E. O. Wilson On Biology And Morality

by hilzoy

Via Andrew Sullivan, I see that The Atlantic has put E. O. Wilson's article 'The Biological Basis Of Morality' online. I had repressed all memory of this article, but it really annoyed me at the time, so much so that I wrote a letter to the editors about it. For some, um, unfathomable reason they declined to publish it, but now (heh heh) I can, and so I have put it below the fold. (Why should perfectly good snark go to waste?)

I am reliably informed that E. O. Wilson is a brilliant biologist. I would read anything he wrote about ants with interest. But it does not follow from that that he knows anything about philosophy. Of course, that's no reason why he can't write intelligently on it. But it is a reason why someone at the Atlantic should have gone over what he wrote to make sure it was accurate, as I'm sure they would have done had I submitted an article on insects. Apparently, no one did.

To the Editors:

Suppose that E. O. Wilson's article on 'The Biological Basis of Morality' were a hoax. Suppose that, inspired by Alan Sokal, Wilson had written it to see whether, if a scholar who is deservedly famous for his work in one field were to write on another, you would hold his work to your usual standards of accuracy and sound argument. And suppose he now wrote to let you in on the joke. He would be able cite from his article all the features of Sokal’s work that so embarrassed the editors of Social Text, including:

-- Obvious and easily detectable factual errors. Wilson claims that ethicists "tend not to declare themselves on the foundations of ethics." This would be astonishing if true; fortunately, as any attempt to check this assertion would have made clear, it is not. He writes that Kant’s Categorical Imperative "does not accord ... with the evidence of how the brain works". It would be fascinating to learn what advances in neurology have shown that it is morally permissible to act on maxims that we cannot will to be universal laws. According to Wilson, John Rawls "offers no evidence that justice-as-fairness is consistent with human nature." In fact, Rawls devotes a sixty-page chapter of A Theory of Justice to this question. Wilson describes Rawls as a "transcendentalist", i.e., a thinker who holds that "the order of nature contains supreme principles, either divine or intrinsic". In fact, Rawls explicitly rejects this view. These are only a few of the factual inaccuracies that pervade Wilson’s article. None of them would have been difficult to detect, had anyone tried to do so.

-- Quotes taken out of context. One example: Wilson claims that "Rawls opens A Theory of Justice with a proposition he regards as irrevocable", and which he then quotes. In fact, Rawls begins the next paragraph of Theory as follows: "These propositions express our intuitive conviction of the primacy of justice. No doubt they are expressed too strongly. In any event I wish to inquire whether these contentions or others similar to them are sound, and if so how they can be accounted for." If this counts as taking a claim to be irrevocable, I would hate to see Wilson’s idea of diffidence.

-- Unsound arguments. Wilson begins by distinguishing the view that moral laws "exist outside the mind" from the view that they are "contrivances of the mind". He then argues that we should reject the first alternative, since it amounts to the view that moral laws are "ethereal messages awaiting revelation, or independent truths vibrating in a non-material dimension of the mind". He takes the view that morality is a human contrivance to imply that we can answer moral questions only by understanding the biology behind our moral sentiments. It is worth noticing the implications of this argument. If we could not conduct any inquiry whose object is a human contrivance without inquiring into its biological roots, we would be unable to balance our checkbooks or figure out winning moves in chess without first understanding the selection processes that led us to engage in these activities -- unless, of course, we were prepared to regard truths about our bank balances or what move will mate in two as “ethereal messages awaiting revelation”. Wilson's argument depends on the idea that these are our only alternatives. But they are not.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that morality is a 'contrivance of the mind'. This would not imply that we need to use biology to determine what the answers to moral questions are. Think of mathematics, which is arguably a human invention. Biology might explain why we have the ability to construct mathematical proofs, but it is not necessary to know anything about biology to construct the proofs themselves, since biological claims do not normally figure as premises in mathematical arguments. Likewise, the claim that morality is a human contrivance might imply the existence of a biological underpinning to our ability to construct moral arguments, but it does not follow from this that biological claims must figure in the arguments themselves.

