Relative Virtue & Unqualified Virtue

Any philosophical account of ethics will try to discover something that is universally descriptive of moral beliefs and behaviors.  Some accounts are limited to description and these we may call relativistic accounts.  What is right and wrong are so only relative to some observer (moral subjectivism) or to some group of observers (cultural relativism).  Both forms of relativism deny that there are moral standards that are true, independently of the observer. 

The varieties of moral objectivism look for precisely such a standard.  The four serious contenders are follows:

1.       Divine Command Theory holds that the standard is the authority of a divine or otherwise transcendent lawgiver. 

2.      Utilitarianism holds that the standard is the beneficial consequences of the moral action. 

3.      Deontology holds the standard is the good will: moral actions are those and only those done because they are the right thing to do. 

4.      Virtue ethics, as I have argued in these posts, finds the standard in the reciprocal relationship between the virtuous action and the virtuous character. 

All of these approaches have strengths and weaknesses and, I believe, each captures some genuine features of moral behavior and consciousness as it actually presents itself in human life.  Most of my students in Philosophy 100 tend to switch between the first three depending on the situation. 

I hold with number 4 because I believe that it provides both the best descriptive account of morality as a universal dimension of the human being and because I believe that it provides the best counsel for someone wanting to know what to do.  I would add to this that it incorporates the insights of the other accounts, including even some of those that come from cultural relativism.  I will focus here on the latter. 

Cultural relativists recognize that different groups frequently have different sets of moral rules.  The relativist argues that these rules are ultimately arbitrary and thus to be right or wrong is nothing other than to be in sync or out of sync with some particular cultural set.  Relativists tend to emphasize the disagreements between distinct moral cultures and prefer to ignore or deny that there are any universal rules.  All moral cultures are the product of a distinct history and thus owe their character largely to accident. 

Interestingly, Aristotle (the authority in virtue ethics) recognized what one might call relative virtue in his Politics.  To be a virtuous citizen in an aristocracy is not the same thing as to be virtuous citizen in a democracy.  The one must support and the other must oppose an inegalitarian distribution of political honors and offices.  On the other hand, Aristotle thinks that the virtuous man is the same in all regimes. 

It is true that the vast majority of human beings acquire their moral beliefs from the culture they are raised in and that moral codes differ at least in the values and rules that they prioritize.  Cultural relativism allows these facts to obscure the universal ground of morality.  From Chapter 2 of Moral Origins, by Christopher Boehm:

The rules that individuals internalize are the cultural product of groups that gossip moralistically on an ongoing basis.  That’s how moral codes originate, stay in place, and are continuously refined. 

The facts that Boehm points out here are not relative but universal.  Virtually all human beings are born and raised and live in moral communities and internalize the moral rules of the groups.  This is to say that those rules become part of their psychological equipment and form the original ground of their moral intuitions. 

However, just as the multitude of human languages all testify to a human capacity for speech, so the various moral cultures testify to our universal capacity for morality.  A particular rule internalized by some culture may be specific to that culture (e.g., not eating shell fish).  Internalizing moral rules, enforcing them by shaming, shunning, expulsion, or some more violent sanction, are not specific to any culture.  They are human things. 

When something like moral consciousness and collective enforcement are universal, there are two likely explanations.  One is that they are natural.  These have been selected for in our evolutionary history.  The other is that they are artificial but address universal human needs.  Which is it?  Both, I am sure.  Our tendency to form moral cultures is too deeply engrained in us to be a recent product of history.  However, it is flexible enough that we can modify it by intention. 

While cultural relativism blinds one to the universal foundation of morality, it also overemphasizes the difference between moral cultures.  Again from Boehm:

Today human groups come in the form of nations or cities, as well as tribes and nomadic bands, but they all have such moral codes.  And even though certain types of moral belief can vary considerably (and sometimes dramatically) between cultures, all human groups frown on, make pronouncements against, and punish the following: murder, undue use of authority, cheating that harms group cooperation, major lying, theft, and socially disruptive sexual behavior.  These basic rules of conduct appear to be human universals. 

Again, these universal rules must be either the products of natural inclinations or they emerge historically because they meet natural needs.  Again, it is probably both; though I suspect that the flexibility we in definitions of murder or decisions about which uses of authority are undue puts the weight on the latter. 

