The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (Pt. 2)

[...continued from here.]

Last time, I introduced Alvin Plantinga's argument that believing in both evolution and naturalism results in a general belief-reliability crisis. Since I do hold both of these beliefs, I'm motivated to reflect on his argument and figure out whether I need to make an adjustment.

Bold vs. Cautious

I would characterize Plantinga's argument as bold because he reaches for the conclusion that actual, human believers in both evolution and naturalism have a general defeater for their beliefs. At least, they do after grasping his argument.

He is suggesting that I, Garren, have better reason to believe my beliefs are mostly false than to believe my beliefs are mostly true. I can't take this seriously. It's like telling Philosophy freshmen about Descartes' demon that systematically deceives one's senses, and expecting the students to really doubt everything.

But to have a defeater for [the belief that my cognitive faculties are reliable] it isn't necessary that I believe that in fact I have been created by a Cartesian demon or been captured by those Alpha-Centaurian superscientists. It suffices for me to have such a defeater if I have considered those scenarios, and the probability that one of those scenarios is true, is inscrutable for me. It suffices if I have considered those scenarios, and for all I know or believe one of them is true. In these cases too I have a reason for doubting, a reason for withholding my natural belief that my cognitive faculties are in fact reliable.¹

Plantinga's alternative is to accept another story that an external Agent wanted me to mostly believe true things, so He tinkered with evolution to give me reliable belief-forming mechanisms...except when it comes to the stunningly important belief that He exists.

At this point, I must admit that naturalistic evolution does have a major disadvantage: there is less room to simply make up convenient stories about it.

I propose a toned down, cautious version of the argument which doesn't deal with skeptical scenarios. There's no need to claim actual, human believers in evolution and naturalism are involved in a belief-destroying vortex. Instead, Plantinga could argue that theistic evolution provides a better explanation than naturalistic evolution when it comes to the unquestioned premise that we do have (more or less) reliable belief-forming mechanisms, i.e:

If true, theistic evolution would neatly explain why we have reliable belief-forming mechanisms.

If true, naturalistic evolution would provide a very poor explanation of why we have reliable belief-forming mechanisms.

By inference to the better explanation, theism beats out naturalism.

Can Naturalistic Evolution Offer A Decent Explanation?

Suppose evolution is true and naturalism provably can't ever provide a decent explanation for our (more or less) reliable beliefs. Naturalists might still resist the notion of divine intervention because of other considerations that count against theism or for naturalism, but I grant that the consideration we're considering would be a strong point against naturalism.

Now, the important question is whether Plantinga is offering a reason to think naturalism can't ever provide an explanation, or is he merely pointing out the current lack of such an explanation? It would be easy to dismiss him, if his argument were another "How could evolution design an eye?" or some similar structural mystery. These questions keep turning up reasonable answers.² But it's clear that the kind of "beliefs" he is concerned about are not just a matter of physical structure.

To paraphrase:

Naturalists these days all seem to be materialists. What sorts of things are beliefs under materialism? Neural events or states hooked into the overall operation of the brain. "So considered, beliefs will of course be able to enter the causal process that leads to behavior."³

But, any properly-so-called belief must also have the property of being associated with a proposition, e.g: that Frank Herbert wrote Dune. Otherwise, the neurophysiological event wouldn't really be about anything. "How does a neural event somehow get assigned a certain proposition as its content? It is hard to think of any scenarios that are as much as decently plausible."³ And, once assigned, the propositional content itself would be an irrelevant bystander to the physical operation of the brain.

So you see, the core of Plantinga's argument has to do with the nature of propositions. The naturalistic evolution of neurophysiological states (or events) which are generated in response to sensory input and which inform behavioral output goes completely unchallenged.

This makes the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism a fairly niche philosophical concern, perhaps one that is only conceivable for those who take proposition or property talk too seriously. Consider a maze-learning robot that adds information to its internal state, engages in some reasoning to infer when it has probably been dropped into a different point of a past maze, and makes goal-oriented choices based on its internal map. If the robot has reasoned that the goal is probably three feet forward, ninety degrees to the right and six inches forward again, then I would say the robot believes the goal is located there.

We could say the relevant bits of computer memory are "associated" with the propositional content that the goal is three feet forward and six inches to the right. Then we could worry how this separate content-bearing property can reach back into the robot's cybernetic brain and causally influence the bits and volts. Or, just maybe, we could question the philosopher's analysis that took the propositional content out of the realm of causally informed (and informing) bits and volts in the first place.

I admit unfamiliarity with the philosophy of propositions, but it seems plausible that they are just linguistic descriptions of possible world states. A belief may be associated with a world state without involving a linguistic description of that state (though some Postmodernists may disagree). The robot internally represents a possible state of the maze, then we use language to describe that state, and feel the description is both integral and external to the robot's electronic belief. I suspect something like this underlies Plantinga's dualistic intuition.

At any rate, his argument doesn't cause me a lot of concern about the rationality of believing in both evolution and naturalism. I'm much more inclined to think analytic philosophers sometimes generate their own problems, and this is one of those times.


1. Plantinga, A. (2002). Introduction. In Beilby, J. (Ed.), Naturalism defeated? (1-12). Ithica, New York: Cornell University Press. p 11.
2. Dawkins did a fun visual demonstration of eye evolution in Growing Up in the Universe.
3. Plantinga, A. (2002). Reply to Beilby's Cohorts. In Beilby, J. (Ed.), Naturalism defeated? (204-275). Ithica, New York: Cornell University Press. p. 212-213.

The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (Pt. 1)

Since Alvin Plantinga has been in the news lately promoting his book Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion and Naturalism, I thought it would be a good time to review his famous argument against naturalism from the early 90s.¹

(Note: For his more recent moral argument against naturalism, see this post.)

Taking Evolution Away From Atheists and Beating Them With It

...that's the plan, anyway! Plantinga argues that — contrary to expectations — evolutionary theory is friendly to the belief that humanity was intentionally created by God in His image, and fatally undermines the belief that humanity evolved without divine assistance.

Basically:

• Natural selection only cares (so to speak) about survival.
• Survival is not significantly affected by the truth of beliefs.
• It's unlikely, therefore, that purely natural design would produce minds adept at forming true beliefs.

Our ability to form mostly true beliefs makes sense if God intervened in our development; but if anyone believes evolution occurred without such intervention, she is left with a story of how she probably does not have a mind adept at forming true beliefs. Evolution + Naturalism = Self Defeating Belief.

Natural selection only cares (so to speak) about survival.

Pretty much, yeah.

Survival is not significantly affected by the truth of beliefs.

Here's where things get interesting. You might think it's better — in terms of survival — to have mostly true beliefs than mostly false beliefs. Plantinga questions this assumption by examining five possibilities of how beliefs and behavior relate to each other.

(Note: Early on, he focused on Possibility #5; over time, his focus has shifted to Possibility #1 as the core challenge to naturalistic evolution.)

Possibility #1 — Epiphenomenal Beliefs

He starts by drawing a distinction between beliefs as the neural structures that combine with desires to produce behavior and beliefs as carriers-of-propositional-content. The latter definition of belief is the sort that is true or false and it "can't be a matter of definition that there are neural structures or processes displaying both propositional content and causal efficacy with respect to behavior".²

Neural structures which guide behavior.
vs.
Mental stances which are true or false.

Natural selection could have designed neural structures to work in ways that produce survival-enhancing behavior, but mental stances are just extra. "[Mental stances] are not causally connected with behavior, then they would be, so to speak, invisible to evolution; and then the fact that they arose during the evolutionary history of these beings would confer no probability on the idea that they are mostly true, or mostly nearly true, rather than wildly false."²

To put it simply: true/false mental stances run free from the neural structures which affect behavior.

Possibility #2 — Same Thing

...except here Plantinga highlights the possibility that mental stances are caused by behavior or that both mental-stances and behavior are caused by a third thing. So there is a connection, but it's still invisible to natural selection.

Possibility #3 — The Form (Not Content) Affects Behavior

I read a poem very loudly, so loudly as to break a glass; the sounds I utter have meaning, but their meaning is causally irrelevant to the breaking of the glass. In the same way it might be that these creatures' beliefs have causal efficacy, but not by way of the content of those beliefs.³

Is this a real party trick he does?

Possibility #4 — Belief Content Affects Behavior, Negatively

Behavior-affecting belief content might be like sickle-cell anemia: not helpful, but genetically attached to other traits which are helpful.

Possibility #5 — Belief Content Positively Affects Behavior

The true/false mental stances we take actually do help us survive. But...true beliefs don't necessarily help more than false beliefs!

