Mental Health and Well-Beings
The Challenge of Cultural Relativism
by James Rachels
How Different Cultures Have Different Moral Codes
Rachels begins his article with this story from Herodutus:
“Darius, a king of ancient Persia, was intrigued by the variety of
cultures he encountered in his travels. He had found, for example,
that the Callatians (a tribe of Indians) customarily ate the bodies of
their dead fathers. The Greeks, of course, did not do that—the
Greeks practiced cremation and regarded the funeral pyre as the
natural and fitting way to dispose of the dead. Darius thought that a
sophisticated understanding of the world must include an
appreciation of such differences between cultures. One day, to teach
this lesson, he summoned some Greeks who happened to be present
at his court and asked them what they would take to eat the bodies of
their dead fathers. They were shocked, as Darius knew they would
be, and replied that no amount of money could persuade them to do
such a thing. Then Darius called in some Callatians, and while the
Greeks listened asked them what they would take to burn their dead
fathers' bodies. The Callatians were horrified and told Darius not
even to mention such a dreadful thing.”
Rachel’s point here is simple: Different cultures have different
moral codes.
It’s important to be clear what we mean by this. In just about any
society we can find people who reject the prevailing morality. For
example, in the United States, it is easy to find people who do not
believe in freedom of speech or religion; still, the prevailing moral
code in the U.S. stresses individual liberty as a basic moral value.
Similarly, it is easy to find people in Islamic society who believe that
women and men should be given the same freedoms; still, the
prevailing moral code in Islamic society is that men and women are to
be judged by very different standards of behavior.
It is easy to multiply examples of differences in moral codes. They
are a fascinating to anthropologists, and, of course, a considerable
impediment to harmonious living between cultures, and within
pluralistic cultures like our own.
Cultural Relativism
Rachels writes:
To many thinkers, this observation—"Different cultures have different
moral codes"— has seemed to be the key to understanding morality.
The idea of universal truth in ethics, they say, is a myth. The customs
of different societies are all that exist. These customs cannot be said
to be "correct" or "incorrect," for that implies we have an independent
standard of right and wrong by which they may be judged. But there
is no such independent standard; every standard is culture-bound.
Many moral philosophers attack cultural relativism as an utterly
incoherent and stupid doctrine, but to Rachel’s credit, he
acknowledges that it is a powerful point of view based on some
obviously true statements. His aim is to get clear on the what
considerations really support a plausible form of cultural relativism,
and what it does and does not imply.
There are a few different arguments for cultural relativism, which
come in various forms. Rachel’s looks at the most basic ones.
Before proceeding let’s be clear about what view we are examining.
Cultural relativism is not simply the view that different cultures have
different moral codes. This is not a controversial claim. Rather,
cultural relativism is the view that moral judgments make sense
only when they are made with reference to behaviors within the
culture to which the standard applies. Put differently: Moral
judgments of the behavior of people in one culture in terms of
the moral code of another culture make no real sense.
The Cultural Differences Argument
1. Different cultures have different moral codes.
2. Therefore, there is no universal moral code.
This is the basic form of the cultural differences argument. This is not
quite the way Rachel formulates it, but it is perhaps a little clearer.
Rachels claims that the CD argument is invalid, i.e., that the
conclusion does not follow from the premise(s). However, the way I
have formulated it above, it is valid, at least on one reading of the
term “universal”. The problem with the CD argument is that it does
not secure the conclusion the main thesis of CR, as elaborated
above. In other words, it may be true that there is no code to which
every culture subscribes, but this may be simply because some, or
even all cultures, haven’t discovered the correct moral code yet.
The easiest way to appreciate this is by analogy with empirical
claims. Consider:
1. Different cultures have different beliefs about the laws of
nature.
2. Therefore there are no universal laws of nature.
This is a seriously uncompelling argument because we tend to
assume that the way the world actually works is entirely
independent of what we think about the way the world actually
works.
