By Don Wharton
The
purpose of this essay is to present an outline of a theory of ethical
value grounded in science. Ethical values are normative principles
agreed to by members of society. People have motivation to agree to
such principles because the shared outcomes will be better for those
people making such agreements. In the past science has been seen to
be of use in ethical discussions only in the evaluation of outcomes.
A scientific theory of ethical value must illuminate the nature of
the ethical good by providing a reason to prefer one expression of
ethical value over another.
What
do we value and how do we measure that value? Adam Smith is
recognized as the pioneer of modern economic theory of value as a
function of supply and demand. "Market forces" in Adam
Smith’s sense of the term simply do not include a broad range of
both costs and benefits. Anyone who would restrict the notion of
value to market value only is denying that certain other very real
factors exist. Energy company executives are a prime example of this
when they desperately try to deny that global warming is occurring
despite the overwhelming evidence. Costs such as reduced
agricultural productivity, land loss due to rising sea levels and
species extinction are not reflected in the market value of energy.
This illustrates how ethical values, the reasons to prefer one notion
of “good” action or outcome over another, are different from
market value.
Humanists
have very differing views concerning the nature of ethical value.
The vast differences in the personal perspectives of humanists
reflect the understandable differences in human experience. Our
humanist model of ethical value as deriving from human experience is
a simple and accurate statement of fact. People experience the
values presented by others and observe the results of actions by
themselves and others. Somehow people synthesize a value system from
these experiences. We tend to have substantial similarity of values
but we have no mechanism to clearly demonstrate that any particular
ethical principle is better than another.
In order to construct a
scientific ethical model grounded in empirical fact, we must have a
clear conception of good and how facts would relate to what we ought
to do to achieve that good. Richard Dawkins said that organisms are
survival machines for the genes carried within them. The meaning and
purpose of the survival machine was to protect and replicate the
genes contained within the biological machinery. Those that read his
book “The Selfish Gene” know that he had an enormous variety of
examples that demonstrated the accuracy of this thesis. This should
not be taken to imply that differential survival of particular genes
fully determine the totality of an organism design. Genetic drift,
random chance, design constraints in possible organism evolution and
other real world factors will constrain or contribute to the design
of any given organism. An appropriate understanding of the role of
genes in evolution should include knowledge of the numerous ad-hoc
and idiosyncratic mechanisms that can make evolution a quite complex
process.
The
genes build receptors and emotive response mechanisms that are
capable of a wide variety of positive and negative experiences. The
evolutionary purpose of these mechanisms is, as with all other
biological complexities, to preserve and replicate the genes
contained within. Many aspects of these mechanisms evolved far
earlier in our evolutionary history. Most of this evolution occurred
back when our ancestors were reptiles. The mechanism of evolution
built that machinery of experience with the implicit functional
purpose of maximizing the survival of the genes carried within our
bodies. That genetically defined experience of positive and negative
corresponds poorly to the wisdom that is possible with the modern day
human brain and the more refined techniques of intellectual inquiry
that are now possible.
With
the evolution of language we naturally evolved words to describe many
varieties of these positive and negative experiences. The term
“good” is richly associated with positive experience/occurrence
at the levels of sensory pleasure, emotional affect, more refined
intellectual appreciation and structural efficacy of many forms. The
varieties of usages for “good” are so extensive that the Oxford
English Dictionary devotes five pages to the word.
G.
E. Moore said that “the main object of Ethics is to give correct
reasons for thinking that this or that is good.” It is quite
reasonable that people would attempt to justify those reasons from
the biological complexity that we inherit and the linguistic
confusion that has evolved around the word “good.” Many of these
attempts have obvious counter examples. If pleasure is deemed to be
good then the pleasure of a cocaine high is by definition good. This
is an example of the confusion between fact and value that has been
typical in philosophical history. People experience the fact of
pleasure with many things that are deemed to be good. This can
create the illusion that the fact of pleasure is in and of itself the
good to be valued.
Moore
is among the more notable philosophers that assert a distinction
between the worlds of fact and value. He termed any attempt to link
values with any natural property to be “the naturalistic fallacy.”
He did not assert that in all cases such a linkage would be false.
Instead he said that the natural property must be in itself good and
that any ethical system based on the natural property must be
internally consistent. In his analysis all existing ethical systems
failed to meet these tests and were thus false. If we are to
demonstrate Moore to be wrong we must have a theory of “the good”
that satisfies these two legitimate requirements. I would add a
third element, that any formal model with internal consistency must
have some rough correspondence with currently shared societal values.
Any system that wildly disagrees with current societal values would
not be taken seriously. Those points of disagreement should be
associated with cogent reasons to reconsider our existing values.
