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Review of Basic Assumptions and Agenda
1. Morals and politics are as contested as solutions to the mind-body challenge. No answer to the
question of how we should live together is accepted as consensually and uncontroversially true.
2. This is a thoroughly material world in general, and in particular the mental is dependent upon the brain.
Without brain, there is no mind.
3. Eliminative materialism is almost certainly false and the best current understanding of the mind-body
challenge is functionalism. As we shall see, however, plausible candidates for the solution to the
challenge have no necessary implications for morals and politics. This is because they are simply
explanations of how minds are possible and work in a material universe. They are thus matters of
theoretical reason. All the plausible candidates accept the existence of mental phenomena and no
one denies the importance of mental phenomena in people’s lives. What the implications of the
mental are for our lives is a matter of practical reason.
4. The mental is what makes us distinctively human.
5. The theories and data of cognitive neuroscience are matters of theoretical reason. They may teach us
how cognition is possible and works and they may teach us a great deal about the nature and contours
of human mental capacities. But no positive science, as a part of theoretical reason, can tell us how
we should live or how we should use what we have learned. Understanding how the world works,
achieving theoretical knowledge, is an independent good for many people and it can certainly
contribute to our ability to achieve our goals, but it cannot set those goals. How we should live is
always an open question
Causation, Freedom and
Determinism
• Morals and Politics in a Material World
– The Questions: How should we live? And how
should we answer that question?
– Note: Only human beings ask such questions
– Is there anything cognitive neuroscience
already knows or could discover that could
uncontroversially answer these questions?
• Integration: Mind, Brain and Society
– The “mental” is what makes us distinctively
human
– We began with an attempt to understand the
concept of mind and its relation to brain
• The current best understanding is some form of
functionalism, but the relation is still a mystery
• Nonetheless, we have been able to replace
implausible dualism with theories of the mental that
plausibly depend on the physical
• Although eliminative materialism has vociferous
adherents, rival views that leave room for a causal
mind are dominant and likely to remain so.
• A brief thought experiment (to be continued later):
Suppose both that eliminative materialism is true
and that we have the technology to control ALL
human behavior by mechanically and chemically
manipulating the brain and nervous system. How
should we control ourselves to behave? What
methods would you use to answer this question?
• Cognitive Neuroscience: We turned to
whether much of the phenomena termed
“cognition” could be explained by, or even
“reduced” to, brain anatomy and
physiology.
– The issue is whether a material view is
conceptually and empirically plausible. The
broad answer is certainly, YES. A more
textured answer would be, YES, BUT, because
the evidence suggests that, although biological
variables are implicated in all behavior, more
complicated cognitive phenomena, involving
intention and meaning, may not be reducible
and biological variables may not account for
most of the variance.
– Even if reduction is impossible for some
phenomena, we can expect that the domain of
behavior that the materialist view fully or
largely explains will expand as theories and
methods of investigation advance.
• Reprise: How should advances in cognitive
neuroscience affect our thinking about the question
of how we should live?
• Argumentative Strategy: Assume the
Strongest Case Against One’s Argument
– The assumption is that the universe, including
all the phenomena within it, is thoroughly
material and causal. This is part of the
materialistic picture provided by cognitive
neuroscience. What follows?
• Some Terminology (Nothing Magical or
Consensual)
– Theoretical v. Practical Reason
• Theoretical reason is used to determine how the world is
in fact.
• Practical reason is used to determine what one should do.
– E.g. It is a truth of theoretical reason, confirmed by both
introspection and observation, that human beings do
engage in practical reason, that is, that human beings do
use reason to determine what they should do. (Note: there
is no assumption that practical reason is causal. The
observation is only that humans do engage in practical
reasoning.) But even if we do engage in practical
reasoning to determine what we should do, should we
engage in practical reasoning for this purpose. (Note: To
answer this question, either negatively or positively, would
require the exercise of practical reason.)
• Practical reason not reducible to theoretical reason
• Morals and politics are matters of practical reason
– Internal v. External Critique
• An internal critique subjects a system to criticism
without challenging the basic assumptions and
methods of the system.
