John G. Messerly's Blog, page 75

Summary of Existentialism

[We are] condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, [we are] responsible for everything [we do.] ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

Existentialism is a philosophical movement whose origins are in the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855) and the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900). Other major figures in the movement include: Karl Jaspers (1883 – 1969), Martin Heidegger (1899 – 1976), Albert Camus (1917-1960) and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 – 1980.) Existential philosophy is incredibly rich and diverse and its proponents include communists, socialists, atheists, theists, and nihilists. Despite this diversity, almost all existentialists share a few basic ideas that are relevant for our discussion.

Kierkegaard’s rejection of a “rational and philosophical” Christianity serves as a starting point for our deliberation. He believed that Christianity erred by trying to be reasonable, when it should be based on faith and trust. Faith isn’t a matter of affirming certain rational propositions, but of acting in a certain way. Kierkegaard made this point in his famous retelling of the biblical story of Abraham and his son Isaac. It wasn’t  reasonable for Abraham to sacrifice his son simply because God asked him to; instead, following his God’s orders was an act of faith. From an ethical point of view Abraham action was immoral, but for Kierkegaard faith and religion transcend reason and ethics.

These considerations lead to the first basic idea of existentialism: reason is an inadequate instrument with which to comprehend the depth, mystery, and meaning of life. Reason’s limitations were poignantly described by the Russian novelist Feodor Dostoyevsky who said that while reason satisfies our rational selves, desire is the real manifestation of life. But as we saw in the first chapter, Western philosophy began when the Greeks used reason to understand the world. Greek rationalism led to a search for the rational and objective foundations of knowledge, meaning, truth, and value.

The existentialists reject this tradition. They repudiate the abstract, obtuse, specialized, esoteric, and formal subtlety which divorces the intellect from life. They maintain that life isn’t an equation or riddle to be rationally resolved; it’s more of a mystery to be lived. Reason can’t resolve our most pressing existential concerns; for example, it can’t tell us the meaning of life. Theory, speculation, and metaphysical and moral abstraction are worth less than concrete reality. Thus existentialism emphasizes concrete, personal experience over rational abstractions. This is its second basic idea.

The emphasis on the concrete is captured in the existential dictum “existence precedes essence.” This means that we exist first, as particular, concrete, human subjects before we are defined by any universal, objective form or essence. Existence refers to ‘that a thing is,” while essence refers to “what a thing is.” For instance, the essence of the four-legged, tail-wagging thing we often see is “dogness.” That is what is! But the existentialist denies that there is any human nature or essence that tells us what we are or what we ought to do; rather, we exist first as concrete human subjects and then proceed to create our essence. Fate or a God don’t determine us, we determine ourselves. It is up to us whether we become saints or sinners, and moral theories can’t tell us what to do. Intellectual theories are too detached from life to provide guidance in our concrete lives. Theories may provide the rationale for human actions, but they can’t command our assent.

We can easily see how moral theories can’t make us do anything. The prescriptions of natural law, a social contract, the categorical imperative, or the net utility can’t command our conduct because we can always ask, “Why follow these theories?” Moral theories may define our moral duties and obligations, but they mean nothing without personal commitment. Action “x” may violate the natural law, the social contract, the categorical imperative, and the greatest happiness principle but, “so what?” That violation doesn’t tell us we shouldn’t do “x.” These theories assume ethics is objective, that some actions really are right or wrong.  By contrast, existentialism emphasizes the human subject as the only ultimate source of morality. Only when we commit ourselves to some course of action do we act as moral agents.

The emphasis on personal commitment brings us to a third basic idea of existentialism: human beings are radically free. We are the ones who create the meaning, truth, and value in our lives, and we are totally responsible for our lives. We often claim to be unable to do certain things, but in fact, we don’t do them because we don’t want to. If we wanted to do them we would. For instance, the fact that it’s wrong to steal doesn’t prevent us from doing it, only we can do that. True, we can’t do everything—we can’t fly—but we can choose from our available options and, in the process, create our selves. In summary, existentialism claims that:  Moral theories which derive from rational thinking are defective because they emphasize personal abstraction over experience, and they can’t account for the role that human freedom—manifested by personal commitment—plays in the moral domain.

