when you're talking about the is-ought problem, you're talking from outside morality. You're are looking at morality from outside.

    Then you without explicitly stating what you're doing, change the place from which you're are looking at morality. You go inside your morality and find that female genital mutation is wrong. Michael is still looking at it from outside morality, and what you're saying is nonsense to him since he's looking at it from outside. For him, there is no way to understand what you're saying unless what you're saying is according to you, according to your sense of morality, female genital mutation is wrong. From there, there's no way to say that if someone else believes genital mutation is morally right he's wrong.

    I think it would've helped if you simply said "I hold that it is self-evidently true that it is wrong to cause pain to other people", and build from there. After all, that's what we're all doing. That's what even Shermer's doing.

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    1. >You're talking about is-ought problem, Eurythropo's Dilemma etc. and this would mean that if you studied nature, no such thing as morality would be found, except as ideas inside human brains. So when you're talking about the is-ought problem, you're talking from outside morality. You're are looking at morality from outside.

      But this is necessary if you are planning on actually *doing morality* (as distinct from doing moral psychology). Just because morality "only exists in human brains" doesn't mean studying brains is a good way to study morality.

      Imagine if a mathematician tried to derive a theorem from brain scans of people doing math.

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    2. I think Massimo pointed out that it isn't "self-evidently true" that causing pain IS wrong by giving the example of causing pain to remove a tumor.

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    3. @ianpollock

      Didn't say it isn't necessary. I just think that if you're talking talking about morality from the outside, then suddenly move inside morality and claim something is wrong, you should explain what you did. The truth is, there's no logical way to come into morality from outside morality. You'd think murder is wrong, only if it is self-evident to you that it is the case.

      So you talk about is-ought problem and then you explicitly state, regardless of that it is self-evident to me that murder for fun is wrong. I cannot come to this through argument from the place we were (from outside morality). I just leaped into my own morality.

      @Sarah

      In the case you mentioned, the net effect is not pain (and by pain I mean everything that's bad, like sorrow, fear etc. It's self-evident to me that they are bad, and to you too, unless you're a psychopath).

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  14. Shermer posted on Twitter: "Is blowing up innocent runners in the Boston Marathon wrong? I say it is. Absolutely, objectively morally wrong. Does anyone disagree?"

    Pigliucci can explain to him as slowly and as patiently and in as nuanced a fashion as possible why "absolute" and "objective" are untenable positions, but it's quite clear at this point he's not even interested in listening.

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    1. One should not take "absolute" and "objective" in this sentence to be seriously asserting any proposition about meta-ethics anyway. Pure, empty signalling.

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  15. Scott,
    I am in general a supporter of the methodological precept of first discussing a hypothesis on simple cases, or cases where no big emotional issue is at play, and then generalize to similar cases where our gut feelings may have interfered with our reason if we addressed them first.
    However, you are saying something more than that. You say that evaluation of a moral statement (X is wrong) should be only predicated of individual acts, not of socially institutionalized rules. 'But "female genital mutilation" --you write-- doesn't necessarily refer to an individual act; it (more often, I think) refers to a complex, self-sustaining set of institutional practices'. So what?
    It is indeed easier to say 'Given that the rule "X is wrong" (or right) is in place, then any individual act X is wrong' (or right). This is pure cultural relativism. I say 'is in place' because we could not say 'is socially regarded as right or wrong': to presume the rule is right cannot be done without begging the question. The rule is socially or culturally in place, and is therefore followed by most individuals. In some cases, individuals would be regarded (in that society or culture) as morally wrong if they do otherwise. People in other societies may differ, because in their cultures the relevant rule is different, or perhaps they have devised a theory according to which X is wrong (or right).
    So the question of deciding whether X 'is' wrong in general terms should include the case of rules that are adopted and enforced and believed to be right or wrong in a given society. It should include the case of individuals acting in conformity, deviance, or rebellion relative to prevailing rules. The interesting case here is that of individuals performing an act that is right in their culture but regarded as wrong from the analyst's point of view.
    This is not to say that such judgment is necessarily culturally relativist, or that there is no basis to say whether FGM is wrong in some general sense. There might be such basis, and we are now considering Massimo's arguments to that effect.
    The question whether X is wrong in spite of being in conformity to local rules is different from the question whether an individual Eritrean living in Eritrea is morally wrong (or should be held responsible of a moral violation) when she decides to mutilate her young daughter.
    If one is to avoid cultural relativism, the morality of the act should not depend on how widespread (or accepted as right) is the act in your society, or how strong is the social enforcement of the rule.
    And in this non relativistic sense, the fact that one individual like me or Massimo find FGM wrong is (in principle) as relevant (or even less relevant) than an Eritrean mother thinking it is right. The issue boils down to whether my reasons (or Massimo's) have in some sense more moral validity than reasons that may be advanced by that mother or by her moral advisers and gurus.
    The fact that FGM is so strongly regarded as right or wrong, righteous or heinous, depending on which society you come from, is precisely to show the crux of the question: is there any principled reason to say that my rejection is in some sense right, whereas the mother's decision is not? The high emotionality of the example serves the role of calling our attention to the necessity of elucidating whether we are thinking clearly or just following a gut feeling; whether we have a really valid reason or are simply following the norms of our culture.

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    1. Thanks Hector for the reply. I think you've misunderstood me, though. You summarized my position as being that "evaluation of a moral statement (X is wrong) should be only predicated of individual acts, not of socially institutionalized rules." But that's not what I was saying at all. I see no problem with making moral judgments about socially institutionalized rules; at the very least, it seems quite reasonable to say (1) "Institution X is wrong because it leads to individual acts of Y, and individual acts of Y are wrong." But it also seems reasonable to develop a consequentialist argument saying (2) "given institution X, Individual acts of Y may not be wrong in particular contexts because of the consequences entailed by not committing Y in those contexts. Nonetheless, institution X is wrong because it forces people to chose between the lesser evil of Y and the greater evil Z, both of which cause widespread suffering." I don't believe that counts as moral relativism -- indeed, I'm quite certain that one can be a moral realist and believe (2), and I am willing to defend that claim if pressed. My complaint was that as far as I can tell, discussions of female genital mutilation (or rather, those that are really discussions of moral relativism and not discussions of female genital mutilation at all) rarely take these kinds of nuances into account.

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  16. Steven,

    > I'm intrigued by your suggestion - on Shermer's point 1 - that individual-based selection theories cannot (fully) account for human altruism. <

    There is a large literature on that. A good book length, though not recent, treatment, is Sober and Wilson’s Unto Others. There is also a E.O. Wilson & D.S. Wilson paper from a few years ago in the Quarterly Review of Biology. If you search Google scholar with “altruism group selection” you’ll get plenty.

    Hector,

    > It is just a more awful manifestation of a more universal tendency to ensure exclusive sexual access to females <

    Yes, it probably is. What I meant by “arbitrary” was “with no connection to the well being of the subjects,” as it would be the case for pain inflicted to a child in order to eliminate a tumor. Accepting your interpretation, then the argument becomes one of rights of a group (women), rather than just of individuals.

    > which in turn is an evolutionarily logical incentive for male parental investment. <

    As you know, I’m skeptical of evolutionary “explanations,” particularly when they are invoked to explain a local (as opposed to universal) behavior. Incidentally, the recent literature on male/female parental investments is a bit more complicated than the standard evopsych take on the issue.

    > In the absence of "pain", would such surgical procedure violate Massimo's fundamental principle (not causing gratuitous pain to children)? <

    No if it doesn’t manifest itself later on in life (during sexual intercourse, or while engaging in normal physiological functions). But the rights of the individual would still be violated if the procedure has other negative effects (such as curtailed enjoyment of sexual pleasure).

    > Would those principles (infliction of pain and arbitrariness) be applicable to reject as immoral the ritual circumcision of male infants, especially if practiced in the traditional way by a rabbi? <

    I feel less strongly about male circumcision, because it doesn’t have the sort of lifelong negative consequences than its female counterpart has. I still think it’s arbitrary (in the sense discussed above), painful, and, frankly, barbaric. [This is also a quick response to hanan-d.]

    downquark,

    > I don't know how to categorise it, reading the definitions of moral realism and moral relativism on wikipedia or other sites I seem to think your view falls into both <

    I wrote about this in a technical article published in Zygon in 2003. I think of my position as one of weak realism, or quasi-realism, and so far from the relativism end of the spectrum. Like Aristotle (and unlike, say, a strong realist like Kant) I think that morality has to do with human nature and the flourishing of individuals. As such, it is the result of a contingent set of events, which led to the evolution of Homo sapiens. But ethical thinking is a type of reasoning that uses a number of assumptions (axioms) and derives their logical consequences, and there is nothing contingent or arbitrary about logic.

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    1. To us less philosophically initiated that sounds like, different cultures produce different axioms and thus different moral conclusions.

      So libertarian conclusions are "right" given libertarian axioms and Marxist conclusions are "right" given Marxist axioms. Which sounds like a weak relativism, but I may be thinking in vernacular terms rather than officially approve philosopher terms (as people still do with "science").

      Good bet something like this is the root of the confusion.

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    2. Massimo, I've seen you defend this "axiomatic" approach to moral reasoning several times now, and I generally find it to be a compelling way of thinking about morality (at least in broad strokes). You've also stated on numerous occasions your disposition towards virtue ethics. How are these two positions related in your view? Are virtues "moral axioms"?

