[Link] A Darwinian Response to Sam Harris’s Moral Landscape Challenge
I noticed that there has been some earlier discussion about Sam Harris’s Moral Landscape Challenge here at LW. As a writer on the Swedish politico-philosophical blog The Inverted Fable of Reality, I would like to share a response to the challenge, written by our main contributor, which I believe is interesting to read even if you are not familiar with The Moral Landscape or its content. See this link for the response and a short explanation of the challenge.
The response takes a different approach to most responses to the challenge. It is divided into four parts and starts by asking which ethic is most compatible with science and reality and finally tries to answer this question.
I think these considerations are a main part of the sequences, and arrive to rather different conclusions:
Most imporrtant: http://lesswrong.com/lw/l0/adaptationexecuters_not_fitnessmaximizers/
I think your view is that animals are fitness maximizers, the essay argues that the process of evolution itself is what is a fitness maximizer, animals themselves are adaptation-executers. The programmer is goal-oriented, not the program.
Another issue is (this is my own opinion, not sequences based) while evolution is clearly about the survival, or more like the spreading of genes, the term survival is too closely linked, connotationally, to the survival of the individual. This would be clearly a wrong view. You aren’t a survival machine, you are a gene spreader machine. Any mutation that makes you have 100 kids before you are 20 and then die a horrible death in a fire is an adaptive mutation and spreads. Survival of the individual is merely one of the helping tools in gene-spreading and not even the biggest tools AFAIK if I look at rabbits, fecundity can matter more. What is worse than for humans sexual selection seems to play a rather big role. A lot of the traits your male ancestors got selected for can be described as “Pick Up Artist-machine”. And some HG behavior is far worse. And the selective traits of your female ancestors could be described as “baby cannons”. And all this does not look like something that makes a good ethic. Most importantly, survival of the individual as such is lost amongst all these considerations.
Back to sequences. I think you need to consider how stupid, inefficent and just sheer wrong-headedly engineering evolution can be:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/l5/evolving_to_extinction/
http://lesswrong.com/lw/ks/the_wonder_of_evolution/ This one seems to deal rather directly with your idea:
Then:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/kw/the_tragedy_of_group_selectionism/
http://lesswrong.com/lw/kt/evolutions_are_stupid_but_work_anyway/
The definition of ethical fitnessism can be found in “Ethical Fitnessism. The Ethic of the Fittest Behaviour”, which is mainly in Swedish but there is an English abstract. In the abstract you find the definition:
Exactly which behaviour that is is a scientific question. Dawkins’s central theorem of the extended phenotype:
seems to suggest that the behaviour which is maximized is the behaviour which follows the following rightness criterion:
Of course this is up for debate and further scientific research is necessary. There is no disagreement, I think, that animals are adaptation-executers, but still natural selection will favour certain behaviour over other behaviour. It is also evident that evolution by no means leads to perfection, for example we have vestigiality.
The focus of ethical fitnessism is not survival of the individual, but the survival of the behavioural genes of the individual, not short term but in endless time. Since most individuals share behavioural genes to a great extent with other individuals there are good reasons for not causing harm to related individuals. If I had the option to sacrifice myself for the guaranteed continued survival of humanity and its successors for millions of years I would do so and I believe that natural selection would favour such a behaviour.
A strong argument for ethical fitnessism is that by definition natural selection will cause organisms to tend to act according to ethical fitnessism. Fitnessist behaviour will out-compete other behaviour, such as for example the behaviour that hedonistic utilitarianism promotes. This means that hedonistic utilitarian behaviour in the long run cannot survive in a system affected by natural selection. But the argument doesn’t end there. Let us ask ourselves what behaviour conscious beings will believe is right to perform. That natural selection would favour conscious belief in a behaviour which is distinctly different from the behaviour which the organism is actually performing, seems unlikely. Most probably natural selection favours conscious belief in the behaviour which the organism is actually performing.
Err… no.
Organisms do not act according to ethical fitnessism—you define fitnessism as whatever behaviour was picked by natural selection. Accordingly, there is no “strong argument”, it’s just the definition of your neologism.