Existentialism is a deep and rich philosophy which I urge my readers to further investigate.

Evolution, Ethics, Hope, and Religion

Trees and Bushes

There are many issues surrounding the connection between evolution and: progress, ethics, hope, or religion. For instance, some Darwinists and philosophers think of the evolution of species as progressive, that some animals have increased in complexity over time thus resulting in, for instance, bigger brains. But Darwin generally used the term “descent with modification” which doesn’t connate progress. And some Darwinists deny that species change is necessarily progressive. In fact, natural selection doesn’t imply that species are better, only that they are better adapted to their environment. More complex species may go extinct while simpler ones may survive. Evolution may not be like a tree sprouting upward, but more like a bush sprouting sideways.

Historical Progress

Turning to progress in human history, Kant, Hegel, Marx and other modern thinkers espoused progressive views of history that echoed the positive interpretations of history found in the Western monotheistic religions. But if we’ve generally lost hope in religious stories of progress, have we not also lost faith in secular progress as well? We may be becoming smarter or more moral, but then again we may not be.

Theism, Darwinism, or Both?

Evolution is so well confirmed that it is essentially a fact in the same way that the earth is round or goes around the sun. (Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or scientifically illiterate.) Still, many religious fundamentalists refuse to accept the science and prefer their creation myths. Somewhat more sophisticated believers suggest that their God didn’t create things literally, but used cosmic evolution to create us. (A strange way for an omnipotent being to proceed—taking about 14 billion years to complete the task!)

Others argue that biological evolution reduces us to being just animals. But Darwin didn’t draw that conclusion. We may be human-animals, but that doesn’t mean that ethical or aesthetic standards no longer apply to us. We are at least a special kind of animal. So even if we aren’t different in kind from our evolutionary ancestors, or there was no exact moment at which we did became different in kind from them, we are still vastly different from them now. So our values as persons needn’t be undermined by considerations of our origins.

Ethical Values and Evolution 

Religious objections to evolution emanate from concerns that evolution implies that values aren’t objective, or life no longer meaningful. But the fact that there are biological underpinnings to human altruism, doesn’t mean that altruism is reducible to biology. Our brain states affect our values, but our values also affect our brain states. So while there are many reasons to doubt the objectivity of ethics, facts about our origins aren’t one of them.  We can still choose our values independent of considerations of our origins, with the caveat that our origins still inform our ethical choices.

Evolution and Ethics

Man in his arrogance thinks himself worthy the interposition of a deity. More humble and I think truer to consider himself created from animals. ~ Charles Darwin

1. Darwin and Evolution

Charles Darwin (1809 -1882) was born into a wealthy and loving English family. His father was a physician who assumed his son would follow him into the profession but Darwin, squeamish at the site of blood, decided to study for the clergy at Cambridge. Darwin also had a great love for science and nature, and after graduation, he was offered a job as the naturalist aboard the H.M.S. Beagle, a ship that was to circumnavigate the globe. He was chosen because the captain, who couldn’t socialize with his crew, found Darwin amicable company. So Darwin decided to delay his entry into the clergy and embark on a five-year journey that provided few comforts and for which he had to pay his own way. His journey would change the world.

When Darwin began his journey in 1831 almost everyone assumed that the world was: 1) about six thousand years old; 2) geologically stable; and 3) designed by an omnipotent creator. But the time was ripe to challenge all of these hypotheses. Evolution had been discussed for nearly a hundred years—including by Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus Darwin—and the fossil evidence was already causing a stir, most notably due to the work of the geologist Sir Charles Lyell (1797 – 1875). In the course of his voyage, after observing and cataloging hundreds of species, a new idea slowly emerged in Darwin’s mind. His insight was based on four basic facts, and two inferences from those facts. Here is a brief sketch of the conceptual skeleton of his theorizing in The Origin of Species.