So, if we find the CD argument more compelling it is only because we
tend to stipulate in advance that the way people ought to be or
behave is not independent of what we think about how people ought
to be or behave. In other words, we tend to think that morality is a
function of the moral code we actually do accept and our moral code
is not really capable of error in the way that our empirical beliefs are.
Of course, this doesn’t make the CD argument any better, it just
shows that we have a tendency to accept CR prior to any argument.
The Consequences of Taking Cultural Relativism
Seriously
Rachels quotes a famous anthropologist named William Graham
Sumner summarizes: For Sumner the essence of Cultural
Relativism. is that there is no measure of right and wrong other than
the standards of one's society: "The notion of right is in the folkways.
It is not outside of them, of independent origin, and brought to test
them. In the folkways, whatever is, is right."
Rachels adumbrates some of the consequences of accepting this
view:
1. We could no longer say that the customs of other societies are
morally inferior to our own. ISlavery, Polygamy, Racial and Sexual
Discrimination, etc.
2. We could decide whether actions are right or wrong just by
consulting the standards of our society.
3. There would be no such thing as improving a society’s moral
codes. For example, a society that rejects a moral code that permits
slavery in favor of equal treatment for all has merely changed, not
improved.
Why There Is Less Disagreement Than It Seems
In this section Rachel’s makes the very important point that we tend
to exaggerate the moral differences between cultures. For example,
he says:
“Consider a culture in which people believe it is wrong to eat cows.
This may even be a poor culture, in which there is not enough food;
still, the cows are not to be touched. Such a society would appear to
have values very different from our own. But does it? We have not yet
asked why these people will not eat cows. Suppose it is because they
believe that after death the souls of humans inhabit the bodies of
animals, especially cows, so that a cow may be someone's
grandmother. Now do we want to say that their values are different
from ours? No; the difference lies elsewhere. The difference is in our
belief systems, not in our values. We agree that we shouldn't eat
Grandma; we simply disagree about whether the cow is (or could be)
Grandma.”
This is a really important point, and we can codify it as follows. In the
context of this discussion there are two different ways in which people
may differ:
1. We may differ in our moral beliefs.
2. We may differ in our empirical beliefs.
Often, what appears to be a moral disagreement is actually an
empirical disagreement. This is not simply a cross-cultural
phenomenon, it occurs in moral debates within our culture as well.
For example, people within our culture disagree about the morality of
prostitution. Of course, some people will claim that prostitution is just
fundamentally wrong and that is the end of the story. However,
people who are slightly more articulate than that will be able to give
reasons and those reasons will usually be empirical claims about
what does or does not happen to those engage in prostitution. If you
examine such a debate, you will see that the disagreement centers,
not of moral beliefs at all, but rather on empirical ones.
How All Cultures Have Some Values in Common
In this section Rachel’s emphasizes what is often overlooked by
cultural relativists, and that is the considerable uniformity in values
between cultures that arises from the fact that humans in all societies
have the same basic needs. Society’s that did not require that
human infants be cared for, or that did not generally prohibit wanton
killing, dishonesty, theft of basic necessities and other non
cooperative behavior would simply perish.
From this, Rachel correctly concludes that differences in moral codes
are often exaggerated. There is in fact a core universal moral code,
though there may be peripheral differences.
2.7 Judging a Cultural Practice to Be Undesirable
In this section Rachels shows how it is possible to make objective
cross-cultural moral judgments. He uses the rather horrifying
example of excision, or female vaginal mutilation:
“In 1996, a 17-year-old girl named Fauziya Kassindja arrived at
Newark International Airport and asked for asylum. She had fled her
native country of Togo, a small west African nation, to escape what
people there call excision.
Excision is a permanently disfiguring procedure that is sometimes
called "female circumcision," although it bears little resemblance to
the Jewish ritual. More commonly, at least in Western newspapers, it
is referred to as "genital mutilation." According to the World Health
Organization, the practice is widespread in 26 African nations, and
two million girls each year are "excised." “
The question here was whether the girl should be granted asylum on
the basis of the desire to escape excision. Ultimately she was
granted asylum, largely on the basis of the argument that excision is
a morally barbaric practice. (You might note that while this judgment
is not really sensible from a CR point of view, this does not mean that
a believer in CR would have returned the young woman to her
country. A believer in CR might still argue that we can only make
decisions based on our own moral code, and that our moral code
does not permit us to send her back.)
