The moral law

In my last post I discussed the solution to the Euthyphro Dilemma. It so happens that a parallel dilemma can be constructed for ourselves. Do we approve of an action because it is good or is an action good because we approve of it?

For morality to be objective it must be based on something other than subjective opinion. In the case of humans, that something is human nature [1]. What distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom is our capability for rational thought. Unlike other animals, which automatically act on instinct to survive, we face a choice - to live or to die. To live (and flourish) is the value that bridges the gap from the "is" of human nature to the "ought" of morality. [2]

An analogy may be helpful here. Medicine is a normative science based on physiology which presupposes the value of health. Ignoring facts about physiology leads to poor health. Similarly, morality is based on human nature and presupposes the value of life and well-being. Ignoring facts about human nature leads to misery for ourselves and society.

Normative terms such as "moral", "virtuous", "good", "bad", "evil" and so on derive their meaning from the choices we make in ordinary, everyday contexts (with well-being as the standard of value). There is substantial agreement across cultures about the content of morality, as evidenced by the widespread injunctions against murder, violence, theft and so on, and in commonly found maxims such as the Golden Rule. [3] Differences that we do find can be recognized as one of degree rather than as being moralities of a radically different kind. [4]

--

[1] For theists, human nature is usually understood to reflect God's nature which allows the moral law to be discoverable. Otherwise, as C.S.Lewis says, "If we once admit that what God means by "goodness" is sheerly different from what we judge to be good, there is no difference left between pure religion and devil worship." (From the "The Poison of Subjectivism" in "Christian Reflections".)

[2] In Aristotelian terms, humans are rational animals and human flourishing (eudaimonia) is the final cause (telos) that grounds moral actions. We can see precursors to value, purpose and choice in an animal's survival instinct. But value, purpose and choice are intentional terms that derive their literal meaning from their use in everyday human contexts.

[3] See the appendix of "The Abolition of Man" where C.S.Lewis presents textual evidence of a universal moral law across modern and ancient cultures.

[4] C.S.Lewis discusses this point in "The Poison of Subjectivism". He notes that the Nietzschean ethic is innovative not because it grounds a different kind of morality but because it rejects objective morality altogether. That is, Nietzsche accepts the subjective horn of the dilemma.

Euthyphro's Dilemma

In "The Poison of Subjectivism", C.S.Lewis asks, "But how is the relation between God and the moral law to be represented? To say that the moral law is God's law is no final solution. Are these things right because God commands them or does God command them because they are right?" [1]

This is the modern version of the dilemma first posed by Socrates in Plato's "Euthyphro". Lewis explains why he is unable to accept either horn of the dilemma.

"If the first, if good is to be defined as what God commands, then the goodness of God Himself is emptied of meaning and the commands of an omnipotent fiend would have the same claim on us as those of the "righteous Lord." If the second, then we seem to be admitting a cosmic dyarchy, or even making God himself the mere executor of a law somehow external and antecedent to His own being. Both views are intolerable."

Be that as it may, rejecting the dilemma is not a valid option here. In essence, the question posed is whether God's morality is subjective or objective and there is no middle ground between these two alternatives. [2] However, Lewis' concern with the "objective" horn of the dilemma turns out to be unfounded. An objective law need not be external and antecedent to the being that follows it.

To see this, consider the economic law of supply and demand. The truth of this law depends on the actual interactions between people. The law did not precede the existence of people since it depends on what people do. But neither did anyone create the law. Instead it is a discovered generalization of people's behavior. That is, the law of supply and demand describes what people do or, to phrase it differently, people act according to the law of supply and demand. [3] The law is objective rather than subjective because it exists independently of anyone's opinions about it albeit, in this case, not independently of people's behavior.

Similarly the existence of the moral law for God is conditional on God's nature and therefore not antecedent or external to it. Given God's nature, it prescribes what God should and should not do. That is, God is subject to the moral law which he did not create but which nonetheless depends on his existence. Adding the premise that "God is (always) good", the moral law also describes what God does and does not do. As Lewis says elsewhere, "... the Divine Will is the obedient servant to the Divine Reason." [4]

Note: The solution to the dilemma involves other philosophical issues which I haven't explored here but which I take a generally Aristotelian approach to. These include the problem of universals (what does it mean for abstractions, such as the moral law, to exist?), the is-ought problem (how does the moral law derive from a being's nature?) and the argument from morality (does the moral law require God?).

