The Rational Content of Emotions

This morning I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts Invisibilia.  I was doing the dishes.  Put this one on.  It is brilliant.  The topic was emotions, one of two on that.  I haven’t listened to the second one yet. 

The podcast interviewed Lisa Feldman Barrett, a research psychologist who specializes in the study of emotions.  She has a book.  How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain.  I walked up to the Northern library to check it out and… it is missing.  So I sought out several of her papers and read them this afternoon.  It was very interesting. 

I have long accepted a view that, according to Barrett, is misguided.  That view is what she calls the Natural Kinds View.  Human beings are born with a more or less fixed pallet of emotions (my term): anger, fear, sadness, disgust, and happiness, etc.  When something happens‑I am offended, threatened, disappointed, etc.‑the emotion is triggered more or less automatically.  The emotions are hardwired into the brain and produce all of our emotional experience in the way that a set of colored pixels in the screen produce all the colors of a cooking show. 

Barret says that decades of psychological research have failed to establish or clinically define any of these well-known emotions.  You will have to read her book to see why.  She argues (if I understand the paper) that there are only two fixed biological foundations for emotions: valence (I like or I like not) and arousal (I act or I act not). 

What makes for all the emotions that we think we experience and have names for?  She argues that, in any emotionally relevant context, we interpret the visceral experience according to our concepts.  If I don’t like what is happening, my brain has to supply a context that will tell me what to do or not do about it.  If my brain interprets the displeasure I feel as an offense (he took my fish!) then I interpret it as anger and that is what I feel.  If I interpret my arousal as “I am out of here!” then I run.  The character of the various emotions is largely supplied by the contest and my concepts. 

An analogy occurs to me, and it is mine not hers’s.  Our tongues have only a small number of sensations: sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and I forget the other one.  Yet we experience a wide range of tastes: wine, beer, cheese, pan sauce poured over lamb shank, beer…  Our sense of smell provides all the wide range.  Likewise, our biological pallet is just valence and arousal.  Categorization provides all the nuance. 

As a biopolitical scientist, I like the idea of biologically fixed emotions.  As a student of Aristotle and Plato, I like the idea of a rational component to the emotions.  I am pretty sure that when I am angry I am angry about something, and that implies categorization and concepts.  This is worth keeping an eye on.  

Is Human Morality Human Nature?

It is becoming increasingly difficult to argue that human morality is entirely the product of culture.  Christopher Boehm presents a very strong case in his two books Hierarchy in the Forest and Moral Origins that morality emerged as a product of social selection.  Human groups imposed strong pressure on their individual members to suppress selfish and especially bullying behavior.  Over periods of evolutionary adaptation, individuals who better internalized the moral rules of their groups and groups that contained more honest cooperators were more successful than those that did not do so.  Frans de Waal and Michael Tomasello have shown that human morality builds on cooperative behaviors observed in other primates and the latter has shown that moral instincts emerge in children reliably at a young age. 

Those who hold that morality is entirely artificial, the product of learning and culture, haven’t yet given up the game.  Francisco J. Ayala contributes a chapter in a book he co-edited with Robert Arp (Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Biology) that makes just that case.  Ayala argues that the capacity for ethics is indeed part of human nature.  It is grounded in three products of natural selection: the ability to anticipate the consequences of our actions; the ability to make value judgments, and the ability to choose between courses of action.  All moral norms are the consequence of the application of these basic human capacities to recurrent problems.  If some moral norms seem to be universal (e.g. return favors) that is only because the problems are universal.  All moral behaviors are, however, exaptations rather than adaptations: they emerge in the course of human evolution not because they were selected for but because they are secondary consequences of traits that were selected for. 

I have to say that this smacks of an almost Cartesian view of human beings.  Descartes famously believed that animals were mere biological machines, whereas human beings alone, having souls, possessed the metaphysical capacity for consciousness and freedom.  If Ayala is right, human beings alone achieved by hard work alone what the other social primates were granted by way of instincts: altruistic norms promoting cooperative behaviors. 

Whether such a dualism is tenable is not worth discussing.  I would point out here that it neglects the distinction between moral reasoning and moral emotions, about which we now know a lot.  Consider the two basic versions of the infamous trolley problem.  In the “trolley problem”, a trolley is headed toward a switch.  As the switch is set, the trolley will move onto a track and kill five innocent people.  If you throw the switch it will divert the trolley, saving those people.  However, it will kill one innocent person on the other track.  In the “footbridge problem,” you can save the five people only by pushing one innocent person off a bridge, thus stopping the trolley. 