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  17. Alex,

    > I am not an evolutionary biologist in the narrowest sense but my understanding is that group selection has been shown to be quite simply impossible. <

    That is incorrect. On the contrary, group selection has been definitively shown to be possible (e.g., read Samir Okasha’s book on the levels of selection), and the debate has shifted to the much more delicate issue of how to test individual vs group selective hypotheses.

    > the idea that morality ought to be about individual flourishing because the individual is the target of selection sounds about as logical as "the sky is blue, therefore you need to give me chocolate". Where did that ought come from? <

    Yup. As a virtue ethicist I have no trouble with that position, but yes, it is entirely disconnected from any selective argument, individual or group.

    > I think it would be hard to find a defensible way of defining scientific facts that reliably exclude everyday observational facts. <

    “I am writing this while sipping coffee” is a straightforward example of an empirical fact that doesn’t rise to the level of being “scientific.” Of course scientists also use common observations, so do philosophers, and the latter also use common as well as sophisticated ways of reasoning. Shall we therefore define as “philosophical” any thought uttered by any human being?

    Gadfly,

    > Oh, Shermer's, not yours! Sorry that wasn't clear. <

    Actually, it was perfectly clear to me because I have read your comments for a while. But the casual reader might have wondered... ;-)

    TheDude,

    > Joshua Greene does in his dissertation ... that there are no true moral statements but that ... because of our moral psychology, we don't need to appeal to the truth of morality for it to be useful to us. <

    I like Greene’s research, but I think he also doesn’t fully appreciate what moral philosophy is about. As I said above, I don’t think of moral statements as “true” or “false,” I think that’s the wrong way to put it. To me ethics is a type of thinking, not a set of rule. So when I say that FGM is wrong, I mean that as a shorthand for: given certain premises (empirical: about human nature; philosophical: about rights of individuals), it follows that FGM should not be practiced.

    brainoil,

    > I think it would've helped if you simply said "I hold that it is self-evidently true that it is wrong to cause pain to other people", and build from there. After all, that's what we're all doing. That's what even Shermer's doing. <

    No, as I said just above, I think there is more to it than this. Saying that something is self-evidently true is usually an intellectual copout.

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    1. Massimo,

      >I don’t think of moral statements as “true” or “false,” I think that’s the wrong way to put it. To me ethics is a type of thinking, not a set of rule. So when I say that FGM is wrong, I mean that as a shorthand for: given certain premises (empirical: about human nature; philosophical: about rights of individuals), it follows that FGM should not be practiced.<

      Do you believe it is *true* that FMG should not be practiced? IF SO, why couldn't 'FGM is wrong' be true in virtue of this, i.e., 'is wrong' just means 'we should not' in a certain sense. (Personally I think that is backwards, but that's another topic.) IF NOT, then what *makes it* worthy of defense? That is, what relations does 'We ought not practice FGM' bear to reality such that we ought to accept it? How it is that a claim can be non-true yet more acceptable that its negation needs explanation. If you say that it is more acceptable because it is supported by or follows from various premises, what does this mean? Note that 'supports' and 'follows from' are notions defined in terms of truth. In particular, the definition of a valid argument is that if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true also. With your non-truth view of ethical claims, then, you must either admit that none of your ethical arguments are valid, or else else come up with a non-standard definition of logical validity. Perhaps a remedy for these issues is to take ethical claims to have truth-values whether or not you presently know how they can be true.

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  18. Massimo,

    Shall we therefore define as “philosophical” any thought uttered by any human being?

    Considering that you wrote in an earlier post that a society debating its penal laws is engaging in philosophy, I was kind of assuming that that was _your_ position. And I would have no problem with such a wide definition if allowed in _both_ cases: testing abstract ideas and concepts is philosophy, testing empirical ideas is science - no matter how trivial.

    There is no reason why one could not conduct a formal scientific study to find out if people who pay somebody to hold their place in a queue save a significant amount of time that way or not. It sounds silly because the answer is pretty clear from the get-go, but then there are quite a few things that "everybody knows" in science without them being put to a quantitative test.

    Of course, somebody who tries, for example, to figure out if they will fall asleep more easily if they read a book before going to bed will usually test that in a way that we would not necessarily call good, publication worthy science (n = 1 person, for starters). Likewise, two friends who discuss the meaning of life over a few bears will usually not produce good, publication worthy philosophy. But as long as the former tries to verify or falsify hunches with empirical observations and the latter attempt to formulate and refute reasonable arguments I fail to see why they are not doing shoddy science and philosophy, respectively.

    Again, I agree completely with the main points of the post.

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  19. Massimo, thanks for helping me understand your and Michael’s positions on the role of science in ethics. However, I would like to suggest a middle path that, based on your post, perhaps both of you could ultimately agree on.

    I expect we all would agree that IF science could show that past and present cultural moral codes (no matter how diverse, contradictory, and bizarre) have a universal function (the primary reason they exist in cultures), then that function is cultural moral codes’ objective function. Further, how well moral codes fulfill this function would be an objective, science based, means of ranking the morality of cultural moral norms. So while all enforced moral codes might fulfill the universal function, some, such as FGM, do so ineffectively or ‘unfairly’ and thereby, compared to more effective norms, are objectively less moral.

    Of course, moral philosophers are logically free to argue that the function of cultural moral codes ought to be something else than the function of all past and present moral codes, but this implies they are talking about a different sub-category in ethics than cultural moral codes. For example, virtue ethics is a much broader subject than just “enforced moral codes”.

    It seems obvious that cultures go to the trouble of advocating and enforcing moral codes to increase the benefits of living in that culture.

    Indeed, I believe it can be shown to be empirically true that past and present enforced moral codes advocate strategies that overcome the cross-species universal dilemma of how to obtain the benefits of cooperation in groups without being exploited. The diversity, contradictions, and bizarreness (such as FGM) of past and present moral codes are then due to different 1) choices of cooperation strategies (such as direct and indirect reciprocity), 2) definitions of in-groups who deserve full moral concern and out-groups who do not (such as women and slaves), 3) enforcement mechanisms (such as social, supernatural, or rule of law), and 4) different markers of membership in reliably cooperative in-groups (such as circumcision and not eating pigs). (FGM is a complex mix of both out-group exploitation and a marker strategy.)

    If it is correct that the universal function of enforced moral codes is “to increase the benefits of cooperation in groups by advocating and enforcing strategies for overcoming the universal cooperation/exploitation dilemma”, then science can provide an objective basis for judging the relative morality of FGM, queue-buying, an any other moral norm regarding interactions between people. That criterion is, “Is the moral norm the one that best increases the benefits of cooperation in groups?”

    But the science of morality does have limitations. It is silent on what our ultimate goals for cooperation in groups (and the benefits that support those goals) ought to be. It may be silent on what constitutes ‘unfairness’ regarding exclusion from in-groups. Regardless, science still has a loud, authoritative voice on the effectiveness of strategies for overcoming the cross-species universal cooperation/exploitation dilemma, which are what enforced moral codes are all about.

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  20. downquark,

    > To us less philosophically initiated that sounds like, different cultures produce different axioms and thus different moral conclusions. <

    Yes, I can see that could be a way toward some kind of relativism. There are at least two responses here: just like in math (say), some axioms are just not useful or interesting (according to whatever criterion we agree is pertinent: human flourishing, in the case of ethics). Also, here I’m with Aristotle: he recognized that different cultures have different customs, but he also affirmed that we have a lot of basic characteristics, goals and desires in common qua human beings. Fundamental ethical axioms, therefore, should only originate from an understanding of human nature broadly construed.

    Alex,

    I really don’t think there is any contradiction between my earlier and current writings on this.

    > you wrote in an earlier post that a society debating its penal laws is engaging in philosophy <

    Indeed, but penal laws is (or should be) closely dependent on moral and political philosophy. But when I think of, say, beer, I am *not* doing philosophy just because I think. Similarly, observing that the traffic light across the street from me is red does not constitute “science” just because I am making an empirical observation.

    > There is no reason why one could not conduct a formal scientific study to find out if people who pay somebody to hold their place in a queue save a significant amount of time that way or not. <

    Of course, but you have already made the decision that saving time is the relevant criterion, as opposed to, say the dignity of the institution of Congress, or the right of every citizen to attend hearings regardless of how much they can afford to pay.

    At any rate, I will actually publish a post soon on the significance and problems of demarcation projects, so stay tuned...

    Mark,

    > IF science could show that past and present cultural moral codes (no matter how diverse, contradictory, and bizarre) have a universal function (the primary reason they exist in cultures), then that function is cultural moral codes’ objective function <

    No, or at least not in any sense relevant to ethics. Xenophobia (a likely human universal) probably evolved to fulfill a specific function. It’s still morally objectionable, in my book.

    > I believe it can be shown to be empirically true that past and present enforced moral codes advocate strategies that overcome the cross-species universal dilemma of how to obtain the benefits of cooperation in groups without being exploited. <

    Maybe, but you are discarding the fact that ethical norms evolve culturally, because human beings evolve culturally. And that evolution is self-directed, i.e. is the result of reflection and practice, and that reflection is philosophical in nature. Your approach works better to explain how pro-social morality evolved in the beginning, and why some of its building blocks are common to various primate species. But I never objected to that. Indeed, in Answers for Aristotle I devote an entire chapter to the (likely) evolution of a moral sense.