If
we know the “good” to be valued then we know a lot about what we
ought to do to achieve that good. What is the nature of an “ought”
and how does it relate to the world of facts? Presume that we know
that if we perform action A then we will have a consequence B. If we
wish to achieve B then we can say that we “ought” to perform
action A. The ought derives from the goal. If there is to be some
reason to select a given description of facts as an “ought” there
must be something such as the seeking of a goal to provide the reason
for that selection.
Daniel
C Dennett said, “The philosopher’s problem is to negotiate the
transition from the ‘is’ to the ‘ought’ … and get all the
way to norms that command assent in all rational agents.” If we
are to accomplish this goal to the extent that is possible we must
have a consistent theory of the goal seeking behavior of rational
agents. Any general assent must be commanded by the internal logic
of the theory. The world of values can become equivalent to the
world of facts if we can logically justify the connection between
legitimate goal seeking behavior and the factual circumstances that
are required to achieve those goals. The definition of “the good”
then must be linked to a theory of goal seeking.
I
would like to start with five categories that include three specific
categories of goal seeking by rational agents. These categories will
proceed in a sequence from physical law in the absence of life to our
personal goals as a rational agent. My intent is to illustrate the
connection between the world of facts and value.
-
Events
as an expression of scientific law.
-
Goals
built into biological function.
-
Goals
independent of knowing social agreement as to their nature.
-
Knowingly
created shared societal goals.
-
Personal
goals within a wider societal context.
If
we drop an object in a vacuum we know both the acceleration expected
and the distance for any given interval of time. We can say the
object ought to achieve a certain velocity and ought to traverse the
computed distance. This is the ought of expectation. The object
ought to behave as expected by physical law. Obviously the universe
itself does not have the goal of adhering to any specific law or set
of laws. This is purely the world of facts. The facts of behavior
are what is described and objects ought to behave as expected by the
generalizations called physical law.
Biological function is
a more complex expression of scientific law. Consider our red blood
cells. We know the purpose of those cells are to transport oxygen to
other cells and to transport carbon dioxide from those cells back to
our lungs. This purpose is a subset of the overall evolutionary
purpose of maintaining the organism as a survival machine for the
genes. There is no rational agency in this purpose but there is the
implicit goal seeking behavior of evolution which maximizes the
survival of the genes. We can say that our blood cells ought to
achieve the function for which they are designed (by the mindless
evolutionary process).
Presume
that a driver is entering a curved part of a road at a high rate of
speed. Presume also that there is a cliff next to the outside edge
of the curve. The driver is unconcerned because he has good tires
and is confident in the quality of his car’s suspension system and
thinks that the road is quite dry. Presume that the road ahead is
actually wet due to a prior local squall but the water on the road is
in shadow and is minimally visible. With this situation it is quite
easy to say that the diver ought to slow down. “The driver ought
to slow down” is a proposition that contains certain assumptions.
We assume that driver
has the goal of continuing his life. That might not be the case.
Perhaps he has terminal cancer and is in excruciating pain. This is
an extraordinary circumstance. In the absence of any such
extraordinary circumstance the default assumption can comfortably be
made that the driver seeks to maintain his life.
There is also the
assumption that the ought condition applies in the absence of
knowledge on the part of the driver of the consequences of his
actions. The knowing of consequences does not seem to be part of
what we mean when we use the term “ought” in this case. The
ought derives solely from the implicit goals that we understand to be
part of the circumstances.
Assume
that there are two small tribal groups that each migrate to separate
uninhabited islands with nearly equivalent resources. The first
group survives and prospers due to the internal cooperation, support
and the sharing of information and resources. The second group has
much greater internal conflict. It fails to thrive and all of its
members die. In neither case is there any depth of understanding
concerning the ethical principles that decide the fate of the two
tribes. An external observer could in principle discern the
functional reasons for the two outcomes. We can presume that each
had a goal to survive and prosper. This goal is categorically
intrinsic to all life, including non-sentient life. In the sense
that this goal exists we can say that each tribe “ought” to
exhibit the shared functional behavior to achieve their mutual
survival. This ought might be visible to an external observer but
not be visible within the tribes. The factual nature of the
requirements to insure the goal of shared survival (a specific ought)
has an existence that is independent of any internal knowledge or
agreement concerning those facts. This view of the ought links it to
the factual circumstances irrespective of any shared understanding of
those circumstances. Implicit in this is the presumption that the
principles of ethics exist beyond a shared understanding of them.
Our
society has a thousand fold reduction in the probability of death by
violence as compared with primitive tribal societies. This has been
achieved through a knowing understanding of societal goals and a
shared agreement, a social contract, concerning the principles that
ought to exist to meet those goals. Thus we believe in property
rights, honesty, promise-keeping and avoidance of personal violent
conflict, among many other things. These shared agreements and the
rule of law to enforce aspects of those agreements are an important
part of modern civilization. This explicit knowing linkage between
the facts of shared societal goals and the values agreed upon to
achieve those goals is a substantial advance from the relatively
random values of primitive tribal groups discussed above.
