California Expert Software
Truth is Everything
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California Expert Software
Truth is Everything |
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Introduction |
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B
Primates and
Philosophers
How Morality
Evolved
Frans de
Waal, Robert Wright, Christine M. Korsgaard, Philip Kitcher, Peter
Singer
Stephen
Macedo & Josiah Ober, eds.
Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2006
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de Waal begins by asking us to accept his description of something called "Veneer Theory" (VT), which he ascribes to the Victorian proponent of evolution, Thomas H. Huxley. VT, as illustrated in Fig. 1 (p. 10), shows that humans are bad at the core. de Waal separates Darwin from VT, because Darwin observed that animals have "sympathy" for each other. In that, "... Darwin was inspired by Adam Smith, the Scottish moral philosopher and father of economics." de Waal thinks Adam Smith supported a doctrine of human sympathy, in contrast to his economic theories founded on self-interest. (This begins a confusion about Adam Smith I cannot unravel.)
de Waal introduces the Finnish philosopher, Edward Westermarck, who "...was the first scholar to promote an integrated view including both humans and animals and both culture and evolution." (p. 17) "Westermarck is part of a long tradition, going back to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, which firmly anchors morality in the natural inclinations and desires of our species. ... Emotions occupy a central role ..." (p. 18) Here he begins a series of anecdotes which purport to show that various emotions are shared by primates, and that emotions are the motive force of moral choice. Then he attributes to Westermarck a crucial distinction which turns emotions into 'moral emotions.'
"Moral emotions ought to be disconnected from one's immediate situation: they deal with good and bad at a more abstract, disinterested level. It is only when we make general judgements of how anyone ought to be treated that we can begin to speak of moral approval and disapproval. It is in this specific area, symbolized by Smith's [A Theory of Moral Sentiments] "impartial spectator," that humans seem to go radically further than other primates." (p. 20)
Here, I must ask whether moral emotions are disconnected from immediacy, or whether de Waal's ought is itself an ethical proposition. Also, at this point, it is not clear how we distinguish "moral emotions" from run-of-the-mill emotions. I suppose that is the job of Smith's spectator, which is suspiciously like "the ghost in the machine" denounced by Gilbert Ryle and others. I will leave all that aside for the moment, as de Waal wants to bring onstage his primary actors, EMPATHY and RECIPROCITY, which he created from observations of bonobos and chimpanzees, respectively. In Table 1 (p. 22), de Waal summarizes his views compared to VT, and therein makes the claim that his views allow a smooth transition from social animals having empathy and reciprocity to moral humanity.
de Waal illustrates his notions of empathy ("What is Empathy," p. 25 ff.) with examples of animals presumably exhibiting empathy. Whereas at first he writes about empathy as an emotion, later he says "Empathy is precisely such a mechanism." (p. 27) By the end of this section on empathy, two pages on, we have still not learned "what is empathy," although de Waal relates it to sympathy and personal distress and emotional contagion. While I think what comes through the anecdotes is that empathy is 'I feel your pain,' de Waal muddies the waters later on by inventing "cognitive empathy." Cognitive empathy is distinguished from regular empathy in having a self-awareness (consciousness) component. de Waal discusses consolation in chimpanzees, which he says demonstrates their cognitive empathy. The reason for that claim is chimpanzees targeting their behavior, which shows they must be able to distinguish themselves from others. This seems to be a key point for de Waal, for it makes chimpanzees (and presumably bonobos as well) self-conscious just like people. If so, they embody the transition from purely animal empathy and socialization to human-like morality. de Waal explains his views in the Russian Doll model (cf . Figure 4, p. 39): there are layers of development from animal emotions to morality.
Having in a few pages clarified the origins of morality, de Waal goes on to claim that reciprocity is the foundation of fairness. In chimpanzee behavior, he sees the beginnings of our notions of fairness, because chimpanzees are capable of gratitude, reward, punishment and other behaviors that have the hallmarks of justice. In examining fairness, de Waal comments, "I consider expectations the most important unstudied topic in animal behavior ... it is the one issue that will bring animal behavior closest to the "ought" of behavior we recognize so clearly in the moral domain.:" (p. 45) I think de Waal is connecting expectation with fairness, because what is fair can only be determined by reference to a pre-existing standard. After presenting the example of sharing among capuchin monkeys, which de Waal believes shows the rudiments of fairness in that species, he backtracks, "A full-blown sense of fairness would entail that the "rich" monkey share with the "poor" one" ... Such behavior would betray interest in a higher principle of fairness ... hence a truly moral notion. This is not the sort of reaction our monkeys showed, though: their sense of fairness ... was rather egocentric." (p. 49) So, what was the point of the examples, if the monkeys did not exhibit moral fairness? Hoping to cover his tracks, de Waal suggests, "... fairness must have started someplace ... the self is the logical place to look for its origin. Once the egocentric form exists, it can be expanded to include others." (p. 49) This seems to be nothing less than special pleading: why should fairness begin with one's self? Why is that logical? de Waal provides no mechanism for the inclusion of others: why should an egocentric demand for oneself turn into sharing with others? What if selfish demands, such as greed, remain forever just selfish demands?