No, because if you’re looking backwards in time, conditions change and what used to be adaptive might be counterproductive now. And if you’re looking forward in time, you have to make guesses about what will be selected for in the future and I don’t know why would your guesses be correct.
It is true that “organisms do not act according to ethical fitnessism”, but that is not what I stated. What is true is that organisms tend to act according to ethical fitnessism, which is what I stated. It is true by definition. I believe that a strong argument for a moral theory is that it is being practiced more than other moral theories.
As a consequentialist it is hard to predict which actions in fact will maximize the intrinsic value and in retrospect a behaviour that might have been seen as favourable at the time can have been a huge mistake in the long run and such behaviour will not be favoured by natural selection. Natural selection might seem short-sighted but it is not.
This might be a language issue, but no, this is not true because it flips the causation.
Saying that A (organisms) tend to act according to B (ethical fitnessism) implies that B came first and is the cause of A’s behaviour. This is not true in this case. Here A’s behaviour came first and you just stuck a label on it which says “B”.
The sentence:
does not imply any causation.
Natural selection favours certain behaviour, and ethical fitnessism is simply defined as:
Which behaviour that is is an open scientific question. There is no claim that ethical fitnessism causes organisms to perform any behaviour; natural selection is the cause.
Why Sam Harris Is Wrong
So what’s the actual proposition being asserted by “fitnessism”?
“People and/or other animals actually act so as to maximize genetic fitness”? That isn’t true; see, e.g., the first link in DeVliegendeHollander’s comment.
Further, I don’t see how to get from there to any sort of ethical theory. There’s no valid inference from “people do X” to “people should do X”. You might as well look at gravitation and conclude that virtue consists of proximity to large massive objects.
“‘Acting so as to maximize genetic fitness’ is a principle that approximates actual people’s and cultures’ ethical systems, but unlike them has some kind of scientific underpinning”? That also seems to me to be very untrue (the problem being the first half more than the second); see, e.g., the rest of DVH’s comment.
“We should act so as to maximize genetic fitness”? Well, if you define “should” according to “fitnessism” then this is true but vacuous; if you define it according to most other ethical systems it’s very false (here I’m just repeating my previous claim); if you define it to mean “According to the actual, real, One True Morality” then it’s question-begging.
It looks to me as if the path to “fitnessism” goes like this: (1) Contemplate evolution. (2) Conclude that people (and other animals) act so as to maximize their genetic fitness (this is error #1, conflating adaptation execution with fitness maximization). (3) Conclude that “right” means something like “tending to maximize genetic fitness” (this is error #2, conflating ought with is).
Perhaps I’m missing something important; Survival Machine, would you care to set me straight?
But of course it does! It’s not by accident that expressions “head in the clouds” or “flighty” signal disapproval, while “has his feet firmly planted on the ground” is praise :-D
Indeed, “gravity” means serious thought or speech, as opposed to “levity”. Weightiness is also good.
Ah, but it is good to be light-hearted, light as a feather, floating on air, on cloud nine, to have a light touch, make light work or to tread lightly, whereas it is bad to be ponderous, heavy-footed, weighed down, find things heavy going, throw your weight around, make heavy weather, or to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders.
There is a great deal of linguistic tension between whether “heavy” or “light” is good, one that exists in many different languages. See also the lengthy discussion on “heavy” versus “light” at the start of The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
None of your propositions reflect any claims made by ethical fitnessism.
Ethical fitnessism is a normal moral theory just as hedonistic utilitarianism, but with differences in its meta-ethics and intrinsic value. It violates neither Hume’s law nor the naturalistic fallacy. It is not the case that nature or evolution implies that ethical fitnessism is right in any higher meaning.
Fitnessism has no special naturalistic definition of the word ‘should’. It uses ‘should’ in the same sense as utilitarianism does.
For a further description and explanation of fitnessism please see my response to DeVliegendeHollander.
Forgive me, but I’m still not sure I understand. Not least because the last of my propositions seems awfully like what a utilitarian would say about utility, but you say (1) none of my propositions matches fitnessist claims and (2) fitnessism is a moral theory just like utilitarianism.
If I want to know whether someone’s a utilitarian, I ask questions like:
Do they tend to approve of actions conducive to higher overall utility, and disapprove of the reverse?