Virtue ethics is grounded in a realistic appraisal of moral development.  We learn to be good, in so far as we can, by internalizing the moral rules of our native culture and imitating those who are identified as virtuous by that culture.  We learn that some people are better than others and if we strive to be like the best we will make moral progress in that context. 

As moral cultures differ, the best person in one may well be different in character from the best person in another.  However, if Boehm is right, the two may not be all that different.  Boehm relates the story of collective hunting among the Mbuti pygmies.  The hunting system was a genuine prisoner’s dilemma.  If everyone cooperates, all will get some meat.  One hunter cheated and was punished with ridicule by his tribe.  I seriously doubt that there is any human culture that would not recognize this tale and condemn the cheater. 

At some point one may recognize that some cultures are better than others and at that point adopt a critical view of her own culture.  This may result from an exposure to other cultures.  When I compare our ways to theirs, I might conclude that in some ways theirs is better.  Such a comparison is possible, however, only if there are some standards that are independent of cultural differences.  If human intelligence can discover such standards in the natural function and meaning of morality, then virtue ethics represents the mature stage in moral thought. 

Genuine Morality & Natural Selection 3

Steven Forde kindly left a comment on a recent post devoted to his conference paper.  He tantalizingly suggested that more may be forthcoming.  To keep the matter at the forefront of the blog, I will reply here. 

It is true that "moral" behavior is selected for, but I don't see in Darwinism how it's selected because it's moral. If "immoral" behavior led to success, that would be selected for instead. If you mean simply that whatever serves the common good is moral, then bees are moral even though they behave robotically. My point is simply that, to the extent we serve the common good due to emotions that have evolved, we are robotic too to that extent.

Or are you arguing that bees really are moral, even though robotic?

There are two issues here that need to be teased apart.  One is the question of what makes a behavior genuinely moral.  The other involves the question of determinism: if our moral behavior and emotions are selected for, does that mean they are “robotic”.  Connected to this is the question whether robotic behavior can be in some sense moral. 

On the first, I reply that a behavior can be genuinely moral in a number of ways.  It might be moral because it conforms to some moral standard (perhaps transcendent) that defines moral behavior.  I doubt that there is selection for some behavior because it conforms to some standard of divine right, unless the Divine Legislator is actively intervening. 

A second way that a behavior could be genuinely moral is that done out of a moral motive.  This might be a purely rational motive (as in Kantian ethics) or it might lie in some moral emotion such as compassion or a sense of fairness.  If such actions are genuinely moral, then they may be selected for precisely for that reason.  A person likely to act in accord with moral reason or moral emotion may well be more likely to form and sustain strong cooperative communities.  Someone who feels guilty about cheating and ashamed to be caught at it will very probably make a better partner and citizen. 

If such communities promote reproductive success, then moral motives will be selected for.  Again, actions are not moral because they are selected for; they are selected for because they are genuinely moral. 

A third way that an action can be moral is if it is logically moral.  As an unreformed Platonist, I hold that justice is an idea.  Whenever there is a range of choices and the chooser is tempted to do what he ought not to do, there the situation involves logically moral choices.  This is true whether we are talking about honest bankers or honey bees. 

A honey bee worker ought to serve the Queens offspring exclusively, taking her Darwinian interest into account.  She will get more of her own genes into future generations that way than she could by any other behavior.  However, she is reproductive capable and may be tempted to birth and tend her own sons.  If she and enough of her sisters get away with this, the hive will collapse.  So yes, I think that bees can be moral (and immoral) in this sense, even if robotic. 

One may well insist that only actions that are consciously moral are genuinely moral.  I would not object, though I would insist that the logic of genuine morality is present even in merely robotic creatures. 

As to the second question, I am underwhelmed by the case for determinism.  While I don’t think that a determinist view of the Kosmos can be ruled out, neither can it be ruled in.  What is most important is that it is useless.  Even in physics it is questionable.  In biology, let alone ethics, one can only proceed by speaking of probabilities and options. 

