Transcript Be mindful of your feelings - Stijn Bruers, the rational ethicist

Be mindful of your feelings
Speciesism as a moral illusion
Stijn Bruers, IARC, Esch, sept-2012
Overview
• What are moral illusions? Analogy with optical
illusions
• How to detect moral illusion?
• Do moral illusions exist? Yes: the trolley
problem
• Can speciesism be a moral illusion?
Moral illusions
• Moral illusions are obstinate but incorrect
intuitive judgments, comparable to the famous
optical illusions.
• Method to detect them:
– Coherentism (reflective equilibrium): mutual support
of intuitions and principles
• Universalism: translating strong moral intuitions into
universalized ethical principles
• Consistency
– Knowledge about moral psychological mechanisms
Coherentism
More than merely consistency
Crossword puzzle (white boxes = situations)
Universalism: words (=universal principles) instead
of separate letters (=situational intuitions/rules)
Consistency: 1 letter per box
Optical illusions
1. Translationinvariance:
measure sticks
never change
length when
shifted in any
direction
Optical illusions
1. Translationinvariance
2. Contextindependence:
influence of
environment is
arbitrary, artificial,
fuzzy: never
important
Optical illusions
1. Translationinvariance
Coherent
2. Contextindependence
3. Optical mechanism
– 3D->2D perspective
adaptation
(heuristics,
D.Kahneman)
– Lateral inhibition
(contrasts)
Moral illusions: the trolley problem
Moral illusions: the trolley problem
Moral illusions: the trolley problem
Action allowed: 90% of people
A
Moral illusions: the trolley problem
Action allowed: 50% of people
B
Moral illusions: the trolley problem
Action allowed: 10% of people
C
Moral illusions: the trolley problem
• A versus B and C: victim is not
used as merely means
• A and B versus C: victim is not
send to threat
 What distinguishes B from C?
The locus of intervention (at
victim or at threat):
“throwing bomb on a person
or throwing person on a
bomb?”
Moral illusions: the trolley problem
Translation invariance
• All individuals have
– Right not to be killed
– Right not to be used as merely means
• Moral status of individual is independent from
locus of intervention
Moral illusions: the trolley problem
Context independence: erase irrelevant details
B
C
Moral illusions: the trolley problem
Psychological mechanism
• Intervention myopia: “people who are
evaluating the morality of options may give
victims in the background less weight than
victims in the attentional spotlight.”
(Waldmann & Dieterich, 2007)
• Moral heuristic: attribute substitution
(Kahneman, 1982; Sunstein, 2005)
Can speciesism be a moral illusion?
• 5 arguments against speciesism (context
independence)
• 5 arguments pro sentience (translation
invariance)
• Essentialism and heuristics (psychological
mechanism)
Against speciesism
1. Who am I? I am:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
white (population),
a Homo sapiens sapiens (subspecies),
a Homo sapiens (species),
a Homo (genus),
a great ape (family),
a Hominoid (super family),
a simian (infraorder),
a dry nosed primate (suborder),
a primate (order),
a placental (infra class),
a mammal (class),
a vertebrate (phylum),
an animal (kingdom)
Too arbitrary
Against speciesism
2. What is a human? What
about
– humanzee hybrids?
– human-animal chimera?
– ancestors (Homo habilis,
Australopithecus,…)?
– genetically modified
humans,…?
Against speciesism
3. How is a species defined?
Interbreeding and fertile
offspring?
– All species are connected
into one “temporal ring
species”.
– Is the accidental death of
intermediates relevant?
 Cfr. context independence:
speciesism is arbitrary,
artificial, intrinsically fuzzy
Against speciesism
4. Genes and bodily properties are not relevant
in situation A (e.g. racism), so should not be
relevant in situation B (speciesism).
5. Speciesism is a violation of the merit
principle
Sentience
1. Well-being and impartiality. Cfr.
consequentialist (Singer) and contractualist
(Rowlands) ethics: veil of ignorance
2. Empathy is a virtue to be developed (virtue
ethics and ethics of care)
Cfr translation invariance, using empathy or
the veil of ignorance to put yourself into the
position of the other
Sentience
3. Rights ethics: the connection between
feelings, interests and rights is not farfetched
– Feelings detect interests (e.g.: pain -> bodily
integrity)
– Rights protect interests
4. Consciousness is special (complex,
vulnerable,…) and should be protected
5. Sentience is the only mental capacity that
mentally disabled humans share with us
Essentialism
• The psychological explanation
• Children and adults (from different cultures and
backgrounds) intuitively describe biological
entities in essentialist terms. They think that
biological categories have invisible essences
(Gelman, 2003; Bloom, 2010)
• Studies about racism also demonstrates that
racists think of races or ethnic groups as being
essentialized natural groups (Gil-White, 2001)
• But essentialism is in contradiction with
Darwinism and current biology
Speciesism as a moral illusion
Moral status of animal
Moral status of human
(Morally) irrelevant properties
The ten arguments are coherent with each other
There is no “essence” related to lines with inward pointing arrowheads
Speciesism as a moral heuristic
•
•
•
•
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Daniel Kahneman, Cass Sunstein
Attribute substitution
Target attribute: rationality, self-consciousness,…
Heuristic attribute: human
Based on
– Pattern recognition skills: a human is easier to detect
than a rational being
– Most humans have the target attribute
• Heuristic ‘misfires’ at mentally disabled humans
• Should people keep this heuristic?