Wright Is Wrong

“Compatibility” is something for which there’s always a market but which never produces a good product.  It’s the “can’t we all just get along” position for which would-be peacemakers constantly yearn.  And it’s almost always put forward by people who get neither of the sides they are attempting to reconcile correct.  Doing the math, you should notice that that means they get both sides wrong.  Thus, there is little chance of of the compatibilist getting anything right at all.  If there is some sort of substance to disagreements, and if you attempt to solve that problem by ignoring the substantial claims on both sides of the disagreement, then it is very hard for you to say anything of substance about the issue in question.  For that reason, I do not know of a single compatibilist argument that has ever worked.  Unsurprisingly, then, when Robert Wright decided to write his piece suggesting a compatibility in “[t]he ‘war’ between science and religion,” “A Grand Bargain Over Evolution,” (which is just a more concise version of his book, The Evolution of God) he got everything wrong.

In the blogosphere you need to move pretty quick if you do not want to be late to the ball.  Though Wright’s piece came out Saturday, there have already been substantial replies to it, the best, in my opinion, being from Jerry Coyne.  I strongly urge you read it.  Even so, since opinions are like…well, you know, I’ll go ahead and say something about just how wrong Wright is, especially since there are a couple of things not noted in other posts.

Only eight sentences into the op-ed piece, Wright, sounding eerily like the angel in Luke 2:10, claims “I bring good news!”  It turns out, according to Wright, that “militant” atheists and the “intensely” religious are both wrong when it comes to their lack of consensus.  Even more, “they’re wrong for the same reason.”  What is that reason?  “[A]n underestimation of natural selection’s creative power…”  It might strike someone as odd that Wright would suggest that those problematic “New Atheists,” again epitomized by Richard Dawkins, would so radically misunderstand the power of the primary mechanism of biological evolution.  This is especially odd since Dawkins, who is referenced specifically in Wright’s article, is well-known for talking at length about that very thing.  But the oddness does not stop there.

The core of Wright’s article revolves around his assertion that our moral sense is the result of evolutionary processes.  He takes it as a given that science has come up with some pretty good explanations for how the intuitions we all tend to share can be accounted.  In that case we have a purely materialistic explanation for the values we generally share.  This is unproblematic for those on the side of science in Wright’s “war,” though it certainly is an issue for the true believer in one of the big monotheistic religions.  The kicker, though, is that he moves an extra step and asks:

If evolution does tend to eventually “converge” on certain moral intuitions, does that mean there were moral rules “out there” from the beginning, before humans became aware of them — that natural selection didn’t “invent” human moral intuitions so much as “discover” them?

He suggests that the answer here is in the affirmative.  The idea that our moral intuitions reflect something external to us, indeed, external to all life itself, that natural selection “discovered,” has no basis in evolutionary theory, moral theory, or even in any commonly held theology.  And, here, Wright simply goes off the rails.  It is at this point that Wright wants to suggest that it is not contrary to science to suppose that there is some possibility that God set up either natural selection itself or the laws of physics themselves to produce moral animals like humans.  He writes, “But the point is just that these speculations are compatible with the standard scientific theory of human creation.”

There are a number of problems with this, and I want to highlight a few.  First, such a view is not “compatible with the standard scientific theory of human creation.”  In point of fact, there is no standard scientific theory of human “creation.”  In science, humans were not created.  There is a connotation to the word “create” that has no place in the standard scientific account of how our species came to be.  That connotation has to do with some notion of a creator.  For example, in general, we don’t talk about rocks being “created.”  That’s because, even though we think we understand the process by which rocks came into existence, no force maneuvered or managed things in such a way that the stones underfoot were the result of such guidance (presuming we mean stones that are not explicitly the result of human artifice).  Evolutionary theory does not have room for such guidance, either.  As such, “created” is not a word that has any place in the “standard scientific theory” of how humans came to be.

