Subject: 
        Re: [evol-psych] The naturalistic fallacy is itself naturalistic
   Date: 
        Fri, 15 Feb 2002 13:37:07 -0600
   From: 
        "Larry Arnhart" 
     To: 
        
    CC: 
        




In response to Mr. Laurenson, I would say that from the fact of moral
controversy it does not follow that there are no natural standards for
moral judgment.  As I argue in DARWINIAN NATURAL RIGHT, there are four
sources of moral disagreement: fallible beliefs about circumstances,
fallible beliefs about desires, variable circumstances, and variable
desires.  Consequently, ethics is not a science like mathematics in
which one properly seeks certainty and precision.  Because of its
uncertainty and imprecision, ethics requires the sort of practical
judgment rooted in experience that cannot be reduced to abstract rules. 
But still, the ultimate standard for ethics is the pattern of natural
desires that distinguishes human nature.

1. FALLIBLE BELIEFS ABOUT CIRCUMSTANCES.  Moral judgment is often
uncertain and imprecise because our knowledge of the circumstances of
action is uncertain and imprecise.  We often disagree about moral
questions, even when we agree in our principles, because we have
differing views of the relevant circumstances.  In fact, much of our
moral reasoning is devoted to gathering and assessing the facts
pertinent to our practical decisions.

2. FALLIBLE BELIEFS ABOUT DESIRES. We are often unsure about what we
truly desire.  Even when we think we know what we desire at some
particular moment, it is not always clear whether satisfying that
momentary desire will impede the satisfaction of a more important desire
in the future.  Much of our moral deliberation with ourselves and with
others requires reasoning about the consistency or contradiction of
diverse desires over a complet life.

3. VARIABLE CIRCUMSTANCES. The variability in the practical
circumstances that distinguish one individual from another and one
society from another dictates variability in our moral judgments.

4. VARIABLE DESIRES. There is both normal and abnormal variation in
human desires.  The normal variation arises from age, sexual identity,
and individual temperament.  The abnormal variation arises from
abnormality in innate dispositions or in social circumstances.  So, for
example, while human beings are normally social animals with social
desires that incline them to feel the pleasures and pains of those close
to them, a few human beings are psychopaths, who lack the social desires
that normally characterize human beings as social animals.

Because of these four sources of moral uncertainty and imprecision,
morality depends on the exercise of what Aristotle identified as
prudence--the practical wisdom for judging correctly how to satisfy the
variable desires of human beings in the variable circumstances of
action.  In contrast to many modern moral philosophers who think
morality comes from learning and following explicit norms stated as
definitions and rules, Aristotle rightly saw that prudence cannot be
reduced to definitions and rules.  Sometimes the contingency of moral
situations produce tragic conflicts that cannot be perfectly resolved by
appeal to universal, formal rules.  Much of my DARWINIAN NATURAL RIGHT
book is devoted to case studies that illustrate such tragic conflicts.

The need for prudence is a consequence of human biology in at least two
respects.  First, the variation in human moral experience that makes
prudence necessary manifests a general variability in all biological
phenomena, and particularly in animal behavior.  All plants and animals
are naturally adapted in various ways for flexible responses to the
changing ecological circumstances in which they find themselves.  (Books
based on direct observation of animal behavior--such as Goodall's
CHIMPANZEES OF GOMBE or de Waal's CHIMPANZEE POLITICS--are actually
social histories of animal communities that show the historical
contingencies of each animal community even within the same species.) 

A second biological explanation for the importance of prudence is that
it emerges from the neural structure of the brain.  The brain represents
the world primarily not through rules that can be verbally stated as
principles, but through prototypes that allow for judgments that cannot
be expressed as verbal principles.  For example, we can recognize faces
and the facial expression of emotions even when we cannot translate
these into verbal statements.  Similarly, our practical experience of
the social world gives us prototypes of moral phenomena such as honesty,
love, sympathy, cruelty, and unfairness.  Acquiring and applying such
moral prototypes in our social lives is a practical skill that cannot be
translated into verbal rules, although we may sometimes formulate some
rules as rough abridgments of our practical experience.  In contrast to
the modern view of morality as the learning of abstract rules,
Aristotle's view of morality as founded on practical habituation and
practical judgment conforms to the way the mind works.

Larry Arnhart

Department of Political Science
Northern Illinois University
DeKalb, IL 60115