And are they largely unmoved by other would-be moral considerations (e.g., Kantian conceptions of duty, maximizing personal virtuousness) except in so far as they turn out to foster higher utility?
Do they themselves appear to be trying to act so as to increase overall utility?
Even when doing so conflicts with what would otherwise seem their own interests?
Do they try to get other people to act in ways that increase overall utility?
So, if “fitnessism” is the same kind of thing and you are a fitnessist, should I conclude that you …
… tend to approve of actions that increase the agent’s genetic fitness, and disapprove of ones that don’t;
… care little about other allegedly ethical principles, unless they match up with this;
… tend to act in ways that increase your own genetic fitness;
(… even if doing so makes your own life markedly less pleasant)
… try to get other people to do likewise?
For example:
Suppose I am a man, I am currently without a sexual partner, and I find myself in a position to rape a woman who, I happen to know, is inflexibly opposed to abortion; and I can do it with negligible risk of getting caught or injured. Would you say that I ought to do that?
Or suppose I am a woman and have no children yet, and I discover that I have a medical condition that means that getting pregnant has a 50% chance of killing me. Would you say that I should attempt to get pregnant anyway, that being the only way to pass on my genes?
Or suppose I am childless and infertile. Do you hold that I should not care at all what I do?
(Suppose, in each case, that I have no living relations close enough and in enough need of my help that I can do much for my inclusive fitness by focusing on them rather than on my own progeny.)
Would you, in those situations, be likely to act in the manner that maximizes your genetic fitness?
Perhaps I’m wrong in saying that a fitnessist should be expected to approve of other people’s fitness-maximizing actions, and to advocate fitness-maximization in others. After all, while a utilitarian is (allegedly, at least) trying to maximize a kinda-objective quantity that’s meant to be the same whoever is doing the maximizing, fitnessism (AIUI) explicitly says that your fitness is not my fitness and each of us is (should be?) maximizing our own. And often (usually?) your fitness and mine will conflict more than they concur.
But if so, then I find it hard to see fitnessism as an ethical theory. (I have the same problem with, e.g., hedonist egoism.) If being a fitnessist just means aiming to increase one’s own genetic fitness, isn’t it just a preference like liking to eat chocolate?
In what ways does fitnessism go beyond the following statement: “People (and other animals) have a tendency to act in ways that in evolutionary history have resulted in more copies of the genes they carry.”?
No worries! I appreciate that you ask questions. First I will make some clarifications about the four points in your previous comment.
The proposition: “People and/or other animals actually act so as to maximize genetic fitness” is, as you stated, not true. There is no disagreement about this.
We do not “get from there to” ethical fitnessism. In fact, we do not violate Hume’s law at all, i.e., we do not deduce any normative ethical statement from a set of only factual statements.
The statement that: “‘Acting so as to maximize genetic fitness’ is a principle that approximates actual people’s and cultures’ ethical systems, but unlike them has some kind of scientific underpinning” is also neither true nor claimed by ethical fitnessism.
The norm that: “We should act so as to maximize genetic fitness” is not really a fitnessist norm, since fitnessism prescribes actions for individuals (and not so much for “us”) and always specifies who’s fitness and what kind of fitness we are talking about, namely the behavioural fitness of the individual in question. Instead, please see my original response to DeVliegendeHollander’s comment on the definition of ethical fitnessism and the rightness criterion based on Dawkins’s central theorem of the extended phenotype. The question about the word ‘should’ was addressed in my previous comment to you.
I hope this made everything clearer.
Since I am a fitnessist you should conclude that I:
approve of actions that increase my behavioural fitness, and disapprove of ones that do not;
tend to act in ways that increase my behavioural fitness, even if doing so makes my own life markedly less pleasant.
tend to try to get other people to increase my own behavioural fitness.
