Can Reductive Naturalism account for Morality?
Reductive Naturalism is often labelled as "Scientific Naturalism." This is the view that everything is reducible (including normative morality), or can in principle be reduced, to science defined as "Scientistic" type of science. And we should be familiar that Scientism is just a particular view of "Philosophy of Science," having many dissenters.
The purpose of this thread will be to explore the following question,
"Can Reductive Naturalism account for, and explain Morality so that an atheistic reductive naturalist can meaningfully and cognitively make moral commands or moral statements in this life?"
Allow me to post some background information so that every reader may gain some clarity on this philosophical question. My motivation stems from the fact that some of this material is pretty deep, plus wading through close to 800 comments at HotAir.com thread can be very tiresome. Here is what started this discussion.
Jazzman wrote,
"I don’t believe atheism is incompatible with a robust non-natural metaethics, but let’s grant, for the sake of argument, that it is. A friend of mine is a neuroscientist and an atheist. He thinks moral philosophy is a crock. According to him, our moral attitudes are easily explainable. Some of these sentiments are the product of human evolution (reciprocal altruism, for instance), and some are the product of culture and tradition (which religion has played a significant part in shaping). He thinks that is all there is to morality - evolved and/or cultural responses of approval or revulsion. There is no metaphysical fact of the matter about people or states of affairs being objectively “good” or “bad”.
Despite this view, he lives a life not much different from yours or mine. He donates to charity, feels obligations towards certain people, is enraged by certain actions, believes certain practices should be legislated against, and so on. Is this inconsistent with his ethical outlook? I fail to see why. Why should rejecting the coherence of absolute normativity force him into relativism or hedonism? He hears about female genital mutilation and feels revulsion. His attitude isn’t “Well, that’s their culture.” It’s “That is barbaric and it must be stopped.” Of course he knows that they were raised thinking it was proper. His objection to it isn’t because it violates some deep moral rule. His objection is that he finds it extremely repulsive and he cannot bear the idea that there are people who condone and practice it. Why is this stance unavailable to him?
In a way he just “does what he feels like”, but what he feels includes the pull of obligation, sympathy, pity, revulsion, and a host of other emotions we associate with “moral” behavior. And I daresay this is true of most of us. So the answer to questions like “If you’re an atheist, what’s stopping you from raping and killing for fun?” would be “These actions are deeply abhorrent to me, and violate the values that I choose to live my life by.”
So what is inconsistent about the way my friend lives his life? Why should disbelief in the moral law (as traditionally conceived) entail that one cannot (or should not) lead a “moral” life, and indeed enjoin others to do so? Incidentally, my friend often uses moral language (e.g. he might tell his son “It’s wrong not to share”). If you question him about this, he’ll readily admit that all he’s trying to do is influence peoples’ behavior, and moral language is very useful for this, because we are acculturated to respond to it in certain ways. He doesn’t actually believe that the terms he uses refer to anything."
Jazzman on August 23, 2007 at 3:05 PM
Jazzman then says,
"I should mention that I do believe that religion actually makes many people better human beings than they otherwise would have been. It also makes many people worse human beings than they otherwise would have been. I do not know which number is greater. None of this is based on evidence, it’s just a hunch.
As for myself, I admit the possibility that if I were religious I would be a more caring and compassionate person. However, my atheism is entrenched enough that I don’t foresee a conversion anytime soon, so I guess I’ll never know what Christian (or, slightly more likely, Buddhist) Jazzman would be like."
Jazzman on August 23, 2007 at 3:16 PM
Jazzman at the HotAir.com link below also wrote,
"I should clarify that I myself am not a reductionist. But I am defending reductive naturalism against the charge that it is rationally inconsistent with moral behavior.
Here’s a precis of the upcoming response: My friend is a subjectivist universalist. He realizes that his moral code is subjective, it’s an expression of his own particular desires and connative attitudes, but he doesn’t believe that this entails that this code applies only to him. He holds everyone to these standards (even if their personal codes of conduct are different), and will work hard to ensure they’re met. So he is a universalist, not a relativist. I do not see why subjectivism and universalism are inconsistent, and if they aren’t, then his “moral” behavior is completely consistent with his naturalist beliefs. When he makes a moral statement, it is meant as an exhortation or a command, not as a report about the world. He would deny that the statement “Rape is evil”, as uttered by him, is either true or false. It is not meant to be a statement of fact, but a hidden exhortation intended to influence behavior or elicit an emotional response. It is no more amenable to evaluation as true or false than a command such as “Close the door!”