You see, beliefs have to be combined with desires to produce behavior. As Plantinga points out, "there will be any number of different patterns of belief and desire that would issue in the same action; and among those there will be many in which the beliefs are wildly false."⁴

True Belief + Desire A -> The Helpful Action
False Belief 1 + Desire B -> The Helpful Action
False Belief 2 + Desire C -> The Helpful Action
False Belief 3 + Desire D -> The Helpful Action
[...and so on]

Since natural selection only cares about the helpful action, it's more likely that one of the many possible false beliefs will be paired up with a matching desire, than that the single true belief will be paired up with its matching desire. Plantinga gives the example of a pre-historic man, Paul, who has the adaptive behavior of running away from tigers, but not because of the belief you might expect:

Perhaps Paul very much likes the idea of being eaten, but whenever he sees a tiger, always runs off looking for a better prospect, because he thinks it unlikely that the tiger he sees will eat him. This will get his body parts in the right place so far as survival is concerned, without involving much by way of true belief.

[...] Or perhaps he thinks the tiger is a large, friendly, cuddly pussycat and wants to pet it; but he also believes that the best way to pet it is to run away from it."⁴

He goes on to give other possibilities of false beliefs being matched up with desires that result in Paul running away from tigers. The point is: natural selection has no reason (so to speak) to favor one scenario over another, so long as Paul's body survives to reproduce.

It's unlikely, therefore, that purely natural design would produce minds adept at forming true beliefs.

If this conclusion is successful, then a person who believes in naturalism + evolution has a defeater for the belief that her belief-forming faculties are reliable. This, in turn, constitutes a defeater for all of her beliefs...including the belief that naturalism is true.

Meanwhile, a person who believes in a creator God + evolution isn't stuck with an across-the-board defeater for his beliefs. In other words, evolution mixed with this kind of theism is stable, but evolution mixed with naturalism catastrophically destructs.

[continued here...]



1. See Chapter 12 of his book Warrant and Proper Function. For a shorter and more recent restatement, see the Introduction of Naturalism Defeated? which is a collection of essays on this very topic, edited by James Beilby.
2. Plantinga, P. (1993). Warrant and proper function. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. p. 223. 
3. Ibid. p. 224. 
4. Ibid. p. 225.

Lingo: Poisoning the Well

I am at war with him; but there is such a thing as legitimate warfare: war has its laws; there are things which may fairly be done, and things which may not be done. I say it with shame and with stern sorrow;—he has attempted a great transgression; he has attempted (as I may call it) to poison the wells.¹

To poison the well (or wells) is to use some preliminary tactic which has the effect of greatly impeding any fair and reasonable discussion. As you can see above, the term comes from an analogy to poisoning a city before attempting to take it by force. Poison may succeed where force of argument would otherwise fail.

In Federalist No. 83, Alexander Hamilton argued against making trial by jury a Constitutional requirement in civil cases. In addition to his actual arguments, he wrote: "It is conceded by all reasonable men, that it ought not to obtain in all cases." This is poisoning the well since anyone who tries to argue for trial by jury for all civil cases has already been labeled "unreasonable."

I was inspired to write this post because I ran into a rather extreme case of well poisoning in Francis J. Beckwith and Gregory Koukl's book Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air which reminded me of William Lane Craig's approach in Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics. Early on, both books tell horror stories about what life would be like if the positions they defend were rejected. This strongly influences readers to accept the authors' arguments uncritically and reject opposing arguments offhandedly.

Craig on the Horrors of Non-Christianity

Before examining "the question of God's existence," Craig explores "the disastrous consequences for human existence, society, and culture if Christianity should be false."² He spends page after depressing page claiming that our lives are totally without significance unless we will live forever and there is a God. Then Craig tells a story of Nazi doctors performing vivisection on pregnant women, saying this is consistent with atheism and a story about a man giving his life to save others is inconsistent with atheism.³

The choice is clear: cruel, pointless existence if there is no God vs. fulfilling, meaningful life if "biblical Christianity" is true.

(Yes, I did happen to notice that he left out many alternatives besides atheism and his brand of Christianity.)

Beckwith and Koukl on the Horrors of Moral Relativism

Chapter Two of their book is titled "What Is Moral Relativism?" But before trying to define the position they're attacking, the authors explain in Chapter One that moral relativism is about living for personal pleasure without any concern for how others are affected. To make their point, they tell a story about a group of nurses lounging in their break room, "smoking and drinking coffee," while coldly choosing to let a premature child die on the metal counter rather than try to save it or comfort it. When one nurse arrived and tried to hold it, another snatched it away and put it live into a jar of formaldehyde.⁴

This, they claim, is what moral relativism looks like. In fact, it's hardly necessary to argue against it at all!

...

I try not to use such tactics even if it would help me win rhetorically. But sometimes I wonder if choosing not to poison wells in debates is as quaint and self-restricting as many might view the choice to not poison the wells of a city before sending soldiers out to die on its walls. Am I more willing to loose respectably than win underhandedly? Maybe so.


1. From John Henry Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua.
2. Craig, W.L. (2008). Reasonable faith: Christian truth and apologetics (3rd ed.). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books. p. 65
3. Ibid. p. 80-82
4. Beckwith, F.J. and Koukl, G. (1998). Relativism: Feet firmly planted in mid-air. Grand rapids, MI: Baker Books. p. 21

Reading the ACLU Policy Guide (Pt. 8)

Series explanation and overview here.

Note: These are my summaries of the 1995 version of the guide, not the policies themselves.

Loyalty and Security

Policy 103 — Clear and Present Danger Test

Personal opinions are constitutionally protected unless they qualify as creating a “clear and present danger” by either being “an integral part of conduct violating a valid law” or “a direct incitement to specific and immediate violation of law” or they “threaten a danger of unlawful acts so great and so immediate that time is lacking for answer, or if need be, for other protective measures against the threats and acts.”

Protected speech includes speech against democracy, so long as it does not constitute a clear and present danger. I take this to mean that speech against free speech rights is still protected by free speech rights.

Policy 104 — ACLU and Totalitarianism

The ACLU is opposed to “any governmental or economic system which denies fundamental civil liberties and human rights.” (This is consistent with the ACLU supporting the right of other groups and individuals to express support for totalitarian systems.)

Policy 105 — Smith Act and Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950

This policy actually concerns three federal acts:

• The Alien Registration Act of 1940 (aka the Smith Act)
• The Internal Security Act of 1950 (aka the Subversive Activities Control Act or the McCarran Act)
• The Communist Control Act of 1954

Besides requiring legal, adult aliens to register with the government, the Smith Act made it a crime to advocate for the violent overthrow of the US government. At first glance, this might not sound like such a bad thing to criminalize, but citizens who don't have the slightest chance of putting such ideas into action could have been imprisoned for twenty years for expressing the opinion. Furthermore, entire organizations could have been deemed in violation and all members and tangential supporters would be made criminals, without even expressing the condemned opinion personally.

Further acts specifically hounded anyone with communist associations, or who supported broadly communist ideas whether those ideas were related to violent political change or not.

The ACLU's position is that "there should be no governmental restriction on advocacy of any sort, unless the adovcacy [sic] shall cause, in the existing circumstances of its utterances, a clear and present danger of illegal action." Merely increasing the probability that listeners may choose to commit a crime later is insufficient. Regarding organizational guilt: "Guilt is personal; it may not be attributed by association." The ACLU also opposed the McCarran Act because it required members of communist organizations to report themselves, a violation of the Fifth Amendment.

Policy 106 —Wartime Sedition Act

I'm a little confused about this policy. It references the "Wartime Sedition Act of 1917", but I'm finding information on the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 (a set of amendments to the first). I agree that the Sedition Act could have been "used against anyone, at virtually any time, to suppress criticism of the government in the name of national security," but I'm seeing multiple sources claiming those parts were repealed a long time ago. Recent ACLU concerns appear to be about last year's WikiLeaks fiasco, as it relates to the original espionage sections.

Policy 107 — Emergency Measures in Peacetime

The ACLU is opposed to indefinitely continuing civil rights-related measures put into play during "genuine war emergencies." This is applied to the Cold War and — I suspect — would apply to our perpetual War on Terror.

Policy 108 — House Internal Security Committee

This policy explains the ACLU's opposition to the House Un-American Activities Committee (later renamed to Internal Security Committee). Instead of doing much in the way of starting legislation for the House, this Committee made a big public show of investigating citizens for expressing "un-American" ideas by a standard "so vague that a citizen cannot know whether the citizen's political activity runs afoul of the Committee's private definition of Americanism." These non-trial trials took away due process rights and chilled free speech. The Committee was dissolved by the mid 70s.

Policy 109 — State and Local Legislation

The ACLU opposes non-federal laws "dealing with advocacy of political doctrine" because there is (or was) already federal legislation in the area, and adding further restrictions just makes the civil liberties situation worse.

Policy 110 — Federal Employee Security

While the ACLU recognizes that some federal jobs directly related to national security warrant security screening, they oppose extending such screening to the many federal "non-sensitive" jobs which only require candidate fitness for the work.

The ACLU specifically opposes investigation into candidates' sexual orientation as a security matter. Apparently, it was claimed that homosexuals were a security risk because they could be blackmailed into betraying their country out of fear of expose. (Notice anything self-fulfilling here? Such investigations create or greatly increase the very motive they seek to exclude.)