Now to the examples:
Ethical fitnessism is actually not about having as many children as possible; rather it is about the long term survival of one’s behavioural genes. The long term survival of an individual’s behavioural genes can be achieved in many ways, especially considering that an individual shares behavioural genes with many other individuals. For instance, all humans are closely related to all (and socially dependant on many) other humans, making humans exceptionally important to each other, but even other species are important due to our common heritage and shared behavioural genes. So in your example you should also consider the harm and possible injury caused to the woman and the increased risk to your female relatives, friends and children, especially. Socially and reproductively successful humans, both men and women, share a common interest in curbing violence and upholding the rule of law. Moreover fitnessism does not tell us to simply follow the instincts which have evolved due to natural selection. Since we humans have radically changed our environment with the emergence of modern society and technology, and since we have such a decisive impact on the future of life on Earth, we have to think much further ahead and afar than other animals. To exploit other individuals for selfish short-term gains at the expense of what we hold dear and valuable in the long term, is morally wrong. Rather than maximizing the number of her own offspring, a fitnessist acts so as to increase the probability of the long-term existence of the body of organic life which we are all part of and related to.
It simply is not “the only way” for you to pass on your genes, since you are not an alien. As explained in the previous example you can support the survival of your behavioural genes in other related individuals.
Of course you should care! You are related to every other human on the planet. But if you instead truly are an alien and therefore are genetically unrelated to life on Earth, you should still try to survive for as long as possible, because that is the behaviour which is favoured by natural selection, since your genes are inside your own body.
Ethical fitnessism states that an individual should maximize the behavioural fitness of this individual, not short term but in endless time (if this is the behaviour which tends to be maximized as a consequence of natural selection). If my behavioural fitness is in conflict with yours or not is a matter of to which extent we share behavioural genes. Humans share genes to a great extent with each other, so I believe that humans’ indexical Darwinian self-interests coincide more than they are in conflict. This leads to a decision method which is not treated in the original link, namely fitnessist contractarianism, which is universalizable. Fitnessist contractarianism is explained in “Ethical Fitnessism. The Ethic of the Fittest Behaviour”, which is in Swedish, I am afraid. A short explanation is that it is a method for human social and political decision making when humans are acting in accordance with their own Darwinian self-interest. To find common ground for social and political decision making for closely related individuals, such as humans, is clearly possible. For example, avoiding nuclear war seems to benefit each individual’s behavioural fitness, just as the common prosperity of humans seems to do.
As for ethical fitnessism being a moral theory, I think your argument is based on meta-ethics, wherefore I recommend that you read the original blog post that I linked to, giving extra attention to part 2: “The Non-universalizable Ethic of the Predator and the Quarry”. Rightness criteria are indexical, but decision methods are universalizable.
Of course this is related to the scientific question if “objective” moral values exist or not. I believe that no such values exist, since no such values have ever been observed, nor are necessary to explain anything in the natural world. Using Occam’s razor, I deny their existence. Instead I believe that “subjective” moral values exist, since I believe that such values are observed every day, when for example studying the behaviour of humans or other living organisms.
Regarding your last question, ethical fitnessism states that an individual should maximize his or her own behavioural fitness. Ethical fitnessism prescribes how an individual should act, wherefore it is a normative ethical statement. But the statement:
is a factual statement.
If you hold a position that affects only your own actions and your opinions of them, I don’t see much reason for calling it an ethical system. I read the blog post; that second section defends acting on non-universalizable principles, but doesn’t so far as I can see defend thinking of them as moral principles and that’s what I’m casting doubt on.
For clarity: I am also a moral nonrealist, and my doubts about the moral-theory-ness of fitnessism aren’t because it doesn’t involve a claim that its values are Objectively Right And Good. Rather: I think a moral theory is something that guides moral judgements by an adherent, and one feature of moral judgements is that they are applied to other people as well as to oneself. Something that affects only its bearer’s own behaviour I would call a “preference” or a “motivation” or something of the kind, even if it gets expressed using the word “should”.
I agree that if the principle is “maximize long-term number of copies of genes that influence my behaviour” then the counterintuitive consequences I described don’t clearly follow. (I’m not sure they don’t follow, though. The answer may depend on exactly what you’re prepared to count as a “behavioural gene”.)
It’s true that most of my genes are shared with other human beings, even ones I wouldn’t normally think of as related to me. But it’s also true that a lot of my genes are shared with, say, pomegranates. Your restriction to “behavioural” genes doesn’t (I think) make that problem go away; only in popular magazine articles are there genes for behaviours in any very strong sense; how sure are you that there are no genes you share with (some or all) pomegranates that have an effect on your behaviour? If it turns out that there are some, would you start regarding it as an important obligation to increase the number of pomegranates (at a rate, perhaps, of 1000 pomegranates per human life)?