Is There a Culture-Neutral Standard of Right and Wrong?
The claim that excision is “barbaric” may be regarded as rhetorical, or
even racist. But it may also just be shorthand for the claim that it is a
harmful and unnecessary practice. Unfortunately, the majority of the
inhabitants (both men and women) of most of the societies that
practice it disagree.
Some of the argument in favor of excision are:
 Women who are incapable of sexual pleasure are less likely to
be promiscuous; so there will be fewer unwanted pregnancies
in unmarried women.
 Wives for whom sex is only a duty are less likely to be unfaithful
to their husbands; and because they will not be thinking about
sex, they will be more attentive to the needs of their husbands
and children.
 Husbands enjoy sex more with wives who have been excised.
You don’t have to take these reasons seriously to see an important
point, viz., that these are reasons being in given under a shared
standard. Rachels identifies this standard as
Whether the practice promotes or hinders the welfare
(happiness, flourishing, etc.) of the people whose lives are
affected by it.
This also returns us to the point made we made above, that whether
or not a practice promotes the welfare of the people affected by it is
not just a further moral issue, but an empirical one.
The quite plausible background assumption that Rachels makes here
is that moral codes exist for the purpose of promoting human
welfare. One could disagree with this. For example, a typical
disagreement is that moral codes come from God and they exist for
the purpose of carrying out God’s will. Of course, people who
believe this are certainly not cultural relativists.
Some Concluding Thoughts
What you should take away from this discussion is something like
this:
Because human societies are similar in many fundamental respects,
all moral codes have a great deal in common. Where there are
differences, it is still possible to be critical of a moral code, regardless
of its origins, on the basis that it does not achieve what moral codes
are supposed to do, namely promote, or maximize human welfare.
Whether a moral code has this effect is an empirical question, in
principle subject to answer by scientific methods. Sometimes this will
be difficult, but often it is not. Excision, for example, is only a
widespread practice in highly impoverished countries.
Rachels notes that many people are attracted to CR because it
seems to them to counsel a tolerant attitude toward other cultures.
This is an important misconception. Tolerance of different ways of
achieving personal happiness is a very important part of our moral
code, but if you believe in CR, you have no basis for prescribing it to
societies that do not already accept it. On the other hand, if you
accept Rachels point of view, than you can quite reasonably assert
that a totally different society than your own ought to be more
tolerant because people who live in that society will enjoy greater
welfare as a result.
Many people confuse tolerance with a refusal to make judgments.
(Biblical phrases such as “Judge not lest ye be judged” and “He who
is without sin, should cast the first stone” may be reasonably accused
of this.) It is important to understand that judging a practice to be
wrong, and judging that it is necessary to interfere with it are
different. One of the very hard lessons of ethics is that you can easily
cause even more harm by interfering with the free actions of others
than the actions themselves are doing. So, for example, we may
judge excision to be a morally depraved practice while choosing to do
little about it, simply because external interference in the internal
workings of a society may do more harm than good.
What is right about Cultural Relativism?
As a doctrine, cultural relativism has little going for it, but it is still
useful in reminding us of some important things. Rachels notes
them:
1. “Cultural Relativism warns us, quite rightly, about the danger of
assuming that all our preferences are based on some absolute
rational standard. They are not. Many (but not all) of our practices are
merely peculiar to our society, and it is easy to lose sight of that fact.
In reminding us of it, the theory does a service.
Funerary practices are one example. The Callatians, according to
Herodotus, were "men who eat their fathers"—a shocking idea, to us
at least. But eating the flesh of the dead could be understood as a
sign of respect. It could be taken as a symbolic act that says: We
wish this person's spirit to dwell within us.”
