The Genesis of Morality

[DavidRoss]

On another recent thread a digression about the origins of morality attracted enough attention to suggest that it might merit a thread of its own.

Did anyone happen to see Paul Bloom's NY Times Magazine article, "The Moral Life of Babies?"  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/magazine/09babies-t.html?pagewanted=all  Bloom, a researcher at Yale, writes about a number of experiments and observations suggesting that infants enter the world already equipped with a strong, universal moral sense.   Curiously, in the aticle's conclusion he contradicts his own finding, saying that "The aspect of morality that we truly marvel at — its generality and universality — is the product of culture, not of biology."

[bwv 1080]

Adam Smith described it as well as anyone:

(Adam) Smith argues that all human beings innately have something he called a desire for "mutual sympathy" of sentiments. What Smith means is that each of us gets pleasure on seeing his own sentiments echoed in others. It gives us pleasure when, for example, our friends find the same things funny that we do, to the same degree, or we find the same things distasteful as our friends do, to the same degree. Smith thinks it is simply a fact about human nature that we find this mutual accord, or concordance of sentiments—what Smith terms "sympathy"—pleasurable. (And note, incidentally, Smith's special use of the term "sympathy": it means harmony or concord with any emotion whatsoever; it does not mean only pity or compassion.) In fact, he thinks this pleasure is one of the finest that human beings experience.

Since everyone finds this pleasurable, everyone seeks it out; and this mutual seeking-out of sympathy of sentiments becomes, for Smith, the engine of social cohesion and the centripetal force, as it were, of human communities. It encourages people not only to enter into groups, alliances, and communities with others (so that they have opportunities to achieve the much-sought-after mutual sympathy of sentiments), but also to form associations of like-minded people (because this increases the chances of actually achieving such a sympathy).

The mechanism, Smith thinks, is this: I desire mutual sympathy of sentiments with you, which leads me to moderate my sentiments to the level that I think, based on my past experience, you are likely to "enter into." You, on the other hand, because you desire the same thing, also moderate your sentiments to the level you think, based on your past experience, I am likely to enter into. Over time this process trains our sentiments to gravitate toward mutually acceptable levels. Smith's picture thus has a clear anti-Freudian thrust: it denies the hydraulic picture of human emotions according to which emotions build up "pressure" that must be "released." Instead, and more plausibly, it conceives of emotions as things that can be controlled and trained by exercising what Smith calls "self-command." The activity of reciprocal adjustment is then repeated numberless times in every person's lifetime, as it is between and among the people in one's community, resulting in the creation of an unintended and largely unconscious system of standards. These standards then become the rules by which we determine in any given case what kind of behavior is, as Smith calls it, "proper" in a situation and what "improper"—meaning what others can reasonably be expected to enter into.

Think of a person laughing too long at a joke: at some point you start to form the judgment that his laughter is simply too much; you judge it, that is, to be "improper." But how do you know at what point the laughing becomes too much? According to Smith, you know by judging this case against the standards you have unintentionally, and probably unconsciously, developed in conjunction with the members of your community over time. In different situations, the amount of laughter that is acceptable may differ; but in each case our experience with our fellows in similar situations sets the parameters for our judgment of propriety.

The same holds true with attire: there is such a thing as dressing inappropriately—in either direction, as it were: wearing black tie to a beach party, or wearing a bathing suit to a wedding—and your judgment of when a person's attire becomes inappropriate is a function of the mechanism Smith describes. To take a final example, there is even, Smith thinks, such a thing as too little anger. If a man's wife is being publicly humiliated by another man, then we think he ought to show anger, or what Smith calls "spirit." If he does not—if he cowers, without rising to her defense—then we judge him to have acted improperly. The propriety or impropriety of a person's behavior, then, is constituted by its accordance or discordance with what is recommended by this system of standards.

To facilitate our ability to predict what our own behavior should be (that is, what would enjoy mutual sympathy with others), Smith thinks we learn to adopt the standpoint of an "impartial spectator" from which to judge our own behavior. He believes that in time we come to take the impartial spectator's judgments as the standard of morality—first for ourselves and then also for others. We have all experienced the unpleasantness of being judged unfairly, that is, on the basis of biased or incomplete information (people who do not know our situation thinking poorly of us). This leads us to desire that others refrain from judging until they know the whole story; but because we all want this, our desire for mutual sympathy of sentiments subtly encourages us to adopt an outside perspective, as it were, in judging our own conduct. That is, because we want others to be able to "enter into" our sentiments, we strive to moderate them to be what we think others will sympathize with; but we can only know what that is if we ask ourselves what the impartial observer would think. The voice of the impartial spectator becomes our second-nature guide of conduct. Indeed, Smith thinks it is what we call our "conscience." The phrase "let your conscience be your guide" really means to let the imagined impartial spectator be your guide. And because we come to rely on this impartial spectator to give us accurate moral guideposts by which to judge our own behavior, our confidence in his judgments leads us also to employ him to judge others. In this way the impartial spectator becomes the standard of morality.