Due process must be given to candidates denied positions for security concerns.

Policy 111 — Private Employment Security

The ACLU opposes the practice of any private employers investigating the national security risk of employees or requiring loyalty oaths. If a private employer is contracting with the government in a sensitive area, then the government itself should be the party to conduct security investigations of employees involved in such work.

Policy 112— Professional Associations' Membership Qualifications

Mere association with other organizations should not be grounds for removing a member from a professional association (particularly bar associations). It must be shown that a lawyer, for example, is actually not doing his or her duty as a legal professional because of "external obedience" to another organization.

However, the ACLU does recognize some latitude for not admitting a new member to a professional organization if there is thought to be a high probability he or she will not be able to conform to professional duties. This risk still needs to be evaluated on a person by person basis, not as a sweeping prejudice against the membership of other organizations.

Policy 113 — Federal Benefits and Loyalty Tests

"Loyalty oaths or disclaimers of membership in certain organizations violate the First Amendment rights of freedom of belief and association, and may never be required for participation in government-funded programs such as public housing or subsidies, welfare benefits, veteran's benefits, Social Security or Medicate."

Yes, that's the whole policy.

Policy 114 — Military Discharges

Members of the military should be treated as other federal employees, i.e. screening for security should only be done if that individual's job directly relates to national security.

Discharges must be based on job performance, not merely for exercising constitutional rights before or during service.

Policy 115 — Loyalty Oaths

Swearing non-membership in certain organizations has been required "for employment of government workers and teachers, for students seeking government aid, and for Social Security and Medicare recipients and the like." The ACLU opposes such oaths because they suppress free speech and association rights. Plus, they penalize any citizens with a conscientious objection to swearing these kind of oaths, whether they have had the associations in question or not.

Policy 116 — Governmental Surveillance

Police infiltration of organizations is contrary to the Fourth Amendment's protection against "unreasonable searches and seizures," i.e. those not carried out through the use of a targeted warrant issued on probable cause. Otherwise, "[e]verything that is said and everything that is done over an unlimited period of time comes into the hands of the government, no matter how private, how unconnected with a legitimate state interest."

Perhaps this would be less of an issue if there weren't a history of the government collecting files on individuals, and this to their detriment either by denying them government employment or by publicly condemning them without due process in Congressional hearings.

The ACLU does recognize the proper use of "informers" placed or recruited from organizations, if there is probable cause shown that the organization is involved — or is planning to be involved — in "serious criminal acts." A judge must issue a warrant specifying which part of the organization is to be surveilled and for how long. Warrants should be renewed by the original judge and a limit should be set on the number of renewals.

This policy also speaks against using the military to spy on citizens, against building files on citizens merely for protesting government actions, and against keeping attendance lists of lawful gatherings.

Policy 117 — Controlling the Intelligence Agencies

Bill of Rights violations on the excuse of "national security" need to end. The ACLU has a list of specific measures to remedy the situation. Some highlights:

• Implement only three categories of classified information. (1) Details of defense tech which would help other nations. (2) Tactical military details during declared war. (3) Defensive contingency plans.
• Explicitly state that any information about the US government engaging in illegal behavior is ipso facto declassified.
• Allow Congress to "unilaterally" release Executive branch information.
• Make intelligence agency budgets public.
• Create detailed charters for government agencies, and prohibit any agency activity beyond these limits.
• Rename the CIA to the FIA: Foreign Intelligence Agency. Keep it out of the domestic intelligence business entirely.
• Prohibit all CIA operations intended to secretly manipulate (or just plain overthrow) foreign governments.
• Prohibit the NSA from monitoring US-to-foreign communications.
• Destroy all current files kept on citizens for exercising their First Amendment rights.

Policy 118 — Secret Government Aid to Private Agencies

I'm curious what circumstances prompted this 1967 policy. Apparently a government agency was secretly funding a citizen advocacy group...or something like that.  This endangers free discussion "by the clandestine introduction of ulterior motives of government policy into a supposedly open debate."

Policy 119 — Prior Restraint in National Security Situations

"The true test of our devotion to that principle [i.e. freedom of thought and expression] comes in times of stress or alarm, when those who would suppress the interchange of ideas can appeal for supposed justification to some imminent menace threatening the public welfare."

Citing United States v. The Progressive and the Pentagon Papers as instances when prior restraint "safeguarded nothing more than governmental overreaction, embarrassment, and the desire for secrecy," the ACLU believes prior restraint cannot be tolerated at the very times it is most critical that citizens have access to information.

Unprotected Speech

Depictions of animal cruelty are not, as a class, categorically unprotected by the First Amendment. [...] Since its enactment, the First Amendment has permitted restrictions on a few historic categories of speech—including obscenity, defamation, fraud, incitement, and speech integral to criminal conduct—that “have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem,” Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 572. Depictions of animal cruelty should not be added to that list. While the prohibition of animal cruelty has a long history in American law, there is no evidence of a similar tradition prohibiting depictions of such cruelty.¹ [boldface added]

The First Amendment itself does not even hint at "permitted restrictions.” However, legal tradition has allowed restrictions in the categories listed above. The unfortunate effect of this situation is that citizens can't take the Constitution at face value.

Categories of unprotected speech aren't automatically made illegal. It's just that states can pass laws restricting speech in these categories without the Supreme Court raising a fuss. Or it would work like that if the categories were more clear. Obscenity, for example, has been defined by different tests which are themselves unclear.

The Hicklin Test

From ~1870 to 1957, the definition of obscenity in the United States was often based on a British formulation:

[A]nd I think the test of obscenity is this, whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences, and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall. Now, with regard to this work, it is quite certain that it would suggest to the minds of the young of either sex, or even to persons of more advanced years, thoughts of a most impure and libidinous character.²

The Roth Test

In 1957, the Supreme Court declared the Hicklin test unconstitutional:

The Hicklin test, judging obscenity by the effect of isolated passages upon the most susceptible persons, might well encompass material legitimately treating with sex, and so it must be rejected as unconstitutionally restrictive of the freedoms of speech and press.³

...and recognized a new standard which some courts had already been applying:

whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest.⁴

One major difference here is that the average person rather than “the most susceptible persons” is considered. It also matters whether the offending material occurs throughout a work or just in some parts. And the standard is allowed to change to fit “contemporary community standards” regarding speech about sex.

All of this makes the Roth Test problematic. Who is this theoretical “average person”? How large is the community under consideration? And do we count the community of the writer/speaker, the reader/listener, or anywhere the work is advertised or sold? At what point do elements in a work count as “the dominant theme"?

The Miller Test

In an attempt to “formulate standards more concrete than those in the past,” the 1973 Supreme Court established the test which is currently in use.

We acknowledge, however, the inherent dangers of undertaking to regulate any form of expression. State statutes designed to regulate obscene materials must be carefully limited. [...] As a result, we now confine the permissible scope of such regulation to works which depict or describe sexual conduct. That conduct must be specifically defined by the applicable state law, as written or authoritatively construed. A state offense must also be limited to works which, taken as a whole, appeal to the prurient interest in sex, which portray sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and which, taken as a whole, do not have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.⁵

On the plus side, the requirement of specific definition in state law – depending on how state laws are written – might actually provide citizens with some idea of what is legal, without waiting to find out how some judge feels about it.

The problem of vague standards persist, however, because the question of whether a work appeals to “the prurient interest in sex” is still dependent on what a hypothetical “average person, applying contemporary community standards" would decide (see context of the quote above). What counts as a "patently offensive" portrayal? And what does it mean for a work to have “serious” value in one of the areas mentioned?

...

If you couldn't tell already, I'm not a fan of subjective laws. A citizen should be able to read the laws to find out ahead of time whether a given action or expression can be legally condemned. As Justice Douglas wrote in his dissent:

Obscenity - which even we cannot define with precision - is a hodge-podge. To send men to jail for violating standards they cannot understand, construe, and apply is a monstrous thing to do in a Nation dedicated to fair trials and due process.⁶

1. United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. ___ (2010).
2. Regina v. Hicklin (1868). [full text]
3. Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957). [full text]
4. ibid.
5. Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973). [full text]
6. ibid.

Two Kinds of Intrinsic Value

There are at least two major, distinguishable meanings for “intrinsic value.” Unfortunately, these meanings often go unspecified, which results in a lot of unnecessary confusion. Christine Korsgaard covered this in her 1983 paper, “Two Distinctions in Goodness" from which I'll be borrowing.

The first kind of intrinsic value is contrasted with instrumental value. Instrumental value is the value something has because it's helpful or supportive of something else which has value; think “derivative value.” For example, an important point in how we treat (other) animals is whether there is any reason to consider factors beyond the value of animals to human well-being.

The second kind of intrinsic value is value that is located inside as opposed to outside the thing that is valuable. As Korsgaard put it, “It refers, one might say, to the location or source of the goodness rather than the way we value the thing.”¹ This kind of intrinsic value might be, for example, a property of the valuable thing itself which does not depend on anyone in the world valuing it.