– E.g., Western criminal law holds that culpability is a
necessary condition for just criminal punishment.
Criticizing certain criminal justice doctrines or practices
because they ignored culpability would be an internal
criticism.
• An external critique subjects a system to criticism
by challenging the basic assumptions and methods
of the system.
– E.g., Criticizing western criminal law’s attention to
culpability on the ground that culpability is a meaningless
or incorrect concept.
– Moral Realism, Objectivism & Relativism
• Moral realism holds that moral statements have truth
value and are not simply expressions of personal or
social preference
– Realism accepts metaphysical moral reality, that is, that
there are moral truths in the universe that exist
independent of human intention and needs, much as, say,
gravity exists, and that is waiting to be discovered.
According to this view, a true answer to a moral question
would be a moral judgment that corresponds to the
external moral truth.
• Objectivism also holds that moral statements have
truth value, but denies the existence of independent
moral reality. Objectivism holds that although
cultures differ in their morality, morality can be
objective, that is capable of assessment and advance
by reason, and that some moral principles have
universal validity, even if there is no phenomenon
outside reason itself to which they must correspond.
– A true answer would be the best rational
judgment of what morality demands given the
universal truths.
• ****Query: Would there be any difference
in the way a realist and an objectivist would
argue about a specific moral question?
• Relativism denies that there are any
universally valid moral principles and that
all such principles are relative to the choice
of a culture or an individual.
– Conventional relativism holds that moral
principles are valid according to the
conventions of a particular society or culture.
• E.g., slavery was morally correct in ancient Greece
or antebellum southern U.S.; clitoridectomy is
morally correct in some societies but not in others;
capital punishment is morally correct in Texas, but
not in Massachusetts
– Subjective relativism holds that individual
preference determines the validity of a moral
principle
• ****Query: Is it universally morally true
that there are no moral truths?
• The Agenda
– Is Freedom Possible in a Causal Universe?
– If Materialism is True, What Is So Special
About Human Beings?
– If Materialism is True, How Is Ethical and
Political Judgment Possible?
– If Materialism is True, How is Moral
Responsibility Possible?
• The “Free Will” Problem (roughly): If this
is a causal universe and all events/states are
the outcome of the causal laws of the
universe operating on antecedent
events/states, how is human freedom
possible?
• False Fears: Bugbears and Sphex (with
thanks to Daniel Dennett)
• The Thesis of Determinism & “The Realism
Constraint”
• Incompatibilism v. Compatibilism
– Incompatibilists hold that
determinism/universal causation and
freedom/responsibility are incompatible;
compatibilists hold that they are compatible
• Libertarianism (metaphysical): Determinism is
incompatible with freedom, but determinism is not
true as applied to (normal, adult) human action and
human beings are both free and responsible
• Hard Determinism: Determinism is incompatible
with freedom and is true, so freedom and
responsibility are impossible
• Soft Determinism: Determinism is true, but freedom
and responsibility are nonetheless possible
• Libertarianism
– Indeterministic Randomness
• Critique: Why would this produce a freedom worth
wanting or increase the possibility of achieving
one’s life hopes?
– Contra-causal freedom/agent origination/prime
mover unmoved
• Critique: Is this a plausible view and does it
eliminate the problem of mechanism? (see inserts)
• Hard Determinism
– Is there an entirely convincing answer?
– Does this provide and internal or external
critique of moral and political life?
• Libertarianism, cont. (insert to previous
slide)
• CONCEDE THAT PRIOR EVENTS
AFFECT MENTAL STATES, BUT SAY
THAT ACTIONS ARE UNCAUSED BY
ANYTHING OTHER THANOURSELVES
• WHAT KIND OF OBSERVATIONAL
EVIDENCE WOULD COUNPROBLEM
OF MECHANISM NOT AVOIDED
• IF CAUSES LED INEVITABLY TO
INTENTIONS WE DID FORM,
INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM
MECHANISM; (cont. insert)
• AND IF WE DID THE OPPOSITE OF
WHAT DELIBERATION SUGGESTED
OR FOR NO GOOD REASON, WHY
WOULD WE WANT THIS FREEDOM?