    > That criterion is, “Is the moral norm the one that best increases the benefits of cooperation in groups?” <

    That seems like an awfully diminutive conception of ethics.

    > science still has a loud, authoritative voice <

    Oh, we agree that’s loud. As for authoritative, well... ;-)

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    1. Massimo, you are quite right that Xenophobia can be part of biologically and culturally implemented strategies for increasing the benefits of cooperation in an in-group. The ‘benefits’ of cooperation in an in-group can also be increased by exploiting out-groups such as women and slaves. So what?

      All of these ‘immoral’ behaviors are based on defining the exploitation or ignoring of out-groups as morally acceptable. Science may be largely silent on this question and in need of help from moral philosophy to define a rational basis for not making such immoral (as I expect you and I agree) definitions. As I described, the science of morality is limited in its scope.

      Where science is authoritative is in defining strategies for overcoming the cross-species universal dilemma of how to obtain the benefits of cooperation in groups without being exploited. These strategies have been selected for and encoded in both our moral biology and enforced cultural norms (moral norms). If you have no interest in the science of these strategies or think that moral philosophy will somehow better inform you about these strategies, then science has little to tell you about morality.

      However, if you are interested in what enforced moral codes will most increase the benefits of social living, then science can be highly useful in resolving disputes about 1) what moral norms ‘ought’ to be enforced, 2) when exceptions ‘ought’ to be made (such as when it is immoral to follow the Golden Rule), and 3) how and when violators of moral codes ‘ought’ to be punished. (All these ‘oughts’ are instrumental in aid of the common social goal of “increasing the benefits of cooperation in groups”.)

      Ethics is a broad subject. Enforced cultural moral codes are only a subcategory of ethics. I argue that science provides a lot of instrumentally useful knowledge about cultural moral codes. Where we seem to disagree is the utility of understanding the primary reason that our “moral biology” and cultural moral codes exist, what their function ‘is’: to increase the benefits of cooperation in groups.

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  21. Scott,

    > You've also stated on numerous occasions your disposition towards virtue ethics. How are these two positions related in your view? Are virtues "moral axioms"? <

    Good question! I’m still working on all of this of course, but I’d say — with Aristotle — that the axioms in virtue ethics come from a consideration of human nature and the seeming universal desires we have: for safety, shelter, food, love, friendship, and a reasonable way to pursue goals that lead to our flourishing (which, of course, can be accomplished in a variety of ways). The virtues are more like pillars or reference points that help us navigate toward a eudaimonic life.

    Paul,

    > Do you believe it is *true* that FMG should not be practiced? IF SO, why couldn't 'FGM is wrong' be true in virtue of this, i.e., 'is wrong' just means 'we should not' in a certain sense. <

    I suppose, but to me that’s trivial, you are just rephrasing the same idea. As I said, to me ethics is a type of reasoning, so I would rather put it this way (very simplistically, many of these elements would have to be unpacked): IF our goal is to allow people to pursue a eudaimonic life, AND FGM is something that poses an obstacle to such goal, THEN FGM is wrong (or we should not do it).

    > the definition of a valid argument is that if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true also. <

    Yes, I know, but I disagree with your take that 'supports' and 'follows from' are notions defined in terms of truth. They are relations of logical entailment, for which one does not need to bring the loaded term “truth.” All you need to say is: IF you accept this or that premise THEN this and that consequence / fact logically follows. And yes, the premises themselves can be challenged.

    Take, again, math and geometry as an analogy. Is the Pythagorean theorem “true”? In a sense, that question is misleading. The theorem logically follows if we work within plane geometry. The question isn’t whether plane geometry is “true,” but rather whether it is interesting (for pure geometricians) or can be applied to practical problems with a reasonable degree of accuracy (for applied geometricians).

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    1. Presumably you cannot take ethics as *purely* a set of related logical entailments following from premises, though; you must think the empirical premises (about human nature etc) and the philosophical premises (about individual rights) are true with some probability.

      Otherwise it becomes hard to explain why you care about this particular set of premises and their logical entailments, as opposed to some other arbitrary set (say, about the implications of the divine nature of Galactic Lord Quaxon).

      This being the case I think it's hard to avoid saying your ethical beliefs are true (with some probability).

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    2. FWIW I think a final theory of meta-ethics will need to take account of how ethical statements express not only premises & their implications but also represent the act of "taking a stand" or making an implied threat based on the premises.

      Thus I want to try to analyze "FGM is wrong" as a speech act roughly analogous to "FGM is contrary to the implications of such-and-such moral premises AND YOU AGREE WITH THOSE PREMISES, RIGHT PUNK?!"

      This has the advantages of expressivism without the Frege-Geach problem (we just drop the latter statement in conditionals). But it's still a half-baked idea.

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    3. Massimo,

      First, the relation between 'is ethically wrong' and 'we ethically ought not' is not trivial philosophically, even if they are taken as synonyms. As other philosophers might give substantive meaning to 'is ethically wrong', to claim that the predicate's relation to other predicates is trivial is a substantive position.

      Second, the notion of logical entailment absolutely does require the notion of truth. Try explaining (or simply understanding) what 'A entails B' means without drawing on the notion of truth. Also, logical validity and logical entailment are essentially the same concept in different guises: 'A entails B' is true just in case if A is true, necessarily, B is true. In possible worlds jargon: 'A entails B' holds just in case B is true in every world A is true. Without truth, 'entailment' is meaningless.

      Regarding truth in math and geometry, it's not analogous with ethics. Truth in math and geometry is stipulative. They start with statements that are true by definition (stipulations) and anything that follows logically from such definitions inherits this stipulative truth.

      With ethics, in contrast, truths, such that FGM is wrong, are not true by stipulation but in virtue, e.g., of properties of the relevant act. Similarly, on the metaethical level, we cannot define 'is wrong' by stipulation; it has a meaning that we can be right or wrong about when we try to flesh it out. Generally, there's a reality that bears on how we define and apply ethical terms. To say truth doesn't apply in ethics is in effect to deny that reality. It's a bit absurd to engage in ethical arguments yet believe there is no reality to the matter. To say there is a reality to the matter is to contenance truth in the matter.

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    4. >Do you believe it is *true* that FMG should not be practiced? IF SO, why couldn't 'FGM is wrong' be true in virtue of this, i.e., 'is wrong' just means 'we should not' in a certain sense.<

      This question presupposes the nonsensical notion that normative statements ("FGM is wrong", "FGM should not be practiced") are truth-apt. Normative statements are not truth-apt - they can be neither true nor false.

      And people who claim that their value judgements are 'clear', 'objective', 'absolute', or 'true' should go read a book or two (preferably at least one by Hume), lest they spew unlettered nonsense at the public again.

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    5. St. David,

      Wow, I didn't know that the idea that ethical claims had truth-values was ridiculous. Thanks for the information.

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    6. A correction to my longer post above: the statement: "'A entails B' is true just in case if A is true, necessarily, B is true," should be: "'A entails B' is true just in case, necessarily, if A is true, B is true, i.e., necessarily (A implies B)."

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    7. Paul, I think this claim requires clarification:

      "the notion of logical entailment absolutely does require the notion of truth. Try explaining (or simply understanding) what 'A entails B' means without drawing on the notion of truth."

      I think a mathematical formalist would disagree, unless the notion of "truth" that you're talking about here is one that does not rely on semantics at all. A formalist account of entailment would hold very simply that A entails B iff B can be derived from A by valid rules of syntactic transformation.

      "Without truth, 'entailment' is meaningless."

      Again, I think a formalist would reply that this is correct if you mean that without truth, entailment involves only syntax, not semantics. But it's incorrect if you mean that "entailment" can't be defined or is otherwise incoherent without truth. To the formalist, entailment just is the set of all valid syntactic transformations on well-formed strings.

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    8. Scott,

      Interesting points. If the formalists do have a sound truth-free notion of entailment, I would question whether it is relevant to the natural language notion of entailment; that is, I would ask whether it is possible or a good idea to think of entailment as purely syntactic in a natural language context. But I think it is questionable whether the formalist notion of entailment you mention is in fact (semantically) truth free. Truth might simply be hiding within the notion of valid rules of syntactic transformation. What are the conditions under which a transformation is valid? If truth preservation is not at least a background concern, then I would suspect that the system is not a logic in any sense relevant to the logic of natural language, but just a symbolic transformation system. Whatever artifices of formalism may be developed, it remains a fact that truth is the central concept of the logic of natural language. If natural language logic were the solar system, truth would be the sun. So I guess a more general way of making my point is that I'm really only concerned with entailment as a natural language concept, which, as a matter of fact, is related definitionally to the notion of truth.

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    9. Excuse me, but do you know anything at all about logic?

      You throw around conceptual juggernauts like 'truth' - and in a discussion of normative claims, no less - like there is no morning. And then you are surprised when someone explains to you that entailment has nothing at all to do with whatever you consider 'truth' to be?...

      Modern logic started as a purely syntactical tool: That was one of the reasons why it was so much appreciated by the proponents of modern ('scientific') philosophy. Only when the Logical Empiricists recognised that they couldn't grasp physic's language and theoretical terms without semantics did semantics even enter the scope of analytic philosophy (as it would be called later). Another incentive was provided by Tarski when he published the first consistent material theory of truth for ideal languages.