The first two facts come from population ecology: 1) all species have great potential fertility; their populations will increase exponentially if all that are born survive; and 2) natural resources are limited. Indebted to Thomas Malthus’ An Essay on the Principle of Population[image error], Darwin realized that in nature there is a fierce struggle for existence since natural resources can’t support all existent individuals. He then combined this logical inference with two facts from genetics: 1) individuals display variation; they aren’t exactly alike; and 2) these variations are inherited. From these facts Darwin inferred that, in the struggle for existence, some individuals will live longer, reproduce and pass their hereditary constitution on to future generations. This process is called natural selection. Thus: variation + inheritance + struggle for existence + natural selection = extinction or gradual change of species.

To better understand natural selection, consider artificial selection, which Darwin himself used to help explain his ideas. Almost everyone knows you breed specific types of animals to produce certain kinds of offspring. If you want a big dog, you mate big dogs, if you want a fast horse, you mate fast horses. Darwin knew that variations are inherited, but no one in the nineteenth-century understood the process by which hereditary information was transmitted. That would have to wait for Gregor Mendel and the science of genetics.

The modern theory of evolution resulted from one the greatest scientific achievements in human history, the Neo-Darwinian or modern synthesis of the 1930s and 1940s. It combined Darwinian natural selection with Mendelian genetics to form a more powerful theory. This theory was further solidified in 1952 with the discovery of DNA by Crick and Watson which led to an understanding of evolution at the molecular level.

Today, biological evolution is confirmed every single day in laboratories around the world, over and over again. Biological evolution, the idea that we share a common ancestry with all life, is now supported by a broad spectrum of sciences including, but not limited to: embryology, molecular biology, geology, chemistry, genetics, population ecology, ecology, zoology, botany, comparative anatomy, fossil evidence, and more. Evolutionary theory has the same scientific status as gravitational, atomic, quantum, or relativity theories. Simply stated, biological evolution is true beyond any reasonable doubt. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either scientifically illiterate or lying to you.

2. Evolution and Ethics

But how is evolution relevant for ethics? First, any understanding of human nature—crucial for understanding ethics—must take into account our evolutionary heritage. In fact, ethical theories often differ because they use different theories of human nature. Moral theories claim that human nature is basically good, bad, self-interested, rational, sympathetic, radically free, and so on. Surely then the scientific theory of human nature is relevant to ethics.

To understand how evolution applies in various domains consider that Darwin originally proposed a theory about the evolution of plant and non-human animal bodies. Subsequently, in The Descent of Man, he extended the argument to human bodies. Today we have extended evolutionary ideas further—to minds and behaviors. Evolutionary epistemology examines the nature and limits of minds over time and the evolution of ideas and concepts in the history of science and in the developing child. That minds like bodies evolve over time is the fundamental starting point of evolutionary epistemology.

Evolutionary psychologists extend evolutionary ideas to human behavior. We now understand human behaviors like courtship, mating, aggression, and religion in a biological context. Evolutionary ethicists begin with the fact of evolution and proceed to explore the connection between biology and ethical behaviors. They ask questions like: Can we derive moral obligations from evolutionary facts? Does ordinary morality oppose or complement evolution? How were moral behaviors selected for? Do non-human animals exhibit rudimentary moral behaviors? Do moral behaviors evolve? Do moral concepts evolve? Can we reconcile a survival instinct with moral prescriptions? In short, evolutionary ethicists want to know how evolution sheds light on morality.

3. Social Darwinism

One of the first philosophers to take note of Darwin’s ideas was his contemporary Herbert Spencer (1820 – 1903), the man who coined the phrase, “survival of the fittest.” Spencer believed that the struggle for existence entailed both competition and cooperation; he meant to reconcile biology and morality. But many went further, including the American capitalists Rockefeller and Carnegie, believing that Spencer’s interpretation of Darwin justified cut-throat economic competition. They believed that the idea of the survival of the fittest justified the domination of the rich over everyone else; it justified their wealth and power.