Next, the idea that there is some end toward which natural selection is pointed, that it has some goal in mind, is antithetical to the actual idea of natural selection as presented in evolutionary theory.  There is no “thing” out there to even have such a goal.  It just turns out that some things are better at sticking around than others, and those are the things that stick around.  That’s it.  If some environment exists in such a way that being taller would result in a greater likelihood of survival, and if the random events involved in mutation produce some individual that is taller than others, and if being taller does not have some sort of negative effect on other traits also good for survival, and if that individual does not die by some other means, then that individual will survive and pass on the genes responsible for its taller height to its offspring.  That’s it.  There’s no direction or purpose in there.  In fact, it is explicitly purposeless.  To attempt to place purpose in the process is to misunderstand what the mechanism actually is.

At this time something needs to be said about the problem of the naturalistic fallacy in this schema of reconciliation between science and religion.  Even if it turned out that there was some set of behaviors that worked best (“best” being remarkably loaded here), and that given enough time some intelligent species would inevitably adopt those behaviors, that would not make such behaviors moral.  As has been pointed out several times on this blog, you cannot deduce and ought from an is.  The move is simply illegitimate.  It will never be the case that just because some behaviors work well that those behaviors are moral “shoulds.”  For example, it might turn out that rape is a fantastic evolutionary strategy.  Indeed, there are species where forced sexual congress is the rule and not the exception.  But, even if some segment of the population took to rape as a means of ensuring that their genes were spread far and wide, and even if this worked out such that those individuals with those genes began to thrive and dominate within the population, that would not make rape a moral action.  And that’s the point! No action is moral merely because it helped some individual or population to survive.  Were that that case, all actions taken by all successful species, and that means all species that currently exist, would be moral actions as morality would just be that kind of activity that worked to ensure that population’s survival.  And, of course, that is just wrong.

The idea that we can discover morality by looking at what behaviors are common to our species, even by looking at what behaviors are considered moral across groups, is fundamentally flawed.  That just is not what morality is.  Now, this might have some uncomfortable consequences for those hoping to discover what is moral, or those with a variety of meta-ethical concerns, but none of that changes the issue.  This is where we are, and no amount of hand-waving or wishing is going to change it.

I want to point out that this kind of morality, the kind that is the result of natural selection, would be the kind that would apply to all species and not just our own.  If it is the case that there is some over-arching direction to make things moral built into the process of natural selection, then all organism on the planet have a share in that morality.  If that is where we are, then what actions are moral?  Certainly, any action that I could dub as “immoral” can be found to be the rule for some existing species.  But that suggests that there is no “moral law” whatsoever.  Now, it might be the case that Wright would want to engage in more hand-waving here and attempt to make some argument about the specialness of our species.  But there is nothing in evolutionary theory that suggests any such thing.  Certainly, we are special to us, but not in the grand scheme of things.  We are no more special than any other species that exists right now.  And if we want to make our behavior out to be something that is unique, something that is truly moral whereas the forced sex, killing of live, healthy young, and whatever other actions in other species that we would abhor in our own, then it is difficult to make the case that morality is something that is discovered by the process of natural selection, something toward which there is a definite and unalterable tendency.  Regardless of which way you cut it, Wright is just wrong in his suggestion that evolution can give us genuine morality.

It is only fair to point out here that, even if one could get morality in the manner envisioned by Wright, it would be nothing like what is wanted by most theists, especially Christians.  Christians believe in an interventionist god by definition.  They believe in a god that created the world for humans, and this is evidenced by Jesus Christ being sacrificed for the sins of humanity so that a genuine communion between God and human could be achieved.  What Wright is suggesting is, at best, some kind of deism, and that is nothing like what Christians say God is.  Indeed, it largely misses the point.  And the reason deism has lost popularity is not due to a failing in a belief in some god.  It is largely due to the recognition that a belief in a deistic god is just superfluous to what is needed to explain the facts of the world.  “Prime mover” arguments are simply unnecessary in contemporary physics.  The main people left to whom Wright can be speaking are believers in an interventionist god, and those people are not interested in hearing that morality might be salvaged if they give up the intervention part.  So, the question here is this:  whose religion is being salvaged here by supporting this supposed compatibility?  Almost no one’s that I can see.