I have frequently presented these two dilemmas to my philosophy classes and asked for a vote.  My results always conform more or less exactly to the general statistics.  Most of my students (but not all of them) throw the switch in the first case but refuse to push the fellow off in the second.  The most fascinating thing about these two scenarios is that the two popular results‑throw the switch but don’t push the fellow off the bridge‑can each be easily explained by two mutually exclusive theories of ethics.  Utilitarians (or consequentialists) argue that an action is just if it secures the most good for the most people.  Throwing the switch in the first case is an easy utilitarian calculus and most people make it.  Deontologists (or Kantians) argue that if something is wrong then you just shouldn’t do it, regardless of the consequences.  Most people confronted with the second scenario come to precisely that conclusion.  Yet the body count is the same in either case. 

The key to understanding why the jury splits here is to consider the roles of moral reasoning and moral emotions.  This has been done in a remarkably precise way by Joshua D. Greene et al. in “An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment” (Science vol. 293 14 September 2001).  The result was that the two problems engage different parts of the brain.  The reason that people react different to footbridge problem than to the trolley problem is that the former engages moral emotions whereas the latter does not. 

Human beings are clearly capable of exercising abstract moral reasoning.  That’s a good thing.  It allows us to make impartial judgments and to arbitrate in controversies where we have no interests.  It makes it possible for us to respond with flexibility to unexpected circumstances.  It makes it possible to legislate.  If Ayala were right, that is all there is to morality. 

Of course, he is wrong.  We also have strong moral emotions that, when engaged, channel our moral reasoning and place limits on our choices.  That’s a good thing too.  In the absence of moral instincts we would not be impartial judges all the time.  We are also subject to selfish instincts and conflicts of interests.  Moral emotions make us better partners, friends, and citizens by making it uncomfortable for us to bend our moral reasoning to selfish ends.  It is difficult if not impossible to explain our moral emotions except as evolved dispositions in a social primate species. 

Moral Molecules & Moral Emotions

Aristotle may have been the most dedicated opponent of reductionism in the history of philosophy.  He stoutly attacked the view that form could be reduced to matter or teleological processes to chance.  I am with the Philosopher on this sort of thing. 

It is interesting to note that Aristotle was nonetheless a bit more materialistic in his analysis than is modern Darwinian biology.  Aristotle believed in spontaneous generation.  Lacking a robust experimental apparatus, he supposed that life was routinely generated from lifeless matter under special conditions of temperature, moisture, etc.  For that to be true, a lot more of the basic information that makes up organic structures would have to be pre-loaded in the material constituents or would be provided by chance than is supposed by modern biology.  According to the latter, for most of the history of life, you first have to have a living organism to get another living organism. 

I have been reading a very interesting review essay by Iain Dewitt: “Moral Matter”, from the American Interest.  Dewitt reviews recent books by Patricia Churchland, Jonathan Haidt, Robert Kurzban, and Michael Gazzaniga.  He begins with Churchland’s Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality. 

Churchland addresses morality from several perspectives, but her main interest is in the neurobiological foundation of morality. This centers on discussion of oxytocin, a hormone traditionally appreciated for its role in the female reproductive cycle, especially in milk letdown. Beginning in the 1970s, interest grew in this hormone as a regulator of maternal and mate bonding—a love hormone, as it were. In recent years, interest has grown as research has established oxytocin’s role in bonding and its concrete linkages to trusting behavior.

That is the kind of that most disturbs many critics of “scientism.”  If there is a molecular basis for morality, does this not indicate the complete victory of materialism over the soul? 

Parallel to this neurobiological analysis is a simplification (if not a reduction) of the moral emotions that underwrite cooperation between groups of unrelated individuals. 

Churchland describes her project as examining the platform upon which morality is constructed. Her thesis is that the platform is maternal attachment to young. The largest single factor in human brain evolution is our exaggerated juvenile phase, during much of which we are helpless. This surely exerted strong selective pressure for parental behavior, care for kin. Churchland argues this is the forerunner of care for kith and strangers.

Here, the larger set of moral emotions is seen as dependent upon a simpler, more general motive.  We can care about strangers because we can extend our attachment to our young beyond the limits of this most basic community. 