I suspect that if we pay attention (as you do) to the very long term, it actually matters rather little in practice what we care about there—in particular, it’s likely that much the same actions now maximize long-term human happiness, long-term human numbers, long-term number of books-or-equivalent written, etc. (A similar thing happens in computer game-playing: the further ahead you look, the less the details of your evaluation function matter.) So it may be hard to distinguish between fitnessism and almost anything else, in terms of the actual decisions it provokes...
As a fitnessist I certainly do not “hold a position that affects only [my] own actions and [my] opinions of them”. I not only evaluate my own actions, but have opinions of the actions performed by other individuals as well. These opinions are based on how other individuals affect the survival of my behavioural genes. In that sense I pass moral judgement on others, like they pass moral judgement on me.
The fundamental question for any moral theory to answer is “Which actions should be performed?” and ethical fitnessism fully answers that question, although in an indexical fashion. The central question to answer is “Which actions should I myself perform?”, since that question is relevant to what I directly am in control of, namely my own body. The actions of other individuals I can, furthermore, only affect by my own actions, for example by what I say.
The principle is actually not “maximize long-term number of copies of genes that influence my behaviour”. The survival of my behavioural genes is directly linked to how long they survive and only indirectly linked to how many they are.
What I am “prepared to count as a ‘behavioural gene’” is not really the issue, rather the issue is what science counts as a behavioural gene. The Extended Phenotype [O.U.P., 1982] gives a good idea.
There is no problem with being related to pomegranates. I do believe that humans share behavioral genes with them, but that does not mean that focusing on the production of pomegranates would maximize the survival of my behavioural genes. Such a production would seem to be a short-sighted and narrow-minded behaviour and probably not the behaviour which natural selection tends to maximize.
Perhaps there today does not seem to be much difference between maximizing the survival of one’s behavioural genes and maximizing “long-term human happiness” or “long-term human numbers”, but over time the difference will add up and show itself. For example, the difference would be apparent when we create new entertainment technology so well adapted to our prehistoric minds and bodies that there is no way for hedonists to resist the urge of such endless happiness, or when we evolve beyond humans, when my behavioural genes are carried on into new species.
On a theoretical level ethical fitnessism has stronger arguments than have the moral theories of maximizing long-term human happiness or long-term human numbers. Fitnessism lacks neither hedonism, altruism, intuitiveness, nor consideration of future generations, and is complete, consistent, to the purpose and non-dependent on indoctrination. The application of any other moral theory through its behaviour is per definition evolutionarily self-defeating and undermines its own long-term existence.
Seconded.
Which is unfortunate, since Utilitarianism struggles to cash out moral obligation,
Then IFoR position labels some animal behaviour ethical, for no very strong reason, and then assumes that it translates into human interactions,
The indexicality of the IFoR solution is the real problem, “Predation is a moral value for predators” translates to “Mugging is a moral value for muggers”....but it’s not so great for the victim/prey....and the function of ethics in human societies is to decide which behaviours get approved forbidden. So is mugging allowed?
Humans are animals affected by natural selection, wherefore no translation from animals to humans is necessary or even possible.
An individual is neither a predator nor a mugger by default. An individual is a predator or a mugger because of its traits and behaviour. Probably the mugger does not value the mugging itself. Humans who value the survival of their own behavioural genes would in all probability put into practice and enforce laws against mugging, since allowing mugging would risk adversely affecting not only each individual herself, but also other humans who to a large extent are carriers of the same behavioural genes as this individual. Please see my comment to gjm, where I mention “fitnessist contractarianism”, which, by the way, is universalizable.
Ethics per se does not have any function. Teaching ethics does. Discussing ethics does. Rational people do those things for a purpose. They do them as a means to an end. The end is given by ethics. Ethics gives you the purpose, but is not the purpose, or even a means to the purpose. But discussing ethics is a means to the purpose.
“Morality” centrally refers to a set of beliefs and practices only attested in humans, so any attempts to found morality in the behaviour of non human animals requires a translation stage.