So if I claim old trees have intrinsic value, it's not clear whether I'm saying that old trees have non-derivative value or whether I'm saying old trees have value regardless of anyone valuing them. Suppose I personally and directly value old trees. Also suppose that old trees need someone to value them in order to have value. In this situation, old trees have the first kind of intrinsic value but lack the second kind of intrinsic value.

Korsgaard considers the first kind of intrinsic value to be something of a misnomer, since only the second kind of intrinsic value contrasts with extrinsic value. Whether value is derived or not is simply another issue.


1. Korsgaard, C.M. (1983). Two distinctions in goodness. The Philosophical Review. 92(2). [search link]

Expressive-Assertivism

Expressivism is a type of moral theory which says that moral judgments are expressions of desire-like attitudes, rather than true/false assertions of fact. This straightforwardly explains why it would be odd for a person to judge something to be morally right or wrong and then be indifferent towards it.

For simple moral utterances like "Slapping children is wrong" or "You ought to watch out for pedestrians," it can make sense to understand these as expressions of attitudes. The big problem for expressivism is explaining what's going on in other sorts of moral utterances like:

• Is it wrong to slap children?
• If it's wrong to slap children, then it's wrong for my neighbor to slap her son.
• Either it's wrong to slap children, or I've been misinformed.

These sure seem to involve true/false logic! While some expressivists have tried to show that appearances are deceiving and these sentences don't — after all — involve true/false logic, others have embraced a hybrid view which includes both the expression of attitudes and some true/false logic in the meaning of moral language.

Daniel Boisvert's Expressive-Assertivism is one of these hybrid forms of expressivism.¹ It was inspired, of all things, by the way ethnic slurs work (which I'll explain as I go over the three core features of Expressive-Assertivism).

First Core Feature: Dual-Use Principle

In normal circumstances, a person who speaks a simple moral sentence like "Slapping children is wrong" is performing two distinct speech acts (two "direct illocutionary acts"). One speech act is expressive and the other is assertive.

Likewise, the simple use of an ethnic slur "John is chink" simultaneously asserts something about John (that he's of Chinese descent) and expresses contempt for people of Chinese descent.

Second Core Feature: Extensionality Principle

In normal circumstances, a person who uses moral terms in any so-called extensional context still performs the same kind of expressive speech act as in simple moral sentences. The three "problem" sentences above are examples of extensional contexts, but "wrong" in "Lisa thinks that slapping children is wrong" is in an intensional context which falls outside the scope of this core feature.

The hateful attitude expression is still present when people use slurs in sentences like "Is John a chink?" and "Either John is a chink, or I've been misinformed." And notice how it's the same sort of contempt for people of Chinese descent we saw in the simple case.

Third Core Feature: Generality Principle

In normal circumstances, the expressive speech act is not aimed directly at the object of moral judgment, but at everything in a broader category.

Using the word "chink" normally expresses a contempt for all people of Chinese descent. This is why the negative attitude expression is still at full force when John's membership in the hated category is uncertain.

Solving 'The Moral Problem'

Michael Smith famously characterizes the central problem of metaethics as finding a way to show that the following two propositions "are both consistent and true" with regard to each other and with a Humean theory of motivation:

1. Moral judgments of the form 'It is right that I φ' express a subject's beliefs about an objective matter of fact, a fact about what it is right for her to do.

2. If someone judges that it is right that she φs, then ceteris paribus, she is motivated to φ.²

Expressive-Assertivism provides an account for both elements. The assertive speech act concerns the "objective matter of fact" of whether the judged action, practice, etc. has a certain property. The expressive speech act directed at all things which have that property explains an individual's motivation.

It also helps that the way Expressive-Assertivism goes about solving the moral problem is so similar to the way another kind of value judgement — the ethnic slur — plausibly works.

Answering the Objection from Missing Expressives

These next three sections break what is commonly known as the Frege-Geach problem (aka the embedding problem) into three more specific objections.

The 'missing expressives' objection concerns sentences like:

If it's wrong to slap children, then it's wrong for my neighbor to slap her son.

where it may seem like the speaker can't be expressing his own attitude at that moment. At least not like someone who says "Slapping children is wrong." But Expressive-Assertivism explains both cases as expressions of attitude toward things that are wrong in general (whatever 'wrong' means). This is the Generality Principle at work. Just because a speaker isn't sure whether an action or a person belongs to a despised category, doesn't mean his use of moral language (or the language of ethnic slurs) is expressive free.

In short, the expressives are there. They're just aimed more broadly.

Answering the Objection from Incomplete Semantics

Simple versions of expressivism run into trouble when they claim sentences like "Slapping children is wrong" only expresses an attitude, because this leaves at least some of the meaning of "slapping children is wrong" unexplained in sentences that start "If slapping children is wrong, then ...."

Compare:

[expression of attitude].

with

If [expression of attitude], then ....

What the heck is the second kind of sentence supposed to mean? Happily, this isn't such a problem for Expressive-Assertivism since the true/false 'assertive' component makes normal sense in an 'if..then' context. A full reading with a reduction of 'wrong' might go something like this:

If slapping children is harmful on balance [expression of negative attitude toward things that are harmful on balance], then ...

I should be clear that Expressive-Assertivism as a theory doesn't have anything to say about whether wrongness is a property that can be reduced like this. A philosopher who agrees with G.E. Moore about moral properties being indefinable can adopt Expressive-Assertivism. She would just have the usual issue of explaining why we have strong attitudes toward such properties.

Answering the Objection from the Ambiguity of Attitude-Attribution Verbs

Consider these two sentences:

Sarah believes that her brother pickpockets.
Sarah believes that pickpocketing is wrong.

The first sentence attributes a true/false belief to Sarah. Under simple expressivism, the second sentence could only attribute an attitude to Sarah. But it would be odd if the phrase "believes that" is associated with true/false belief unless it's followed by ethical vocabulary.

As a hybrid theory, Expressive-Assertivism's account of the two sentences isn't quite so disparate, but the objection could still be pressed by saying it would be odd for "believes that" to only attribute a true/false belief, unless followed by ethical vocabulary in which case an attitude attribution is suddenly tacked on.

Boisvert responds by saying "believes that" attributes a psychological state potentially composed of both true/false belief and attitude to the subject. The same psychological state, in fact, that a person normally possesses when they utter just the clause after "believes that."

For example, when Sarah says "Pickpocketing is wrong" she would normally hold an attitude toward things that are wrong and also hold a true/false belief that pickpocketing fits in that category. If Jack says "Sarah believes that pickpocketing is wrong" then he would be attributing both the belief and the attitude to Sarah as part of her overall psychological state (try removing either element and Jack's claim is weaker than we normally understand it). Here's the key point: if Jack says "Sarah believes that her brother pickpockets" then Jack is still attributing a psychological state to Sarah, even if the state happens to lack an attitude component.

In programming terms, Boisvert would be saying "believes that" is like a single function which takes a structure rather than a simple variable as an argument. It wouldn't be like multiple, overloaded functions as the objection alleges. (I hope at least one person finds this analogy helpful!)

Wrapping Up

Expressive-Assertivism has two more attractive features covered in Boisvert's paper which I won't elaborate on: "it holds that the descriptive content of moral sentences is non speaker-relative" and "it is consistent with, but is not forced to accept, minimalism about truth."

Overall, I think Expressive-Assertivism is on the right track. Not surprising since I intentionally set out looking for something like it because I've held a rough kind of hybrid expressivist view for a while and knew someone had to be advocating a theory in the neighborhood. Boisvert isn't the only one working on hybrid theories, so you can expect to see more comparing and contrasting from me in the near future.

Added: "Near" turned out not to be so near. I still plan on getting back to this topic eventually.


1. Boisvert, D.R. (2008). Expressive-assertivism. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly. 89(2). p. 169-203. [direct link]
2. Smith, M. (1994). The moral problem. Oxford: Blackwell. p. 184.

Lingo: Locutionary, Illocutionary, and Perlocutionary Acts

John: "Darling, do you want to go out to the show tonight?"

Laura: "I'm feeling ill."

John: "That's ok. You stay there and I'll make soup."

Notice how Laura didn't respond to John's question by saying, "No, I don't want to go out to the show tonight." What she actually said — her locutionary act — was "I'm feeling ill."

An illocutionary act is what a person does in saying something else. Locution is speech. In-locution (in speaking) becomes il-locution through phonetic assimilation. In saying that she feels ill, Laura was telling John that she doesn't want go out.

Beyond communicating the state of her health and the answer to John's question, Laura accomplished one more thing through saying "I'm feeling ill." She got John to make her some soup. A perlocutionary act (per-locutionary, through speaking) is focused on the response others have to a speech act.

These terms from J.L. Austin's 1962 book How to Do Things with Words are used extensively in philosophical literature today. And in fiction, having a character who is deaf to the illocutionary force of language is always good comedy.