It may in fact be that despite our strong repugnance for such a
practice, there is nothing objectively wrong with it at all. (Many
people feel the same sense of repugnance for homosexuality or
public nudity.)
2. “The second lesson has to do with keeping an open mind. In the
course of growing up, each of us has acquired some strong feelings:
We have learned to think of some types of conduct as acceptable,
and others we have learned to reject. Occasionally, we may find
those feelings challenged. We may encounter someone who claims
that our feelings are mistaken.”
For example, if you were raised in a strongly religious setting you
may be shocked on coming to a public university to realize how many
apparently nice people do not believe in a Supreme Being. Of
course, as a doctrine, CR doesn’t necessarily encourage tolerance
toward such people, but as something that constantly reminds us of
the diversity of human beliefs and practices, it can have the effect of
causing you to critically examine your own strongly held beliefs.
The Biological Basis of Morality
by E.O. Wilson
Wilson’s article begins as follows:
“CENTURIES of debate on the origin of ethics come down to this:
Either ethical principles, such as justice and human rights, are
independent of human experience, or they are human inventions. The
distinction is more than an exercise for academic philosophers. The
choice between these two understandings makes all the difference in
the way we view ourselves as a species. It measures the authority of
religion, and it determines the conduct of moral reasoning.”
Wilson’s distinction is a different way of capturing the distinction
between cultural relativists and those who reject cultural relativism,
usually called “moral realists” or “moral objectivists” Cultural
relativists tend toward the belief that ethical principles have a cultural,
hence human origin, whereas moral objectivists believe that ethical
principles represent a reality independent of human experience.
In this article Wilson captures the difference using different terms:
 A “transcendentalist” believes that moral guidelines come from
outside the human mind.
 An “empiricist” believes that moral guidelines are entirely aspects
of the human mind.
Note: this way of using the term “empiricist” is a little peculiar, but it
corresponds to the idea that empiricists traditionally acknowledge
only things that are evident to the senses, which transcendental
moral principles are not. Importantly, however, Wilson does not
mean by “empiricist” someone who thinks morality is an unimportant
figment of our imagination. Rather, he means that the empiricist sees
morality as having some objective mental and cultural function,
and that moral theory should be largely about discovering that
function. In his words
The crux of the empiricist view is its emphasis on objective
knowledge. Because the success of an ethical code depends on how
wisely it interprets moral sentiments, those who frame one should
know how the brain works, and how the mind develops. The success
of ethics also depends on how accurately a society can predict the
consequences of particular actions as opposed to others, especially
in cases of moral ambiguity.
Transcendentalism Versus Empiricism
In making the case for empiricism, Wilson briefly identifies the
problems of various transcendentalists. For example:
(1) Immanuel Kant believed that "There is in man a power of selfdetermination, independent of any coercion through sensuous
impulses." Our minds are subject to a categorical imperative, Kant
said, of what our actions ought to be. The imperative is a good in
itself alone, apart from all other considerations, and it can be
recognized by this rule: "Act only on that maxim you wish will become
a universal law." Most important, and transcendental, ought has no
place in nature. Nature, Kant said, is a system of cause and
effect, whereas moral choice is a matter of free will, absent
cause and effect. In making moral choices, in rising above mere
instinct, human beings transcend the realm of nature and enter a
realm of freedom that belongs exclusively to them as rational
creatures.
(2) G. E. Moore, the founder of modern ethical philosophy, essentially
agreed with Kant. In his view, moral reasoning cannot dip into
psychology and the social sciences in order to locate ethical
principles, because those disciplines yield only a causal picture
and fail to illuminate the basis of moral justification. So to reach
the normative ought by way of the factual is is to commit a basic error
of logic, which Moore called the naturalistic fallacy.
Wilson’s comment on Kant, Moore and other thinkers like them is that
it is largely nonsense. The bottom line for Wilson is that there is
simply no such thing as uncaused human action. Ethical behavior is
no different than any other kind of behavior, and if we are going to
understand it, it will have to be in the vocabulary of science.