• SUPPOSE CONCEDE THAT PRIOR
CAUSES DO AFFECT REASONS AND
INTENTIONS, THEN CAUSAL
PROCESSES DO NOT DETERMINE
ACTION ONLY IF THERE IS AN
ASPECT OF THE SELF ONE IS
UNAWARE OF THAT INDEPENDENTLY
EVALUATES REASONS FOR ACTIONS
(return)
– Suppose that you are entirely convinced that
this position is true. What should you do now?
• Soft Determinism
– Is there an entirely convincing answer
– Fatalism v. Determinism
• Bugbears and Sphex again
– Internal or External Critique
• Alternative Possibilities (Could have done
otherwise) and the irrelevance of modal logical
analyses
– Responsibility is moral and social, not
metaphysical: there are no facts to which
morality and responsibility must correspond
• Treating responsibility as a social construct does
NOT commit one to relativism, even if it rejects
strong metaphysical moral realism
– Freedom in the morally relevant sense and
Responsibility are matters of practical reason
– Human beings do deliberate and those
deliberations affect their actions
– The notion of possibility and a general capacity,
esp. the capacity to grasp and be guided by
reason
• Evolutionary processes account for this and people
are not puppets
– The Freedom necessary for responsibility in a
thoroughly causal world--at least at the macro
level (the realism constraint)--that is consistent
with the facts about human beings and the
world as we know them, that best explains our
practices, and that accords with principles of
fairness that we wholeheartedly endorse, (e.g.,
deserving praise and reward for complying with
moral obligations) is primarily the capacity to
determine one’s actions by reason and
unconstrained by unfair hard choices.
• What more could we want for real responsibility?
To require contra-causal freedom is to ask for godlike powers, but why should this be necessary for
freedom among mortals?
People and Machines
• Why did you do that?
• The conception of the person in politics,
morals and law
– Evolutionary “Just So”
• Folk Psychology, Practical Reason and the
Impossibility of Elimination
– The centrality of
culture/language/intergenerational transmission
People v. Machines, cont.
• The Problem of Action
– What is the difference between an arm rising
(e.g., as a result of neuromuscular spasm) and
raising one’s arm?
• The Problem of Rationality
– Ends v. “Means”
– Heuristics and Biases
– “Good enough for government work”
• The Necessity and Inevitability of Practical
Reason
– Reasons not to Reason
• Don’t care about what happens to you
• Don’t believe that practical reason makes a
difference to what happens to you
– Can the possibility of prediction replace
practical reason?
• Even if only one outcome is possible as a matter of
theoretical reason, cannot know it and must reason
practically
• Pocket oracles and infinite regress
• Silent third-party predictors
Morals in a Material World
• Humans as gregarious animals
• No instinct guides how we should live
• How we live makes an enormous material
and moral difference
• The necessity of some morality
• The possibility of objectivity
Responsibility in a Material
World
• An internal account with focus on action
• Holding Responsible and the Moral
Sentiments
• The Criteria for Responsibility/Excuse
– General Capacity for Rationality/Lack of
capacity
– Lack of unfair “hard choice” (“compulsion,” or
“coercion”)/acting under a “hard choice”
– Definitions and degree are all normative
• False and Misleading General Explanations
for Excuse
– Causation/Determinism: “The Fundamental
Psychomoral or Psycholegal Error”
• The problem of “abnormal” causation
• “Selective” causation/determinism is false
–
–
–
–
“Unfree” will
Lack of choice
Lack of intent
Lack of control
• Examples
– Psychopathy and Antisocial Personality
Disorder
– Addiction
– Schizophrenia
– Bipolar disorder
– Pedophilia
The Ethical Domain in a Material World
-Setting
up the Problem
Need for practical reason
Need for cooperation–we are apparently social creatures and simple rationality indicates
that cooperation will provide a surplus of basic goods
Need for rules/norms
Could adequate security and safety be attained simply by an economy of threats, either
private or public
What is a moral reason as opposed to a purely prudential reason. Lost wallet example
Instinct may strongly dispose most people to live together socially and social living will
produce rules, but no instinct tells us how to live together. This we must decide for
ourselves. And what we decide makes an enormous difference to the quality of our
lives.