--

[1] "The Poison of Subjectivism" from "Christian Reflections" by C.S.Lewis.

[2] Lewis is aware that he doesn't have a satisfactory solution to the dilemma. He says, "But it is probably just here that our categories betray us. It would be idle, with our merely mortal resources, to attempt a positive correction of our categories - ambulavi in mirabilibus supra me." (Translation: I do exercise myself in great matters, in things too high for me.) However, despite his rejection of the dilemma in this instance, Lewis' general tenor in this essay and other writings is toward the "objective" horn.

[3] The law of supply and command is usually thought of as being true all else being equal. So, for example, when demand increases for a fixed supply of oil, government regulation could prevent the price from rising.

[4] Letter from C.S.Lewis to John Beversluis a few months before his death in 1963. From "C.S.Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion", p295, John Beversluis.

Making good rules

At my kid's school we have an important decision to make when we get to the main gate. Do we go up the stairs to Liam's class first or through the gate to Michelle's class first?

Of course both my children want the opposite thing which is to go to their sibling's class first. So my choice would always end up with one unhappy child and a futile discussion. I sometimes have my one year old Jason with me so that complicates the herding process as well.

So I instituted a very simple rule. Let's go turn about each day. It seemed entirely fair and obvious - what could possibly go wrong?

Many things as it turned out. One problem was that neither of my kids could seem to remember who went first the day before despite my detailed descriptions. Also Joanne sometimes dropped them off, so I would get a conflicting story as to who went first then. And even I would sometimes misremember, escalating their sense of injustice.

So I finally came up with a new rule. If Jason is with us (which happens twice a week) we go to Michelle's class downstairs first. Otherwise it's upstairs to Liam's class. And it has worked perfectly every time. The rule works, I think, because it depends on something immediately observable by everyone and can be determined instantly without requiring discussion. It doesn't depend on memory or a past history of events which is what leads to the competing interpretations and conflicts.

There is a teacher who holds the gate open in the mornings. Our kids know he doesn't know the rule so they like to quiz him on which way he thinks we will go each morning. So instead of the walk into school being a painful exercise, it has now turned into a fun event for everyone.

Free to choose

(This post follows on from Beyond Belief.)

In our everyday lives we are familiar with making choices. We choose what to wear and what to have for breakfast. We are also aware of the constraints on our choices. You can't choose to wear a red shirt if you don't have one.

All familiar and obvious stuff. Until the philosophers weigh in...

Suppose, they say, that all our actions can be fully described in cause-and-effect terms by the laws of physics. Wouldn't that mean that the outcome of our choices is inevitable? And therefore that the freedom of our choices is illusory?

The answer is that, no, in a physically determined world, our choices would be neither inevitable nor illusory.

The hidden assumption in the free-will dilemma is that the determination of an outcome on one mode of description (physics) excludes a determination of that outcome on another mode of description (the intentional, which is expressed in our everyday language of purpose and choice). So for the Determinists free will is impossible. For the Free-Willers physical determinism is impossible. However, as I will demonstrate below, the above assumption is false: the physical description does not compete with the intentional description but instead is logically complementary to it. [1]

As an example of complementary modes of description, consider a computer that calculates the sum of two numbers. At one level of description, the answer that the computer gives is fully determined by the rules of arithmetic. At another level of description, the answer is fully determined by physical cause and effect in the computer. Not surprisingly, since the computer has been programmed to follow the rules of arithmetic, the physical and arithmetic descriptions are complementary, not mutually exclusive.