I don’t see the relevance,
No, they probably value something that can be cashed out in fitness promoting terms, like continued survival, or enhanced attractiveness based on resources. Taken individualistically fitnessism leads to counterintuituve conclusions...
… hence fitnessist Contractarianism …. but then the question is: why do you need the fitness competent, when you have the contraction component?
I find that hard to understand. The practices of ethics reduces wasteful conflict, and allows people to satisfy their preferences.
And recognising that ethics fulfils role allows you to understand almost everything about it, providing you can alsomrid yourself of the assumption that it needs to correspond to something.
Morality does also apply to non-human organisms, for example close human relatives such as chimpanzees and why not alien life on other planets or future successors to humans?
Ethical fitnessism is not founded on the behaviour of non-human organisms. Please see the definition of ethical fitnessism in my original comment to DeVliegendeHollander.
Exactly!
Ethical fitnessism is more intuitive than any other established moral theory, since it is practiced more, not only by other animals, but by humans to, not only in prehistoric times, but in modern times as well.
You wonder why we need the fitness component, when we already have the contract component.
All contractarianism is necessarily based on self-interest. Traditional contractarianism is based on the self-interest of living humans. That is why it is criticised for disregarding future human generations and even other animals. Fitnessist contractarianism is based on the Darwinian self-interest, which is the intrinsic value of ethical fitnessism. Therefore it does not disregard future generations.
Of course the practice of ethics has a function! But ethics per se does not; it gives a purpose.
A) centrally=/= only.
B) You are blurring the distinction between moral agents and moral patients.
So why did you bring in the example of the predator?
Well, you can certain get a more widely practiced morality out of defining mugging as moral...but the cost is defining mugging as moral
For some value of self interest. Switching from a near mode, low time preference notion of morality, to a far mode, high time preference form of self interest is a step forward in morality.
I don’t see that. Concern for future generations is a widespread value, so it is bound to be written into contracts.
And other animals?
I don’t see what you mean by ethics per se,
The example of the predator and the quarry illustrates the nature and origin of self-interest and of conflict between incompatible moral values. Above all, it illustrates the indexicality of ethics.
We are certainly not defining mugging as moral. The idea is not to make your morals as practised as possible, but to make morals realistic, adapted and possible to practice. Ethical fitnessism is well practiced and gives guidance in all situations. Hedonistic utilitarianism, for instance, suffers greatly from being practically impossible to practice.
Since humans share behavioural genes with other animals they are also taken into consideration in fitnessist contractarianism, unlike the case in traditional contractarianism.
The issue of “ethics per se” is by no means especially complicated nor unimportant. There flourishes a common misunderstanding that the function of ethics is to make people behave better, that ethics serves a purpose. On the contrary, the case is that ethics gives you the meaning of ‘better’. Ethics gives the purpose. When you have worked out what the purpose is, and what better means, you can work out how you want people to behave. This distinction is crucial because many people never seem to have actually understood the normative ethical problem. How ought I to behave? How ought I to behave when I am all alone? How ought I to behave if I so am the last human alive? Not “What may I do?”, but what ought I to do? Instead they think that ethics only is concerned with which rules society should enforce and which moral indoctrination people should be subjected to. This reconnects to Sam Harris and his Moral Landscape Challenge. Harris does not see the intrinsic, only the instrumental. But please, everything is not the decision method; the rightness criterion is also to be considered. In this discussion thread contributors seem to take ethics in itself for granted and to be focused on the social and universalizable function of ethics. But please, hold your horses! How did we just get passed the first and central problem? Not only Sam Harris writes as if ethics per se is to be neglected and by-passed.
The indexicality of ethics isnt an ucontentious fact: rather, its a contentious implication of fitnessism, which is itself contentious. Indeed, some would reject fitnessism over the indexicality issue.
Although it is fitness-enhancing enough...
.....but how does it guide, if you can refuse to accept fitness-enhancing acts as moral?
Is “better” a vacuum needing to be filled? I can defined better in the most obvious way, in terms of preferences, and the purpose of ethics in terms of maximising preferences.