Each of us has an
understanding of personal good that is contingent on our family,
personal relationships, our livelihood, and other personal interests.
This category of “good” is substantially different from our
societal agreements concerning good and the factual good required for
survival prior to any such agreements. A. J. Ayer disparages Moore
because, “In general Moores’s rules of conduct pay no attention
to the special position of the agent.” This is not totally correct
because Moore does examine Egoism. He finds it to be inconsistent
because that which is deemed good from one person’s perspective is
not good from the perspective of another person. Obviously personal
good will never be “the good” as expressed by societal norms.
Personal good should differ from person to person. I am including it
here not because I wish to develop a theory of personal good but
because we need to understand that it is different in form but still
central to the whole. Marxism tried to equate personal good with
societal good. It did not work because people were not motivated to
work hard for the benefit of others. Societal norms should recognize
and support the pursuit of personal good where there is little or no
conflict with general societal good. We know that the increase in
personal effort will be of massive benefit to the wider society and
thus we ought to nurture the pursuit of personal goals as part of our
general societal norms.
These
five categories of goal seeking and the “oughts” that attach to
each are not fully separate categories. The goals of categories
three and four above are social goals that have a moral ought
attached to them. The personal goals of category five are socially
approved if they are consistent with wider societal goals and thus
also satisfy a moral ought. There are fact based reasons that define
the oughts of expectation and biological function. If there is a
similar fact based description of an extremely general form that
would encompass all goal seeking of moral agency then we would have a
similar linkage in the world of facts with the oughts of moral
agency.
My position is that
insofar as “God” is real “He” is equivalent to the physical
universe. God is what the universe does. A naturalistic model of
ethics can be built by studying what “God” does in this sense.
Note that I am using “God” in the same sense as Einstein, with
reverence for natural, lawful mechanism and not the slightest belief
in traditional religion. My argument is that what universe does in
living systems is create layer after layer of elegant cooperation
with an evolutionary mechanism that increases the capture of energy
needed for life and uses it with increasing efficiency to maintain
the entirety of the natural ecosystem. This includes the emergent
artifact of human culture. Evolutionary mechanisms create a vast
number of photosynthetic organisms that together serve to capture
vastly more solar energy than any single type of organism. Competing
species or variations in a given ecological niche will win the
evolutionary competition if they are more efficient in using the
energy available in that niche.
The concept of energy
efficiency says nothing about the magnitude or duration of energy
usage for a given function. The shuttle booster rockets will create
enormous thrust for a relatively few minutes. A digital watch might
sip a very small amount of energy for years. Each is designed to be
energy efficient for its function. A lion pride might put out a
large amount of energy to hunt and kill its prey. They might sleep
for days afterward. A small bird finding very small flecks of food
in the sands of a beech might spend much of the day finding that
food. The lions and the birds use vastly different strategies to
acquire the food they need. These different function have much
different patterns of energy usage and much different strategies to
minimize the energy required.
The lion minimizes the
energy expended between hunts by resting. The resting metabolism of
cold blooded reptiles is roughly one tenth that of a warm blooded
animal of the same size. Imagine for a moment a lion-like species
that could hunt with the same strategy and effectiveness of a lion
but rest with the efficiency of a large alligator. That species
could rest for thirty days between hunts. This hypothetical species
would drive the lion to extinction in short order.
The
bird species uses small size and good insulation to preserve body
heat. A species eating precisely the same food but with an
inefficiently large body and less efficient insulation would not be
able to compete with the smaller bird. If there are two organisms in
the same ecological niche using the same strategy the more energy
efficient organism will be favored by selection.
This does not mean that
all organism forms utilize absolute energy minimums. It only means
that surviving species or variants will on average be somewhat more
energy efficient in producing additional instances of their type than
those that do not survive. It would always be possible to imagine
possible organisms that would be substantially more efficient and
there are the evolutionary mechanisms that create substantial
obstacles for any possible advantageous solution. A given gene might
code for proteins that are used in dozens of possibly unrelated
functions. Some of those functions might be much more efficient than
others. If all of those functions are contingent on the one gene
then the mechanism of evolution will have no way to select for the
one or more particular functions that most contribute to the fitness
of the organism. This is but one of the evolutionary complexities
that will impede a general Darwinian search for energy efficiency.
Sexual
selection is another example of a mechanism that can be
disadvantageous for a species. The extravagant peacock tail is a
significant burden for the peacock. Substantial biological energy is
consumed in growing the tail feather display and in carrying the
additional mass from place to place. Biologists have determined
that it does document the additional vitality of the male with the
more impressive display. The females of the species select for this
and it thus becomes a requirement for the reproductive life cycle.