Words Defined by Words Alone

In Chapter Three of The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood, Gleick (2011) wrote:

The dictionary ratifies the persistence of the word. It declares that the meanings of words come from other words. It implies that all words, taken together, form an interlocking structure: interlocking, because all words are defined in terms of other words. This could never have been an issue in an oral culture, where language was barely visible. Only when printing—and the dictionary—put the language into separate relief, as an object to be scrutinized, could anyone develop a sense of word meaning as interdependent and even circular. Words had to be considered as words, representing other words, apart from things. (p. 66)

This passage had the unintended effect of moving me farther away from Gleick's views than I was before reading it. It's an old rule to "define" words by using any other words but the one currently being defined, and a synonym for "definition" is "meaning," so it can be easy to think that some correct string of other words is what constitutes the meaning of a word. Gleick carries this to the conclusion that any given word only has meaning by virtue of other words which themselves only have meaning by still more words, or maybe the original word. He considers this as an insight gained through literacy and dictionary making; preliterate people simply weren't in a good position to notice that word meaning arises from a network map of individually meaningless words.

I consider this sort of view an illustrative overreaction to the crude philosophy of language that all words stand directly for things. Gleick would have us believe, instead, that all words stand for words. Not only would this fail to hook up to the world of things, it fails to hook up with the world of ideas. (At least, any ideas which can't be captured by graph theory.) A moderate take is that perhaps some words stand only for words or only for things, but many words stand for ideas. If I want to convey a certain idea to you, I select words intended to evoke that idea — or a similar enough idea — in your mind when you hear my speech or read my writing.

What are dictionary entries under this moderate view? Acts of communication. Dictionary writers are trying to evoke the ideas which are usually intended to be evoked by the use of a word. A good dictionary definition does two things: it correctly identifies the list of commonly-intended ideas behind the use of a word, and it successfully communicates these ideas to dictionary readers. Dictionaries may be artifacts of literate culture, but I would find it very hard to believe everyone waited for dictionaries to be invented before thinking to ask speakers for clarification of strange words. So under the moderate view, an analogue of dictionary use was probably already happening in oral culture. I suspect the major difference in written dictionaries is that authors were expected to define common words, and may have found unexpected challenges in that task.


Gleick, J. (2011). The information: A history, a theory, a flood. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.

Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom

The fields of Knowledge Management, Information Systems, and Information Science use a theoretical model called the knowledge hierarchy, the information pyramid, the DIKW model, and several other mix-and-match terms along these lines. Not only the name of the model but the details of the model itself change significantly depending on who is teaching it,¹ so it would be more accurate to say it's a family of models.

Three core features of these models:

• Data, information, and knowledge are distinct concepts (as opposed to synonyms).
• Information is higher-level than data. Knowledge is higher-level than information.
• There is at least one more level above knowledge.

From what I can tell, the relationship between data and information is the most common focus of this theorizing, with less agreement on what knowledge is and how it's supposed to relate to information, and even less agreement beyond that.

Data vs. Information

There is a lot of emphasis on the etymology of "data" as something which is "given"; it's there from the start and needs to be processed, refined, selected, vetted, etc. in order to produce information. A common analogy is the refining of pure metals (information) from ore (data). Sure, someone had to mine the ore or collect the data, but it's only useful as raw material for the process of creating information.

Problems with Data vs. Information

"Data" and "information" are both common words in non-technical English which don't convey the kind of sharp contrast used in DIKW models. We can already talk about "raw data" as opposed to "processed data" or "organized data." There's nothing odd about using "personal information" to refer to a Social Security Number, though this would fall under the data category in many DIKW models.

Considering (1) these are fairly close synonyms in non-technical English, and (2) the important distinction captured by DIKW's contrast of data vs. information can be conveyed by a variety of evocative phrases like "raw data" vs. "processed data," I argue that re-using these words in a technical sense muddies up communication without a good reason.

Plus, one person's given data is another's processed data. For example, the global average temperature in 1845 may look like a simple point of data to someone collecting such numbers for use in climate research. But that number has a complex origin story involving instrument calibration, tree ring measurements, statistical analysis, etc. There isn't a natural distinction between input stuff and output stuff when data/information is so often processed in an iterative or recursive way.

Information vs. Knowledge

According to different versions of DIKW, knowledge concerns the application of information, or "know-how" as opposed to "know-what," or expertise that exists within a human being, or an understanding of how different kinds of information relate. I'm seeing all sorts of ideas here, usually (but not always) about the transition from inert facts to taking action.

A Problem with Information vs. Knowledge

In non-technical English and in mainstream philosophy of knowledge, we do understand that what we know — or at least what we believe — has a profound effect on the way we take action, but also that knowledge is more-or-less inert before adding motivation or goals. "The application of knowledge" is synonymous with "the application of information."

The most charitable way I can see knowledge working as a "next step" to information is to focus on the implication that knowledge is internal to a decision-maker. The word "information" seems to more easily allow disembodiment; but then again, we don't think it strange to point at shelves of books and talk about "all that knowledge."

Overlapping Meanings, Not Hierarchy

You may have figured out by now that I'm not a fan of the DIKW hierarchy. I believe its success is due to the way it suggests new value or new information can be added to existing data/information/knowledge by doing some work with it. Information professionals would, of course, want to promote this general idea. It is an important idea!

However, the DIKW hierarchy doesn't seem to reflect either the common usage of its terms or how the world works. Nor are the technical uses of its terms well-defined enough to let professionals in these fields communicate precise concepts without further clarification. Its vices outweigh its virtues as a conceptual model.

If someone could come up with a catchy way (besides a pyramid chart) to convey the key idea about adding value through working with information, I think we could manage to do away with DIKW.


1. Rowley, J. (2007). The wisdom hierarchy: representations of the DIKW hierarchy. Journal of Information Science, 33(2), 163-80.

Metaethics Summary

I've added a My Metaethics link to the sidebar. Hopefully this will serve as a quick introduction to my views on the nature of moral judgments. Might footnote it up a bunch later.

And if you haven't noticed it yet, farther down the sidebar there is a new external link to the Directory of Open Access Journals' category on philosophy.

Objective Moral Facts vs. Objectively Moral Facts

Having a rule capable of kicking out "right" or "wrong" for any particular act (cross-culturally, across time, no matter who is appraising the situation, etc.) is not sufficient to demonstrate the sort of objective morality that skeptics are skeptical about.

It's one thing to say, "Here's an objective fact; this sort of fact is what morality is about; so here's an objective moral fact." It's quite another to uniquely justify the middle step of saying what morality is about. Some examples...

Objective fact: Action X increases overall suffering in the world.
Middle step: Moral wrongness consists in increasing overall suffering in the world.
Conclusion: Action X is objectively morally wrong.

Objective fact: Action X would not be effective if everyone acted similarly.
Middle step: Moral wrongness consists in doing what would be ineffective if everyone acted similarly.
Conclusion: Action X is objectively morally wrong.

Objective fact: Action X is forbidden by God.
Middle step: Moral wrongness consists in doing what is forbidden by God.
Conclusion: Action X is objectively morally wrong.

Objective fact: Action X is out of line with God's nature.
Middle step: Moral wrongness consists in doing what is out of line with God's nature.
Conclusion: Action X is objectively morally wrong.

Objective fact: Action X goes against the overall desires of the person performing it.
Middle step: Moral wrongness consists in going against one's own overall desires.
Conclusion: Action X is objectively morally wrong.

Objective fact: Action X shortens the life expectancy of the person performing it.
Middle step: Moral wrongness consists in shortening one's own life expectancy.
Conclusion: Action X is objectively morally wrong.

Objective fact: Action X is done out of ill will.
Middle step: Moral wrongness consists in acting out of ill will.
Conclusion: Active X is objectively morally wrong.

Moral skeptics don't typically question the facts in the first lines above (except maybe the God ones). Instead, we question whether there is an additional objective fact that makes one "middle step" true and the others false.

P.S. — I wrote this post after reading the Sep/Oct 2011 Philosophy Now article "Our Morality: A Defense of Moral Objectivism." It's a defense of objectivism which doesn't seem to do much more than affirm metaethical relativism. But if you do get a chance to read it and disagree, let me know.

P.P.S. — Some of the above uses of 'objective' are questionable, but they're questionable in the direction of being too inclusive for objectivity so it's not a rounding error in my favor.

The Establishment Clause

Time to take a break from summarizing ACLU policies. The policy guide is due today and I don't intend to check it back out for a while. (If you're wondering, I did get through roughly 40% of the guide by number of pages, not counting the internal ACLU policies I don't intend to cover anyway.)

Instead, I would like to explain one major point of disagreement I have with the ACLU.

Establishment Clause → Non-Endorsement

First I want to make it clear that I agree with the ACLU when it comes to interpreting the Establishment Clause as a ban on the government endorsing a particular religion or religion over non-religion. At least I believe it does now that the Bill of Rights has been largely understood as affirming individual rights against the government as a whole (thanks to Incorporation).

