Contra Genetic Determinism

 One of the things you are warned against if you study (or dare to teach) logic is the strawman argument.  This informal fallacy occurs when someone more or less deliberately constructs a weakened version of her opponent’s argument (the straw man) in order to easily knock it down.  You say that people have a right to bear arms.  Should we really allow anyone to walk around with a grenade launcher? 

My least favorite strawman argument is expressed in the phrase it’s not all in the genes.  When I searched for that phrase a moment ago, Google reported one hundred and fifty-three million results.  It is apparently a popular straw man. 

It is always deployed as if it were a response to someone who claims that it is “all in the genes.”  That phrase indicates the idea of genetic determinism.  It is conceivable that individual minds and behaviors are largely controlled by genes in the same way that a player piano is controlled by the holes in a rotating scroll.  I say largely because I wish to avoid building my own strawman. 

The reason that “all in the genes” indicates a straw man is that no one believes in genetic determinism.  Genes provide the fundamental elements of the recipe that an organism uses to build itself from its beginning and maintain itself during its life.  That is indeed most of the story of how I came to be and continue to be a human being.  It is not at all the entire story nor even the most dramatic part of the story.

Many of the “not in the genes” refer to epigenetics.  How genes are packaged in the nucleus of a cell can determine which genes are expressed and how they are expressed in the actualized individual.  Epigenetic changes frequently result of environmental influences.  A mouse whose mother is devotedly nurtured and fondled by her mother will not only do the same to her offspring, but those offspring will inherit the same tendency.  This is a very important discovery which should be but has yet to be integrated into social science. 

This implicates one of my chief interests as somewhat reconstructed Aristotelian: the concept of species.  This article by Peter Ward in Nautilus tells the story. 

Work along the Great Barrier Reef in the 1990s had shown that two different and accepted species are present. One, Nautilus pompilius, is the most widespread of all the nautiluses across their vast Pacific and Indian Ocean range. The second, Nautilus stenomphalus, is found only on the Great Barrier Reef. It differs from the more common N. pompilius in having a hole right at the center of its shell. (In N. pompilius, there is a thick calcareous plug.) There are also marked differences in shell coloration and pattern of stripes on the shell. But when the Australian species was first brought up from its 1,000-foot habitat alive, in the late 20th century, scientists were astonished to find that N. stenomphalus has markedly different anatomy as well on its thick “hood,” a large fleshy area that protects the interior guts and other anatomical soft parts when the animal pulls into its shell. In N. pompilius the hood is covered with low bumps of flesh, like warts. Meanwhile the N. stenomphalus hood is covered with a forest of brushy projections that rise above the hood like a thick carpet of twiggy moss, or tiny trees of flesh; the coloration of the hood is also radically different.

So we have not one nautilus but two different… what is the plural of nautilus?  The two were recognized as distinct species, but what does that mean? 

A species can be defined as an interbreeding or potentially interbreeding population of organisms (the most useful but not only useful account, in my opinion) or as branches of the phylogenetic tree.  Either way, you would expect the two to have distinct sets of genetic inheritance.  No. 

We caught 30 nautiluses over nine days, snipped off a one-millimeter-long tip of one of each nautilus’ 90 tentacles, and returned all back to their habitats alive (if cranky). All the samples were later analyzed in the large machines that read DNA sequences, and to our complete surprise we found that the DNA of N. pompilius and the morphologically different N. stenomphalus was identical. No genetic difference, yet radically different morphology.

Let’s repeat that: no genetic difference, yet radically different morphology.  Genes do not even determine the final physical structure of an organism such as this, though to be sure they heavily influence it and explain the common morphological traits.  So much for it’s all in the genes. 

I would add that the difference between the two species is not determined by the environment either.  It is determined by the interaction between the common biologically heritable factors and the environment.  The ontogeny, or development of these creatures is a dialogue, not a recitation. 