      In any case, your metaphor-ridden fantasies about 'natural language', 'logic' and 'truth' betray not only your preconceptions but also your lack of knowledge. Maybe you want to read up on the issues before applying them to normative claims and moral philosophy(!).

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    10. St. David, I have to step in here to defend Paul. As you may be aware, there is a tradition of "natural language philosophy" (more commonly called "ordinary language philosophy") within analytic philosophy. I don't get the impression that it's taken seriously by many mainstream philosophers today, but at one point it formed an important strand of analytic philosophy, and a quick google search turned up this interesting-looking defense of ordinary language philosophy published just last year. So I'm quite certain that Paul's take on this question is more philosophically informed than you're suggesting here.

      And I'd add that I think there's value in thinking about what views we seem to commit ourselves to in the course of everyday speech, even if those views don't hold up to close scrutiny. This is the second time Paul has indicated his commitment to that kind of investigation to me, and I respect it, even though I think we may disagree about the kind of insights such investigation can provide.

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    11. Thanks for the defense, Scott, but my views are not so obscure. I see logic as primarily an aspect or subsystem of natural language. It's the aspect composed of words like 'entails', 'implies', 'and', 'or', 'if', 'then', 'all', 'some', 'necessarily', and so on. I see mathematical logic as just mathematization of parts of the general logic of natural language. Note how math logic has advance by capturing more and more of the logical aspect of natural language, e.g., extensional to intension systems. When it comes to philosophical questions about logic, thus, often our attention must be on natural language, as it is the more fundamental phenomenon.

      St. David,

      Mathematical logic was one my concentrations as a philosophy undergrad, philosophy of language being the other. I studied predicate logic through Goedel's theorems and took courses in modal logic and alternative logics. So my views are not due to knowing nothing about mathematical logic.

      Regarding your claim that modern logic started as a purely syntactic tool - by which I think you mean to discount the importance of truth - are you familiar Gottlob Frege, arguable the founder of modern mathematical logic? He was very concerned with truth. As the inventer of quantification theory, he famously characterized predicates as truth-functions and generally had truth at the center of his view about how logic works. From at least Frege's Begriffsschrift on, symbolic logical systems had semantics, if less formally than later developments. To me it seems you're not quite appreciating the nature and significance of the syntactic/semantic distinction in mathematical logic correctly. Making systems as conceptually syntactic as possible is a way to enhance the rigor of the system, but as the concern about "rigor" suggests, semantics are always in mind. So who are you St. David?

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  22. Why isn't mutilation of male genitals a concern? Cutting the baby's penis and removing part of it hurts and the baby screams in pain and there is no sympathy in this country. OK that's another issue in itself...

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    1. Wrong, anesthetics are not always used and often are not used effectively. Studies have been done. It doesn't make mutilating boys OK even if the pain was minimized, but I shouldn't be surprised by coldness.

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    2. "anesthetics are not always"

      Many people in this world do not have access to good medical care. The use of anesthetics is beside the point because even if they are used in both circumcision or FGM the later does permanent harm while the former does not. Circumcision is not mutilation, it is a cultural practice that does no permanent harm and has some benefit.

      "I shouldn't be surprised by coldness."

      This isn't about you so don't try to personalize what should be a rational discussion. Since you are against circumcision on the grounds that anesthetics are not used I presume you are also against fetal surgery on the same grounds. I also presume you are against any and all cultural practices like ritual scarification or tattoos. There are also many rituals to mark a boy's or girl's transition into adulthood that would be considered child abuse in first world nations. I assume you are also against those. Right?

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    3. This is one of those topics that western folk tend to consistently score poorly in when it comes to admission of profound illogic based on habit. It would take the most radical leap of reason, were it not for something that many people (often parents who don't want to have to think about whether they have been passive culprits in the torture of their child for no effective reason) just take at face value, the proposition of lopping off a hefty portion of a newborn's anatomical body part because, if they don't have safe sex later in life, they may stand a slightly increased chance of getting a few types of STDs (although they become increasingly prone to others) and if they don't keep proper hygiene, they could be more slightly prone to infections. It's essentially saying: "I'm just gonna presume/expect my boy will have unsafe sex and horrific hygiene habits when he grows up, so I'll just mangle his penis now to make it a little easier when it comes to pass". No reasonable person without prior emotional investment/delusion in a ridiculous habit would arrive at this conclusion.

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    4. "I also presume you are against any and all cultural practices like ritual scarification or tattoos. There are also many rituals to mark a boy's or girl's transition into adulthood that would be considered child abuse in first world nations. I assume you are also against those. Right?"

      This is an disingenuous an argument as can be conceived. You cannot conflate more archaic cultural habits based on starkly different social constructs of honor, tradition, and aggressive-living to a civilized western culture that doesn't have a "mutilation is tough love" view although it still goes about practicing it via one unquestioned act.

      Faith healers are also practicing a line of ritualistic history when they let their kids' lives expire due to scientific ignorance. Unless you are arguing that selective cultural hypocrisy is an important trait to defend, there is no ethical or logical substantiation for any kind of child genital mutilation (especially considering that we now are dawning upon the ability to cure HIV; but, hey...why bother with that when we can just cut off the infant's penis based on an archaic practice!).

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    5. Faith healers do real harm to their children if the practice of their faith prevents the child from receiving proper medical care. I used to work for the Mayo Clinic. They allow patients to bring in alternative medical practices as long as it doesn't interfere with treatment. It usually helps because the patient feels at ease.

      The measure that I am using is does the practice case permanent harm. In this discussion I have set that as my standard. Circumcision does not cause any permanent harm, FGM does. That is all I care about. The rest is none of my concern. As a general rule I am going to side with people's traditional cultural practices unless there is real harm done to the child. FGM does that, circumcision does not. The minor harm done by ritual scarification or tattooing is outweighed by it's cultural significance.

      "You cannot conflate more archaic cultural habits based on starkly different social constructs of honor, tradition, and aggressive-living to a civilized western culture that doesn't have a "mutilation is tough love" view although it still goes about practicing it via one unquestioned act."

      We don't? You sure about that? What do you think football is? Doesn't football cause real lasting damage to a child's brain and isn't the culture of football all about toughening the boy up to be a man? Isn't football just ritualized conflict? If I were an anthropologist from Mars how would I tell the difference between high school football games and the ritualized fights that aboriginal people have?

      "why bother with that when we can just cut off the infant's penis"

      We're done here. You are not arguing in good faith. You're just injecting hysteria into the discussion. If you can't be honest I have nothing to say to you.

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    6. Arguing that cutting off part of a penis isn't harmful and has benefits will one day be looked upon as beyond the pale! Research has shown this. I know women aren't as concerned with issues men face, generally speaking.It isn't "about me", feminist (that's such a common retort when people express concern for males).

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  23. I was wondering if Massimo and Michael have debated a moral decision that they might disagree completely on the outcome, vs. something like FGM where they agree on the conclusion. Two examples: progressive vs. flat income tax or consumption tax, and Medicare-for-all vs. whatever else. (Some have said these are political rather than moral decisions, but I don't agree.)

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  24. I am against any type of mutilation of people who cannot give informed consent. Even parents piercing their toddlers' ears squicks me out.

    But seriously, can we stop this "but what about male circumcision" nonsense? The harm involved is on a vastly different level.

    It's like saying "but what about me, I can afford only one overseas holiday every year" whenever somebody is trying to discuss poverty.

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    1. >But seriously, can we stop this "but what about male circumcision" nonsense? The harm involved is on a vastly different level.

      And yet you admit harm exists. So then why shouldn't the same principles apply? (i.e. issues of consent and there being no good reason to remove the foreskin)

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    2. That's incredible. Nonsense you say? Google - Psychology Today "Myths about Circumcision You Likely Believe". It was written for you.

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    3. hanan-d,

      Yes, I am against it. But is it really necessary for men to jump up and down like a small child and go "I want the discussion to be about me meee MEEEE" whenever FGM comes up?

      J,

      Are you seriously going to argue that cutting off skin is equivalent to cutting off the clitoris (which is the homologue to the *entire* penis) and the labiae, and then sewing it all shut so that the woman can never have intercourse without being in severe pain? And that is not even mentioning what it means for childbirth. Are you seriously going to go there?

      (Yes, I know there are also less severe forms. Not the point.)

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    4. "Are you seriously going to argue that cutting off skin is equivalent to cutting off the clitoris..."

      The clitoris is not skin?

      "...(which is the homologue to the *entire* penis) and the labiae, and then sewing it all shut so that the woman can never have intercourse without being in severe pain?"

      I guess we could roughly measure this by, say, determining the amount of nerve endings in one lopped-off part of a body and the other (I'll let you guess which). Then again, I (along with others, I suspect) am not interested in the threshold for unnecessary pain upon an infant who cannot consent as much as the fact that unnecessary pain if being inflicted upon it, period. Your mileage may vary.

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    5. "The clitoris is not skin?"

      Dude.

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  25. >Xenophobia (a likely human universal) probably evolved to fulfill a specific function. It’s still morally objectionable, in my book.

    Am I wrong to suggest that wording it like implies some sort of goal?

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  26. "Is blowing up innocent runners in the Boston Marathon wrong? I say it is. Absolutely, objectively morally wrong. Does anyone disagree?"

    You get the almost identical argument from the religious fundamentalists. As you say it turns on the idea that the only alternative to objective is relative. The opposite of "objective" is "subjective" and "subjective" does not entail that opinions are arbitrary or unimportant or not founded on good reasons.