Even if there does turn out to be a flaw in such legal reasoning, I still wholeheartedly support the principle of government neutrality toward religious beliefs.

Non-Endorsement → Exclusion on the Basis of Religion

The ACLU overcorrects by insisting that non-endorsement requires that no public funds go to religious groups. Take the issue of school vouchers, for example. Here is a recent and typical formulation of the ACLU's stance:

This is not to say that parents don't have the right to provide their children with a religious education. The principles of religious liberty protect the rights of those who wish to observe their faith as they see fit. What these legal precepts should not allow, however, is for a religious education to be provided at taxpayer expense.¹

I believe what's happening here is that the ACLU (rightly) understands that public funds going to religious organizations is often a bad means to the end of religious freedom, but failing to notice that it can be a neutral or good means to the end of religious freedom.

In the case of vouchers, the government would not be favoring one kind of religion over another, or religion over non-religion. The entirety of that kind of choices would lie with parents. So the money and the endorsement come apart in this situation, nullifying the usual grounds for objecting to public funds going to religious organizations.

I'll go one step farther. Imagine if voucher programs were implemented but parents were not allowed to choose otherwise-acceptable religious schools, simply because of the religious element. Wouldn't this discrimination be a clear violation of the Free Exercise clause?

By the way, why does the ACLU keep mentioning a "right" for parents to send their children to religious schools, while admitting poor parents might not have the ability to do so?

Freedom of religion does not extend so far that parents may withdraw children from classes which they feel conflict with their religious principles, even when they cannot practically avail themselves of the right to send their children to private schools.²

Can we infer that poor defendants have a "right" to counsel, but that it's acceptable for them to lack counsel because they can't afford attorney fees?

1. http://www.aclu.org/blog/religion-belief/school-vouchers-inflict-more-harm-good
2. American Civil Liberties Union (1986-1995). Policy guide of the american civil liberties union. New York, New York: ACLU. Policy 86. p. 168.

On 'Moral Facts Naturally Exist (And Science Could Find Them)' (Pt. 2)

In my last post, I sketched Richard Carrier's moral philosophy. Today I will explain my primary reservation, but first I want to point out several areas of agreement. Like Carrier, I...

• believe morality is concerned with hypothetical imperatives.
• accept a Humean theory of reasons, i.e. what a person has reason to do is dependent on that person's psychology.
• accept the theory of action that a rational person will always try to fulfill her highest-priority desires, according to the information she has.
• agree that science — broadly construed — is vital in finding out the rightness or wrongness of an action.

This definitely puts us in the same neighborhood of metaethics-ville. Carrier characterizes moral facts as objective and his view as realist (by denying the contraries); I quibble with that, but only because I would label the same things differently. Not a big deal.

'Ought' and Internalism

When Carrier defends his view that moral imperatives are a class of hypothetical imperatives, he admits this is an unpopular view among philosophers. "But," he says, "none have ever presented any other identifiable logical relation that can ever be meant by 'ought' (or any other term or phrase semantically equivalent to it) that produces any actual claim to our obedience."¹

This close association of morality, the meaning of 'ought,' and motivational internalism rests at the very beginning of Carrier's chain of deductive logic in the appendix following the chapter. Here are the first three lines, with variables expanded:

1.1 If there is <a moral system>, then <a moral system> is <a system of imperatives that supersede all other imperatives>.
1.2 If <a moral system> is <a system of imperatives that supersede all other imperatives>, then <a moral system> is <what we ought to obey over all other imperative systems (whether they are labeled moral or not)>.
1.3 <what we ought to obey over all other imperative systems (whether they are labeled moral or not)> is <that which we have a sufficiently motivating reason to obey over all other imperative systems>.²

Throughout the chapter, Carrier uses the phrases "what we in actual fact ought to do" and "what we as a matter of actual fact ought most to do" as synonyms, and contrasts this with "other things that carry no sufficient motivating reason for us to do them instead".³ You may recognize this as a strong form of motivational internalism, i.e. recognized moral facts necessarily provide some motivation or — in strong form — overriding motivation.

I think Carrier has a good point that if we start by insisting on internalism, then it's hard to see how moral facts could originate from anywhere but a person's own desires; and if we insist on strong internalism, how they could originate from anywhere but what a person desires most. Or consider a reasons-based version of internalism: a person always has some reason or overriding reason to act morally. If having a reason requires having some appropriate desire — which I affirm — then we're back to the same spot.

'Ought' Externalism

Contrary to Carrier, I hold that sentences like "Michael ought to contribute to UNICEF" or "Josephine ought not fire her pistol into the air when she celebrates" can represent true propositions even if Michael and Josephine happen to lack appropriate desires.

This means I deny (1.3). I'll make this denial punchier: it can be true that we have no reason to do what we ought to do.

How can I get away with saying this? Because I believe the word 'ought' requires an end (or goal) to complete its meaning and make it eligible for being true or false. At the same time, it doesn't require that anyone's desires be a certain way. The logical relation signified by 'ought' works something like this:

Michael ought_{[some end]} to contribute to UNICEF.

or more specifically:

In order that [some end], it ought to be the case that Michael contributes to UNICEF.

The claim being made is that — among the relevant actions open to Michael — the one most likely to precede [some end] is that he contributes to UNICEF. (The 'ought' in the more specific parsing is a non-normative probability 'ought,' like "It ought to rain before midnight." I'm following Stephen Finlay's reductive analysis of normative 'oughts' into non-normative 'oughts' plus ends, which is motivated by making sense of normative language in general.)⁴

Really, though, I just want to drive home the point that 'ought' claims have a gap if you listen for it.

We're normally very adept at filling the gap from context and so we don't notice there ever was a gap. For example, "You ought to eat two cups of green vegetables per week" in typical contexts would suggest a health-related end. In a conversation about minimizing risk for liver cancer, we would fill in the more specific end of minimizing risk of liver cancer. At that point, we have a quite specific claim which is open to empirical investigation.

You ought_{that you minimize your risk of liver cancer} to eat two cups of green vegetables per day.

or

In order that [you minimize your risk of liver cancer], it ought to be the case that you eat two cups of green vegetables per day.

Notice something else: the truth or falsity of this 'ought' claim does not depend on having actual or ideal desires about minimizing the risk of liver cancer.

Laying Claim to Our Obedience

What I'm saying is that true 'ought' statements don't necessarily lay claim to a person's obedience. Some do, because they connect with a person's desires, and this makes them the only imperatives important to that person, in a relevant sense.

I understand the phrases "there is a reason" and "Josephine has a reason" to reflect this distinction. There may be a reason for Josephine to not fire her pistol in the air when she celebrates (it might cause far more suffering than the joy she gains), but if she lacks certain desires she might not have a reason to refrain from pulling the trigger.

Carrier could grant all of the above, adjust his argument a bit, and still identify moral imperatives as imperatives which are both (1) true and (2) matter to a person by virtue of that person's desires. What I'm challenging in this post is the assertion that what a person "in actual fact ought to do" necessarily corresponds with what that person has motivating reason to do.

In other words, Carrier can't simply rule out other (i.e. externalist) uses of 'ought' as invalid. He needs to show that his moral theory is a better solution to metaethics in some way other than winning by default.

...

I may eventually follow up this post with my take on other parts of his overall moral theory, but this will do for now.

ADDED:  A followup on the same topic is here.


1. Carrier, R. (2011). Moral facts naturally exist (and science could find them). In Loftus, J.W. (Ed.), The end of christianity (pp. 333-358). Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books. p. 342
2. Ibid. p. 359
3. Ibid. p. 348
4. Finlay, S. (2009). Oughts and ends. In Philosophical studies, 143(3). pp 315-340. See my post on it.

On 'Moral Facts Naturally Exist (And Science Could Find Them)' (Pt. 1)

This chapter by Richard Carrier comes at the end of The End of Christianity. So far, it's the only chapter I have read because I'm much more interested in popular essays on metaethics than the (anti) religious theme of this anthology.

Can science discover moral facts?

Carrier is following Sam Harris' lead by putting this provocative claim in the title, and — like Harris — doing some philosophy first to analytically reduce moral facts to scientifically-accessible components. So the really controversial steps are philosophical rather than scientific.

I'm familiar with moral philosophy. Give me the short version!

Moral facts are whichever hypothetical imperatives correspond to an individual's deepest desires. Human-universal moral facts exist because all humans share a set of deepest desires. Since science can investigate both hypothetical imperatives and desires, science can discover human-universal moral facts.

What makes 'ought' claims true?

Let's start by looking at conditional 'ought' claims (aka hypothetical imperatives).

If you want to wake up in time for work, you ought to set an alarm clock.
If you want your car to stay put, you ought not park in a tow-away zone.
If you want to become a doctor, you ought to study diligently.

So if I really do want to become a doctor and there really is this connection between studying diligently and becoming a doctor, then I really ought to study diligently. Carrier points out that both of these prerequisites are open to scientific investigation. "And wherever both are an empirically demonstrated fact, the imperative they entail is an empirically demonstrated fact."¹ This means that science can discover 'ought' facts, not just 'is' facts.