What is true of biological structures is much truer of minds and behaviors.  A human being becomes what she is by a series of dialogues between her genome and the environment and between herself and the human community with which she interacts.  In this series of dialogues, she is not the least of the dramatis personae. 

Reply to Bonnie on Evolutionary Explanations

Bonnie’s recent comment involved more than the topic of the last post.  To provide the context for the rest of the comment, my friend Ron posted this:

The problem with all teleological explanations is that many natural phenomena pursue multiple purposes. Although the "purpose" of the human eye is to see... we all look at each other's eyes to form judgments about personality... especially reproductive judgments. The Roman Catholic Church is especially intent on assigning reproductive purpose to monogamous marriage while ignoring friendship as a goal. THUS the question of whether one purpose is more "ultimate" than another purpose is often contingent upon contextual considerations.

This was in response to my recent post explanation and teleology2. I replied as follows:

If by ultimate we have in mind the proximate/ultimate distinction, it seems easy to sort out in case of eyes. Their ultimate function is clearly vision. This is powerfully reinforced by the observation that eyes are temporally and genetically prior to human eyes. Our ancestors had eyes long before the human species emerged.

That we have large whites around our corneas may be an adaptation. It allows us to tell when we are looking into one another's eyes and so facilitates communication. Since chimpanzees don't have such eyes, it is very probably a recent adaptation as runaway selection for intelligence and cooperation shaped our species. At any rate, it seems quite easy to assign these various features to primary and secondary functions.

I won't speak for the Catholics, but Aristotle (who has some purchase with them) also recognized reproduction as the primary function of marriage. This seems to me to be obviously true. It doesn't obviate (in fact it may comprehend) the function of friendship.

Bonnie in turn as this:

On eyes the ultimate (why) final cause of eye as vision could include seeing material objects and forms in the world. If one has an affinity with the poetic understanding of eyes as windows to the soul there are other questions. The ultimate evolutionary purpose of the white of eyes as an adaptive mechanism is purely speculative theory unless tested by scientific method. The science that studies sight at the most refined level is neuroscience.

I reply that the final cause of eyes as vision devices obviously includes seeing material objects and forms in the world.  Cats are looking for prey and prey are looking about for cats.  To test this, I need merely observe the cats and rabbits in my back yard.  The cat moves very slowly, because sudden movement is more visible to rabbits.  The rabbit responds to the cat by freezing, because movement is more visible to cats.  I am sure that the eyes of cats and rabbits are windows to their souls.  Most of what their souls are about is eating and not being eaten. 

What happens in human beings is a lot more poetic, I suspect; but then I am not a rabbit.  When I look at a painting by Joseph Turner, I am not trying to survive or mate.  I am pursuing beauty, which my evolutionary heritage has allowed me to pursue because all the necessary things have been provided.  My agenda is not the same as the agenda of my genes.  Much the same thing is happening when I watch the rabbits play with one another.  They leap at each other and seem to dance.  This may have some adaptive function, but it looks like simple fun.  A cat toying with a mouse is another example.  Good training for hunting, most likely; but a lot more fun for the one than the other. 

Yes, it is speculative that the large whites of human eyes may function to facilitate communication.  It is much easier to tell if a human being is looking at me because I can see the direction of her gaze.  Evolutionary explanations can rarely be tested in the same way that water can be tested for bacteria.  Mostly we have to make do with reverse engineering.  Why the large whites of the eyes?  It might be an accident of eye evolution.  Even if it is, that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t adaptive for another purpose once it was in place.  It might be adaptive for another reason, but the same holds.  All we can say for sure is that it doesn’t look like a complete accident that a species that benefits from interpersonal cooperation has eyes that allow one individual to tell when another is paying attention to her. 