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    1. What I object to here is not so much the content - there may be a respectable argument for why ethical truths are "objective" in some sense - but the moral grandstanding involved in using the marathon bombing as your example in this blatant "when did you stop beating your wife" kind of way.

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    2. "Objectively morally wrong" doesn't exist. No morality is objective and/or universal.

      The closest baselines we can base a useful system of ethics upon are non-hypocrisy and the wiccan rede (a variant of ye olde golden rule, but more appropriately stated; granted, defining "harm" becomes a bit of a drawn out discussion to iron out how it works in practice rather than theory).

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  27. Ian, Paul,

    ok, let me try another way around this problem. My recalcitrance to talk about true or false ethical judgments derives from the fact that in my experience once you do that people immediately think of some sort of strong moral realism, which is not my position. So by speaking of logical entailments instead I am hoping to diffuse that misunderstanding.

    Still, your points are certainly technically valid, so perhaps I can get the same result by distinguishing between different types of truth. There are logical truths, mathematical truths, and empirical truths, and I don’t want people to think that I equate ethical truths with the latter.

    Paul, I know that the parallel with mathematics is not exact, but I think it’s helpful. Yes, mathematicians stipulates axioms and go from there (though, again, this doesn’t mean that the choice of axioms is unconstrained or arbitrary, as many possible axioms lead nowhere). In ethics part of the axioms derive from characteristics of human nature, and so are empirically ground. But some of the assumptions of ethical reasoning are the result of cultural (as opposed to biological) evolution, another can of worms that I touched on previously at RS.

    To summarize, and again back to the dreaded example of FGM, I’d say something like this:

    IF it is part of human nature that people wish to avoid suffering and pain; and IF part of a flourishing life for a woman includes the ability to enjoy sexual intercourse and not be considered a subaltern by the males in her society; and IF female genital mutilation is in contradiction of both those requirements; THEN FGM is ethically wrong. How does that sound?

    Mark,

    > Where we seem to disagree is the utility of understanding the primary reason that our “moral biology” and cultural moral codes exist, what their function ‘is’: to increase the benefits of cooperation in groups. <

    Indeed, I think that increasing cooperation (pro-social behavior) was the function that originated a sense of morality, or moral behavior, in our ancestors. But I maintain that after millennia of cultural evolution it has become one among many things we want out of ethics, and possibly not even the most important one.

    hanan,

    > Am I wrong to suggest that wording it like implies some sort of goal? <

    I don’t see in what sense.

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    1. Defining ethical truths seems to me very difficult if at all possible) and probably not very usefull so I am in agreement with Massimo.

      Lets take the concepts of pain, pleasure and flourishing for example. Pain and pleasure obviosly operate on a continuum (severe pain -> mild discomfort->mildly pleasant -> euporia). In general it seems like longerterm flourishing results from some back and forth along this continuum.

      For example improving physical fitness requires a degree of discomfort for the adaptations to take place. There is effort and discomfort followed by pleasant endorphin release, work followed by rest and recovery. Physical flourihing is best acheived through a good balance of discomfort and pleasure. It is undermined by always seeking comfort or by overtraining and causing self-injury.

      I think cognitive growth (flourishing) is similar. It takes effort to attain new knowledge while it is generaly pleasant when we confirm previously beliefs held or when we adopt popular beliefs.

      So even simple concepts like pain and pleasure don't lend themselves to simple true or false statements. There has to be a dynamical understanding of a larger system I think if we are to make usefull ethical judgements.

      This doesn't mean there are not cases that present very clear judgements such as FGM. In this case as Massimo pointed the initial pain and suffering also clearly inhibits longterm flourishing.

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    2. Massimo,

      >IF it is part of human nature that people wish to avoid suffering and pain; and IF part of a flourishing life for a woman includes the ability to enjoy sexual intercourse and not be considered a subaltern by the males in her society; and IF female genital mutilation is in contradiction of both those requirements; THEN FGM is ethically wrong. How does that sound?<

      It sounds fine as far as it goes, though it is not logically valid (or complete) as it stands (even if 'FGM is ethically wrong' has a truth-value).

      I think whenever we make an ethical assertion, such as 'FGM is wrong' we're asserting not just the judgement but our metaethics as well; our metaethics are contained in what we mean by the judgement's predicate, e.g. 'is wrong'. Our audience may not know the meaning we attach to the predicate, but that meaning is part of the content we are asserting nevertheless. The audience will have to ask if they want a fuller account of what is being said.

      I think to make a full (explicit) argument as to why FGM is ethically wrong, one must explain what one means by 'ethically wrong'. This is a requirement of a full complete argument, however difficult.

      To a slightly different topic, it seems the majority of Rationally Speaking participants see ethics as *obviously" not a domain where truth and objectivity has any purchase. St. David, for example, appears to have titanic confidence that ethical statements are not truth-apt (pun intended;). I suspect that this is the result of myopic physicalism and/or views of truth that can't conceive how ethical statements could have truth-values and/or not looking closely at the consequences of the relevant view.

      If one believes that ethical statements cannot be true, however, it is utterly irrational to discuss ethics at all. If ethical claims cannot be true or false, the predicate 'is ethically wrong' applies to nothing - i.e. if it applied to X, it would be true that X is ethically wrong - and cannot not apply to something - i.e. we cannot say it does not apply to X because then it would be false that X is ethically wrong. Ethical predicates must be viewed as strings of gibberish that just happen to look like English. Saying that X is ethically wrong is effectively like saying that X is xithyye; that's what it takes to have no truth-value.

      I think it's important to appreciate the depth of the consequences to taking ethical claims to be without truth-values. It means that when we say that the Nazis did something ethically wrong is bringing about the death of Anne Frank, we at best have only the illusion of saying something. The reality is that there are just particles in a void, i.e., nothing that can make such ethical statements true or false, or even meaningful.

      So on a logical level it is clear that ethics is vacuous unless there is some way in which ethical claims have truth-values. That there can be a sort of non-truth-valent ethical discourse is just an illusion supported by not looking closely enough; either ethical predicates hold of things or they do not; there's no middle ground. To say ethical predicates hold subjectively of things (like 'delicious' does) is nonsense on stilts. This would mean a situation in which we make ethical judgements but believe they have no bearing on others; one would judge privately while considering it irrational to blame. "I think Hitler was bad, but that's just me; there is plenty of room for equally valid alternative views."

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    3. (continuation) I'm not an ethical theorist, but if I were the way I would go in trying to explain how ethical statements have truth-values is in terms of rankings of interests. Human interest have a certain justifiable order, and to do something ethically wrong is to violate that order. Stealing, for example, involves the thief invalidly placing his interests above those of the owner. On this view, to say that something is unethical is to say that it involves a misranking of interests, where mistranking is defined in terms of the rationality of justification.

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    4. Paul -

      'Human interest have a certain justifiable order, and to do something ethically wrong is to violate that order. Stealing, for example, involves the thief invalidly placing his interests above those of the owner.'

      Are you making a determination that it is always ethically wrong to steal? If I happen to live under a tyrant who lets apples rot in his wharehouse while my children starve would it be ethically wrong to steal an apple for my daughter?

      Or are you just claiming that ethical judgements involve conflicts of interests that need to be unpacked, ranked and evaluated in order for the macro-judgement to be resolved ( given a truth determination )?

      In the second sense I suppose true-false determinations could be valid. I expect however that the web of conflicting interests that connect to any ethical scenario might be so large as to make absolute determinations impractible. I don't think it follows that a somewhat incomplete unpacking is useless just because it doesn't produce an absolute ethical truth.

      Am I misreading you? Thanks

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    5. Seth,

      You understand what meant quite well. I meant the second sense. While ordinarily stealing is wrong, there are sure to be situations in which the interests of the stealer trumps those of the owner. This may be because of the need of the stealer relative to the cost to the owner, that the system of ownership itself is unethical (Robin Hood), and so on.

      It seems to me that reasoning about interests and justifications of rankings is at the center of ethics. Ethical wrongs seem generally to involve rankings that are unjustified if not irrational, in the sense that the act has no possible rational justification.

      As an illustration, FGM raises the question of the child's presumed interest in her bodily integrity versus the adult community's interest in compromising that integrity. Whether we think relevant operations are ethically acceptable or not will depend on the nature of the adult community's justification for the relevant intrusion. Interesting here is the presumption of the child's interest have a natural top rank with the burden of proof on the interfering interest. This is where human rights come from. generally, I find the way of thing about ethics illuminating, and it it supports conception of ethical statements as having truth-values.

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    6. Paul, may I draw your attention again to an alternative view? You say "If one believes that ethical statements cannot be true, however, it is utterly irrational to discuss ethics at all." From an ordinary language perspective, though, there's a whole class of meaningful statements that have a fundamentally different relationship to truth than the one you seem to be discussing here. Take for example a marriage ceremony: imagine the officiant says "Do you take Bill to be your lawfully wedded husband?" -- and then Joe says "yes" -- and then vice versa. Here we have a set of statements that were false before they were said, and true afterwards, as long as they were said in one of nine states (currently) and in the right context. But as they were being said, were they true or false? I think it could make sense to say that they were neither. They were meaningful -- surely no one would claim otherwise -- but they were doing something other than describing a state of affairs. They were in a sense creating a state of affairs.