The fact that a behavior is selected for does not at all entail that it is robotic.  Our emotions are doubtlessly selected for and this precisely because they make it possible for us to make good choices.  If the baby needs a bath but the kitchen is on fire, an emotionally healthy human being knows what to do with the bath water.  If the fascist at the door asks me whether I have seen any Jews, and indeed I have because three of them are hiding in my upstairs closet, my response will not be in any meaningful sense “robotic”.  I may well be tempted to do the wrong thing out of fear for myself and my family.  I will be capable of doing the right thing if I am a morally enabled person.  What I will do is up to me and that is what being a moral person amounts to. 

Bad News for ObamaCare from Oregon

There are basically three basic goals toward which recent efforts at health care reform were aimed.  Two of them are economic: the American health care system costs too much and people need to be protected against the financial burden of health care.  The last is about medicine: people will be healthier if they have better access to health care. 

It is doubtful that ObamaCare can deliver substantial progress toward the first two goals.  It does almost nothing to reduce overall health care spending and it while it will mean that some patients will be relieved of some of the costs of treatment, it is also clear that most of us will pay a lot more. 

What about the last goal?  Does expanding health insurance and in effect cheap or free care improve the health of the recipients?  The state of Oregon recently ran what was, unintentionally, as good a test as one could devise.  They provided funds to add 10,000 new people to Medicaid.  A lottery determined who would get the slots.  Health care experts signed up 6,400 of those who won the lottery and 5,800 of those who entered but didn’t win. 

This provided a large sample.  It met the criteria of a random, controlled test, since the two groups were selected by lot the one provided a control group to compare outcomes with the other.  If access to medical care without financial burden improves health outcomes, this is where you would be able to see it in glowing color. 

Meagan McArdle reports the sad news.  Here is a passage she quotes from the study. 

We found no significant effect of Medicaid coverage on the prevalence or diagnosis of hypertension or high cholesterol levels or on the use of medication for these conditions. Medicaid coverage significantly increased the probability of a diagnosis of diabetes and the use of diabetes medication, but we observed no significant effect on average glycated hemoglobin levels or on the percentage of participants with levels of 6.5% or higher. Medicaid coverage decreased the probability of a positive screening for depression (−9.15 percentage points; 95% confidence interval, −16.70 to −1.60; P=0.02), increased the use of many preventive services, and nearly eliminated catastrophic out-of-pocket medical expenditures.

McArdle explains:

No statistically significant treatment effect on any objective measure: not blood pressure.  Not glycated hemoglobin.  Not cholesterol.  There was, on the other hand, a substantial decrease in reported depression.  But this result is kind of weird, because it's not coupled with a statistically significant increase in the use of anti-depressants.  So it's not clear exactly what effect Medicaid is having.  I'm not throwing this out: depression's a big problem, and this seems to be a big effect.  I'm just not sure what to make of it.  Does the mere fact of knowing you have Medicaid make you less depressed?  For that matter, I'm not sure what the policy implication is.  If you wanted a program to cure depression, Medicaid is probably not what you'd design.

The data is in.  Expanding medical insurance did not make an appreciable difference on any objective measure.  The three conditions mentioned above are precisely the ones that we are very good at treating.  One reason for this is that people in the control group usually obtained access to treatment when they sought it. 

I thought from the very beginning of the ObamaCare drama that the real problem was not that Obama was a closet socialist but that neither he nor the Democrats in Congress were bothering to ask any of the most important questions.  They knew what was wrong with the health care system: not enough government control.  They knew exactly what to do about it.  They had known all these things and so didn’t bother to think about them.  They have known them for so long that they cannot remember not knowing them.  It’s not what people think that gets us in trouble.  It’s what they know that just ain’t true. 

Genuine Morality & the Teleologists

I have spent some time now with Steven Forde’s conference paper “Darwin and Political Theory”.  As I said in an earlier post, this is a very good survey of Darwinian scholarship in moral research and political theory.  Forbes has done a good job of covering the relevant work with honest care and sympathy.  I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to get a quick idea of what Darwinists have to say about morality. 

It seems to me that there are two key ideas in the paper that lead logically to a very dismal conclusion.  One is that Darwinism is nihilism.  Evolutionary thought cannot support any genuine morality.  The other is that Darwinism is true.  Taken together, this means that genuine morality is, shall we say, history.  I gather that Forde is not happy with this conclusion and I am pretty sure that very few people will be. 