Finally, there is this comment:

If the Greek translation of Aristotle’s ultimate theory carries any weight one might leap to conclusions about the composition of genes. In this era of biotechnology that is a big deal. The courts have wrestled with the question AMP v. Myriad 2013 and have settled upon a kind of genes are like chemistry analogy. It serves Occam’s Razor to simplify its work in resolving disputes between corporate and others interests. According to this analogy the simplest explanation is that genetic information is linear and their coded information is deterministic. Research scientists whose motives exclude the allure of profit and fame as primary incentives, increasingly theorize that a better analogy for the behavior of genes is more quantum physics. Their actions are less predictable than the simplified linear understanding that applies to chemistry. If I am correct, this fits Ron’s remarks about contextual influences.

I have been aware of this for a long time.  Since the discovery of genes, it has been tempting to believe that genes are legible: each codes for one trait and the code can be deciphered.  Once we decipher it, we can edit the code to produce the traits we desire.  I don’t think that anyone in the relevant fields believes that there is a simple, deterministic relation between genes and traits.  A single gene may code for many traits in the body, from the brain to the brawn.  Moreover, many genes depend on environmental inputs for their operation. 

Our genes code for flexibility.  When a cat decides whether to chase a rabbit or a fisherman whether to cast his line, each is making choices.  As I have argued in these posts, evolution works through animals by allowing each to pursue its own agenda.  A bull elk in a rut is not trying to produce the next generation of elk.  He is trying to beat the snot out of other bulls.  When I make dinner for my wife, I am not trying to get my genes into the next generation.  I am trying to make her happy.  That is how the beautiful emerges from the merely necessary.  

The Evolution of Virtue 4

Here is the next section of my paper.  It will be followed by a concluding section that will (I hope!) tie the whole thing together.  

Aristotle’s biology as I have described it is quite compatible with contemporary evolutionary accounts of human psychology.  Indeed one might suspect that modern biology is only now getting around to the point that Aristotle arrived at more than two thousand years ago.  Fortunately, modern biology brings to the table a wider array of theories and evidence than Aristotle could have dreamed of.  Does this mean that we can now propose an evolutionary account of the virtues?

Here we must take care to avoid a mistake that is especially common among those who reject evolutionary accounts of human behavior.  The fact that a psychological or physical trait is a product of natural selection does not, in itself, have any moral significance.  Natural selection is a force, an example of efficient causation as Aristotle described it.  It pushes the evolution of organisms in a certain direction just as the hot air in a balloon pushes (or more accurately, is pushed by cooler air), thus causing the balloon to rise.  However, just as the balloon doesn’t rise because the hot air wants to get high, so evolution is not trying to get anywhere.  Evolution is not a teleological process.  It doesn’t aim at any end and so does not endorse or validate any purpose or condition. 

Natural selection has, however, shaped creatures that develop and act in ways that can only be understood as teleological.  The development of the infant toward adulthood, the process of metabolism, and the predator pursuing its prey, are all “end-directed processes”.  These organic motions are constantly being redirected according to a preexisting program.  The philosopher of biology Ernst Mayr preferred to call such processes “teleonomic,” to distinguish them from teleomatic processes.  An example of the latter would be a rock sinking toward the bottom of the well.  The rock is not programmed to do anything; the end of its journey is not in any way present in its beginning, except as a range of possibilities. 

Aristotle’s teleology is entirely sound.  He does not presuppose any active intelligence in the ontogeny of organisms.  An organism does not come to have traits that are adapted to its environment because some supernatural mind is intentionally shaping them to that purpose.  It simply the case that the adaptive trait is part of the animal’s nature.  Aristotle understood adaptation very well and he also understood that one could make sense of ontogeny only by assuming that the expressed form of the organism (what we would call its phenotype) had to be present in some unexpressed form at the very beginning of the organism’s existence (what we would call its genotype).  For that reason, Aristotle deserves to be called the father of genetics. 

However, while Aristotle recognized that the perfectly obvious fact that teeth cause chewing is fundamental to explaining what teeth are (which is to say, an adaptation), it took Darwin to explain how chewing causes teeth.  Natural selection completes Aristotelian teleology by understanding the two as a dynamic: that teeth cause chewing and that chewing causes teeth come to explain one another.  Only this dynamic makes it possible to explain either. 