Is-Ought
The standard objection to Wilson’s way of thinking is what we call the
is-ought distinction. The idea here is that science can only
describe the way nature, and human beings actually are, it does not
have the resources to say how humans ought to be.
Wilson, however, is very familiar with this objection, and doesn’t think
much of it. He believes that our ethical prescriptions always
correspond to rather straightforward descriptions of the human
condition. Wilson believes that behavioral prescriptions of different
strengths correspond to the strength and universality of the human
desire that things should or should not be done. The more
universally a behavior is either condoned or condemned, the stronger
will be the feeling that we ought our ought not to do it.
For Rawls:
Ought is the translation not of human nature but of the public will,
which can be made increasingly wise and stable through an
understanding of the needs and pitfalls of human nature. The
empiricist view recognizes that the strength of commitment can wane
as a result of new knowledge and experience, with the result that
certain rules may be desacralized, old laws rescinded, and formerly
prohibited behavior set free. It also recognizes that for the same
reason new moral codes may need to be devised, with the potential
of being made sacred in time.
The Origin of Moral Instincts
In reading Wilson you could get the idea that he is attacking
philosophy generally, but he is really only attacking one very powerful
tradition in philosophy, what he calls the “transcendentalist” tradition,
but which is also the “rationalist” tradition. Philosophers like Kant and
Moore believed that “ought” had to be understood as a property in the
world that the rational mind comprehends, rather than an emotional
expression of a feeling or sentiment. Philosophers in the empiricist
tradition, however, most notably David Hume laid the foundation of
Wilson’s few quite a long time ago. According to these philosophers
we have a moral sense that that is expressed and completely and
fully explained by the feelings of approval and disapproval.
But in the context of evolutionary theory, this view can not be easily
dismissed. We now have a very satisfying framework for explaining
the evolution of moral sentiments, specifically in the “dynamic relation
between cooperation and defection”. This is what has come to be
known as “the prisoners dilemma” (PD) which was first explored by
another empiricist philosopher Thomas Hobbes.
The PD is essentially about the basis of cooperation. Thomas
Hobbes first clearly realized that if human beings were entirely and
completely self-interested, then society would be impossible. This is
because society demands cooperation, but for any individual person,
it is always in their interest to appear to be willing to cooperate, but
then defect on any cooperative agreement. Of course, if everyone
does this, society falls apart.
One way of responding to this problem is to claim that people are not
purely self-interested and are in fact motivated by a Purely Rational
will to achieve The Good. This, of course, is to place moral behavior
outside the bounds of causal understanding, however. Hobbes, and
ultimately Wilson see things differently. Wilson writes:
“Imagine a Paleolithic band of five hunters. One considers breaking
away from the others to look for an antelope on his own. If
successful, he will gain a large quantity of meat and hide—five times
as much as if he stays with the band and they are successful. But he
knows from experience that his chances of success are very low,
much less than the chances of the band of five working together. In
addition, whether successful alone or not, he will suffer animosity
from the others for lessening their prospects. By custom the band
members remain together and share equitably the animals they kill.
So the hunter stays. He also observes good manners in doing so,
especially if he is the one who makes the kill. Boastful pride is
condemned, because it rips the delicate web of reciprocity.
Now suppose that human propensities to cooperate or defect are
heritable: some people are innately more cooperative, others less so.
In this respect moral aptitude would simply be like almost all other
mental traits studied to date. Among traits with documented
heritability, those closest to moral aptitude are empathy with the
distress of others and certain processes of attachment between
infants and their caregivers. To the heritability of moral aptitude add
the abundant evidence of history that cooperative individuals
generally survive longer and leave more offspring. Following that
reasoning, in the course of evolutionary history genes predisposing
people toward cooperative behavior would have come to predominate
in the human population as a whole.
Such a process repeated through thousands of generations inevitably
gave rise to moral sentiments. “
The basic mechanism of the social contract provides the basic
framework for explaining, not only moral behavior, but a great deal of
what we now consider to be immoral or pathological behavior, as
well. For example, if humans evolved to trust only relatively small
social groups, then we can expect a great deal of mistrust and
outright hostility to those outside it. Hence: xenophobia, racism, warlike impulses.