In the end, it is just weird that anyone would think that this kind of compatibilism will be satisfactory for anyone interested in the substance of this debate.  The scientists are going to point out that Wright has screwed up the science, and the theists are going to point out that he has screwed up theology.  Like most of the compatibilisms before it, this one attempts to find a “common ground” on which both sides agree, and, in the process, comes up with that very thing:  they both agree that Wright is just wrong.

Evolution Does Not Defeat Naturalism

Alvin Plantinga is one of those philosophers that the ID crowd likes to name-drop when attempting to justify their positions.  Recently, he published a short five-page essay entitled "Evolutions vs. Naturalism," and subtitled, “Why they are like oil and water.”  The gist of the essay, obviously, is that Plantinga thinks that evolutionary theory is the downfall of philosophical naturalism.  He writes, “Evolutionary naturalism, therefore—the belief in the combination of naturalism and evolution—is self-refuting, self-destructive, shoots itself in the foot.”  Some of you reading this might find this puzzling and wonder just how Plantinga’s argument works.  After all, evolutionary theory is often considered to be the metaphorical final trumpet call of naturalism defeating other ontologies (though, personally, I would suggest some caution before sounding the victory), certainly not its refutation.  I’ll do my best to explain Plantinga’s position before making the case that he is wrong.

Here is how Plantinga’s argument goes:  First, Plantinga says that naturalists are materialists.  That means that our beliefs are just neurochemical reactions, wholly material with no input available from anything outside purely naturalistic means.  Next, he says that evolutionary theory explicitly says that it is our behavior that is adaptive in that our ancestors were those whose behavior was adapted to leave behind offspring that survived.  So what we have now are brains that produce behaviors that are adaptive.  These brains, then, are what cause beliefs, meaning that beliefs are purely the function of some neurophysiology that is the result of evolutionary pressure to produce behaviors that result in organisms who leave behind offspring who leave behind offspring, etc.  So far, so good.  Now, here is where the “problem” arises.  Plantinga says there is nothing within this system that cares a whit as to whether or not those beliefs are, in fact, true.  All that matters is that they are adaptive.  As such, there is no guarantee that they are right, but only that they proved successful.  Here, he quotes Patricia Churchland when she writes:

Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four F’s: feeding, fleeing, fighting and reproducing. The principal chore of nervous systems is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive … . Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing is advantageous so long as it is geared to the organism’s way of life and enhances the organism’s chances of survival [Churchland's emphasis]. Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost.

From this Plantinga concludes, “What [this] tells us is that the neurophysiology that produces those beliefs is adaptive, as is the behavior caused by that neurophysiology. But it simply doesn’t matter whether the beliefs also caused by that neurophysiology are true. If they are true, excellent; but if they are false, that’s fine too, provided the neurophysiology produces adaptive behavior.”  Because of this, assuming evolutionary theory is right, we have no reason to think that any of our beliefs are true at all.  And if this is right, we don’t even have a good reason to think that evolutionary theory is right.  All we are left with is a deep and pervasive skepticism.  Plantinga writes:

If evolutionary naturalism is true, then the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable is also very low. And that means that one who accepts evolutionary naturalism has a defeater for the belief that her cognitive faculties are reliable: a reason for giving up that belief, for rejecting it, for no longer holding it. If there isn’t a defeater for that defeater—a defeater-defeater, we could say—she can’t rationally believe that her cognitive faculties are reliable. No doubt she can’t help believing that they are; no doubt she will in fact continue to believe it; but that belief will be irrational. And if she has a defeater for the reliability of her cognitive faculties, she also has a defeater for any belief she takes to be produced by those faculties—which, of course, is all of her beliefs. If she can’t trust her cognitive faculties, she has a reason, with respect to each of her beliefs, to give it up. She is therefore enmeshed in a deep and bottomless skepticism. One of her beliefs, however, is her belief in evolutionary naturalism itself; so then she also has a defeater for that belief. Evolutionary naturalism, therefore—the belief in the combination of naturalism and evolution—is self-refuting, self-destructive, shoots itself in the foot. Therefore you can’t rationally accept it. For all this argument shows, it may be true; but it is irrational to hold it. So the argument isn’t an argument for the falsehood of evolutionary naturalism; it is instead for the conclusion that one cannot rationally believe (emphasis his) that proposition. Evolution, therefore, far from supporting naturalism, is incompatible with it, in the sense that you can’t rationally believe them both.