It occurs to me that there are two very different kinds of analysis going on here.  One is the connection between mental states and the molecular constituents of brain states.  The other is the connection between less self-interested motives and more self-interested ones.  The two types of analysis are not necessarily dependent upon one another and neither necessarily implies reductionism. 

Unless there is a ghost in the machine, all states of soul and mind must have a basis in matter.  It may well turn out that there are a few key molecules that play a very large role in the neurological processes that are the substratum of changes in consciousness.  Those molecules supply part of the information that makes up a soul; however, they supply only part of it.  The level of matter is the level of the medium in which the information that makes up the soul is substantiated.  This suggests precisely that the soul cannot be reduced to matter. 

Whether complex social emotions are indeed refined and enlarged versions of simpler ones is an entirely independent question.  If there is indeed a Moral Molecule, as Paul J. Zak argues in the title of his recent book, then the material substratum of emotions is simpler than we might have expected.  That tells us nothing about whether or which one emotion is the biological ancestor of another. 

Churchland’s thesis that maternal attachment is the “platform upon which morality is constructed” is plausible enough.  We can see why it is not reductionist by considering Aristotle’s analysis in the beginning of the Politics.  He held that the community of man and woman and the parental community are the most basic human communities.  He denies that the more complex communities of clan, village, and the complete political community are only larger versions of the former.  The larger associations have their own distinct functions that cannot be reduced to those of the most basic associations and accordingly they require very different kinds of government. 

Churchland’s evolutionary account of the social emotions is perfectly compatible with Aristotle’s argument.  Evolution indeed works by working on pre-existing biological structures and pathways.  It does so by frequently adapting them to new functions.  What was once a second set of wings in beetles becomes something very different: a retractable set of armored plates.  If what was once a simple mental schema for child care is refined and enlarged to work for partnerships with strangers, the latter is now a new schema with a function that certainly cannot be reduced to the functions of its ancestral schema. 

Evolutionary biology is reductionist only in the sense that it allows for an analysis of biological phenomena on the level of chemistry as well as on higher levels.  It is anti-reductionist in the sense that it resists reducing the latter to the former. 

The Evolution of Virtue 2

Moral emotions develop prior to moral reasoning, appearing in a child around her first birthday‑about the same time as she begins to walk and talk.  Just as the capacity for language and bipedal locomotion are innate, so the moral emotions arise naturally.  In adults, moral reasoning is a necessary handmaiden to these emotions.  This is so, I submit, for two basic reasons.  First, it is frequently necessary for two or more human beings to reach an agreement about their mutual obligations, in order to promote cooperation and avoid conflict.  Second, human beings have a natural desire for justification, both because we want to feel that our own actions are right and that actions that offend us are wrong and also because we want to believe in the moral rules toward which our passions are inclined.  It is the latter that interests us in moral dramas, which are the larger part of the stories that we tell one another. 

This desire for justification is usually satisfied by appeal to some standard that we regard as impeccable.  So, for example, if I suppose that “all men are created equal” is such a standard, I may appeal to it in arguing against the institution of slavery or for or against affirmative action.  However, while there may be universally accepted moral standards (it can be argued that every human culture recognizes some form of reciprocity as a basis for justice) this does not mean that there is any moral standard that cannot be subject to challenge.  The history of moral thought has been driven by an attempt to discover the fundamental moral standard or standards. 

Despite the apparent diversity of moral cultures, there are really only two candidates for the foundations of morality.  Either the foundation lies in some transcendent, metaphysically impeccable act of legislation or it lies in some understanding of the human good that is accessible to our intelligence.  These are famously referred to as revelation and reason.  The two standards are not necessarily exclusive.  Someone who holds revelation to be primary may acknowledge that some moral principles have sufficient reason behind them.  Someone who holds reason to be primary may see utility in the belief in divine sanction, whether or not that belief is well-founded.  The primacy of revelation is necessarily theological in character whereas the primacy of reason is necessarily philosophical. 

Modern ethical thought was long dominated by two philosophical positions: utilitarianism, which ground morality in a lowest denominator of common interest, and deontology, which grounds morality in the passion for integrity.  Recently, however, classical virtue ethics has made something of a comeback.  It is with the latter that I am here concerned. 