It is possible for an individual peacock to invest either too little
or too much energy in his display. Evolution will select for the
minimum investment that satisfies the requirements of female
acceptance.
This is still a
“tragedy of the commons” for the species. Every sexually
reproducing species will have some common process for combining male
and female genetic information. The sexual selectivity in this case
focused on the tail display. There was a runaway evolutionary spiral
that put the species at great risk. A similar bird species without
the display would be able to easily win in competition in the same
niche. It would be able to survive with less food and it would be
able to more easily avoid any predators.
It
is easy to assume that energy usage is not the critical factor for
evolutionary selection in all cases. Energy availability might not
appear to be the limiting factor in a desert. Someone might
legitimately think that the limiting factor was water. Well what
does the organism do to respond to environmental limits on water?
There might be mechanisms to store more water and minimize its
evaporation. There may be behaviors that increase access to water
and minimize its use. All adaptations are either in biological form
or behavior. In all cases an energy investment is required. The
organism that is most energy efficient in achieving an appropriate
mixture of functions will win in that ecosystem niche. All
organisms are biological machines. Any machine of necessity will
require energy of an appropriate form to power it. Machines of any
variety require power in the proper form if they are to do work of
any kind. This energy is required for both the growth of biological
adaptations and all organism behavior.
Biologists
would agree that of two otherwise identical organisms, the one that
is more energy efficient is likely to be favored by selection. But
what is included in the non-identical function(s) of otherwise
identical organisms? Perhaps they differ only in the production of
digestive juices. Maybe there are a cluster of differences such that
for one organism the entirety of the digestive system is more energy
efficient in the derivation of nutrients from ingested food.
Ultimately the organism has one overall function, the reproduction of
others of its kind. This means the species that are most energy
efficient in producing proportionally more of their kind in a given
niche will thrive. This is achieved with a well honed balance
between the many functions of an organism. This will not produce any
uniquely best possible organism. Darwinian selectivity will only
produce organisms that are better for a given environment than those
that might exist without that selectivity.
Daniel C. Dennett is
correct that a linkage between facts and value is the central problem
of philosophy. Darwinian theory, properly understood is a
description both of what “is” and an efficiency measure that can
compare solutions to find which among various options “ought” to
be. My explicit restatement of the Darwinian theory of evolution is
that it seeks to increase the capture of energy required for life and
more efficiently use it to maintain all the required functions of
life. Stated in that form it is easy to extend “life” to include
all of the housing, transportation, communication and other
non-living systems required to maintain modern human life.
Darwinian theory has
had a negative ethical connotation for many. A major problem with
understanding the elegant cooperative mechanisms of nature has been
Alfred Tennyson’s appalling stanza from his poem “In Memoriam”:
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's
final law –
Tho'
Nature, red in tooth and claw
With
ravine, shriek'd against his creed –
Tennyson
is making a sharp distinction between the love understood to be God’s
final law and the violence of nature symbolized by “tooth and
claw.” In this stanza nature becomes the evil villain shrieking
against God’s creed. This creates the image of people being clawed
and killed in a violent competition for survival. If we are to see
Darwinian theory as a light to illuminate that nature of the good we
have to confront this fearful image. We must answer the question
concerning who and what lives and dies and why? Let us look first at
nature.
Tennyson’s
stanza places the emphasis in nature on the violent attacks of
carnivores on their prey and on violent competition that sometimes
exists for mates and resources. This emphasis totally ignores the
fact that carnivores are providing a critically important ecological
balancing function. A complex ecosystem can go into a cascading
series of collapses without the balancing services of the top
predator. The ecosystem will have significantly more biomass and
species variety with its top predator than without. Tennyson’s
stanza also ignores the fact that the ecosystem is using the
Darwinian process to find the most energy efficient solution to
filling any given ecosystem niche. The definition of Darwinian
fitness is efficiency in using the energy of an ecosystem to create
additional examples of the species or variety in question. This is
how elegant function emerges in nature.
In modern human
societies elegant function through win-win strategies will on average
build far more shared value than win-lose strategies which will
typically only divide existing resources. Sensitive, thoughtful human
relationships then become a natural consequence of a Darwinian view
of ethics. This is also reflected in many ways in nature. Consider
the cooperating services provided by bees and the flowers they
pollinate. This is not a unique partnership. There are about
250,000 plant species that need to be fertilized by almost as many
animal species. Lichens are a symbiotic relationship between fungi
and algae or cyanobacteria. Together lichens provide solutions for
ecosystem niches that are estimated to cover eight percent of the
land surface of our planet. Fifty percent of the mass of soil can be
living organisms cooperating in an intensely complex micro-ecosystem
where none would survive without the whole. Many plants require
animals to distribute their seeds or they would not survive. These
examples of cooperative relationships are a small part of the rich
network of cooperation in any real ecosystem. These natural systems
create cooperative shared benefit because that is what wins in
nature.