Still, one might think, biology might be relevant to ethics not because ethics is a human contrivance, but because of the particular sort of contrivance that it is. To assess this suggestion, we should distinguish different ways in which biology might be relevant to ethics. First, ethicists have to make certain assumptions about what it is possible for people to do, since morality should not require anything it is impossible for us to do, like being in two places at one time. (Since most moral theories require qualities, like generosity and courage, which some people actually display, and which it must therefore be possible for people to have, it is unclear that sustained biological research is needed on this point.) Second, biology might help us to understand the social consequences of adopting various different moral views. Most of Wilson’s examples show biology to be relevant to ethics in one of these two ways, whose possibility few ethicists would dispute.

The crucial issue is whether biology is relevant to ethics in a third way. If we knew which moral principles people can act on, and the consequences of adopting them, we would still have to decide which principles we should adopt. Should we adopt those that make us happiest? Those that promote human autonomy? Those that all could endorse? Professor Wilson’s central thesis is that we can use biology to answer this question. But it is not clear how biology could answer it: how, for instance, any amount of information about the processes of selection that led to altruistic behavior could license conclusions about when that behavior should be encouraged and when it should be proscribed. Wilson’s only support for the claim that it can is that the alternative is to imagine moral truths "vibrating in a nonmaterial dimension of the mind". But if, as I argued above, this is not our only alternative -- if we can hold both that morality is a human contrivance and that biology is not relevant to answering moral questions -- then this is no support at all.

Suppose Wilson were to inform you that his article was in fact a hoax, and to list the points made above: that his article contains obvious errors that anyone familiar with his subject would have caught and corrected; that it takes quotes out of context and attributes to thinkers positions they explicitly disavow; and that its central thesis is supported only by the semblance of an argument. And suppose he then asked why, given these facts, you chose to print it. How would you reply?

[hilzoy]

P.S.: The chapter of Rawls' Theory devoted to the question whether Rawls' principles are consistent with human nature is ch. 8 (pp. 453-512). Rawls' rejection of what Wilson calls 'transcendentalism' can be found in Political Liberalism. In that work Rawls defines a view which he calls 'rational intuitionism'. Rational intuitionists, as Rawls describes them, hold that "moral first principles and judgments, when correct, are true statements about an independent order of moral values; moreover, this order does not depend on, nor is it to be explained by, the activity of any actual (human) minds." (p. 91) By contrast, Rawls holds that the principles of justice should be "represented as the outcome of a procedure of construction" (p. 93); or, in Professor Wilson’s terms, as a contrivance of the mind. Rawls spends a chapter developing his view by explicitly contrasting it to the view Wilson attributes to him, which makes this attribution hard to understand.

Comments

[The Gay Species]

P.S. If you think John Rawl's Theory of Justice is so cool, why has it been torn to shreds by dozens of philosophers, not the least John Searle, Bernard Williams, Thomas Nagel, Samuel Scheffler, and others -- using biology -- to repudiate Rawl's "veil of ignorance." No such veil is possible, nor even desirable, and it is the linchpin of Rawl's Theory. What's left after ain't much anyone in philosophy regards with more than historical curiosity.

Besides, Rawl's Theory is a work of POLITICAL theory, not ETHICS, not MORALITY, and not BENEVOLENCE (which he seems to know nothing of). It's Kantian footings went down in the Transcendental Aesthetic.

[jm]

"Are you suggesting that one with a doctorate and expertise in biology cannot have a reasoned knowledge of axiology?"

Whom, might I ask, has suggested such a view? If hilzoy held that (manifestly false) view, then I am sure it would have saved her a great deal of time critiquing the Wilson piece! The very fact that she offered detailed criticisms of actual arguments made by Wilson, rather than an ad hominem argument, shows that she thinks the problems were with Wilson's arguments and not his credentials. (Indeed, she says exactly as much, and I quote: "Of course, that's no reason why he can't write intelligently on [ethics].")