      Doesn't it seem possible that ethical or moral claims might also be doing something other than describing a state of affairs? I don't mean to say that there's a direct analogy between them and the above example, but I think that at the very least you might need to rule out alternatives of this kind before insisting that moral claims can only be true, false, or meaningless.

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    7. Scott,

      You bring up some points that may relate to why some have difficulty seeing how ethical statements can be true. But first the marriage matter. "I now pronounce you man and wife." The woman now has the property of being the wife of the man. Actually, I see this sort of situation as akin to mathematics. Being a wife is a property a woman has in virtue of stipulation. Many conditions must be met for the stipulation to be valid, but, logically, it is true that the woman is a wife because she was said to be. This is the topic of institutional properties that John Searle has a lot to say about (cf. The Construction of Social Reality). I think numbers and mathematical objects generally exist by similar stipulation (another topic).

      Regarding considering an alternative to the view that ethical statements describe states-of-affairs, I think I do in that I don't think ethical statements generally describe states-of-affairs. Generally speaking, evaluative properties, which include ethical properties, do not describe states-of-affairs but rather hold in virtue of describable nature of the entity evaluated. For example, to say that a painting *is good* is not to give a description of it but to give an evaluation of its describable nature. If one considers an ethical statement and believes that for it to be true there must be a state-of-affairs out there that it corresponds to, or represents, or describes, one is likely to be skeptical that such statements can be true, as such state-of-affairs don't exist. But evaluative statements can be true or false without description. The brief sketch of an ethical system that I gave above might hint at how describable situations in the world can give rise to ethical evaluations with truth-values.

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    8. Briefly, I suppose I see what you mean about the marriage case being somewhat like stipulation. Though I must say I still don't feel that "stipulation" fully captures what is happening in this case -- after all, is a thing stipulated strictly false before stipulation and strictly true afterwards? At the very least, not necessarily; but that is necessarily so in the case of marriage.

      More generally, I think the account you're giving here of "stipulation" treats it as a somewhat trivial and obvious act; but I think it encodes a lot of assumptions and conventions the ramifications of which aren't always obvious or predictable.

      To step back a bit for a full view of the picture: You say that you see mathematical truth as being stipulative; but you object to Massimo's characterization of moral reasoning as being like mathematical reasoning, so you must feel that moral reasoning is not stipulative. But now you say that it's not about describing states of affairs either. So I'm increasingly uncertain what you think moral reasoning really is.

      I'll rephrase the above as a question using your terminology. You use the term "evaluation" above. What is the difference in your account between an "evaluation" and a "stipulation"?

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    9. Scott, Regarding the difference between stipulations and evaluations, stipulations are true due to our individual or collective will, e.g., someone is a *girlfriend* due to her and the other's agreement that she is, while evaluations are true or false due to the nature of the thing evaluated, and not will.

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    10. Paul, OK, but that makes it sound a lot like you think that evaluation is just another way of describing states of affairs! If evaluations are true or false for reasons having only to do with the nature of the thing evaluated, then the nature of the thing evaluated must contain all the information necessary for us to evaluate it.

      So say I see an evaluation of an act, and I want to know whether that evaluation is true. According to this view of evaluation, I simply have to come to know the nature of the act. And I don't see a clear difference between coming to know "the nature of" an act and simply describing that act in a correct and full way.

      So as far as I can tell, what you've said is no different from saying that evaluations reduce to descriptions of states of affairs.

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  28. Massimo, have you discussed the permissibility of abortion with Shermer? It seems to me that his argument against FGM would rule out abortion as well (if the relevant concept of "individual" he's using is one that natural selection acts on, then why wouldn't fetuses count as individuals too?) I'm guessing that he's pro-choice, so this would put him in a tight spot. But more importantly, it might provide a clearer case of how empirical data under-determines our moral judgments.

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  29. Hey Massimo,
    I appreciate the way you engage Shermer and the new athiests when they try to push their morality on the rest of us by claiming it’s is based on science. They want to “co-opt”, as Kenan Malik put it, the authority of science in order to show us that their values are the true ones. He refers to this as an aristocratic view (This is taken from his review of The Moral Landscape):


    “His is an aristocratic view of morality. Moral norms seem not to emerge through a process of social engagement and collective conversation, nor in the course of self-improvement, but rather are laws to be revealed from on high and imposed upon those below. Science will tell us which conception of the good life is objectively true, and ensure that we all keep to the moral straight and narrow.”


    It’s not surprising that you felt you had to qualify your judgement regrading FGM and Michael did not. It is a horrible thing to do to a girl. Having a daughter and having watched many young girls grow up I am repulsed by the very idea of violating a young girl in this way. It is clearly wrong. But it’s not enough to say this because the people who practice FGM disagree. Ideally we should try to engage them in a conversation. Of course that’s often not enough and then we need to somehow pressure governments to pass laws to protect girls from things like FGM.


    Your claim that ethics is like logic and ethical truths are like mathematical truths seems contrived and unreal. The concerns of Philosophy are broader than science but they are not any less emphirical. Of course Logic is a branch of philosopy that is not emphirical in the same way Mathematics is not. But ethics is another branch all together. It is about how people ought to behave as they go through life in this world we live in. The differnet ethical systems you refer to are just different attempts to develop rules of behavior that take into consideration both facts and values. They are not necessarily different possibilites. Some of them are more or less adequate than others and we judge their adequacy by referring to real world problems. Science deals with facts. But there is more to life than that. Values, like facts, refer to the world. We can hate Catholic Irishmen (like me) for being lazy, drunken animals, and then find ourselves thrown together with a few and discover we had them all wrong. All thought and feelings require verification. We develop feeling and value through the arts, which is a part of that “social engagement and collective conversation” that Kenan is referring to in the above quote.


    You imply here and in your 5 part series on ethics that morality applies to humans and other social animals. What other animals are you thinking of? What evidense do you know of that these other animals think about what they “ought to do” and direct their action based on this as opposed to just behaving based on inclination?


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    1. You'll not get much disagreement from me or I suspect many others on the deficiencies of Sam Harris' "Moral Landscape". He certainly does not speak for everyone. I also agree that FGM is morally repugnant but I do disagree that it is clear. Members of every culture feel their own moral values are self evident. I don't think they are but that we can get there by, as you say, engagement and conversation.

      Values don't refer to the world. They reflect our subjective desires. Science can inform our goals but it can't really determine them and I thought that Massimo was pretty clear that is his view as well.

      Many animals are moral creatures. Chimps, cetaceans and even elephants display moral behaviors.

      Moral behavior in animals

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  30. Hi Brenda,
    Your views on feelings and values are consistent with the Stoics who feared emotions and thought feelings ought to be suppressed by acts of will that allow us to conform our behaviors to rules. They feared expressions of love and lust to the point that they recommended lifelong chastity as a means of keeping those pesky emotions in their place (which according to you is no place because they have no reference to the world). But when we are afraid, we are afraid of something in the world. Even if we can’t always pinpoint what it is we still look for the reason and try to figure out the cause or reference of our fear. If the fear was based on a misunderstanding or a prejudice, then when the misunderstanding is cleared up and the prejudice is shown to be an untrue characterization of a group of people, then the fear goes away. As we get to know the people we were once afraid of we can even grow to love them.

    Picasso’s portrayal of the fascist invasion of Guernica is a powerful expression of the horror of war. It is so real (and objective) an expression that a reproduction of it (a tapestry) hangs in the United Nations. It would have been hanging behind Colin Powell when he made his case for the war against Iraq but it is too real and would have made it impossible for Powell to succeed, so it was removed.

    If you love your daughter and you think and feel she is beautiful and as perfect as any child that ever was then FGM will feel wrong. This will cause you to feel doubt and perhaps even openly question the traditions and dogmas of a culture that says FGM is good. We are intellectual we modify our behavior by conforming to rules. Patriarchal cultures with their rules based on tradition and dogma have inculcated a fear of women’s sexuality. It is our job to help them to understand the unreality of this fear and the harm they are doing to their daughters. This is a part of a conversation where we share objective feelings and values in addition to facts.

    Morality is an expression of reason. Reason is our capacity for objectivity, our ability to make our thoughts and feelings conform to the world around us, as opposed to projecting onto the world our subjective beliefs, ideas, fears and prejudices. Reason is also historically been the differentia between us and the brutes of the world. Of course many animals behave kindly and express love and affection, but they don’t necessarily think about alternative ways to act. Morality is the distinction between doing what one ought to do and behaving based on your natural inclinations.

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    1. I think you are reading too much into a few lines of text on a blog. I am not afraid of emotions. I just make clear distinctions between thoughts and feelings. Being afraid is an emotion. Being prejudiced is not. It is a thought. I think it would be better if more people learned how to distinguish between their thoughts and their emotions. They are often confused.

      While it is true that I have strong feelings that FGM is wrong it isn't my feelings that make it wrong. It is wrong because it causes permanent harm to young girls. If I were raised in a traditional culture that values FGM I may (or may not) feel FGM is good but my feeling so would not make it good.

      I'm not convinced that reason or language or morality separate us from other animals as much as we might like to believe. I do not believe that animals are incapable of thinking of alternative courses of action. It is clear that they can. I also strongly disagree that there is a conflict between what we think we ought to do and our natural inclinations. The natural instincts of people after the Boston marathon bombing was to rush to the aid of those injured. Compassion, empathy and altruism are just as "natural" as anger, fear and prejudice. Don't be such a cynic :)

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    2. Hi Brenda,
      You make it sound like thoughts and feelings are two distinct and separate things - like they are somehow even unrelated. It is commonplace that prejudice carries with it strong emotions. People who are prejudiced against another group of people can think bad and untrue things about them and also feel unfounded fear and hate toward them. We can separate thought and feeling for analysis but they combine together to form our point-of-view.