In coming to the end of his presentation, de Waal flatly states there are "... two schools of thought on human goodness. One school sees people as essentially evil and selfish, and hence morality as a mere cultural overlay. This school, personified by T. H. Huxley ..." (p. 52). He points out that "The [veneer] theory is at odds with the evidence for emotional processing as driving force behind moral judgement." (p. 52) He then characterizes "... the alternative school, which seeks to ground morality in human nature." (p. 53) However, in the very next paragraph, de Waal makes a very damaging concession which undermines the sub-title of this book: "How Morality Evolved."
"This [de Waal's] school sees morality arise naturally in our species and believes that there are sound evolutionary reasons for the capacities involved. Nevertheless, the theoretical framework to explain the transition from social animal to moral human consists only of bits and pieces. Its foundations are the theories of kin selection and reciprocal altruism, but it is obvious that other elements will need to be added. If one reads up on reputation building, fairness principles, empathy, and conflict resolution ... there seems a promising movement toward a more integrated theory of how morality may have come about ..."
de Waal speculates that the origin of socialization is simply survival. Social animals need to co-operate, so socialization is a self-reinforcing cycle of improved co-operation and odds of survival. Along the way, social cohesion may have been reinforced by inter-tribal warfare. So, in the end, de Waal seems to parallel Adam Smith, who thought that selfish greed could be turned into social good.
"... we do not merely have intentions, good or bad. We assess and adopt them. We have the capacity for normative self-government, or, as Kant called it, "autonomy." It is at this level that morality emerges. The morality of your action is not a function of the content of your intentions, It is a function of the exercise of normative self-government." (p. 112)
Korsgaard introduces this critical
distinction: "... normative self-government ... requires a certain form
of self-consciousness: namely, consciousness of the grounds on which you
propose to act as grounds." (p.
113) Morality is not just a matter of being motivated and having
intentions. It is being aware of the motivations and intentions.
Korsgaard also neatly disentangles practical reason, the capacity to
make moral judgements, from intelligence.
"... self-consciousness - consciousness of the grounds of our beliefs and actions - is the source of reason, a capacity that is distinct from intelligence. Intelligence is the ability to learn about the world, to learn from experience, to make new connections of cause and effect, and put that knowledge to work in pursuing your ends. Reason by contrast looks inward, and focuses on the connections between mental states and activities: whether our actions are justified by our motives or our inferences are justified by our beliefs." (pp. 113-114)
While morality may have its origins in
primate emotions and the social habit, that is not the same thing as
non-human morality. If Korsgaard is correct, self-conscious decision
making is a necessary precondition of moral judgement. This leaves de
Waal the problem of proving that chimpanzees or bonobos are not just
intelligent, but self-conscious, reasoning creatures. Origins may give
us clues about the sort of morality our species adopts, but it cannot
establish morality or justify ethical principles. Korsgaard emphasizes
this point: "And it isn't a small difference, that ability to be
motivated by an ought. It does represent what de Waal calls a saltatory
change." (p. 117)
Dr. Peter Singer, a recognized expert in ethics, is more sympathetic to
De Waal's project than Korsgaard, but nonetheless finds fault with some
aspects of it. For example,
"To understand exactly what de Waal gets right and what he gets wrong, we need to distinguish two different claims:
1. Human nature is inherently social and the roots of human ethics lie in the evolved psychological traits and patterns of behavior that we share with other social mammals, especially primates.
2. All of human ethics derives from our evolved nature as social mammals.We should accept the first claim and reject the second. But at times de Waal appears to accept them both." (p. 142)
Singer goes on to discuss a number of
points on which de Waal is either incorrect or confused.
Singer is a founder of the Animal Rights movement, so devotes several
pages to that subject. He disagrees with de Waal in so far as de Waal
dismisses the idea of animal rights. Singer does believe that de Waal's
work supports "... giving special status to the great apes." (p. 158) He
concludes, "Recognizing the great apes as having basic rights would help
us to see that the differences between us and other animals are matters
of degree ..."
The final third of the book is de
Waal's "Response" to his critics. de Waal is obviously impressed by the
Golden Rule (GR), since he mentions or paraphrases it a lot. This is
rather odd, as GR is most nearly related to the Kantian Categorical
Imperative among ethical principles, but de Waal rejects Kant's
rationalism. He uses GR in justifying his basic moral categories,
Helping and Hurting. He asserts, "Anything unrelated to the two H's
falls outside of morality." (p.