 Social Darwinism, the idea that individuals and groups are subject to natural selection, was thus born. It would be used to justify imperialism, conservatism, and racism. Social Darwinism found its most eloquent spokesperson in the Yale sociologist William Graham Sumner (1840 – 1910). He agreed with the greedy capitalists that we should allow the struggle for existence to proceed without intervention. In the ensuing struggle, the strong will succeed and the weak will fail. This is as it should be.

There are a number of problems with this approach. In the first place, there isn’t anything necessarily better or biologically fitter about rich individuals. Many have a lot of money because they were born into wealth, had certain talents that happened to benefit them in a certain kind of economy, or just got lucky. (As the American billionaire Warren Buffet says, in many environments, he would have been one of the weak ones.) Moreover, the whole idea conflicts with our moral intuition. Amassing huge fortunes while enslaving or exterminating others isn’t most people’s idea of moral behavior. And, as we will see, the desire to dominate others is only part of our evolutionary heritage.

4. Evolution and Ethics Opposed

About this time another one of Darwin’s great defenders argued that ethics and evolution were radically incompatible. Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) was a member of one of the most famous families in England and an ardent supporter of Darwin. He defended Darwinism in a series of lectures and debates, of which the most famous was his encounter with Bishop Samuel Wilberforce (1805–1873), the most renowned cleric in England at that time. During the debate, Wilberforce sarcastically inquired into whether Huxley was descendent of monkeys on his father’s or mother’s side. Huxley is purported to have replied: “I would rather be the offspring of two apes than a man afraid to face the truth.” A woman in attendance is said to have fainted.

Years later in 1893 at Oxford, Huxley delivered the Romanes lectures, at the time the most important philosophical lectures in the world. There Huxley compared the state of nature or natural processes—nature before human intervention—with the state of art or artificial processes—nature altered by human intervention. These two states are in a kind of natural antagonism. Huxley used a metaphor to make his point. Imagine a piece of land in its natural state that is subsequently transformed by someone into a garden. If this gardener stops cultivating the garden, it will return to its natural state. This image illustrates the natural antagonism between the human created state of art and the state of nature.

Huxley proceeded to argue that while it’s true that humans are part of nature, this doesn’t show that nature and art are compatible. A virus is a part of us, but antagonistic toward us. Huxley thought that natural processes always conflict with artificial ones, a point he reinforced with another metaphor. In the same way, we create a garden by combating nature, we bring about an ideal society by combating our natural tendencies. An ideal society values cooperation, sympathy, and self-restraint; the state of nature values competition, ruthlessness, and self-interest. Thus ethics demands that we oppose, not acquiesce, to nature. As Huxley put it: “Let us understand, once and for all, that the ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in runny away from it, but in combating it.” (Katherine Hepburn made the same point to Humphrey Bogart in the film, “The African Queen,” when she said: “Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.”)

Huxley believed that ethical progress manifests itself in cultural evolution—the evolution of science, art, religion, politics and other elements of culture. But he also believed that powerful natural forces, operating both within and outside of us, eventually overwhelm all artificial processes, all human cultural creations. Human will continue to oppose nature by creating and developing civilizations “until the evolution of our globe shall have entered so far upon its downward course that the cosmic process resumes its sway; and, once more, the state of nature prevails over the surface of our planet.” It seems, in the end, that we are doomed; nature will reclaim all that it has lost; evolution has little to offer ethics.

5. Evolution and Ethics Conjoined

In 1943, exactly fifty years after his grandfather had delivered the Romanes lecture, Julian Huxley (1887 – 1975) gave the address. J. Huxley, one of the world’s greatest biologists at the time, argued that ethics and evolution were compatible. To illuminate the idea, Huxley looked at the history of cosmic evolution. Inorganic evolution was painstakingly slow, but after eons of time led to biological evolution. This, in turn, led to conscious human beings who in turn brought about a psycho-social evolution. Now education, tradition, and language expedite the evolutionary process, and conscious beings now create ethical imperatives and goals for the species. (Thus ought comes from is.)