In a similar vein, our choices are free on the intentional mode of description because there cannot exist, even in principle, a physical description of the future state of our brain that we would be logically compelled to accept as correct. While we would be correct to accept a physical description that includes the change in brain state entailed by our acceptance of it, we would also be correct to reject it. Why? Because our rejection of it would result in a physical brain state that differed from the physical description we were originally considering. Therefore we would also be correct in our rejection of it. So both possibilities are always logically open to us. It's not merely that we wouldn't know whether the physical description is correct or not (an epistemological issue). It's that no physical description of our brain state can possibly exist that would be inevitable for us to choose (an ontological issue). So the shared hidden assumption of the Determinists and Free-Willers is false as a matter of logic. [2]

When we employ our everyday language concepts of purpose and choice, we are operating at a different level of abstraction to that of scientists when they describe the physical laws of the universe. The free-will dilemma is dissolved when we realize that it is our familiar everyday contexts that define our choices and constraints, not the mathematical laws of physics (where intentional concepts are inapplicable). The dilemma only arises when the terms that apply to one mode of description are taken out of their context and applied to a different mode of description.

--

[1] This view is known as Compatibilism. According to a 2009 survey, the ratio of opinions among philosophers is: compatibilism 59.1%; libertarian free will 13.7%; no free will 12.2%; other 14.9%.
[2] This insight is originally from physicist Donald M MacKay ("What Determines My Choice" in his book "The Open Mind and other essays").

The language of illusion

We perceive our surroundings via our sight, hearing and other senses. In most situations, perception is a straightforward process. It's raining. We see that it's raining. We reason that we don't want to get wet so we grab our umbrella.

Mistaken conclusions are discoverable and correctable through the same processes of perception and reasoning. This includes mistakes we associate with the perceptual process itself which we identify as illusions.

In everyday language, we describe illusions by making a distinction between the way things appear and the way things are. When we see a pencil partially submerged in water, we say that the pencil looks bent but is actually straight. This useful distinction enables us to avoid any confusion when talking about illusions.

With illusions there is no "bent pencil" that we perceive in our minds (recall that introspection is not a kind of observation) or perceive in the world. The takeaway lesson is that appearances can be deceiving, not that the "bent pencil" has a ghostly existence of its own that we somehow perceive.

I'll finish with a fascinating example of the color phi phenomenon that manages to combine both the illusion of motion and time travel. In the experiment, a red spot is lit for 150ms and then turned off. A short distance away, and 50ms later, a green spot is lit for 150ms and then turned off. Surprisingly, the observers report seeing a red spot moving to the right, turning abruptly green at the half-way point (before the green spot is lit) and then moving to the final position before disappearing. [1]

--

[1] "Consciousness Explained", p114, Daniel Dennett. The phi phenomenon is the illusion of movement which, for example, we experience when watching a movie consisting of rapidly changing static images.

A meeting of minds

Having tackled "pain" and "belief" it's time to move on to the big fish, the mind itself. As with the concepts of pain and belief, the concept of mind is a publicly communicable abstraction. It encompasses all the human capabilities that we observe in ourselves and others such as thinking, feeling, perceiving and desiring. Ludwig Wittgenstein captures the concept aptly when he says, "The human body is the best picture of the human soul". [1]

But, you may ask, how about when we introspect? Aren't we also privately observing our pains and beliefs and therefore our own minds? In a word, no. We feel pain and we have beliefs. As such, we can observe them in our everyday behavior. Once we observe and identify our pains and beliefs, we can subsequently reflect on them and examine them. It is from these kinds of everyday observations that we know that we, and others, have minds.

(A possible objection: What if we hide our pains or beliefs? Even if we do, they are still manifested in behavior although of a different kind (e.g., stoic, reserved or deceptive behavior). While hiding your headache pain or political beliefs makes them more difficult to detect, they are still observable in principle. And, importantly, you can easily observe your own behavior here, since it takes conscious effort to conceal what you think and feel.)

So the important thing to note is that introspection is not a kind of observation. Instead, introspection is an examination of one's thoughts or feelings that are observed in one's own behavior. Unfortunately, the belief that introspection is a kind of observation leads to the idea that our mind is a private theater [2] where we observe on the stage the characters of our inner life, such as pains and beliefs, desires and purposes. On this unfounded view, our mind is a ghost in a machine. [3]

It can be a difficult ghost to exorcise. In my next post, I'll look at a scientific experiment that highlights some pertinent issues around consciousness and the mind.