What makes an 'ought' claim a moral 'ought' claim?

The majority view has been that moral 'oughts' are different from the above kind of 'oughts' because they're not conditional on what a person wants. Carrier disagrees on the grounds that any system of imperatives which doesn't line up with what a person most wants can't count as morality, because that person will "have a better reason to do something else instead."²

Instead of viewing morality as something that stands in opposition to our desires, morality has to do with what fulfills our deepest desires. It's just that, sometimes, we're mistaken about what promotes our own deepest desires. "What we really want most, and what will really obtain that, are matters of fact that cannot truly be answered from the armchair. Empirical methods must be deployed to ascertain and verify them. Only science has the best tools to do this."³

Doesn't this make morality an individual thing?

Even if morality is grounded on the individual level, there may still be universal moral facts if some moral facts apply to every individual. (Or at least human-universal moral facts if all humans share some moral facts.) Carrier argues that it's likely all humans have the same set of deepest desires.

"Only if what an individual wants most (when rational and sufficiently informed) is not the same as for everyone else will this not be the case. Then, a different set of moral facts will be true for them (yet even then true moral facts still exist, they are just again relative to different groups or individuals.) But that outcome is very improbable for members of the same species."⁴

Carrier's justification for this statement is hard to follow, but it goes something like this:

Humans share many biological facts, and these facts generate a hierarchy of high-order desires that we're stuck with, i.e. we can't just change them without altering our natural humanity. "For example: we all need to eat, breathe, move, think, and cooperate and socialize with a community[....]"⁵ The way these fundamental desires play out for individuals may differ, but we share our most basic biological needs.

Biological differences among humans aren't sufficient to change these high-order desires, at least not without extreme genetic mutation.

Environmental differences only make a difference in how our fundamental human desires play out. Same algorithm; different results. If I had lived life in your shoes, I would want most the things you want most.

So, ultimately, only our shared human biology determines our high-order/foundational/deepest desires, which in turn determine what is morally right for all of us in general terms, and what is right for each of us when applied to our individual situations. To use one of Carrier's examples, we all have fundamental desires to eat and to avoid pointless harm, which might make it morally right for me to eat strawberries but morally right for you to avoid eating strawberries because you're allergic to them; we're both following the same basic imperatives of eating and avoiding pointless harm, which means there is no real difference in moral facts here.

...

To review, Carrier believes moral facts are open to scientific inquiry because his metaethics reduce moral facts to facts about the effectiveness of means to ends (hypothetical imperatives) and psychology (what a person most fundamentally desires). This would be enough to explain how moral facts "naturally exist" and how "science could find them," but he goes one step farther and argues that humanity shares one set of moral facts.

Carrier's chapter is followed by an appendix containing, as he puts it: "formal deductive proofs of every one of these conclusions, fully verifying that they are necessarily true."⁶ I appreciate his boldness! Still, I disagree with his moral philosophy at several points, as I will explain in the next post [which is here, but only covers one point of disagreement].


1. Carrier, R. (2011). Moral facts naturally exist (and science could find them). In Loftus, J.W. (Ed.), The end of christianity (pp. 333-358). Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books. p. 335
2. ibid. p. 343 
3. ibid. p. 342 
4. ibid. p. 351 
5. ibid. p. 352 
6. ibid. p. 334

Words and Things without Ideas

How do words and phrases like "Mars," "the first President of the United States," and "Dante Shepherd" mean what they do? A popular first answer is that they mean what they do because they each stand for a particular thing. The notion these kinds of words are just labels for things is called the Theory of Reference for definite descriptions.

Following William Lycan's Philosophy of Language: a Contemporary Introduction, I will describe four puzzles which make the Theory of Reference appear untenable.

Puzzle #1 — Apparent Reference to Nonexistents

Zaphod Beeblebrox is two-headed.

How can "Zaphod Beeblebrox" have meaning by standing in for something, if that 'something' doesn't exist? Lycan puts this intuition more explicitly (paraphrasing a bit):

I. The sentence above is meaningful.
II. The sentence above is in subject-predicate form.
III. A meaningful subject-predicate sentences is meaningful only because it refers to something then ascribes a quality to it.
IV. "Zaphod Beeblebrox" doesn't refer to anything that exists.
V. Given II through IV, the sentence above isn't meaningful...or it refers to something that doesn't exist.
VI. If something doesn't exist, it's impossible to refer to it.

One of the points from I to VI must be false. (Which would you challenge?)

Puzzle #2 — Negative Existentials

The Lemurian civilization never existed.

Assuming this is true, how could it be a true, meaningful sentence under the Theory of Reference? The sentence explicitly denies the existence of the very thing it is supposedly pointing at and talking about, so to speak.

Puzzle #3 — Identity

Howard O'Brien is Anne Rice.

If the Theory of Reference were correct, this should be a very boring, trivial, non-informative kind of statement along the lines of the equation x = x. There sure seems to be more information here than that! Probably even a commentary on her parents' psychology.

Puzzle #4 — Substitutivity 

Debra Morgan knows that the Bay Harbor Butcher dismembers bodies.

Since Dexter Morgan is the Bay Harbor Butcher, it should be possible to substitute referentially equivalent words without changing the meaning.

Debra Morgan knows that Dexter Morgan dismembers bodies.

But she doesn't know this, at least not in the episodes I've seen. The two sentences obviously have very different meanings if one is true and the other false! (Leaving aside the question of whether facts about fictional characters are genuinely true, since real life cases are possible.)

Now What?

The Theory of Reference is nice and simple, but doesn't work out. There are other theories which do a better job of capturing what we mean by 'meaning.' I don't think any of them has universal support among philosophers (what does?). And of course there's always the possibility our notion of 'meaning' isn't neat, so we can't ever capture it neatly.

On 'Slaves of the Passions'

Mark Schroeder's book, Slaves of the Passions, defends the idea that all reasons are dependent on the psychological features of those to whom they are reasons.

To use his central example, picture Ronnie (who likes to dance) and Bradley (who doesn't even like to be around dancing). Both are invited to a party where dancing will definitely be going on. If you agree the fact that there will be dancing at the party is a reason for Ronnie to attend and a reason for Bradley to avoid attending, then you're on board with the intuition that at least some reasons are explained by psychological differences.

The controversial move is to try explaining all reasons in the same way. In its most general form, Schroeder characterizes this Humean Theory of Reasons¹ as a "parity thesis," which only insists that whatever the difference is between Ronnie and Bradley that constitutes a difference in reasons...that's what constitutes a difference in all reasons. Specific versions of the Humean Theory of Reasons (HTR) may advance different theories about what the difference actually is.

Why make a big deal out of distinguishing general from substantive theories?

1. Past critics of the HTR have tended to challenge some substantive theory while believing they were challenging the general theory.
2. Schroeder offers his own substantive theory, Hypotheticalism, which supposedly dodges historical criticisms. But of course he doesn't want anyone to think discrediting Hypotheticalism would automatically discredit the HTR.

Well, Not THOSE Reasons

The HTR is concerned with normative reasons rather than explanatory reasons.

Explanatory reasons — The reason my car won't start is that it has a dead battery.
Normative reasons — Graduate school requirements are a reason to maintain a high undergrad GPA.

Schroeder makes a further distinction within normative reasons, producing what he (somewhat reluctantly) labels objective normative reasons and subjective normative reasons. This distinction is based on whether the reason applies whatever a person's beliefs may be (objective) or applies because of a person's beliefs regardless of what is actually true (subjective).

Suppose I take a pill I believe is aspirin, but is actually poison. I probably don't have an objective normative reason to take the pill, but if I have a headache it seems right to say I had a reason of some kind to do so. Subjective reasons, Schroeder suggests, are normative reasons which would be objective normative reasons if the person's relevant beliefs were true.

So the two basic kinds of reasons turn out to be explanatory reasons and objective normative reasons, with the HTR aiming at the latter category.² It would be nice to unify these two senses, as Stephen Finlay does for normative and non-normative senses of 'ought,'³ but Schroeder points out difficulties rather than a solution for doing this.⁴

Winning the Intuition War

Or rather, not losing the intuition war. Slaves of the Passions is primarily about rescuing the HTR from disrepute by showing that supposedly knock-down arguments are weak or off-target. I may examine a few of these arguments in the future.

Today I want to take a step back and ask, "What makes a theory of reasons a good theory?" Avoiding incoherence is a start, but philosophers are exceptionally skilled at figuring out how things aren't necessarily incoherent. It's a low bar.

I'm tempted to say that a good theory of reasons provides the simplest possible explanation of our talk about 'reasons.' This is the sort of thing Paul Ziff did in his book Semantic Analysis when he analyzed 'good' as meaning "answering to certain interests."⁵ Schroeder's chapter on normative reduction makes it clear he's trying to say something about the metaphysics of reasons, not just something about English and other languages which might have similar semantic patterns. And a vital way to test the metaphysical correctness of theories about reasons is to check the intuitive data.