[Smargash]

A thought experiment for hilzoy:

Suppose this whole aching dialogue were being carried out by a bunch of social insects in Wilson's lab. Worker-sister hilzoy57457 acts as if she believes in a common bee ethics. Are her genetics and those of her sisters, queen included, plus a few bee-dudes, relevant to the content and applicability of those ethics?

[hilzoy]

"Are you suggesting that one with a doctorate and expertise in biology cannot have a reasoned knowledge of axiology? That is so grotesquely false and arrogant I cannot believe you would make such a claim."

It is a grotesquely false and arrogant claim. That's just one of many reasons why did not make it, and do not believe it.

[Shay Begorrah]

Smargash, as a thought experiment imagine that you are one of the less dominant animals in a troop of apes.

It should not be hard for you.

[Jenavir]

To an evolutionary biologist, at a fundamental level there's not really a difference: The fact that it persists to develop, means that it's "right".

That's a fairly idiotic position to take. Plenty of ideas have "persisted to develop" that are in direct conflict with each other. They can't both be "right."

What you've just described, eric, is the naturalistic fallacy: the idea that because something happens in nature, it's right. If we went by this "morality," we would have to sanction murder, rape, theft, genocide, etc. No, thanks.

Andrew, that is certainly an example of how biology (and, indeed, empiricism in general) can play a role in moral reasoning...but I would hasten to point out that the mere fact of egalitarian societies being healthier doesn't automatically make egalitarianism "right." A fan of wealth gaps could say, well, I don't see why I have any moral obligation to worry about other people in my society so long as my own health is okay, and since I'm in the wealthiest 1%, I have nothing to worry about.

[Phil]

Wilson's article is admittedly pretty silly, but it's only a strawman. His view that biology has relevance for what we should regard as morally right has a lot going for it. Check out Kwame Appiah's book "Experiments in Ethics" for a much better discussion of these sorts of issues.

[daelm]

not new, fwiw.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/aug/16/highereducation.news1

"...her many books add up to an extended caution against simplicity. Although she often writes about knowledge, and about scientific ideas, her fundamental concerns are moral. And as a moral philosopher she is in the business of exposing conflicts between principles, often equally admirable ones. There are plenty of simple ideas about, yet life, and the moral life, are always complex and full of unresolved contradictions."

[Jenavir]

Why does everyone seem to think hilzoy is denying that biology is at all useful in thinking about morality? That's not what the post says at all.

Also, this is just silly:

antrumf, when you write that " Western culture is better than German Nazi culture under Hitler." I will both agree with you and point out that your statement is nothing more than a matter of taste. It's no different from the claim that "Vanilla ice cream is better than strawberry ice cream."

No. Because people can't, and don't, come up with articulated reasons for why they think vanilla is better than strawberry. And they don't change their tastes about vanilla v. strawberry when someone else gives them a reason to. I prefer chocolate. Why? Just because. It can't be analyzed further, at least not from my subjective perspective (maybe a scientist could take apart my tastebuds and analyze how they interact with chocolate).

Whereas I can analyze many of the components that go into my disapproval of Nazi Germany, namely the callous disdain for human life, human liberty and human welfare, the racism, the authoritarianism, etc. At the bottom of all of these concerns is my interest in other human beings, my sense that they matter...which is not "objective" in the sense of being mathematically provable.

But it's also not "subjective" in the sense of being a purely individual taste, like my preference for chocolate. Plenty of people dislike chocolate. Very few people will categorically state that other people don't matter to them. Even the Nazis didn't do that. The Nazis differed from me largely because they believed (or, more accurately, wanted to believe) different FACTS: namely, that people of certain races didn't have the same capacities as the master race and were inherently a threat to the Aryan people. Concern for things like human life and human welfare are *species-wide*, unlike my liking for chocolate. People usually take "subjective" to mean totally personal/individual. That does not describe morality. If it did, no society would be possible, and no communication between societies would be possible.