--

[1] Philosophical Investigations, Part II, iv, Ludwig Wittgenstein.
[2] "The Concept of Mind", p222, Gilbert Ryle. Similarly, Daniel Dennett calls it the "Cartesian Theater" in "Consciousness Explained", p17.
[3] Gilbert Ryle calls this view the "dogma of the Ghost in the Machine" in "The Concept of Mind", p15.

Beyond belief

(A companion post to a thorny issue.)

What is a belief? Per the dictionary, it is the acceptance that something exists or is true. So, for example, you might believe that it is raining. One reason that beliefs are important is because they guide our everyday actions. So if you want to go outside, you might first grab an umbrella or raincoat. Or you might decide to stay inside until the rain stopped. Everyone from their early years, by observing and learning to identify that pattern of behavior in others and in themselves, becomes competent at using the word "belief" in their everyday communication.

Beyond this everyday usage, there are many philosophical, scientific and folk theories about what a belief (and the mind more generally) consists of, ranging from an immaterial substance through to identification with physical brain states. However, as with the concept of pain discussed previously, the concept of belief is a publicly communicable abstraction. Like Wittgenstein's beetle, whatever it is that "belief" ultimately refers to drops out of consideration as irrelevant in normal conversation.

Suppose it were discovered that our beliefs were the result of a tiny gnome in our heads that records what we see and reminds us about it when it matters. Such a discovery, while surprising (unless you read Terry Pratchett), wouldn't change the everyday meaning and usage of the word "belief" at all. We would still want to grab our umbrella when it's raining.

So what does this mean for theories of the mind? For one thing, it means that theorizers have almost limitless scope for creative exploration while still being able to retain compatibility with our everyday language concepts. For another, it means that theories of mind (in principle at least) will always be publicly communicable since they will expand on rather than replace our existing conceptual framework.

One notable example of this in philosophy is with the perennial question of free will. In ordinary usage, the concept of choice is the ability to select between alternatives. The concept exists because we commonly observe people conforming to that pattern of behavior and we have needed a way to refer to it. But how that abstract concept is actualized, while of philosophical and scientific interest, has no bearing on the existence of that behavioral pattern and its central importance in our everyday activities.

A thorny issue

How do we know what pain means? Well, we experience an unpleasant feeling when we are pricked by a thorn, so it presumably refers to those kinds of feelings. While that seems right, "pain" is not just a word that we use to refer to ourselves, we also apply it to others. But how do we know that others feel pain? We don't feel what others feel, so we must infer it from their behavior (e.g., when they groan or say "ouch" or report that they are in pain).

But why would we associate a feeling that we have with the behavior that others have? The reason is that we also observe our own behavior when we experience that feeling. We notice that our behavior, when pricked by a thorn, is the same as other people's behavior when they are pricked by a thorn. Thus, from a young age, we learn that "pain" is the word that we use to talk about those situations.

Of course we nonetheless also experience an unpleasant sensation associated with our own pain behavior. We understand that that sensation is causing our behavior, and the specific sensation we have when pricked by a thorn is what we mean by pain in that circumstance. However it is the publicly observable pain behavior that leads to the word "pain" appearing and being used in our everyday language.

The curious thing about this is that it doesn't actually matter what the feeling is. If others have a different feeling when they exhibit pain behavior or even have no feeling at all (assuming they still exhibit the same behavior, albeit like a robot or a philosophical zombie), the meaning and use of the word "pain" in our language would be exactly the same. Ludwig Wittgenstein discusses this with his beetle-in-a-box analogy and concludes with, "That is to say: if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of 'object and designation' the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant." [1]

Later Wittgenstein says (in response to his interlocutor), "'Are you not really a behaviorist in disguise? Aren't you at bottom really saying that everything except human behavior is a fiction?' — If I do speak of a fiction, then it is of a grammatical fiction." [2]

What Wittgenstein is saying is that even though the sensation of pain (and other sensations) is real, our language does not, and cannot, depend on the subjective and private nature of those sensations. Rather our language depends solely on the publicly observable behavior that those sensations produce.

The concept of pain, then, is a publicly communicable abstraction whereas our painful sensations are particular instances of pain. The only way to meaningfully talk with other people about our sensations, to the extent that we can, is via an agreed language grounded in publicly observable phenomena.

--

[1] Philosophical Investigations, §293.
[2] Philosophical Investigations, §307.