162) This is a remarkable claim, one that narrows down ethics
considerably. But, what is Helping or Hurting? de Waal previously
referred these categories to Hume's emotivism, but in these pages
discusses social factors that illustrate helping and hurting. From there
he retreats to "Thus, even if we strive for gender-neutral moral
standards, real-life judgements are not immune to mammalian biology. A
viable moral system rarely lets its rules get out of touch with the
biological imperatives of survival and reproduction." (p. 163)
Putting a few things together, survival and reproduction must somehow
come under Helping or Hurting. But, is it not clear that one being's
good is another's evil? All animals eat to live at the expense of
plants. Plants and bacteria probably may be excused for consuming the
inorganic resources of our world, because inorganic things are amoral.
But does that quality transfer to plants? If animals may be excused from
moral considerations for eating thoughtless plants, what about those
animals that eat thoughtless animals? If fishes and reptiles are exempt,
are not most birds and mammals exempt as well? Where does the exemption
stop? If we take de Waal's last statement on survival as the line,
everyone who eats is exempt. If we consider the two H's, there must be
at least some prey animals who are Hurt by the process. So it seems we
need a better categorization, or more refined principles. de Waal tries
to wiggle around this with "Moral systems are inherently biased towards
the in-group." (p. 163) He illustrates the point in Figure 9 showing
"The expanding circle of human morality ..." (p. 164). In that pyramidal
structure, "Altruism is spread thinner the further away we get from the
center." (Figure 9) This seems a completely different explanation of
morality than the two H's or GR.
He pursues the pyramidal explanation of morality in the section "Three
Levels of Morality." These are summarized in Table 2. (p. 168) This
section is the best of what de Waal has to offer, and most closely
fulfills the subtitle, "How Morality Evolved." However, de Waal ignores
an issue others bring up: analogy or homology? In biology, "homology" is
a declaration of relatedness, possibly of descent. Teeth are
characteristic, usually definitive, of a species, so they are
intensively studied by paleontologists. So, if humans share with other
primates a certain "morality," and if that morality is a intrinsic
character, there is a homology between our morality and that of other
great apes. ("Intrinsic" means genetically determined or unavoidable in
the reproduction of individuals, like our teeth.) But homology is not
the only way animals acquire characters; there is also "analogy."
Analogies are "this is like that," meaning, in biology, that one animal
is like another in specified ways. Clearly, homology is one kind of
analogy, but analogies are not always homologies. Analogies occur
whenever creatures arrive at the same end points, whether by evolution,
social adaptation (culture) or individual discovery (learning).
Chimpanzees, bonobos and humans all use tools; i.e., tool use is a
common character. Is that a homology or an analogy? The answer depends
on the details of tool use; e.g., whether there is a tool using gene, or
whether this is an accident of the organism's construction.
de Waal seems to answer the homology-analogy question in this manner:
"I assume that our internal compass is shaped by the social environment. ... Moral norms and values are not argued from independently derived maxims, therefore, but born from internalized interactions with others. A human being growing up in isolation would never arrive at moral reasoning," (p. 174)
In other words, morality must be
analogous, not homologous, because it is learned in the social
environment. But, that leaves the evolutionary argument hanging. He
tries to bring back the connection humans have to primates in his
conclusion: "To neglect the common ground with other primates, and to
deny the evolutionary roots of human morality, would be like arriving at
the top of a tower to declare that the rest of the building is
irrelevant ..." (p. 181)
de Waal shoves aside centuries of philosophical arguments with "...
semantics are mostly a waste of time. Are animals moral? Let us simply
conclude that they occupy several floors of the tower of morality."
As I read de Waal's views on ethics and
morality, I had the increasingly strong feeling that he was "in over his
head." Moreover, I don't think he knows that. Somehow, I was
unpleasantly reminded of undergraduate classmates who took courses in
philosophy and literature because they felt such courses were easy and
the subjects "bullshit." Most of them did not learn much of the
humanities, and weren't required to do so. In this era, humanities
professors are intimidated by the "hard" sciences and the prodigious
sums of money "practical" people earn.
I admit to having some qualms in my recent readings. Should I challenge
an eminent Harvard professor? How can I put aside one of the world's
leading experts on primates? Should I not be daunted by the assaults of
the schools of Cognitive Sciences who are explaining Mind in very
physical terms?
While I tremble before these geniuses, it is because I expect to be
crushed for having different opinions, not because my opinion is wrong.
Even I fear for my life; but I persist.
Dr. de Waal is worth reading for the amazing things he can tell us about
our closest relatives. It is true that chimpanzees and bonobos reveal a
great deal about our own behavior. It is also true that we can learn
more than most people care to know about social mores (culture) by
studying primates. I say 'more than most' because most people are
ignorant and resist learning, especially in preferring to believe and
act on superstitions without any physical or intellectual basis.
BUT, there are differences in cultural processes, depending on
intelligence and consciousness. Once self-awareness sets in, the
consciousness Korsgaard points out, what applied in the pre-conscious
world is subject to transvaluation in the conscious world. Being aware
of the grounds makes all the difference. In my notation, culture has an
inner logic which directs its evolution. While how we got here is
interesting, the problem of being here is in a different class.
WalterB -
10:56:18 - Friday, 10/20/2006
Last update: 11/06/2007
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