He would not be troubled by the fact that he can’t justify the existence of moral law, since he explicitly denies the existence of objective moral law. But what I am arguing is that this denial need not impinge on his behavior. His system of beliefs is completely consistent with moral behavior. If you ask him, in any particular case, why he is behaving in a certain way, he can provide a perfectly cogent justification.
For instance, suppose he is lecturing some African person on the evil of female genital mutilation. You ask him why he is doing this, and he will (probably) respond, “I find the practice abhorrent and wish to see it changed, and I realize that couching my objection in moral terms (such as the word ‘evil’) might have an impact on this person’s future behavior.” This seems like a perfectly good reason for his behavior, and it does not appeal to non-natural facts. A similar justification would be available for most actions we would call “moral”.
Jazzman on August 23, 2007 at 5:35 PM
He later adds,
"Incidentally, neither my friend nor I deny that traditional Judeao-Christian morality plays a large part in his belief system. No doubt many of the beliefs he has are a product of his upbringing in a Christian community. In that sense, he has Christianity to thank for a large proportion of his values. He did not generate them suo moto. This goes a long way towards explaining why he behaves a lot like believing Christians, but I do not see that it threatens his philosophical naturalism."
Jazzman on August 23, 2007 at 5:43 PM
My position is that reductive naturalism fails to account for any person to make moral commands. But I wanted to show courtesy to Jazzman by allowing readers to gain a fuller picture of where he is coming from. I am grateful for Jazzman for his excellent comments at HotAir.com. I would appreciate your discussion in the comments section below.
ColtsFan
31 Comments
Reader Comments (31)
Define "account;" there's a big difference between it and "prove." And also what is the assumed conclusion here? That they can't and the religious can? And what does it change?
Morality is a word. I say "X is morally good" and that shows morality. Universal morality is something different.
Define "account"
Thanks for stopping by, Nonfactor.
Those are good questions that require further, careful elucidation on my part before beginning any lengthy discussion.
When I say "account", I mean the following:
Let me begin with a fictional illustration.
Norman Non-English holds to the philosophy of "Non-English", which says that no one is able to meaningfully say anything in English at all. When Norman is in English speaking Canada or the USA, he remains silent in respect of his treasured philosophy. But sometimes when he stubs his toe, he cries out in pain, "ouch," or when somebody cuts him off in traffic, he lets out a verbal "Why don't you use your turn signal!!" Norman is aware of these "minor difficulties," but he for the most part, believes that his worldview is still, nonetheless, a viable worldview.
Now, I want to argue that Norman NonEnglish cannot "account" for his brief utterances of English (spoken often in pain or in crowded traffic) with his worldview, and yet be consistent. Norman must get rid of his worldview because his worldview cannot account for the meaning that occurs during those rare, brief utterances of English.
The conclusion that I am arguing for, respectfully, with Jazzman and other atheists, is that all forms of atheism that do entail non-cognitive theories of morality (like "reductive naturalism") are false.
Our discussion centers not on linguistics or semantics. But on what those two areas convey.
PRCaldude,
Do you know why my comments are showing up in Bold type?
That is strange. My first comment showed up in bold, and my second comment returned to normal font.
I am unclear as to what you are referring to here.
When I speak of morality, I am speaking of the normative discipline, often called ethics, that seeks a rational justification for acting properly, employing ethical terms like "good," "evil", etc.
Thank you for the invite, Coltsfan! It is good see some familiar faces...er type.
Your little fictional character, Norman, actually reminds me of something Wittgenstein wrote concerning his idea of language games. Having realized that the conclusion of his philosophy would lead students, reading his book, to then reject his writings and all others, due to the fact that very little if anything could either be accurately communicated or received, said something to the effect of: use his philosophy as a ladder that, after the student is finished climbing and is on top of the "house", is then kicked down and not used again. I thought that was very funny.
Is there a way you could define account in a more concrete way? For example "to account for something you need to be able to ______." Because what you're talking about definitely doesn't sound like "proof" or "evidence" or even "confirm" or "deny."
If simply offering up an explanation for something, logically or not, means that you win the debate by "accounting" for something, then obviously the religious (regardless of what religion) will be able to account for something.
You say the discussion doesn't center on linguistics or semantics and I agree, but to get to the center of this discussion we need to clarify what you mean with words like "account" or "false" et cetera.
Morality can also be descriptive. When I think of the word "normative" when discussing morality I think of what people "should" or "should not" do. What I see most atheists do is say "X is good," not because they're being normative, but because they're being descriptive.