So where does this leave us?  Is Plantinga right?  Does evolutionary theory really rule out naturalism?  I don’t think so.  First, it just doesn’t seem to be the case that evolutionary pressure is the basis for most of our beliefs.  Certainly, some of them might be hardwired into us and, thus, the direct result of evolution.  Some obvious examples might be that snakes are dangerous (study has shown that it is very difficult to make most people comfortable with snakes, even those that aren’t dangerous to humans), flowers are safe (it just turns out that it’s difficult to condition most people to be afraid of flowers, even those that are poisonous), that loud noises indicate danger, and things like that.  But cases like these don’t seem to be the bulk of our everyday beliefs.  For those we need to look at the behavior that underlies belief-formation.  Then the question becomes this:  Is it likely that a process that systematically creates false beliefs will be adaptive?  Here the answer just seems to be “no.”  If I have some behavioral system that is responsible for generating the majority of my everyday beliefs- those that aren’t hardwired into me- and if that system is put together in such a way that the bulk of those beliefs are wrong, how could it possibly work that such beliefs would result in my successful navigation of the world such that I would be likely to leave behind offspring who share my behavior of systematically generating false beliefs?

Let’s look at some of the examples that Plantinga offers in terms of false beliefs that are adaptive.  In Warrant and Proper Function, Plantinga suggests a scenario that involves a hominid Paul and a hungry tiger.  In such a case the proper behavior (in terms of success defined as surviving long enough to produce offspring who survive) is to run away from the tiger.  But, several different beliefs could result in such behavior:

Perhaps Paul very much likes the idea of being eaten, but when he sees a tiger, always runs off looking for a better prospect, because he thinks it unlikely that the tiger he sees will eat him. This will get his body parts in the right place so far as survival is concerned, without involving much by way of true belief. . . . . Or perhaps he thinks the tiger is a large, friendly, cuddly pussycat and wants to pet it; but he also believes that the best way to pet it is to run away from it. . . . or perhaps he thinks the tiger is a regularly recurring illusion, and, hoping to keep his weight down, has formed the resolution to run a mile at top speed whenever presented with such an illusion; or perhaps he thinks he is about to take part in a 1600 meter race, wants to win, and believes the appearance of the tiger is the starting signal; or perhaps . . . . Clearly there are any number of belief-cum-desire systems that equally fit a given bit of behavior.

This kind of behavior fits nicely with the earlier description that I gave of hardwired beliefs which might be adaptive, but it does not in any way address the question of how a system that consistently generates false beliefs could be adaptive.   In fact, from what I’ve seen, Plantinga never addresses this issue, and it is not hard to see why.  There is no good way to explain why any process that generates many false beliefs would be likely to be adaptive in any significant sense.  A mechanism that produces false beliefs might cause a specific adaptive behavior (e.g. running from the Tiger because you believe it is the signal to start a race), but there is no good reason to believe that the same mechanism that generates one accidentally adaptive false belief will produce consistently adaptive behaviors.  Such a mechanism would produce an enormous variety of beliefs, mostly false and incoherent, and those beliefs would, in turn, produce behaviors which were in no way tied to the external world.  There is just no way for such a system to engender the success and survival of some organism.