The two basic goals of the evolutionary process should be individual development and social cohesion. The goal, or the meaning of life if you will, is the full development of human potential. Huxley also believed evolution was orthogenetic—progressing toward the emergence of new and better forms of being. Ethical behaviors promote this progressive march of evolution toward achieving our goals. This isn’t surprising because in nature there is an unconscious striving toward ends or goals. As Huxley put it: “… [humans] impose moral principles upon ever-widening areas of the cosmic process, in whose further slow unfolding [they are] now the protagonist. [They] can inject [their] ethics into the heart of evolution.” It seems that evolution is the key to understanding both ethical imperatives and, ultimately, the meaning of our lives.

We might also mention the French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 – 1955), who developed an evolutionary Christianity which parallels some of J. Huxley’s ideas. Teilhard understood evolution to be an orthogenesis moving toward an omega or endpoint. According to Teilhard, God made matter which in turn created consciousness, and all three will be reunited at the omega point which is a society of hyper-persons in unity with God. Ethical imperatives are those which promote the realization of the omega point. Thus for both J. Huxley and Teilhard evolution is the key to understand what we ought to do which is, roughly, play our role in bringing about higher levels of being and consciousness.

6. Ethics and Sociobiology

In the mid-1970s a new science emerged which studies the evolutionary aspects of animal and human social behaviors. And that science, sociobiology, defends an evolutionary ethics by reducing ethical behaviors to biological ones. The preeminent spokesperson and the founding father of sociobiology is the Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson (1929 – ).

Wilson agrees with Julian Huxley that ethics arises from the evolutionary process, but disagrees that evolution is directed or consciously moving toward some goal. In fact, the great human dilemma is that evolution has no goal, end or purpose. To illustrate, consider that the protective coloring of certain moths doesn’t happen in order for them to survive, nor does it happen because there is a threat from predators. Instead, there are simply random genetic mutations which are then subject to environmental selection. The fact that some moths or Homo sapiens survive is an evolutionary accident. There isn’t anything within organisms that directs them to some end.

To understand ethics without teleology we must show that there is some advantage to ethical behavior; we must show ethical-type behaviors aid survival. The first clue to understanding this came from research showing that the beneficiaries of altruistic behavior in non-human animals were generally individuals who shared many genes with the altruist. While the altruist’s behavior lowered his or her chance of survival, it increased the survival of kin. This biological favoring of genetic relatives is called kin selection. It is why we are more willing to die for our own children than for other people’s children.

In addition, there is a more general altruism observed in both human and non-human animals that goes beyond close genetic relatives. This is called reciprocal altruism because it relies on reciprocity. The biological evidence for it derives from the pioneering work of Robert Trivers (1943 – ) who noted warning cries in birds and cleaning symbiosis as classic examples. Natural selection sometimes favors cooperative behaviors that increase chances for a species survival; self-interest is often served better by cooperation than competition. Thus, ethical behaviors can be selected for.

Wilson also draws a distinction between hard-core and soft-core altruism. Hard-core altruism hasn’t anything to do with reciprocity and is usually directed toward our closest kin. Soft-core altruism depends on reciprocity and is ultimately selfish. Wilson, one of the world’s foremost experts on social insects, has observed that their behavior is mostly hard-core, while human beings carry soft-core altruism to extremes. We specialize in reciprocity between non-biologically related individuals.

Furthermore, Wilson argues that all elaborate forms of social organization find their basis in individual welfare. Contracts and other agreements are the kind of soft-core altruism that makes human social interaction possible. The genius of human civilizations the ease with which we make and break these soft-core relationships. But this is a good thing. If altruism were all hard-core we would continually engage in tribal warfare, and the social rules that serve our self-interest would be impossible to maintain.  Buried deep within our brains is the knowledge that soft-core (reciprocal) altruism aids our survival. Moral consciousness emanates from these deep reservoirs.

Recently E. O. Wilson and the philosopher of science Michael Ruse (1940 – ) have advanced a new theory of morality. They reject any theory that asserts that nature evinces values as evolutionary change unfolds because that reads values into evolution. So they reject theories like Julian Huxley’s because it has no biological foundation. Instead, Wilson and Ruse forge a connection between ethics and evolution without committing the naturalistic fallacy. They begin with two scientific premises: 1) social behavior of animals is under the control of genes; and 2) humans are animals. Since both premises are true, we are led to a distinctively biological human morality based on kin selection.