The capacities that are expressed in the human palette of moral emotions are mental schema, features of the architecture of the mind.  They are dependent on underlying neurological phenomena and they exist because they were selected for.  Such is the soul as it is viewed by evolutionary biology.  It is unlikely that this view can be false unless the entire edifice of modern biology is founded on error.  Virtues are possible because the disposition of persons to feel certain emotions and act in certain ways in certain situations is subject to modification both by culture and by individual intention.  We are no in a position to ask whether or in what way the virtues are products of natural selection and whether they are natural at all. 

Aristotle says famously in his Politics that while the polis comes to be for the sake of mere life, it exists for the sake of the good life.  This comment expresses the two ways in which some institution or behavior or some artifice may be said to be natural.  It can be natural because it was produced by natural forces.  The red of the red, red rose is natural in this first sense.  It can also be natural even it is entirely artificial because it satisfies natural inclinations.  An arranged bouquet of a dozen red roses is natural in this second sense. 

The political community was, in Aristotle’s view, natural in both senses.  Human associations emerge because they offer practical solutions to persistent problems.  The marital and parental associations emerge because the family is necessary for procreation and the survival of offspring.  The village emerges to solve longer range problems and finally the polis emerges because it supplies a complete package or self-sufficiency, as Aristotle calls it.  The natural drive for survival and a minimal level of comfort push the political community into existence.  However, as that complete community emerges, it makes possible more than a merely comfortable life.  The good life for human beings is not a direct product of the evolutionary forces that make it possible.  It is a by-product.  Yet it is the most valuable thing that human beings can achieve for themselves. 

We are now in a position to account for the evolution of the virtues.  Natural selection for animal behaviors works by directing animals towards ends that promote successful reproduction.  Animal motives are, however, shaped on a need to know basis.  All the animal needs to know in a given situation is what to do.  He or she emphatically doesn’t need to know how the action drives the Darwinian dynamic.  Thus a bull elk doesn’t waste time trying to reproduce his genetic inheritance.  He has no idea about that.  He spends his time trying to mate.  A woman who takes her newborn daughter into her arms for the first time loves her baby, not the genes that the baby shares with her.  Whether the bull or the woman have a satisfying life is irrelevant to their selfish genes. 

To be sure, the good life for most creatures will map closely, in most cases, onto the life that results in successful reproduction.  That doesn’t mean that they are the same thing.  A neutered beagle may have a much better life than a wild dog who sires many pups.  The motives that are natural to animals, including human animals, are the products of natural selection; however, the interests of animals and their genes are nonetheless distinct. 

The human good, Aristotle argues in his Nicomachean Ethics, is eudaimonia.  This word is often translated as happiness.  It literally means “good demoned” or blessedness.  It indicates the human life that is satisfying as a whole.  He analyses each virtue by reference to that end.  The person who is just, courageous, generous, etc. will be mostly likely, in any set of circumstances, to live the best human life.  He will also make a good partner in cooperative associations.  Such associations will tend to be successful in Darwinian terms: they will provide for their offspring.  However, for the virtuous person, successful reproduction is a means rather than an end.  What she wants is the good life for herself, her family, her friends, and her fellow citizens.  Whereas our selfish genes bribe us with the elements of happiness so that we will advance their interests (metaphorically speaking), we are interested in genetic proliferation only in so far as it will make us happy. 

Culture is More Conservative Than Genes

One of the tacit assumptions behind the academic resistance to evolutionary explanations of human behavior is that culture is easier to change than genes.  According to this assumption, if behavior X is largely or wholly determined by culture then we can change it merely by reeducating people and by modifying institutions.  These are presumed to be relatively easy.  By contrast, to the degree that behavior X is influence by genetic heritage, it will be intractable. 