I will confine my comments to the last section of his paper, which addresses those he calls the teleologists. 

A completely different approach to the problem of reconstructing moral theory within the confines of Darwinism is found in thinkers we may dub the teleologists. This strain of thought is far from new; virtually from the moment Darwin’s theories became public, attempts were made to combine it with some form of teleology, to rescue Darwinism from its apparently amoral and nihilistic implications by finding some grand design or higher purpose at work in natural selection. In the late nineteenth century, this burgeoned into a veritable cottage industry.73 The approach has been revived in recent times, in different ways, by Hans Jonas, Leon Kass and Larry Arnhart.

That certainly includes yours truly as Jonas and Arnhart, and to a lesser degree Kass, have been my teachers on these matters. 

Forde makes two general arguments against the teleological (Aristotelian) approach toward a Darwinian account of morality.  The first is indicated in the passage above.  This strain of thought finds “some grand design or higher purpose at work in natural selection.”  In other words, evolution is goal directed, driving toward better and higher forms of being.  Forde thinks this is implausible and he is right.  The second argument is that the teleologists suppose that a coherent moral order is possible given the nature of human beings as it has emerged in the history of our species.  Forde thinks that Darwinism tells against this and he is wrong. 

To begin with the first argument, it is true that we teleologists recognize a distinction between higher and lower forms of life.  Hans Jonas is the best guide here.  He recognized that living organisms are fundamentally distinct from inorganic matter and he supposed that this told us something important about the Kosmos: it had within it, from the very beginning, the potential for producing life and consciousness.  He did not, however, argue that there was some progressive force in evolution driving toward the emergence of human souls.  It is rather something like this: just as the sun presents the nature of hydrogen in the context of solar history, so living organisms present the potential for life in the context of earthly history.  The evolution of life continues to present new and increasingly complex possibilities for organic and spiritual development.  I don’t think that his commits the teleologists to any progressive few of evolution.  Natural selection selects only for reproductive success.  That process has resulted both in viruses and virtuous heroes without favoring the one or the other. 

In order to explain the genuinely moral, we teleologists make a distinction between the natural forces that generate life and govern its evolution and the natural ends that various creatures and especially human beings pursue.  This is Aristotle’s distinction between reason the political community comes to be (mere life) and the reason its existence is justified (the good life). 

Allow me to employ an analogy.  How does the art of cooking come to be?  Human beings need to eat and they eventual discover in their environments which foods will nourish them.  Cooking makes it possible to digest many foods more efficiently, which may have been a driving force in human evolution.  If that is how the art of cooking comes to be, what makes it beautiful is that it was also guided by the desire to live well.  A good French meal (or Indian, Mexican, Chinese, etc.) aims not at what is merely nutritious but at what is exquisitely gratifying.  In doing so, it does not act against nature.  Nature has fashioned us to enjoy fat, spices, and protein.  A great cuisine fashions its table from the natural pallet, with an eye to satisfying natural appetites.  The grand meal is not a product of evolution.  There was no driving force in our evolutionary history that aimed at the Gumbo Ya Ya that you can get at Mr. B’s in New Orleans.  That perfect stew is the result of human chefs aiming to satisfy natural appetites. 

Likewise, politics and ethics are not products of natural selection.  They are the products of human beings creatively working to create a satisfying life.  Morality cannot work against natural selection, as Forde often says.  That would put us out of business in short order.  It aims to sustain the best human life. 

As for Forde’s argument that no coherent moral order is possible, given the chaotic mix of desires and inclinations that natural selection has bequeathed to us, that flies in the face of the most obvious facts.  If it were true, then no political communities would ever have arisen nor would any moral principles ever have been discovered or asserted.  That politics, religion, and moral codes exist is proof that moral coherence is good enough for government work.  The point of political theory and ethics is to figure out which kinds of regime and which kinds of moral orders best support human flourishing. 

I do not share Stephen Forde’s pessimism.  The Darwinian account of life’s history is doubtless true.  This cannot result in nihilism if it recognizes the value of genuine morality as human beings have always recognized it.  That it does.