Is Tennyson’s poem a
fair and accurate portrait of nature? He suggests that nature is
characterized by rapacious destructive violence and not the spirit of
cooperation that comes to mind when we think of love. Obviously love
is a human emotion that is not shared by simple organisms such as
bees or plants. The cooperative mutual benefit is a natural
consequence of Darwinian selection. What succeeds is the cooperation
that might be there if the organisms actually did love each other. A
top predator like a tiger does not plan to increase the richness of
life in its home range. The tiger just wants food. Again the result
is what might be expected if the tiger did actively plan for positive
results. Tennyson was not a trained biologist and he had no
understanding of the benefits provided by top predators. The vast
profusion of plant life increases the solar energy that can be
captured and used by the wider ecosystem. Plants do not have a
spirit, but if they did the gift of the energy provided would be a
most loving gift to the rest of the ecosystem. In all these cases
nature can be seen as reflecting the beneficial cooperative sense of
Tennyson’s words: “love Creation's final law.”
This positive view of
the “tooth and claw” of a tiger would not be acceptable if those
killed were to be people. There are numerous cases of norms in
primitive societies sanctioning the termination of the old, sick or
otherwise unproductive in times of scarcity. A friend that is half
Navaho tells me that it was expected among his ancestors. The old
would simply go off and die when they ceased to be productive. There
are similar stories of Eskimos that go out to sea on an ice flow when
they could no longer contribute to their tribe. These choices
happened primarily during times of scarcity. This not only happened,
it significantly added to the survival potential for the rest of the
tribe at that time. In that context it was obviously a good. Tribes
that did this survived and reproduced more effectively than those
that did not. The norm was accepted as a tool to enhance the group
survival during times of scarcity. People accept that the group norm
served their self interest.
This very bleak
Darwinian outlook for some is quite different in modern society.
Humanity has leveraged our evolved facility with language to create
and communicate innovations that substantially transform everything
that we do. A bridge across a river can illustrate the “good”
that is achieved by modern society. If the bridge substantially
reduces the distance that must be driven and thus the energy cost for
every trip across the bridge then it is an explicit “good” as
measured by the ethical premise of implicit in the Darwinian
imperative to minimize the energy cost for any function. The bridge
designers, builders and users all contribute to the creation of this
shared societal good. It becomes a win/win strategy for all that
participate in this solution. There are many millions of design
solutions in modern society that similarly serve to create societal
good. The knowledge and communication skills of the average person
serves to create shared good through the vast network of win/win
strategies that are part of every advanced civilization. An
exponential increase in shared wealth derive from these interlocking
solutions.
It is quite common for
humanists to assert the dignity and worth of every human being. By
my explicit measure the value contributed by the vast majority will
substantially exceed the energy cost to maintain them. An assumption
of human worth is usually a quite accurate statement of fact by my
measure. One cannot create “good” by killing large numbers in a
war and thus reduce the energy costs of their maintenance. We would
also lose the positive as measured by an objective expectation of
their contribution to a shared good. Programs implemented in prison
populations that presume a positive worth to every person will often
in fact deliver that net positive worth with a substantially reduced
recidivism rate. Thus many in a group that most would assume to be
least able to make a positive contribution succeed when nurtured with
the presumption that they do have positive worth.
What
emerges is a new unit of Darwinian survival, the civilization itself.
We are loyal to our civilization because our individual survival is
vastly enhanced by it. This is an obvious good but we have to
clarify the explicit mechanism by which social norms are derived and
propagated to support a given civilization. The survival of a
civilization is contingent on its ability to mobilize the support of
its citizens and that support is contingent on shared norms of
civilization that meet the perceived interests of those citizens.
This is an objective fact. For clarity let us restate this fact as a
central premise:
No
statement of ethical value will be accepted unless it meets the
perceived interests of those that encounter that statement.
Civilization itself is
contingent on this premise. This is also important because we have
not fully answered the question: who lives and who dies and why?
There are many who are old, demented, ill or otherwise incapable of
making any positive contribution to society. Under any raw
definition of a Darwinian ethic these people should be terminated as
unfit. This is unacceptable to people because people become deeply
attached to friends and family and everyone realizes that they might
at some point be in the same condition. Their perceived interest
includes thoughtful care for themselves when and if that happens.
The fact is that it is not possible for ethical norms to evolve that
violate people’s perceived interests in this manner. An ethical
norm that would terminate me at some future date would only be
acceptable if my present life and the lives of those that I care
about are contingent on that norm.
Daniel Dennett wrote
the book Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. It is a richly
articulate exposition of Darwinian thought, perhaps the best yet
written. Dennett also recognizes the enormous value that could be
derived from an ethical system that negotiated the transition from
the “is” to the “ought.” If anyone could propose a Darwinian
view of ethics one might image that Dennett would be that person.