As you might anticipate, this fact supplies transcendentalists with a
basis for doubt: In fact, we have transcended, these impulses by
and large. If we are biologically programmed to cooperation with
small nomadic tribes how can we possibly have gotten to where we
are now, cooperating constantly and instinctively with people we do
not even know?
Wilson’s basic answer to this is that it is a good question, but it is just
like the question how something as complicated as the human brain
could have evolved from a primordial soup. It is not a reason to
doubt that it did; it is the basic research project of biological science.
So his point is just that ethics itself needs to be subsumed within this
project.
Specifically, this research program, as applied to the evolution of
moral sentiments must consist in
“* The definition of moral sentiments, first by precise descriptions
from experimental psychology and then by analysis of the underlying
neural and endocrine responses.
* The genetics of moral sentiments, most easily approached through
measurements of the heritability of the psychological and
physiological processes of ethical behavior, and eventually, with
difficulty, through identification of the prescribing genes.
* The development of moral sentiments as products of the
interactions of genes and the environment. Research is most
effective when conducted at two levels: the histories of ethical
systems as part of the emergence of different cultures, and the
cognitive development of individuals living in a variety of cultures.
Such investigations are already well along in anthropology and
psychology. In the future they will be augmented by contributions
from biology.
* The deep history of moral sentiments—why they exist in the first
place. Presumably they contributed to survival and reproductive
success during the long periods of prehistoric time in which they
genetically evolved.”
Religion
In the second half of this article Wilson applies his empiricist
approach to explaining the origin or religion. Religion and ethics are
logically distinct subjects, of course, but they are similar in sharing the
impulse to transcendental explanation.
What’s primarily important about this analysis is Wilson’s attempt to
explain the appeal of the transcendental impulse itself. According to
Wilson, the fact that hierarchically organized social groups
conferred greater benefits on everything living within them (i.e., those
who chose to go it alone normally suffered worse than even those on
the lowest level of the social order) is what explains our preparedness
for believing in deities. As Wilson says:
“The human mind evolved to believe in gods. It did not evolve to
believe in biology. Acceptance of the supernatural conveyed a great
advantage throughout prehistory, when the brain was evolving. Thus
it is in sharp contrast to the science of biology, which was developed
as a product of the modern age and is not underwritten by genetic
algorithms. The uncomfortable truth is that the two beliefs are not
factually compatible. As a result, those who hunger for both
intellectual and religious truth face disquieting choices.”
Ethics and Intuitions
by Peter Singer
In this article Peter Singer argues that because our intuitions about
right and wrong evolved in circumstances very different from the ones
we live in now, these intuitions can not always be trusted when we do
moral decision making.
We’ve already seen some reason for thinking this. The revulsion or
approbation people feel at certain kinds of actions (like eating certain
kinds of foods) may have been appropriate (the foods may have been
dangerous under certain conditions) and useful at an earlier stage of
our evolutionary history, but inappropriate today given greater
knowledge about how the world works.
Singer notes that most of us feel a very strong sense of duty to
people closest to us, something that David Hume observed as well:
A man naturally loves his children better than his nephews, his
nephews better than his cousins, his cousins better than strangers,
where everything else is equal. Hence arise our common measure of
duty, in preferring the one to the other. Our sense of duty always
follows the common and natural course of our passions.
Note here that Hume lived in the early 1700’s, a century before
Darwin, but he comes very close to a Darwinian understanding.
Darwin adds the explanatory element to Hume’s observations, that
this sense of duty has been selected for over because humans who
gave greater attention to other children than their own offspring were
not well represented in future generations.
The point here of course is that it is not immediately obvious that this
sense of duty will always reflect the reality of what is right and wrong.
For example, if you are given a choice between saving your own
child, or ten children you don’t know, you may have the very strong
sense that you ought to save your own child. But the intellectual part
of you also realizes that it is a far greater harm to allow ten children to
die than one. Utilitarians (like Singer) believes that the morally right
action are the ones that maximize the amount of happiness in the
world, not just happiness for you or people you love.