Now how did nature make us moral? The clue is our intelligence. We are hard-wired for a number of instinctive behaviors—aversion to insects, fear of snakes and heights, etc. Altruism is also hard-wired since it has adaptive advantages. But how do we understand this with our conscious minds? We consciously understand the biological imperatives underneath morality as objective moral codes. Nature makes us believe in moral codes; biology is the foundation of morality.

What Wilson and Ruse are saying is that the human species has evolved both hard-core and soft-core altruistic tendencies. Evolution and ethics are compatible. However there are no absolute foundations for ethics, moral beliefs simply serve our reproductive aims and help us survive. Ethics is essentially an illusion our genes use to get us to cooperate. If we had a different evolutionary history our ethics would be very different.

Yet this doesn’t lead to moral relativism; which ethical behaviors we adopt matter in terms of our survival. Even without objective foundations, we face social problems that overwhelm biology, so understanding biology is just the first step in solving our problems. Morality is a legacy of evolution, not a reflection of divine verities.

7. Critics of Sociobiology

The late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould (1941 – 2002) argued that sociobiology confuses supposable notions of biological potential with the more doubtful notion of biological determinism. It is one thing to say that our genes determine the range of our behaviors and social institutions, but quite another to say that our genes determine social institutions.

Gould, an ardent defender of Darwinism, rejects Wilson’s generalization of the causes of behavior in lower animals to such causes human beings. While human behavior is clearly biologically based and adaptive, humans have gone far beyond other species in developing a non-biological means to transmit adaptive behavior to future generations. This means that human social behaviors like morality and religion have evolved far from the reach of genetic control. Thus human culture, rather than genetic controls, determines virtually all of our social behaviors.

Gould does admit that reciprocal altruism exists, but this doesn’t necessitate a genetic coding corresponding to the behavior. Even though the range of our potential is limited by biology, Gould doubts that there is a genetic base to most social behaviors which excludes the role cultural evolution plays in directing human actions. What evidence is there that genes control specific social behavior? Gould says there is none, and even if there were our large brain can potentially overcome biological determinism.

Another recent critique of sociobiology is the scientist and philosopher Francisco J. Ayala (1934 – ), who has advanced a number of powerful arguments to sever the connection that sociobiologists make between moral norms and natural selection. First, inasmuch as moral norms differ between cultures and across time without a corresponding difference in biology, the theory that morality depends upon biology is flawed. This evidence suggests that culture, not biology, plays the largest role in shaping behavior. Second, human intellectual abilities have the power to go beyond biology. For instance, we may be biologically territorial, but we can decide to forego this instinct.

Ayala also distinguishes between two senses of altruism. We define biological altruism in terms of the genetic consequences of a certain behavior. Genes may prompt these behaviors even though the fitness of the individual is diminished, but such behaviors haven’t anything to do with ethical norms. They aren’t ethical behaviors. On the other hand, moral altruism concerns intentions and motivations, with the regard we have for others; they have nothing to do with biology. Behaviors may look similar from the outside, but we distinguish them by the moral agent’s conscious intentions. So Ayala affirms that reciprocal altruism in non-human animals isn’t moral behavior any more than we would describe social insects which die for their community as morally heroic.

In trying to explain the connection between ethics and evolution, Ayala differentiates between whether: 1) biology determines the “capacity” for ethics and whether 2) biology determines “particular” ethical norms or principles. He answers yes to the first question, but no to the latter. We are necessarily ethical, but particular norms themselves are freely chosen. The capacity for ethics is intertwined with self-consciousness, a product of biological evolution, but the norms and principles of ethics are products of cultural, not biological, evolution. Thus he agrees with Gould that biology shapes our potential moral behaviors, but doesn’t determine them.