The problem is that any Darwinian theory of ethics will have
“counter-examples” that violate civilized norms to the extent
that the entire theory is rejected. The transition from the “is”
to the “ought” can occur only when cogent reasons can be given
for precluding all such destructive “counter-examples.” Any such
“counter-example” is simply not a premise that can reasonably
considered given the existing facts. The energy cost of maintaining
some non-functional people is a fully acceptable condition for the
maintenance of the vastly greater shared value of civilization
itself. The people who “ought” to die under my proposed ethical
measure are armed psychopathic murderers, Al Qaeda operatives and
others who pose an immanent threat to civilization.
The energy based model
of evolution is a background fact that can explain the creation of
virtually everything that is of value. This fact based model of
evolution is THE optimal choice as a definition of the moral good,
our ought. Once the obvious problems with a Darwinian ethical system
are removed we become free to use our metric for the “ought”
against all other ethical choices in our civilization. What are the
functions that contribute to our shared survival? How can those
functions be most effectively achieved? What knowledge and norms
would most enhance the shared goals of civilization? If everything
that we find to be of value derives from a vast network of Darwinian
mechanisms that bring form out of chaos, then how can we most
efficiently nurture the creation of valued form?
A major confusion is
the presumption that a Darwinian view contains no implicit ethical
assumption. We inappropriately emphasize that mutations are random
in form and ignore that fact that nature is selecting for relative
elegance of function. The implicit value of the natural order rests
with the obvious selection for better function. That is not obvious
if we focus our view on the randomness of individual mutations. This
scientific focus makes it obvious that the mechanisms of life do not
derive from a “God” that lives in a separate “spiritual”
reality and it can obscure the fact that Darwinian selection for
elegant function is the mission of life. That elegant function is
used to maximize the capture and efficient use of energy in the
ecosystem. This is the implicit ethical message provided by our
universe. Our society can use this principle to increase the shared
good created by society.
In a society, what is
the relationship between the functions that emerge, the people and
their shared ethical principles? The ethical principles must at
minimum not violate the perceived interests of the people if they are
to be accepted. Moreover those shared principles should serve to
mobilize the loyalty, commitment and energy of its people. For this
reason the shared ethical principles of a society are as important to
a society as our skeleton is to us. This means that the shared
ethical principles must visibly serve the people and be valued for
that reason. The relative elegance of societal function will be a
visible outcome of those ethical principles and the mechanism by
which goods, services and valued relationships are formed.
Comparison with
Kant’s Categorical Imperative
Immanuel Kant and John
Rawls are two of the most renowned ethical philosophers in history.
Their approaches will be compared with those supported by this essay.
Kant is seen as the leading philosopher using a theory of duty. We
can agree on a given duty implied by membership in a particular
group. If we chose to join a club that has dues we have a duty to
pay those dues. The most inclusive group from Kant’s perspective
is the group of all rational agents. We did not choose to join this
group but we are a member by virtue of our ability to be rational. A
major premise advanced by Kant is: "Act only according to that
maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a
universal law." Kant is presuming that as rational agents we
will act as we wish all rational agents to act.
This
premise is used to derive what are called categorical imperatives.
Under this principle telling a lie would imply that one wished there
to be a universal law that people should lie. A world in which
everyone lied at all times would not work in any normal sense of the
term. If Kant’s premise is accepted then one accepts a categorical
duty not to lie. The justification rests with pure reason. The
consequences cannot be considered under such an imperative. Quoting
Kant, “The moral worth
of an action does not lie in the effect expected from it, nor in any
principle of action which requires to borrow its motive from this
expected effect.”
Suppose
that someone is in your house and he is hiding from a feared enemy.
That enemy appears at your front door, lets you know that he wishes
to kill the person and asks if you know where he is. This was a
famous problem posed during Kant’s lifetime and my understanding is
that Kant advocated a truthful answer. When Kant advocates a
categorical imperative he means that consequences such as this may
not be considered.
I
take the opposite position. The criterion of judgment for a given
ethical proposition concerning societal good must rest with the
average expected consequence for that society. Any civilization of
even minimal complexity will have numerous agreements between two or
more people to act in concert in some way. These agreements are
contingent on accurate reports concerning the abilities and
intentions of the people making those agreements. If the ethical
principles of a civilization are analogous to a major functional
system of an organism then the criterion by which it should be judged
is identical. That criterion is the energy efficiency of the
functions that consequentially derive from that ethical principle.
If there is misrepresentation concerning either the capacity or the
intention to cooperate in some manner, then the cooperative effort
will fail. This means that energy must be allocated to the detection
of dishonesty prior to the creation of an agreement and energy must
be allocated to the punishment of dishonesty where agreements fail
due to dishonesty. Honesty is ethical by this criterion because it
yields greater energy efficiency in the creation and execution of
agreements.