Good and evil are simply words. You can assign them to actions if you wish and it doesn't mean you're wrong by any rationally objective standard (rationally being the key word here).
"What I see most atheists do is say "X is good," not because they're being normative, but because they're being descriptive."
Yes, but why is it that "good" is the appropriate word to describe the action or thing? In other words, when using the word good to "describe" something, is it not your intent that the one to whom you are describing it understand what it is you mean by calling something good? And if that is the case, then both you and the other person are aware of something that is "good" in a normative sense, which in turn allows the other person to determine whether in fact that which is being described is either moving towards or away from that which both understand as "good." Even if the other person were to completely disagree with your employment of the word "good" to describe something, both you and he understand that things can be described as either "good" or "evil," and even that understanding (or better "presupposition") by both parties is in fact also normative.
Yes.
But it is not Biblcial.
This is just another way of substituting man's law in place of God's law.
I meant 'Biblical'
... and if the description of 'Good' is dependent on perspective, as what Weight of Glory is suggesting, then then it is relative.
So what's the point of defining absolutes that depend on the relativity of perspective?
Reductive Naturalists begin with the understanding that everything normative (i.e., "thou shalt not do Y", or the moral principle in circumstance Q is "you should do D") can be reduced to the natural. What is defined as "natural"? That is a key question. Some reductive naturalists define "the natural" as "reduction to chemistry", or "reduction to biology", but most reduce it to physics.
The question becomes, "can Morality survive if it is ultimately reduced to physics?" It is hard to even see HOW it could survive? Reductive Naturalism, because of its claim of being able to successfully reduce everything to psychology or to chemistry or to physics, leaves us with a very different form of Morality that is not even Morality. It is not Morality in even the most charitable definition.
"Can Reductive Naturalism account for, and explain Morality so that an atheistic reductive naturalist can meaningfully and cognitively make moral commands or moral statements in this life?"
Yes, but not logically.Apart from intelligent design morality must be Darwinesque. If there is no God, the belief and construction of God must be viewed as an evolutionary flaw. This flaw, instead of repairing itself, seems to be getting worse.
And bears don't look into the night sky and ask, "Who am I and who made those lights?" So I am forced to assume that the suggestion of a supreme being is a flaw that surfaces later in the evolutionary process. I also might assume that given another million years or so, when a higher evoltionary species roams the earth, they will not only believe in a divine being, they will believe they are that being.
The virus has spread!
The question is, "can Reductive Naturalism account for the moral wrongness of such barbaric acts as this article?" That is, after Naturalism reduces Normative Morality to a Morality-In-Name-Only consisting of only Physics (or Psychology or Biology), can that naturalistic explanation be able to account or rationally justify why all of us find this hideous example of moral evil so evil and so repugnant?
In that particular example, might it be that most people tend to find mutilation of the human form inherently repulsive? Rather like a gag reflex I should think.
Good post Colts. Finally.
"His objection is that he finds it extremely repulsive and he cannot bear the idea that there are people who condone and practice it. Why is this stance unavailable to him?"
Sure it's available to him. But so is the man who doesn't care.
The moral absolute becomes subjective with each individual and is completely justified either way. If he cares and objects, so be it. If it doesn't affect him and so he is ambivalent, so be it. Everything or nothing are all available to him. You might say "He is available to himself". One man's mutilation is another man's tribal ritual. Where is the justification of subjective imposition on another's morality?
Who says mutilation is wrong? It may seem wrong in one man's assessment, but with what criteria is he using for his conclusion? His personal feelings? The pain of the woman? The purposelessness of the act? All subjective and all only personally valid and not applicable to anyone else.
Two men look at a piece of string. One man says it's a foot long. Another man says it's two feet long. A third man says "How long is a foot?".
Without an agreed upon standard every man's opinion can be substantiated by that same opinion.
Of course I know you are not a reductive naturalist. I understand you are just trying to be fair to their side, and I respect that. But here is the point:
the Reductive Naturalist lacks the tools to be able to say, "M is wrong". This is because the Reductive Naturalist (RN), using the tools & presuppositions of RN, says that normative morality can be reduced to physics or psychology. They lack the tools to do what they want to say, which is, "we as RN are also morally repugnant at evil action M. We just say that evil action M can be explained completely by reference to physics or psychology or some other natural fact."
I disagree.
They (RN) lack the tools needed to even discuss the issue.
Thanks. I have been spending too much time at Hot Air lately.