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/adam-smith-moral-philosopher/#

[Catison]

Whenever I read this kind of stuff, I am always reminded of this excellent commentary from John Cleese.

http://www.youtube.com/v/qvijJTjZ8Rg

[Philoctetes]

http://www.youtube.com/v/n_PtnBacAP0

[drogulus]

     Adam Smith, Hume, Darwin, Churchland....this is the right path.
   
     Just one point: If you want to explain morality, you have to follow the example of explanations of consciousness. Or baking a cake can provide the lesson, which goes like this: If you want to understand how to bake a cake, there must be no cake baking in the explanation, otherwise you haven't explained it, you've just moved it around. Similarly with morality, if you want to understand how it came about you better leave morality out of the explanation or it isn't an explanation. Cake baking, morality and consciousness have in common that they consist in phenomena that are not themselves these things but simpler things which are combined. So a conscious mind doesn't have a conscious mind in it to do the work and morality isn't composed of moral atoms and so on. I raise this to answer the inevitable but foolish objection that "mere" material explanation can't account for these phenomena:

     It's all well and good to say you put the batter in the pan and stick it in the oven at 350 degrees and so on, but that's just the material aspect. What about the actual cakiness without which you just have a zombie cake, a material simulacrum?

     See, that kind of thing....I'm against that. It shows up in moral argument frequently, where material causes can't produce "real" morality. Maybe it's best just to concede the point that real cakes can't be baked that way and all cakes, minds and morals are only jury-rigged contraptions, not the hypothesized real things, whatever they are.

[Catison]

     Adam Smith, Hume, Darwin, Churchland....this is the right path.
   
     Just one point: If you want to explain morality, you have to follow the example of explanations of consciousness. Or baking a cake can provide the lesson, which goes like this: If you want to understand how to bake a cake, there must be no cake baking in the explanation, otherwise you haven't explained it, you've just moved it around. Similarly with morality, if you want to understand how it came about you better leave morality out of the explanation or it isn't an explanation. Cake baking, morality and consciousness have in common that they consist in phenomena that are not themselves these things but simpler things which are combined. So a conscious mind doesn't have a conscious mind in it to do the work and morality isn't composed of moral atoms and so on. I raise this to answer the inevitable but foolish objection that "mere" material explanation can't account for these phenomena:

     It's all well and good to say you put the batter in the pan and stick it in the oven at 350 degrees and so on, but that's just the material aspect. What about the actual cakiness without which you just have a zombie cake, a material simulacrum?

     See, that kind of thing....I'm against that. It shows up in moral argument frequently, where material causes can't produce "real" morality. Maybe it's best just to concede the point that real cakes can't be baked that way and all cakes, minds and morals are only jury-rigged contraptions, not the hypothesized real things, whatever they are.

A cake is material.  Its ingredients are material.

Morals are metaphysical (in the philosophical sense).  Its ingredients should be metaphysical.

[Philoctetes]

A cake is material.  Its ingredients are material.

Morals are metaphysical (in the philosophical sense).  Its ingredients should be metaphysical.

First, I'll say that I don't think that is a very good metaphor.

Second, I'll have to disagree with you in totality in regards to the second portion of your post.

[DavidRoss]

Whenever I read this kind of stuff, I am always reminded of this excellent commentary from John Cleese.

http://www.youtube.com/v/qvijJTjZ8Rg

Effin' brilliant!

[karlhenning]

I wonder if it is possible to suppress that gene which makes us watch Nicolas Cage movies? . . .

[MN Dave]

Nicolas Cage is fun to watch. I don't think he overacted as much back in the day.

[DavidW]

Wild at Heart is a good movie.   That Wicker Man remake is not.

[Philoctetes]

Wild at Heart is a good movie.   That Wicker Man remake is not.

No. NOT THE BEES!!!

[DavidW]

No. NOT THE BEES!!!

  And don't forget the multiple times he slugged a woman.  It seems like the director has issues.

[drogulus]

A cake is material.  Its ingredients are material.

Morals are metaphysical (in the philosophical sense).  Its ingredients should be metaphysical.

     Only the ingredients of cake we have knowledge of are material. The parts we don't have knowledge of are metaphysical. I've been given a special pass to tell you about what I don't know. You'll have to trust me on this or you're guilty of "scientism".

     Back to the topic (we didn't really leave it, though), I notice that bees and ants sacrifice their lives for the good of the colony. They are acting without benefit of concepts to explain why they do it. The kind of moral behavior humans exhibit must have started out like that, and as we acquired consciousness and the greater degree of freedom our big brain gives us we developed explanations for what we do, in part to understand what everyone else is doing as well as to reflect the greater range of choices we have.