The argument seems to fail at: “I believe that neither morality nor values at the very core depend on minds being conscious or experiencing pleasure or suffering.” The author evidently believes that, but fails to substantiate it. And anyway, Harris’ criterion isn’t about pleasure vs. suffering, but well being vs. suffering.
The idea that animals can have an ethic seems nonsensical to me. Only conscious, reflective, language-using beings can have an ethic or morality, because an ethic is by definition a self-consciously-held code of conduct, and a morality is by definition a self-consciously-shared code of conduct, which can obviously only be held, read, understood and shared by self-conscious language-users.
Criticisms of Harris usually boil down to, “But what about Hume’s is/ought, eh, EH??!!” Oddly, this article seems to commit that very fallacy : obviously, just because genetically-mandated behaviour is, doesn’t mean it ought to be. The error is as old as Social Darwinism, and it’s surprising to find someone falling for it in this day and age.
In trying to refute The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, in the way that the linked blog does, I believe that it’s quite unimportant whether or not
only conscious minds can experience well-being,
Sam Harris himself believes that only conscious minds can experience well-being, or
well-being is the same thing as pleasure.
What the linked Darwinian response criticises Harris for, among other things, is that he doesn’t formulate a rightness criterion, despite that he claims that science implies some kind of impartial hedonism. But if there really is an implication it should be possible to formulate what is implied! Of course Harris should tell us more exactly which values he says science can determine. It’s hard not to suspect that Harris, in order to evade legitimate criticism questioning the existence of any implication, wants to avoid being more precise. The linked Darwinian response also claims that the strongest version of impartial hedonism is classical hedonistic utilitarianism (although not at all supporting that moral theory). The intrinsic value of hedonistic utilitarianism can be formulated in terms of pleasure over suffering, or in terms of well-being.
Richard Dawkins has actually been criticised for claiming that genes emotionally are selfish! Can genes be any more selfish than atoms can be jealous or biscuits can be generous? Yes, actually, to their effect. ‘The ethic of animals’, as described in the Darwinian response, is, as I read it, clearly not a moral theory which all animals consciously and reflectively understand and share through language, but rather the moral theory which animals closer than any other moral theory over time unconsciously tend to practice. They do that due to the ultimate biological cause of their behaviour, namely natural selection. Personally, I don’t find it any more nonsensical than the selfishness of genes, that the formulation of the ethic of animals is deduced from, not what animals reflectively think, since they hardly do, but, what they actually tend to do.
Reading the Darwinian response it’s also clear to me that it doesn’t violate Hume’s law. It nowhere claims that it’s right in any higher meaning to behave according to ethical fitnessism solely because animals behave according to it, which they, by the way, don’t really do, even though natural selection tends to make them come quite close.
I disagree that any of those three points are unimportant, they’re central parts of Harris’ argument and they are part of what has to be refuted.
The idea that there has to be a “rightness criterion” (or an “intrinsic” criterion as per the article) is very much what Harris’ view questions, and his position has very little to do with hedonism (hedonism is just a partially-intersecting sub-set of what he’s talking about).
To violate Hume’s distinction, you don’t need to say there’s a “higher meaning” in fitnessism, you just need to say that a “rightness criterion” can be based on “what is” (how animals actually behave).
It’s like this: Hume’s distinction, while valid, is (contrary to his belief and popular belief) irrelevant to morality. A reason has to be given why the “ought” of morality cannot be instrumental all the way down (or rather up and down), why morality has to have an “intrinsic” or “absolute” criterion at all.
Essentially, all that’s happened is that people formerly thought that moral behaviour had to be mandated or commanded by a God. God is dead, but people from the time of the Enlightenment on still had a vague feeling that there has to be some kind of “ought” that’s not instrumental, that grounds morality—as it were, the ghost of a mandate, a mandate-shaped hole at the root of morality.
What Harris is saying (and I agree) is that no mandate or command is required for morality, there is no other kind of “ought” than the instrumental, there just seems to be; and it’s the instrumental “ought” that’s at work in morality just as it is in, e.g., technology, from the basic level (which everyone agrees on—i.e. science helps with the nitty gritty) to the high level (at the level of the “if” of the “if .. then”, where there’s doubt, where people think there has to be this other kind of mysterious “ought”). The trick is to see how.