Our
perceived interests are not violated by this proposition that honesty
is ethical. This analysis of the interests of rational agents is
quite similar to that proposed by Kant.
There
is a set of games called the prisoners’ dilemma that have been
extensively analyzed by game theorists. The classic case presumes
that two people have been arrested under conditions with marginal
evidence. Each might get a one year sentence with existing evidence.
Each is offered a deal to give additional evidence against the
other. The person to first give additional evidence will go free.
The one that does not do so would then get a five year prison term.
Choosing to cooperate in holding a secret is worse as measured by the
prison term than reneging on that agreement. This is true for both
parties. Moreover, if the other person reneges first the outcome is
much worse for the person still choosing to cooperate. Cooperation
is assumed to be the civilized and ethical action among philosophers
that use game theory.
Let
us use game theory to look at a case that was extensively analyzed by
Kant. Someone in desperate need of money might request a loan with
no intention of repaying it. Reneging on the deal yields the money
borrowed without repayment. Cooperation requires repayment of the
debt and a net decrease in financial resources for the borrower.
This is similar to the prisoner dilemma game in that cooperation at
this level yields worse results than reneging. This is a common
situation in any society.
A
truthful representation of an intent to repay a loan would be the
ethical action under either this evolutionary theory of ethics or
Kant’s categorical imperative. We ought to follow knowingly
created shared societal ethical principles defined by the energy
efficiency criterion. This class of ought takes precedence over the
ought associated with personal goals. Personal goals must be
consistent with the ethical premises of the wider society.
Prisoner
dilemma games can be unfortunate for two reasons. The prisoners are
by definition violators of society’s laws. Cooperation is in
service of antisocial behavior. The benefits and penalties of this
game strategy are unrelated to any model of societal good. Under the
ethical model espoused here a different category of ought is attached
to the good associated with cooperation based on societal goals.
Such cooperation is scored as ethical and the defection is scored as
unethical. Cooperation in pursuit of antisocial goals is unethical.
Visible reasons that serve the interests of rational agents are
given for each judgment.
Note
that Kant as a German Idealist places inappropriately large value on
the role of ideas. We cannot presume that an understanding of one’s
existence as a rational agent will in itself result in ethical
behavior. This is not the factual truth of our world. We will still
need to detect cheaters before agreements are made and punish any
cheaters after they have defected from an agreement. Kant’s
implicit assertion that pure reason alone is sufficient will never be
verified by real world experience. The ethical theory proposed here
provides reasons to link fact and value in a manner that will justify
societal values.
Honesty is a valuable
shared resource. It enables trust in relationships and the
productive effort that can come from that trust. In order to
establish trust one must be willing to diminish short term personal
reward in order to create a greater common good that benefits
everyone. This view gives a substantially different ethical
calculation if one is confronted by a murderer at one’s front door
looking for someone hiding in your house. In this case there might
not be any personal gain received by lying to the murderer. There is
no reason to believe that others will be less trusting if one lied
under these conditions. The valued resource, a reputation for
honesty, is not enhanced by telling the truth to the prospective
murderer nor diminished by an untruth.
The ethical perspective
advocated here is similar to a system of economics that can weight
the value of numerous resources in a complex environment. The life
of an individual will typically be valued quite highly in this
system. A truthful statement that results in the destruction of a
life is then an obvious ethical evil. The future good from that life
is destroyed.
The Kantian perspective
might be salvaged by creating numerous finely graded ethical laws,
such as: ‘One must not lie unless the lie can be expected to
preserve life.’ This approach could generate thousands of
individual micro-categorical imperatives. It would be cumbersome and
unworkable. What is required is a mechanism so that people can
rapidly weight the competing ethical values to find the appropriate
ethical path. This mandates something similar to economics. Kant
repudiated any consideration of consequences. My alternative would
find the value of ethical principle in an objective evaluation of the
consequences.
Comparison with John
Rawl’s and his “Theory of Justice”
John Rawls’ book is
said to have spawned an industry of academic analysis in response to
his views. Rawls wants to see maximum liberty and access to physical
resources for all in society. Inequalities can still be justified if
they maximize or at least contribute to the long term expectations of
the least fortunate group in society. His theory is based on a “veil
of ignorance.” If we look at society with this presumption that we
are ignorant of our particular circumstances then we will of
necessity have to assume that we could be among the least fortunate.
Compassion is thus built into this assumption.
In any society there
will be those that do not get what they want or perceive that they
need. If they resort to criminal action there must be some mechanism
to constrain that action. People often lose their liberty when those
constraints are imposed. Rawls would advocate a minimum reduction in
liberty that is consistent with a shared good that included a
positive expectation for the least fortunate.