I have long suspected that the opposite might be the case.  Genetic influences are often highly responsive to environmental information.  Figuring out how and why men are genetically more disposed toward physical aggression might give us some valuable clues as to how to deal with male aggression.  On the other hand, culture can be fiercely resistant to change.  Cultural patterns, or memes, may offer fewer levers for reform to pull and culture may develop precisely to resist both natural and artificial challenges. 

Some evidence that I am right comes from a recent article in Nature. 

If folk tales simply spread by diffusion, like ink blots in paper, one would expect to see smooth gradients in these variations as a function of distance. Instead, researchers found that language differences between cultures create significant barriers to that diffusion.

These barriers are stronger than those for the exchange of genes — a message that might be crudely expressed as: “I’ll sleep with you, but I prefer my stories to yours.”

This suggests that culture is precisely resistant to the kind of diffusion that levels the genetic playing field across human populations. 

In the study, a team of researchers in Australia and New Zealand used the statistical tools of population genetics to investigate variations in ‘The kind and the unkind girls’ across 31 European populations, such as Armenian, Scottish, Basque and Icelandic groups.

“The geographic gradients we found are similar in scale to what we see in genetics, suggesting that there may be parallel processes responsible for mixing genetic and cultural information,” says lead author Quentin Atkinson, who studies human evolution at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

“But the mechanisms aren’t identical,” Atkinson adds. “The effect of ethnolinguistic boundaries is much stronger for the folk tales than for genes.” This fits with recent studies looking at other aspects of culture, such as song2. “Our findings support predictions that cultural variation should be more pronounced between groups than genetic variation,” says Atkinson.

“This supports the view that our cultures act almost like distinct biological species,” says Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading, UK, who specializes in cultural transmission. “Our cultural groups draw pretty tight boundaries around themselves and can absorb genetic immigrants without absorbing their cultures.”

The implications of this may be the reverse of the common assumptions.  Genetic diffusion is, let us say, promiscuous.  It is the basis of a general equality in innate human capacities.  Culture, by contrast, creates some of the enormous differences that we observe between different populations and nations. 

It may be the case that any hope for human progress depends largely on the degree to which human behavior is influenced by biology rather than by culture.  This is the opposite of what nearly everyone seems to believe. 

The Evolution of Virtue 2

Modern philosophical ethics has been dominated by two general positions: utilitarianism and deontology (Kantian ethics).  According to the first, the just or right thing to do is the thing that is most useful to the most people.  So it is right to tell the truth most of the time because general honesty has good social consequences.  However, it might be right to lie in special circumstances.  If a suicidal young man asks where his gun is, telling him the truth might be the morally worst thing to do. 

According to deontology or duty based ethics, an act is moral only if you do it because it is the right thing to do.  Telling a lie is wrong because it manipulates another human being, thus treating him as subhuman or as a mere means to an end.  Deontologists will generally say that you must do the right thing regardless of the consequences to yourself or others.  Kant narrowed down the meaning of “the right thing to do” with his two categorical (unbending) imperatives: act so that the principle of your action can be universalized and act always to treat other human beings as person to be served and never as means to be exploited. 

Utilitarianism and deontology are usually present as mutually exclusive.  Oddly, most people switch (if unconsciously) between the two positions in different situations.  The best example of this is the infamous trolley problem.  The trolley problem comes in two versions. 

Version 1 

A trolley is headed toward a switch.  As the switch is set, the trolley will go left and as a result will kill five people who are working (or tied to) the track.  You can leave the switch as is or switch it to the right track.  In that case it will kill a single person on the track. 

Version 2

You are standing on a bridge next to an obese person, watch the train approach.  If it passes under the bridge it will kill five people on the track.  You can save them only by pushing the large guy onto the track, thus resulting in his death. 

Most people (and almost all of my students) who are presented with the first version choose to throw the switch.  They defend their decision on the grounds that it is morally better to sacrifice one person to save five.  That is textbook utilitarian thinking. 

Results tend to change dramatically when people are presented with the second version.  Most people refuse to push the fellow over on the grounds that one is deliberating killing him in order to stop a train.  That is textbook deontology. 