      Both your feelings and your thoughts can tell you FGM is wrong. You just don't give much credit to your emotions and you refuse to believe that your emotional responses are relevant. I agree, if you were raised in a culture that values FGM your feelings that it is good would not make it so, but neither would your thoughts that it is good make it that way.

      Our thoughts are instrumental and outward looking. Our emotions are closer to the core of who we are. We are animals, and in many ways very similar to dogs, cats, apes, etc. Our thoughts and our feelings form our outlook and our responses to the world. Both can be referred correctly and incorrectly to the things in this world. The strong emotions that are a part of prejudice and bias can blind us to the reality of others. Sentimental feelings (like patriotism and a fondness for tradition) can be unreal and make us think things are good when they are actually bad.

      Noam Chomsky described the universal grammar as something that grows in us, like an organ. It seems to be uniquely human. He also said when we taught other species like chimpanzees and gorillas to do sign language we hoped they'd tell us what they thought about their lives, but they never did. Language seems to be something that separates us from other species. It is also essential for thinking.

      I agree with your judgment regarding people; in general we are a kind hearted species that wants to do good things. Now who is reading too much into a few lines on a blog? I am certainly not cynical. It’s just that the distinction between doing what one ought to do and acting on inclination is essential to ethics and that is what the people here have been discussing.

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    3. "You make it sound like thoughts and feelings are two distinct and separate things"

      They are.

      "People who are prejudiced against another group of people can think bad and untrue things about them"

      Prejudice just *is* untrue beliefs about a class of people. That is what it means to be prejudiced, to have beliefs about others that are not based in truth. The fact that people combine thoughts and emotions does not make them the same. They are not the same. Further, we are better able to deal with ourselves and others if we learn how to distinguish between how we feel about others and what we think about them. The people who we call prejudiced have strong negative feelings that they then rationalize. While Hume may have been right in that we often feel first and think later it isn't a good way to go about living and coping with others. Life is better, we and others *flourish* when we learn to separate how we feel from what we believe.

      "Both your feelings and your thoughts can tell you FGM is wrong."

      No, *only* thoughts can tell me if anything is right or wrong. Feelings cannot tell me anything because feelings have no cognitive content. Emotions just *are*. If I am feeling I am not thinking, I am emoting. That's neither good not bad. Sometimes I ought to do little more than feel. Like when one is with one's lover. Sometimes I ought to only reason. Like when I am balancing my checkbook. And there are times when it is a good idea to do both.

      "Our emotions are closer to the core of who we are."

      I don't agree. I don't believe I am one or the other. I think that both responses have their time and place.

      Noam Chomsky's universal grammar is a bunch of hooey. The Piraha language along with several others do not support his theory. I agree that animals do not appear to have very robust language skills and that ours are significantly more powerful. That just shows we are at one end of a spectrum. I also disagree that language is necessary for thought. The belief it is has, I believe, fallen into disfavor recently, I think.

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    4. Brenda,
      Chomsky isn’t infallible, neither was Newton or Darwin. No one working in science can get everything right. I like the idea of language growing and developing in us. He was right about how we aren’t taught to speak in the same way we are taught math; we seem to naturally pick up language. Linguistics was stagnant before he came along. Few people would agree with you that it was better that way. You sure do hate him, or maybe you feel inclined to show the same disgust for any scientist or artist I mention.

      You put such a low premium on feelings (and you call me cynical). If I didn’t know that you’re an expert on prejudice, I’d be tempted to think you’re a tad prejudiced against your feelings. By the way you ought to update the Wikipedia entry on prejudice, because it is full of talk about feelings. In fact one idiot (this guy Gordon Allport) went so far as to say prejudice is "feeling, favorable or unfavorable, toward a person or thing, prior to, or not based on, actual experience”. I hope you can understand why I thought there was an emotional component. Because I was taught there is and, well, because I’ve experienced it. Maybe you ought to reflect more on emotions; try expressing the way you feel in a poem. I think you’ll find it enhances all that flourishing you like to do.

      No doubt Brenda, when you are knitting your brow and balancing your checkbook you are focused more on thinking than the way you are feeling at that moment. However, if you stop and try writing down what you’re feeling, you’ll come up with something. It could be heartburn from your last meal, impatience, a little tension or perhaps even a feeling that can best be described as “a feeling that you got to get this done”. Our motivations are also widely thought to have an emotional component. And it is often the case that we are unaware of our motives. That’s why learning to express our feelings is so important. It helps us to better understand and interpret them.

      When I say that our emotions are closer to the core of who we are I am merely agreeing with you that reason doesn’t “separate us from other animals as much as we might like to believe”. Who hasn’t delighted in the way animals respond emotionally to their environment? I just looked out the window and I saw at the end of a leash a dog jumping up and running and trying to break free. He couldn’t contain himself; he seemed so happy (it is gorgeous outside). Years ago I had this cat that would shoot out the door and head straight for the neighbor’s evergreen bush. The bush had a subtle pine fragrance that seemed to delight her. I didn’t know at the time (because I didn’t know until I talked with you) that these feelings of delight could not be referred to the bush. Anyway, she would sit underneath it with her nose up in the air and seem to drink it in. I’ve always assumed these feelings told her this is “good”; and that is why she returned again and again to take in the scent. I thought she loved the bush, but that was before you told me that values do not refer to the world. If the bush was ripped out of the ground and taken away, I suppose she’d find something else to delight her and so hardly miss it. But I’m not so sure.

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  31. Paul,

    > I think to make a full (explicit) argument as to why FGM is ethically wrong, one must explain what one means by 'ethically wrong'. <

    I’m not sure what sort of account you are looking for. I gave you an argument, what is missing from it? And no, I don’t think that every ethical judgment requires a metaethical explanation. Indeed, I am skeptical of most metaethical projects anyway. As I said, to me ethics is simply a way of reasoning about a certain category of judgments pertinent to human flourishing. Similarly, I don’t need a meta-account of logic, or math, to do logic, or math.

    > I suspect that this is the result of myopic physicalism and/or views of truth that can't conceive how ethical statements could have truth-values and/or not looking closely at the consequences of the relevant view. <

    Yes, I have the same feeling.

    > I think it's important to appreciate the depth of the consequences to taking ethical claims to be without truth-values. It means that when we say that the Nazis did something ethically wrong is bringing about the death of Anne Frank, we at best have only the illusion of saying something. <

    Again, agreed, except for my reservations on using the word “truth” without qualifiers, already explained. It leads to quite a bit of confusion, in this sort of discussion. I also think another problem is posed by the tendency of so many people to look for foundationalist answers (“but what do you base *that* on?”), without realizing that those cannot be satisfactory even in the case of science itself (or math, or logic). At some point one has to concede that certain things are brute facts, or alternatively rely on a Quineian web of beliefs approach.

    Patrick,

    > Your claim that ethics is like logic and ethical truths are like mathematical truths seems contrived and unreal. The concerns of Philosophy are broader than science but they are not any less empirical. <

    I disagree, I think the parallel is helpful, though I have said several times that I regard philosophy (in general, not just ethics) as in-between science and logic. Yes, the concerns of philosophy are broader than those of science, but they are far less empirical. There are plenty of empirical facts about the world (e.g., the chemical composition of the martian atmosphere) that have no relevance to philosophical inquiry. Philosophy is, again, not independent of empirical input (as opposed to logic and math), but it is not quite so dependent on it as science is either.

    > The different ethical systems you refer to are just different attempts to develop rules of behavior that take into consideration both facts and values. They are not necessarily different possibilities. <

    Not all systems of ethics are based on rules (virtue ethics, for instance, which is focussed on character), and I disagree that they are not different “possibilities.” Though the term I prefer is different *frameworks* for thinking about ethics.

    > Science deals with facts. But there is more to life than that. Values, like facts, refer to the world. <

    No disagreement from me there. But ethics is about *reasoning* on the conjunction of values and facts; hopefully, that reasoning is logical.

    > What other animals are you thinking of? What evidence do you know of that these other animals think about what they “ought to do” and direct their action based on this as opposed to just behaving based on inclination? <

    I did not say that there is evidence that other animals have systems of ethics, there isn’t, as far as I’m aware. I said that some of the *building blocks* of ethics (such as prosocial behavior, a capacity for empathy, etc.) are found in other species — as it should be if the human moral instinct evolved over time.

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    1. Massimo,

      >As I said, to me ethics is simply a way of reasoning about a certain category of judgments pertinent to human flourishing. Similarly, I don’t need a meta-account of logic, or math, to do logic, or math.<

      I think your skepticism of meta-ethics is problematic is several ways. First, any ethical argument implies at least a partial meta-ethical view. If you argue: A, B, C; therefore X is ethically wrong, there's a meta-ethical assumption that there's something about A, B, and C that sufficient for ethical wrongness.