     This was built on the natural sympathies (instincts) that we share with the creatures we evolved from, but new features have been added, the most noticeable being the concepts themselves. The concepts don't govern our behavior so much as provide explanation of how our behavior is governed at the level of an organism in a social network. They amount to the published reasons for what we do, the official version you might say.

     

[DavidRoss]

     Only the ingredients of cake we have knowledge of are material. The parts we don't have knowledge of are metaphysical. I've been given a special pass to tell you about what I don't know. You'll have to trust me on this or you're guilty of "scientism".

     Back to the topic (we didn't really leave it, though), I notice that bees and ants sacrifice their lives for the good of the colony. They are acting without benefit of concepts to explain why they do it. The kind of moral behavior humans exhibit must have started out like that, and as we acquired consciousness and the greater degree of freedom our big brain gives us we developed explanations for what we do, in part to understand what everyone else is doing as well as to govern* the greater range of choices we have.

     This was built on the natural sympathies (instincts) that we share with the creatures we evolved from, but new features have been added, the most noticeable being the concepts themselves. The concepts don't govern our behavior so much as provide explanation of how our behavior is governed at the level of an organism in a social network. They amount to the published reasons for what we do, the official version you might say.

     _{* I have to be careful here. The explanation doesn't govern the choice, it explains how it's governed.}

What delightful irrationality!

A man who refuses to accept the reported experience of millions of people as anything but mass delusion nevertheless claims--with a straight face--that he has insider's knowledge of the conscious life (or lack therof) of ants and bees.  Rich!

[Philoctetes]

     Only the ingredients of cake we have knowledge of are material. The parts we don't have knowledge of are metaphysical. I've been given a special pass to tell you about what I don't know. You'll have to trust me on this or you're guilty of "scientism".

     Back to the topic (we didn't really leave it, though), I notice that bees and ants sacrifice their lives for the good of the colony. They are acting without benefit of concepts to explain why they do it. The kind of moral behavior humans exhibit must have started out like that, and as we acquired consciousness and the greater degree of freedom our big brain gives us we developed explanations for what we do, in part to understand what everyone else is doing as well as to reflect the greater range of choices we have.

     This was built on the natural sympathies (instincts) that we share with the creatures we evolved from, but new features have been added, the most noticeable being the concepts themselves. The concepts don't govern our behavior so much as provide explanation of how our behavior is governed at the level of an organism in a social network. They amount to the published reasons for what we do, the official version you might say.

   

http://www.youtube.com/v/AIfwFLDXFyQ

[drogulus]

First, I'll say that I don't think that is a very good metaphor.

     Do you mean the cake? I chose it for a reason. I wanted to include a process that was undeniably physical all the way through and show how the same metaphysics can be applied to this case as to living beings. Intellectual history shows that as recently as the 19th century philosophers and even some scientists were bewitched by animist notions about the material world. Remember the ether? Remember elan vital? The same argument I made for the metaphysics of cakiness is almost word for word the elan vital argument. The ether, a strange hybrid of physics and metaphysics, had to be there even while it had to not be there.

      I note that elan vital was never disproved. Like an unemployed god hanging around moping about why nobody prays to it anymore, bad ideas are finally, after much embarrassment (alas, not soon enough) abandoned. Even many of the believers finally admit the obvious, that they never had the slightest inkling of what they were talking about. It sounds good to say there a metaphysical element to this or that, but if the speaker knows nothing about what it means to say that, why is it said? Who is impressed by such statements? Could it be....the impressionable? Yes, it really, really could be.

[drogulus]

     You have to ask the question "How do creatures that are not conscious govern their behavior?" Even diehard faitheists will have to acknowledge that at some level consciousness is not present, even if we don't know exactly where conscious control first appears. So even if you're plagued with notions about bees pondering whether to be Kantians or Benthhamites, at some point the question you're avoiding comes up anyway. A physical system acquires a self-monitoring feature, and I have to doubt that it's epiphenomenal.

     The thing about bees is that they're small, with simple controls. There's no room in a bee for advanced processing, and the energy budget wouldn't allow it. For a bee to survive it can't carry costly processing around that it doesn't need except to satisfy metaphysicians, a low priority for bees. I think that Douglas Hofstadter is right that the unit of control or hypothesized awareness is the colony. Check out Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, especially the discussions featuring "Aunt Hillary".

     Actually I do consider insider knowledge to be relevant, though I use it more....deftly. My current view of consciousness is that only creatures that communicate the idea that they have insides are fully conscious in the important way that humans are. That is, consciousness consists to a high degree in our awareness that we have it, a self-reinforcing trick of a special set of physical structures in human brains.

     So for now it's just us. I grant that animals are conscious in a "sort of" way, but it wouldn't feel much like consciousness to us if we could experience it. I won't be all that perturbed if future discoveries show other species have a kind of consciousness, though. The only kind that really matters is the one that learns to use abstract ideas, which makes moral codes rather than moral instincts the top control (maybe...). Once again, that's just us.