Plantinga goes wrong in that he never considers that we do not arrive at the majority of our beliefs by way of some specific evolutionary pressure.  Rather, most of our beliefs are the result of a belief-generating mechanism.  It is the mechanism, then, that is adaptive, and the beliefs that fall out of it must produce behaviors that allow us to successfully navigate the world.  While it might be the case that specific false beliefs could lead to behavior that is adaptive, it seems highly unlikely that a system which produces beliefs that influence behaviors that were not themselves the result of evolutionary pressures could systematically produce false beliefs which still helped the organism survive.

There is, of course, the larger issue from which Plantinga suffers in that he presumes that if God created us, then we can trust that our beliefs are true, but I’ll save that for another day.

A Place for Scientific Explanation in Moral Reasoning

Some people argue with their parents about God, some about politics.  In my family, because I am the daughter of a psychologist, and because I have several years of graduate education in moral philosophy, the argument tends to be about method.  Specifically, my mother and I go round and round about whether moral questions can be sufficiently answered by appeal to scientific research.   While it is probably unfair to hold up a person who takes B.F. Skinner along for vacation reading as the representative view of all social scientists, it is not inaccurate to say that many people in her field believe that scientific research does a better job at answering questions about the human condition than the theoretical musings of philosophers.  Our perennial debate is on whether the “why” questions that philosophers ask about morality can (or should) be reformulated (perhaps “reduced” is a better term) so that they can be answered in the “how” terms of evolutionary psychology.  As might be inferred from my previous posts, my contention is that they cannot.

At some point, I would like to do an extensive post about the problems we run into when we attempt to reduce moral ‘ought’s to descriptive ‘is’s, but that is beyond the scope of my argument today.  Actually, I mean to defend the use of scientific data (and even method!) in moral philosophy, but not before I set up a few parameters and give reasons for why I think they are appropriate.  Moral questions usually arise out of our recognition that there are conflicts among our own observed values.  For example, most human beings have a strong moral intuition that malicious acts should be punished AND a strong moral intuition that there is virtue in mercy and forgiveness.  The question of how we should treat those who commit malicious acts, therefore, cannot be answered by appeal to moral intuition alone.  At the very least, we require some external method for ranking competing moral intuitions, and the data alone cannot give us that.  And, the problem of ranking values becomes even more complicated when we turn from an individual’s competing moral values to debates about moral value among groups.  Science can explain how different cultural mores evolve, but how could a scientist possibly rank the value of one set of mores, which were adaptive or at least not unadaptive for that group in that environment, against mores which were equally adaptive (or not unadaptive) for a different group in a different environment?  Is’s or did’s do not translate well into should’s or should’ves, but I digress.

Here are three ways in which I think science can and should inform moral philosophy:

First, scientific research gives us the best way to predict the consequences of our actions.  Whether we are trying to prevent the pandemic spread of the Swine Flu, or just giving cough medicine to a sick child, we are morally culpable for the consequences of our actions.  Science gives us the best explanations for natural phenomena and the most accurate predictions of future events, which means that we should ask scientific questions -questions about evidence- before taking action.  I won’t dwell on this point because Jim has already addressed it another post, but this is the most obvious and common way in which science matters for morality.

Second, psychology and neuroscience give us explanatory insight into differences in individual perception and motivation.   This is significant because moral justifications and charges of moral blame generally appeal to a claim about an individual’s intent.  Information about a person’s beliefs and values is relevant to the charges that we make against that person.  For example, we would not assign the same level of blame to an unmedicated schizophrenic who calls 911 to report a murder as we would to a high school student who reports the same information as a prank, even if both accounts are equally false.

Third, research in many fields of science informs our understanding of learned behavior, which is an integral part of how we develop character dispositions.  While neuroscience can offer explanations for why some people lack certain cognitive functions, feelings of empathy, or other morally relevant characteristics, it can also show us areas of malleability where environmental influences (teaching and other forms of stimulation) make a difference in who we become.  Science may not be able to tell us what virtue is, but it can certainly facilitate the development of virtuous qualities, which many believe to be a moral responsibility in its own right.