Any reduction in
liberty will have an energy cost associated with it. Energy would
have to be allocated to building and manning the entirety of the
corrections system from the police, courts, jails through the
half-way houses and probation system. Principles that reduce these
energy requirements without increasing energy costs elsewhere in
society would be good as measured by the consequences. Compassionate
investment in education, drug treatment and crisis assistance will
serve to prevent the desperation that might otherwise create criminal
activity. Treatment alternatives to incarceration, where effective,
are an obvious ethical good. Job training that creates salable
skills for inmates will reduce recidivism and the future costs
associated with reinstitutionalization. On this issue the ethical
calculus advocated here would be quite similar although not identical
to that advocated by Rawls. Punishment would be an evil that is
justified only by the elimination of a still greater evil.
Rawls would like to see
a minimal difference in the resources available to the least
fortunate and the most fortunate. The ethical system here will not
directly confirm Rawls on this point. However, a major source of the
inequality is exorbitant executive compensation for high level
corporate management. My judgment is that a substantially different
theory of governance might be justifiable under the ethical system
proposed and that the extreme corporate compensation that we now see
would be substantially reduced under that form of governance. Even a
very brief theory of governance would be beyond the scope of this
essay. However, it is possible that a theory of governance would
again produce results that would be moderately similar to that
advocated by Rawls.
Why should a rational
person adopt the ethical perspective advocated by Rawls? At its base
the motivation would rest on his “veil of ignorance.” This is an
abstraction that will not directly connect with a person’s
motivation. It is not factual. People do know their circumstances.
They are not ignorant. Rawls fails to provide a sound personal
reason for someone to prefer his ethical premises.
The ethical theory
presented in this essay produces value to be shared among the members
of a civilization. It increases cooperative action and reduces
negative consequences for people wherever possible. The purpose is
explicitly to provide the reasons for people to be committed to the
greater good of the whole. Both Kant and Rawls fail to provide this
level of direct motivation to the people to believe in their systems.
The Choice/Antichoice
Issue
What does this say
about the abortion choice/anti-choice issue? Does this view of the
universe give us a method to properly chose ethical action?
Obviously most people will prefer positive function over dysfunction.
If we allow choice then people are likely to prefer positive
function. This view seems to argue that allowing choice is the
ethical option for society. Are there any problems with this
perspective?
Traditional religion
might argue that there is a slippery slope problem. If it is OK to
terminate a fetus then it could also be OK to terminate dysfunctional
infants or older people that have outlived their usefulness. As we
have seen these problematic cases have been precluded for reasons
describe above. There is no slippery slope.
Since nature selects
for positive function it is ethical to allow humans to do the same.
The only circumstance where that is reasonable in modern society is
prior to birth with a policy that supports choice. All the functions
of our body exist because there were evolutionary pressures to select
for that function. We value the functions that are properly executed
by our bodies. If we cease to select for those functions our genetic
message will cease to convey that positive function to our progeny.
The structure of our universe demands that we be pro-choice. The
only requirement is that choice actions be used prior to the social
engagement that makes citizens treasured members of society.
Closing Comments
The ethical principles
espoused in this paper elegantly include the wider ecological
perspective that is ultimately required for our shared survival. We
are a natural species and our theory of ethical value should directly
link to the natural ecosystem that nurtured our evolution.
A proper understanding
of any person’s identity philosophically should include all of the
causative events creating that identity from the Big Bang to the
present time. My identity includes not just my physical body but
language, knowledge and shared wisdom made available by others. I
did not create this network of knowledge. I simply have the good
fortune to benefit from and understand what has gone before. We all
stand on the shoulders of giants, who themselves have stood on the
shoulders of giants.
All the premises of
this naturalistic theory of ethical value are empirical facts. G. E.
Moore has argued that any such theory of ethics would fail due to his
concept of a naturalistic fallacy. By this he meant that all such
natural definitions of the good would fail to meet an open question
argument: "Is that property itself good?" My premises
fully meet this objection and provide a required internal
consistency. Likewise Hume argued that the “Ought” could not be
derived from the “Is.” I have done that with an explicit theory
of the ought and a linkage with the world of facts. The universe
itself can tell us what we need to know about the ought by the
empirical evaluation of alternative views of the ethical good.
What would happened in
a world that shared a valid vision of the ethical good? We would
have heaven on Earth. Ecosystems would return to functional balance.
Kindness and cooperation will mark the vast majority of
relationships. Conditions of desperation and despair would be
replaced with joyous celebrations of the shared good.
How do we create that
world? We do it one step at a time by finding ways to communicate
and validate an understanding of the ethical good and creating
mechanisms that will actually deliver that good to an expanding
proportion of our planet’s population. We create that world by
personally choosing to understand the ethical good and creating a
sense of community with others that share that interest; by using
that knowledge to create the good life for ourselves and others.
