Notes on 2233 - Evolution and Ethics
There are three main arguments that I want to spend some time on today. Two of
them, as we will see, are seriously flawed or misconceived. But the third poses a classic,
and extremely challenging philosophical puzzle.
1. The Argument From Animals.
P1: Ethical constraints do not apply to animals.
P2: If we evolved in a continuous way from animals, then if ethical
constraints do not apply to animals, neither do they apply to us.
P3: But we did evolve in a continuous way from animals.
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C: Ethical constraints do not apply to us.
2. The Argument from Natural Selection.
P1: Evolution selects only the fittest to survive and reproduce.
P3: It is futile and wrongheaded to resist natural law.
P4: If evolution selects only the fittest to survive and reproduce, then to
help the weak and unfit is to resist natural law.
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C: It is futile and wrongheaded to help the weak and unfit.
(This, like the first, takes many forms. A variation on it is to use it to justify ruthless
and brutal competition with others as, again, simply a matter of the laws of nature.)
3. Norms and Nature.
P1: There is no way to validly derive "ought" from "is." (This is a claim of
Hume's; see the selection below for further remarks on this problem.)
P2: Our status as natural beings who have evolved from other natural
beings implies that we can be completely described (all the facts about us
can be stated) using only sentences whose main verb is "is" or some other
form of the copula.
P3: If there is no way to validly derive "ought" from "is," and we can be
completely described using only sentences whose main verb is "is" or some
other form of the copula, then there is no way to derive any ethical claims
about us (claims which must involve some form of "ought") from the facts
about us.
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C: There is no way to validly derive any ethical claims about us (claims
which must involve some form of "ought") from the facts about us.
On Evolutionary Ethics:
1. The key mistake- Widespread notion that evolution is a good thing (at
least to evolutionists) and so we ought to encourage it / not stand in its way.
(A related mistake: evolution is neither good nor bad, but it’s a law of
nature, so again, we shouldn’t stand in its way (this time because it’s futile).
This hard-nosed, let ‘em die approach fit nicely with Smith and especially
Malthus and Ricardo’s approach to economics; suddenly charity (state or
private) was viewed as immoral because it interfered with economic and
(now) biological processes that were ultimately irresistible. It only
prolonged/expanded the pain - increasing the supply of poor labour,
gobbling up the national product. This is one reason that the Irish potato
famine was so severe; policy makers felt they could not intervene in this
“natural” economic process- note that this occurred before Darwin
published On the Origin of Species.
2. A response: If our values are independent of evolution (and, from a
certain point of view, the HIV virus is just as evolved (elegant, etc.) as we
are; this doesn’t prevent us from regarding it as an evil, or from regarding
efforts to destroy it as morally correct) then we are free to say what we
value and act in its defense. This is neither wrong (evolution does not set
the standards) nor futile (smallpox is gone).
3. But independence brings us to the last of our 3 arguments: the problem
of descriptive naturalism vs. norms. Normative commitments involve an
evaluation of things (people, actions, states of affairs) as good or bad. But
the vocabulary of natural science simply doesn’t include evaluative terms
like these—natural science is about description, not evaluation. What is the
relation (if any) between the description of the world that science gives us,
and our ideas about what we should do & how things should be?
Hume on the IS/OUGHT gap:
I cannot forbear adding to these reasonings an
observation, which may, perhaps, be found of some
importance. In every system of morality, which I have
hitherto met with, I have always remark’d, that the
author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of
reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes
observations concerning human affairs; when of a
sudden I am surpriz’d to find, that instead of the usual
copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no
proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an
ought not. This change is imperceptible; but it is,
however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or
ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation,
‘tis necessary that it shoul’d be observ’d and explain’d’
and at the same time that a reason should be given, for
what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new
relation can be a deduction from others, which are
entirely different from it. But as authors do not
commonly use this precaution, I shall presume to
recommend it to the readers; and am persuaded, that this
small attention wou’d subvert all the vulgar systems of
morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and
virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects,
nor is perceived by reason.
A Treatise of Human Nature, (L.A. Selby-Bigge, ed.)
469-70.