Singer also discusses a study conducted by clinical psychologist
Jonathan Haidt. Haidt read subjects the following story.
Julie and Mark are brother and sister. They are traveling together in
France on summer vacation from college. One night they are staying
alone in a cabin near the beach. They decided that it would be
interesting and fun if they tried making love. At the very least it would
be a new experience for each of them. Julie was already taking birth
control pills, but Mark uses a condom, too, just to be safe. They both
enjoy making love but decide not to do it again. They keep that night
as a special secret between them, which makes them feel even
closer to each other. What do you thing about that, was it OK for
them to make love?
Haidt notes that just about everyone had the very strong feeling that
what the siblings did is wrong, and they maintained this conviction
despite the fact that most of the standard reasons one would give for
this wrongness were not available. Again, our feeling that sex
between siblings is wrong stems has strong evolutionary roots, but
these conditions are not the ones that prevail today.
The Trolley Problem
Singer’s main point can be understood by reference to thought
experiments in ethics. One of the most famous of these is called the
“trolley problem”. One form of the problem goes like this.
You see that a loose trolley is headed down a track and will kill five
unsuspecting people on the track with whom you are unable to
communicate. Fortunately, you are able to control a switch which will
divert the trolley to a different track. Unfortunately, there is one
person on that track will be killed as a result? What should you do?
A second form of the problem is similar, but with an important
difference.
You can not control a switch to divert the trolley, but you are
positioned over a footbridge under which the loose trolley will pass. A
heavy object thrown in front of the trolley will stop it. Unfortunately,
the only object heavy enough to do the job is the person standing
next to you. What should you do?
As you can probably guess, most people feel that the right thing to do
in the first case is to divert the trolley, but that it is wrong to push the
person standing next to you off the bridge. The difficulty here is that
you get the same result in either case: one person dead rather than
five.
It’s important to see that Singer’s point here is methodological. He’s
not trying to solve the trolley problem. He points out that it is
common philosophical practice to simply trust our intuitions. In other
words, we trust that there must be some morally relevant difference
between the two cases since we intuitively judge them differently.
We then proceed to concoct elaborate philosophical theories that
justify those intuitions.
Singer disagrees with this approach. He believes that, in light of our
evolutionary understanding of the origin of such intuitions, we must
be prepared to declare that they are simply wrong, and that in fact
these cases may indeed be morally equivalent.
If you think about this particular case you’ll realize that the only real
difference is whether you kill someone remotely by throwing a switch
or by engaging with their bodies in a physical manner. You will
probably agree that it would be much easier to kill a person
thousands of miles a way with the push of a button, never having to
witness the results, then to, say, blow their brains out a close range.
But intellectually you probably understand that they are morally
equivalent actions.
Beyond evolutionary theory, the real striking new data in moral
decision making comes from fMRI technology (functional magnetic
resonance imaging.) Using fMRI neurologists can now look at what
part of your brain is most active when you are doing different
cognitive tasks, and they have observed what goes on when people
think about things like the trolley problem.
It turns out that the part of our brain that orchestrates our emotional
responses to events (the amygdala) is far more active in the second
version than the first. In other words, our stronger emotional reaction
to killing someone by actually touching them is simply due to the way
evolution has programmed our brain to process this information. It
has little to do with the reality of what is occurring.
Greene also predicted that the minority of people who judged that it
would be correct to push the person off the bridge would take more
time to reach this conclusion because there is an extra cognitive task
involved in attempting to resolve contradictory input from different
parts of the brain.
Singer’s Conclusions
Singer is careful not to exaggerate the significance of this discussion.
In particular, he is not suggesting that our moral intuitions should be
completely ignored. All of our decisions, not just moral ones, depend
on emotional input. Singer’s point is simply that we can not permit
our feelings or intuitions about right and wrong always trump the
results of ratiocination. In particular, we need to be aware that
“doing the right thing” and “doing what feels right” are two entirely
different things.