Virtue ethics was originally articulated and defended by the classical philosophers Plato and Aristotle.  The latter’s account was so thorough that virtue ethics may never go further than crafting a series of footnotes to his Nicomachean Ethics.  Virtue, or areté in the Greek, means simply excellence.  Whenever anything or any practice may be judged to be better or worse, the possibility of the best or the excellent presents itself.  So, to use a familiar example, a racehorse will be in a bad, or good, better or best condition for running a race.  The best horse on the best day will be an example of the areté of racehorses. 

Likewise a human being may be better or worse at some essential activity.  Since the best human life requires a number of distinct activities‑for example, entering into cooperative arrangements with mutual obligations or defending the constitution against enemies foreign and domestic‑there will be a number of distinct human virtues.  In its larger meaning, areté can be displayed in any activity that admits of better and worse performance.  Thus someone might have a linguistic virtue if he speaks or writes very well in some language.  Both sports and military service will be fields for human virtue. 

In its narrower ethical sense, virtue means moral excellence.  Morality is another of those dimensions that define the human being.  It appears whenever there is a difference between what I am tempted to do and what I ought to do, what seems good and what is in fact good.  While there is a tendency in modern ethical thought to confine morality to the obligations that human beings have toward one another, this is rather two narrow.  I can be tempted to do what is bad for myself just as I can be tempted to do what is bad for another or for us, and human beings frequently feel shame and guilt when we succumb to temptations that harm only no one but the tempted.  Moral emotions are evidence enough of moral significance. 

Moral virtue is then a capacity for excellence in moral actions.  The virtuous person can be counted upon to do what is right in each situation.  She does so not only reliably but in a way that is natural or unforced.  She will recognize temptations to do wrong in others and perhaps even in herself; however, temptation has little or no power over her.  She has formed the habit of acting rightly.  She does this, moreover, knowing full well what she is doing.  In a morally significant situation she will not have to pause for reflection; however, afterwards she can explain exactly why what she did was the right thing to do. 

Julie Annas skillfully employs an analogy between virtue and practical skills in her excellent book: Intelligent Virtue.  Someone who begins to learn to play the piano begins by imitating his teachers.  He begins to acquire the skill of piano playing by playing the piano the way others, whom he admires, play it.  He can learn to play at all only because he possesses the capacity to learn.  If his talent is mediocre, he will not go beyond mere imitation.  If his talent is more than mediocre and her persists in developing it, he will eventually go beyond imitation to produce his own interpretation of musical works.  He will creatively respond to each passage in a way that makes sense of the work as a whole both to himself and to the skilled listener.  There is a reciprocal or better yet dynamic relationship between action and skill: one becomes a skillful player by playing skillfully and one plays skillfully because one is a skillful player. 

Likewise with the virtues, one begins to develop them by imitating others and following set rules.  To the degree that one acquires the virtues, one will go beyond imitation to respond creatively and appropriately to novel situations.  One will be admirable in the eyes of anyone who can appreciate virtue.  Such an admirer will recognize that one is a virtuous person because one does virtuous things and he will recognize that the actions are admirable and worthy of imitation because these are what a virtuous person does. 

If that looks like circular reasoning, look again.  It is not a circle but a dynamic.  One cannot understand what a virtue is except by understanding the dynamic process by which it is developed.  At some point one may ask, however, what it is about virtuous actions and virtuous persons that make them valuable.  What is the good of being good? 

Aristotle says in his Nicomachean Ethics that there are three things that are intrinsically worthy of choosing or taking up and three things that are to be avoided.  The former are the beautiful, the provisional, and the pleasant.  The latter are the disgusting, the harmful, and the painful.  Virtuous actions are surely not chosen for the sake of mere pleasure.  Doing what is just or generous will often involve pain.  Virtuous actions are those mostly likely to be provisional in the sense that they are the actions most likely, in most situations, to achieve the best outcome.  The virtuous person will be best able to achieve the best human life.  She will provide for herself, her family and friends, and her polis.  She will beat the odds whenever the odds are beatable. 

Sometimes the odds will not be beatable.  Virtuous actions do not guarantee victory; they only guarantee that one will deserve victory.  A brave man or woman may be overcome by outrageous fortune; still, where the outcome is tragic the virtuous deed will be beautiful.  Moral virtue is valuable enough because it is useful.  The virtuous person is most likely to live the best life in any circumstances and most likely to help his friends to do the same.  The primary value of virtue, however, lies not in its usefulness but in its beauty.  The virtuous person is the beautiful person.  Her deeds are beautiful deeds.  The beautiful is not only the thing most resistant to ill-fortune; it is the best thing to which human beings can aspire.