-How did moral capability evolve? The problem of altruism, esp. reciprocal altruism
(altruism among non-kin): The Tale of Clever Co-operators
Neo-Darwinian explanation, e.g. Tit for Tat
Reactive Sentiments
Capacity to Internalize (conscience, empathy)
-How do beliefs become moral as opposed to simple expressions of preference: Oldenquist’s
just so story (p. 123 of his article in the bulkpack); A morality is universal
The Ethical Domain in a Material World
-Suppose
a fully material explanation can be given for the appearance of moral sentiments in
humans and the appearance of the institution of morality in human culture. As Radcliffe
Richards should have amply demonstrated to you, this does not entail that moral rules
and practices don’t exist or that they don’t give us reason to act or that all objectivity
about morality is impossible.
-Moral Realism, Objectivism, Relativism Defined
-The Problem with Relativism
Incoherence in its “toleration” form
Assumes a moral principle
Totally unworkable
Moral Skepticism
Implausible in its epistemic form, e.g., true in one place, false in another
-The Possibility of Reason in Ethics
Internal and External Critiques
Conceptions of Human Good/Flourishing
Consistency (and why it should be “privileged”) and Implications
MARKS OF THE MORAL (OLDENQUIST)
1. ONE CAN INTENTIONALLY COMMUNICATE THE JUDGMENT TO OTHERS
2.THE (NON-ULTIMATE OR NON-BASIC) JUDGMENT CAN BE SUPPORTED BY
REASONS THAT HAVE GENERAL APPEAL WITHIN THE RELEVANT COMMUNITY
3. IT IS AN ALL-THINGS-CONSIDERED JUDGMENT
4. THE JUDGMENT CAN BE UNIVERSALIZED WITHIN THE RELEVANT MORAL
DOMAIN (E.G., ONE’S COMMUNITY OF JUDGMENT)
5. THE JUDGMENT CAN RECOMMEND ACTION CONTRARY TO SELF-INTEREST AND
REMAIN MOTIVATING
6. THE OBJECT OF THE JUDGMENT IS THE GOOD OF HUMANS, THE MORAL
COMMUNITY IN WHICH IT IS EMBEDDED (AND OTHER CREATURES?)
7. ONE IS DISPOSED TO USE MORAL LANGUAGE (E.G., GOOD, BAD, EVIL) TO
EXPRESS THE JUDGMENT
8. EXPRESSIONS OF THE JUDGMENT ARE OFTEN RITUALIZED (E.G., CRIMINAL
CONVICTION, EXPULSION FROM A PROFESSIONAL BODY), THEREBY
INDICATING THAT IT IS A JUDGMENT OF THE COMMUNITY AND NOT JUST AN
INDIVIDUAL
Hard Determinism & Responsibility Argument
Outline Argument
People often fear the truth of determinism because they fear
its supposed consequences. In particular, they fear that
determinism is inconsistent with responsibility for action.
What is the argument for this alleged inconsistency?
If determinism is true, it is inconsistent with responsibility
for human action.
Determinism is true.
________________________________
No human being is ever responsible for action.
Is this argument structurally valid? Is it valid overall? Are
there further premises that are necessary to make it valid?
Hard Determinism & Responsibility Argument
People often fear the truth of determinism because they
fear its supposed consequences. In particular, they fear
that determinism is inconsistent with responsibility for
action. What is the argument for this alleged
inconsistency?
Responsibility for action requires that the agent should
have genuinely alternative possibilities at the time of
action (the principle of alternative possibilities: PAP).
If determinism is true, it is inconsistent with PAP.
Determinism is true.
________________________________
No human being is ever responsible for action.
Is this argument structurally valid? Is it valid overall?
Why is PAP necessary for responsibility?