For to the extent that a Humean is willing to admit to accepting results that are intuitively false, other philosophers are going to legitimately infer that he has simply changed the subject, and is talking about something else entirely.⁶

This plays out in a pair of chapters alleging that the HTR wrongly calls things reasons which are not reasons...and wrongly denies that things are reasons which are reasons. For example, Schroeder's substantive theory generates the seemingly ridiculous result that I have a reason to eat my car. This would seem to put him in a bind. How can he make make intuitive acceptability a necessary criterion for theories of reasons, yet support a theory with such an unintuitive result?

What I will now do is explain why our negative existential intuitions about reasons are prone to be misleading in this way. The explanation comes in two steps, each of which yields a testable empirical prediction. So I'll then proceed to test these predictions.⁷

I was excited; empirical predictions! No need to rely on intuitions about a metaphysical issue. ...except the empirical tests turned out to be tests of intuitions.

Prediction one: When Schroeder explains that the reason for me to eat my car is that it "contains the recommended daily allowance of iron," it becomes somewhat less unintuitive.
Prediction two: When Schroeder explains that this reason is a terribly weak reason, the unintuitive level drops again.

The lesson here is that initially unintuitive results can be ok if reflecting on them can result in their looking not-so-bad after all. This is probably a good approach to take with people whose big hangup with the HTR is based on on negative intuitions. I don't think it appeals as much to people like me who have an intuitive affinity for the HTR but don't appreciate intuitive 'tests' of metaphysics. Then again, I'm not the sort of reader Schroeder needs to worry about.

Hypotheticalism

I may as well sketch the substantive version of the HTR featured in Slaves of the Passions, to keep anyone curious about that from feeling completely teased by the tangent I took in this post.

Revisiting the Ronnie and Bradley scenario, the fact that there will be dancing at the party is a reason for Ronnie to go to the party because (1) Ronnie desires that he dance and (2) the truth of the proposition there will be dancing at the party helps explain why Ronnie going to the party promotes Ronnie dancing. And if (1) or (2) didn't hold, then the fact that there will be dancing at the party would not be a reason for Ronnie to go. (As is the case for Bradley.)

Reasons depend on a person's desires and external facts about the world. It's important to notice that the only reason identified above is the fact of dancing at the party. This sets Hypotheticalism against other versions of the HTR which count desires as reasons for action (except in special cases where desires fill the role of the fact of dancing in the example above).

Although Hypotheticalism is intentionally constructed as an 'existence proof' of an intuitively viable form of the HTR, Schroeder usually goes back to the dancing scenario and argues that Hypotheticalism turns out to provide a more intuitive explanation of the Ronnie/Bradley difference than other versions of the HTR which are vulnerable to historical criticisms.

I'm definitely on board with the general HTR, and think the basic Hypotheticalist template is about right. Except by 'right' I mean as a concise explanation of how 'reasons' language is actually used, or as a minimally cleaned up version to achieve coherence. Schroeder's applications of Hypotheticalism to moral theory strike me as completely off the wall, but I realize he's trying to show that the range of Hypotheticalism is broad enough to allow for surprisingly Kantian strategies. So it's probably just my usual boggling at Kantians at work there.

1. In Book 2, Section 3, Part 3 of A Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume wrote: "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them." This passage inspired so-called Humean theories of reason and, obviously, this book's title.
2. I skipped over the category of 'motivating' reasons which Schroeder takes to be a combination of explanatory and subjective normative reasons. See p. 12.
3. See http://wordsideasandthings.blogspot.com/2010/12/on-oughts-and-ends.html
4. Schroeder, M. (2007). Slaves of the passions. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. p. 35-37.
5. Ziff, P. (1967). Semantic analysis. Ithica, New York: Cornell University Press.
6. Schroeder. p. 86
7. Ibid. p. 94

Scientific Method in Practice (Pt. 7)

In this series of posts, I'm re-reading Hugh G. Gauch, Jr.'s philosophy of science textbook Scientific Method in Practice (Google Books).

[Series Index]

Worldviews

The term 'worldview' has been defined in various ways, but essentially it has to do with beliefs about the fundamental nature of reality and one's place in it. It's a bit like 'religion,' but doesn't necessarily include divine spirits, and worldviews may be significantly different among people in the same overall religion. The idea that the world is getting better would be part of a worldview, as would the idea that the world is getting worse...or the idea that these labels are inappropriate. Worldviews may include both descriptive elements (the way things are) and normative elements (the way things ought to be). It's a very broad and loosely defined term that's used to indicate major differences in people's views of the world.

What relationship does science have with worldviews?

Let's look at two popular answers in western culture...

[T]he Christian worldview, which believes that God created the world with natural "laws" and orderliness, is what undergirds the entire scientific enterprise. For example, inductive reasoning and the scientific method are based on the assumption of the regularity of the laws of nature. This means that scientists assume that water will boil tomorrow under the identical conditions that it does today. Without this kind of regularity, we could not learn from experience, including the experiences of scientific testing. This also helps to explain why in cultures where creation is said to be an illusion or disorderly chaos because it was not created by an orderly God, the sciences have not historically flourished; indeed, the scientific method depends on the kind of underlying worldview that a creating and providentially ruling God of the Bible provides.¹

And...

Science in general does not so much reject the supernatural as ignore it. Science cannot incorporate the supernatural into its methodology; it could not function if it had to contend with occasional violations of natural law, but must instead assume that nature is regular and repeatable. This assumption is known as methodological naturalism. Methodological naturalism is not a choice; science cannot function if it is not empirical, that is, ultimately based on experiment and observation. Science necessarily restricts itself to purely naturalistic explanations.²

So in one answer, science must assume a certain kind of God created and rules over the physical world. In the other, science must assume everything that happens in the physical world has a non-supernatural explanation. I contend — along with Gauch — that both of these answers are wrong.

Necessary and Unnecessary Presuppositions

Instead of focusing on the differences in the two answers above, consider the common ground: an orderly physical world in which experience counts toward understanding how it functions. Sound familiar? This common ground matches the fundamental presupposition of science featured in Part 6 of this series:

The physical world is orderly and comprehensible.

Both answers above make the mistake of adding a reason why the physical world is orderly and comprehensible. The physical world could be orderly because an orderly God made it that way, or because an orderly nature explains it all. Either worldview can supply the necessary precondition.

In fact, most actual worldviews can. The real enemy to scientific method is not any popular worldview; it's radical skepticism. This might come in the form of philosophical worries about sense data being systematically unreliable, a religious conviction that God planted intentionally misleading evidence 'to test our faith,' or any other variant which goes against the fundamental scientific presupposition above.

In an excellent journal article on the topic, Gauch summarizes the dangers of putting worldview-specific restrictions on science:

Unnecessary presuppositions of science can hinder discussions of important issues from progressing, erode the proper influence of evidence, blur the distinction between presuppositions and conclusions, undermine science's status as a public endeavor, and pick needless fights regarding religions and worldviews.³

But methodological naturalism IS worldview neutral!

...or so the argument goes, usually from those who hold a naturalistic worldview. Since my own worldview is naturalistic, let me share a few considerations which changed my mind on this point.

• If Deism were true, i.e. if God created an orderly physical world and doesn't intervene further, there wouldn't necessarily be any way for us to find out. The world might be completely indistinguishable from a naturalistic world. Therefore, 'methodological Deism' could serve just as well as 'methodological naturalism.' Would naturalists accept this terminology as non-biased toward 'philosophical Deism,' the belief that Deism is true? I sure wouldn't.

• Conducting science under an 'as if' methodology produces 'as if' results. Anyone who doesn't accept naturalism — most of humanity! — would rightly question whether scientific results are true, or merely would be true if naturalism were true.

• It is more sensible to understand science's wariness about supernatural explanations as a matter of historical experience, not an in-principle exclusion. I highly recommend Boudry et al.'s paper on re-construing methodological naturalism in a defeasible role, rather than as a hard restriction on scientific method.⁴

Science is at its most universally relevant if the only presuppositions it needs are embraced by nearly everyone. Proponents of methodological naturalism have misidentified the (near) universal presupposition that the physical world is orderly and comprehensible as the (minority) belief that everything has a natural explanation. It may be true that everything has a natural explanation, but evidence used to argue for this conclusion must be gathered in a way that doesn't beg the question.


1. Driscoll, M. and Breshears, G. (2010). Doctrine: what christians should believe. Wheaton, IL: Crossway. p. 80
2. Young, M. and Strode, P.K. (2009). Why evolution works (and creationism fails). Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press. p. 40
3. Gauch, H. G., Jr. (2006). Science, worldviews and education. Science & education, 18(6). Also see the book of the same name.
4. Boudry, M., Blancke, S., and Braeckman, J. (2010). How not to attack intelligent design creationism: philosophical misconceptions about methodological naturalism. Foundations of science, 15(3). [copy here]