      This leads to a second way the skepticism is problematic: the point of philosophical ethics is not just to present our first-order ethical opinions but also to examine our assumptions about the general phenomenon of ethics. To the extent this task is problematically foundational, philosophy as a whole is problematically foundational. I agree that explanations must end somewhere, but I do not think they end as soon as you suggest,

      A third problem is that it is just false that we do not need meta-ethics to do ethics. The analogy with math and logic is only a source of error. Ordinary ethical discourse is generally a dance between first-order and second-order (i.e. meta-ethical) ethical concern. Unlike math and logic, the conditions (meaning) of ethical predicates as well as whether those conditions obtain are points common contention; that is, e.g., people commonly debate what it means for something to be wrong as well as whether the conditions of wrongness have been met. The clearest of example of this is when fundamentalist theists debate atheists. It is not as if the two agree on what 'is wrong' means and are just debating whether relevant conditions are fulfilled.

      So meta-ethics is not a pointless, esoteric digression from doing ethics but an integral point of doing ethics in any context.

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  32. Hey Massimo,
    Thanks for your response

    Neither does the chemical composition of the Martian atmosphere have any relevance for a psychologist enquiring about what makes people tick. There are lots of different philosophical and scientific problems for which we can find things that are irrelevant. I don’t know what that proves. My point is ethics is about how we conduct ourselves in the world and because of this it is empirically based. Ethical norms require verification just like scientific theory does. If it doesn’t work (and cannot be made to work) in real life, then it can’t be true.

    Your argument is confusing. The difference between dealing with values and dealing with facts is logic doesn’t apply. That is why you can’t go from what “is” to what “ought to be”. What is the relationship between love, lust, hate, fear, a moment of inspiration, a feeling of doubt, loneliness, etc. ? What are the rules for the logic you use to navigate between attitudes, feelings and values? And how do you go from them back to the world of fact by way of your logic?

    Right out of the gate you start off with a value judgment as soon as you decide on your axiom. You’ve already gone from is to ought. Lots of people for lots of good reasons would disagree with that initial axiom. See Kenan Malik’s review of the Moral Landscape, he lists some good reasons why people would have a problem with Sam Harris’s starting point about morality being about the wellbeing of conscious creatures. Your ethics (like Harris’s) is “aristocratic” (see the quote by Kenan Malik above). Ethics is as much if not more about agreeing on, sharing and understanding values, as it is unpacking the implications of the ones you come up with when you’re off on your own and figuring things out for the rest of us. It is about understanding each other and better understanding the things we value, which doesn’t seem to have much of a place in your system. Where is the “social engagement and collective conversation” that Malik thinks is so essential?

    In part one of your five part series you did say, “morality is a human (and other relevantly similar beings’) phenomenon”. If morality is doing as one ought to do as opposed to acting on inclination or behaving as your biology dictates you must, then this isn't true.

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  33. Patrick

    How does it make sense to separate morality and what biology "dictates"? Human moral instincts have a biological basis, and human reasoning has a biological basis. So, to use your terminology, biology "dictates" morality.

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  34. Hey David,
    You're dabbling in evolutionary psychology not philosophy. The fact that morality has an evolutionary basis is about as helpful in figuring out our moral predicaments as atomic theory was in shedding light on the theory of evolution by natural selection. Darwin may have assumed, like so many today, that the laws of physics hold even in the organic domain but I can’t imagine he found them helpful in developing his theory. Yes, it is reasonable to assume there is a biological basis to morality; it’s just that it hasn’t been firmly established by scientific enquiry. If you read the Darwin wars you’ll find Gould argued forcefully that human altruism is a far cry from the cooperation you see in ant colonies and the empathy you find in other species. Infanticide is common in chimpanzee groups. I imagine it is distressful and horrible when the dominant male is overthrown and his successor kills his offspring. But I doubt there is an effort within chimpanzee groups to put an end to these atrocities the way we all would like to put an end to FGM.

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  35. Well Patrick, I'm not "dabbling" in anything. I am talking about evolutionary biology, which has established well enough that morality has a biological foundation -- as reported in this very blog.

    Whether or not that solves moral predicaments was not my point. I was referring to your false dichotomy that "doing as one ought" can't in any way overlap with "inclination or behaving as your biology dictates you must."

    And as it is not being claimed here that chimpanzees have morality, what is your point?

    Isn't the point that human instincts and human reasoning have evolved beyond ants and chimps? Why would we expect that everything would stay the same?

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  36. David,
    I’m sorry if I misunderstood what you were asking. Of course we people depend on our biology. We don’t need evolutionary biology to tell us that. But there is no theory that shows how consciousness, personality or morality arises from our biology. Evolutionary psychologists tell stories about how morality may have evolved – this is the only way I know of that anyone has tried to link morality to our biology.

    You say there are “human moral instincts”. Morality is not an instinct. Morality is a reflective activity that tries to distinguish between right and wrong. The study of ethics distinguishes between doing as one ought and as one ought not as well as acting from inclination. I never said “doing as one ought” cannot overlap with inclination. It can and does so quite often. Where I differ with Massimo is I believe the study of ethics is more about educating our inner sensibilities and developing our sense of value than developing external rules for good conduct like, “it is wrong to impose pain on others … for arbitrary reasons”. I think it is natural for parents to protect their children from someone who would mutilate them. That some cultures allow this to happen begs to be understood. It isn’t enough to say FGM is wrong because it imposes pain on others for arbitrary reasons. How do we help these people become aware of this oppressive element in traditions and culture and allow their natural love for their children to bring about the necessary changes?

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  37. Dear Massimo,
    I apologize for being so picky and sounding a tad prickly in referring to what you said regarding morality and other species. I’m not an expert on morality and ethics by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m not exactly unfamiliar with it and I want to understand. I distinguished between acting from inclination and doing as one ought because this is the way philosophers have distinguished morality from animal behavior.

    Sometimes when you talk about ethics being about different possibilities and involving logical analysis that is not empirical it all begins to sound rather mystical. I agree that logic can help clarify our disagreements. It can be used to analyze our arguments and help clarify what we mean and what we are trying to say. But after we’ve done this where does logic come in?

    Mathematics is not inherently empirical, but in the hands of a physicist it is. Empirical things are symbolized in mathematical equations and then manipulated via mathematical rules. The results then need to be referred back to the world to see if they make sense. It is the same way with the logical analysis of arguments. The logic is abstract and can be used to analyze all sorts of different arguments. Logic itself is not empirical but each set of statements that make up an argument have an empirical reference. And the conclusion has to make sense. In other words it has to refer correctly back (in a real way) to the world.

    How will this philosophy you’re describing help bring an end to FGM? When I say that FGM is clearly wrong Brenda tells me I am being provincial, that everyone thinks their morality is correct. Like you, I’m not a moral relativist. I want children the world over to be free to grow and become fully functioning - reasoning, thinking and feeling adult human beings. The only way I can see to clear-up this misunderstanding is via a dialogue of some sort. FGM as far as I can see is oppressive toward women. Many of the customs and traditions in patriarchal cultures seem to be grounded in a fear of women’s sexuality and have the effect of limiting their ability to express themselves sexually. I imagine the reality is more complicated than this; but it seems reasonable to think there is an element of truth in it.

    Before reading this dialogue by Kenan Malik and some notably thoughtful people (http://www.kenanmalik.com/tv/analysis_value.html) I was inclined to think of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDUR) was an objective description of rights that all men and women ought to be guaranteed. All nations ought to be required to sign on. Now I understand a little better the distinction between politics, rule of law and ethics. We need to establish laws the world over to protect children. If people are not internally compelled to protect the rights of children then we need to establish laws that will externally compel them to do so. However, the better way is to help each other to internally value, love and feel the need to protect children. In this effort the UDUR becomes the beginning of a conversation. I have to treat the people of these cultures with respect, the way I think Martin Luther King treated white Americans while conducting himself in a moral dialogue about civil rights. He was aware of the fear and hate that separated whites from blacks in the 50’s and 60’s. He addressed it in many different ways; not the least of which was his commitment to non-violence, which helped take away any good reason whites might have to justify their fear. I think of this as a model for moral dialogue and developing moral understanding between different groups of people.

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  38. Patrick

    Well actually we do need biology and other science to tell us that our mind and all our thoughts are a function of a biological brain. (Which is a blessing as we don't have to suffer the oppression of religious systems forcing us to believe it's all supernatural.) As are our moral instincts and our reasoning functions of a biological brain. There is no complete theory, but all the evidence supports that consciousness, personality, morality are biological functions - a product of a physical brain. No brain, no consciousness, etc. Or maybe you want to put forward some supernatural explanation which has not a shred of evidence?

    I didn’t say that morality is an instinct. But a sense of ‘right and wrong’ is an instinct – it’s not something everyone just makes up. Do you think that if we didn’t have these instincts that we would care less about FGM or circumcision or abortion or a whole host of issues? Where does the motivation come from? Our evolved brains.

    Take the instincts away and it’s msost unlikely that humans, even with ability to reason, would have invented morality.

    You might think “it is natural for parents to protect their children from someone who would mutilate them”, but orthodox Jewish parents don’t consider circumcision of their male infants to be mutilation, and parents who are proponents of cutting female genitals don’t consider it done for arbitrary reasons.

    So we could say that it’s "natural" for parents to allow their children to be treated so. That’s how morality works – there are moral dimensions beyond harm. To say it begs the questions indicates a naive view of morality. Instincts around being part of a group are just as “natural” as love for your child. Xenophobia is a natural part of human nature too.

    You need to at least fathom how different moralities and moral positions come to be.

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