The key to understanding the two positions is to see that they focus on distinct aspects of a potentially moral action.  The utilitarian focuses on the consequences of the action.  The deontologist focuses on the motive of the moral actor.  What I find most interesting is that you can defend both positions using the assumptions of the other.  While deontology is much less flexible than utilitarians would like, it seems pretty clear that society would be a lot better off if everyone acted (almost) all the time from deontological principles.  There would be no crime and dilemmas which force one to choose between motives and consequences would be much rarer. 

Likewise, a Kantian might employ utilitarian principles as good candidates for universalization.  He might say that anyone in the situation of the first version problem should throw the switch, regardless of who was on the track, because saving five rather than one is the universally right thing to do.  However, it would be all but impossible to throw the fat guy over without violating the second categorical imperative. 

Virtue ethics has recently been revived as a third position.  According to this, what is important in morality is the dynamic relationship between acts and character.  By doing what is right consistently, as a matter of principle, one builds the habit of acting morally.  When one has such habits, one will of course tend to do the right thing for the right reason.  Virtues may be said to be such habits, but I think it more correct to say that virtue is precisely the dynamism involving actions and character.  Brave actions produce bravery which produces brave actions; that is what makes courage a virtue. 

It seems pretty clear that morality has deep roots in evolution.  Cooperators are frequently more successful in a Darwinian sense (reproductive success) than non-cooperators and so cooperation can be selected for.  In many cases in the history of animals, situations arise where cooperation involves the temptation to cheat.  Some mechanisms must be found for denying reproductive success to cheaters; otherwise, cooperative instincts will be selected out of the gene pool. 

To take one famous example, vampire bats frequently share blood with one another.  This provides insurance for those who have string of bad hunting days.  The bats have rather large brains, in part perhaps to remember who shares and who does not.  Cheaters are excluded from the social safety net.  It is not that the bats understand what they are doing.  It is rather that moral principles are built into their behavioral schemas. 

Human beings are consummate cooperators.  We cooperate with extended nets of partners and have natural expectations regarding their behaviors.  We are sensitive to others opinions of us, especially concerning our fitness as honest partners.  We are naturally inclined to be angry when we suppose that another is not observing his or her obligations. 

Cooperation is obviously utilitarian from a “gene’s eye” point of view.  Human societies have inherited the earth.  However, cooperative societies are also the conditions of the good human life.  Our interests are dependent upon but not at all identical with the persistence of our genes. 

It seems obvious that morality is in part utilitarian.  We need for one another to behave morally.  It seems to me just as likely that Kantian elements have been selected for in the evolution of our moral psychology.  A person who is uncomfortable with doing the wrong thing is obviously a better candidate for a cooperative partnership.  He or she makes a better business partner, friend and ally, or spouse. 

Just as morality cannot be reduced to evolutionary mechanisms (though it must be supported by them) it cannot be reduced merely to making us useful to one another.  This is where virtue ethics is most helpful.  Such Aristotelian virtues as courage, temperance, honesty, and righteous indignation are socially beneficial to be sure.  They are also beneficial to the virtuous person.  To the extent that an individual possesses virtue, he or she is more likely to take advantage of good fortune and bear up under bad fortune.  The virtuous person is most fit for the best human life. 

In the Politics Aristotle expressed his non-reductive thinking with this immortal phrase: though the polis (the political community) comes to be for the sake of mere life, it is exists for the sake of the good life.  He was distinguishing here the historical forces responsible for the emergence of political life from the value of political life for human beings. 

I suppose that while the moral dimension in human psychology came to be for the sake of mere reproductive success, it exists for the sake of our success.  Morality rests on evolutionary foundations.  It enables the formation of societies that are good to live in, in ways that utilitarianism and deontology shed light on.  It is also important to forming an individual character worth having.  The latter confirms the Platonic/Aristotelian account of the virtues.