Biology determines this capacity for ethics because of the presence in human beings of three necessary and sufficient conditions for ethical behavior which themselves derive from human consciousness. First, we anticipate the consequences of our actions because we can create mental images of unreal or imaginary possibilities. Second, we make value judgments about actions, ends, objects, and behaviors which we consider valuable. Third, we choose between courses of action. Ayala doesn’t believe that evolution favored certain ethical behaviors, but that it did provide the conditions under which human consciousness, the source of all ethics, developed.

Turning to the question of whether evolution determines “particular” moral norms, Ayala claims that any attempt to justify particular moral norms with biology commits the naturalistic fallacy. Simply because evolution has proceeded in a particular way says nothing about whether it’s right or good. The fact that bacteria have survived for millions of years doesn’t mean they are more or less valuable than vertebrates.  Instead, moral codes come from religious and social traditions. Thus, while morality must take into account biological knowledge, it’s insufficient for deciding which moral codes should be accepted.

8. Problems for Evolutionary Ethics

It’s difficult to advance a specific critique of evolutionary ethics because evolutionary ethics is a generic name for a number of interrelated, but nevertheless oftentimes contradictory theories. However, there is one general criticism of the attempt to derive moral values from facts of nature that we have previously discussed—the naturalistic fallacy. The idea is that we can’t derive values from facts, or ought from is. In this case, it means that just because of ethical behaviors arise in nature doesn’t mean we should value those behaviors.

In addition, there is another problem sometimes referred to as the genetic fallacy. We commit this fallacy when we confuse the origin of a belief or behavior with its justification. Our belief in witches may have originated in our religious upbringing, but that doesn’t mean we are justified in the belief. Analogously, soft-core altruism may have arisen because it bestowed evolutionary advantage, but that doesn’t mean it’s ethically justified. It’s easy to confuse the genesis of an idea or behavior with its justification.

Thus, the critics argue, an adequate ethical theory must explain not only what we do and why, but what we should do. In other words, we must not only explain the nature and genesis of morality, we must justify it. But evolutionary ethicists have a hard time doing this. If they explain the genesis by saying that facts justify values, they supposedly commit the naturalistic fallacy. If they say that facts elicit values, they supposedly mistakenly read purposes and ends into evolution that evolutionists assure us aren’t there. In short, it may be that evolution explains the origin of morality, but can’t justify morality. Or it may be that these objections aren’t valid.

The New American Civil War

I have written before about the increasing possibility of civil war in America. Here are a few more recent developments to help you connect the dots. In “How Democracy dies? Voter Suppression + Court Packing + Killing Net Neutrality,” A. Siegel combines voter suppression, court packing and the apparent dismantling of net neutrality to paint a frightening picture of the future of American government and the life of its subjects.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. He could have added gerrymandering, building an unfair advantage into the census, the proposed virtual elimination of taxes on the wealthy, the increased political voice of the wealthy due to Citizens United, the conservative news bubble owned by the wealthy, the destruction of the State Department, the EPA, and more.

Net neutrality is especially important, as rolling it back is an attempt to control and distort information. You can find another piece of the puzzle in Pam Vogel’s: “Sinclair’s conservative news takeover will rock 15 regions.” If these changes go through, even my small voice will essentially be silenced. I hope I’m wrong, but I see even dark times ahead. I think the remnants of American democracy are about to collapse entirely.

What Are Slaughterbots?

The above video was produced by BAN LETHAL AUTONOMOUS WEAPONS.

While lethal, fully autonomous weapons systems, or killer robots, aren’t yet able to select and attack targets without human control, a number of countries are developing such devices. And a number of organizations including The Future of Life Institute, Human Rights Watch, and the International Committee for Robot Arms Control, have all warned against their development.

For those interested, you can sign an open letter against weaponizing AI at: http://autonomousweapons.org/

Also, Professor Stuart Russell of the computer science department at UC-Berkeley gave a TED Talk a few months ago which explored the issue:

And the science fiction writer Daniel Suarez explored the same theme in this TED talk:

Finally, consider that the political party in the USA most associated with toughness and defense is the same one that is anti-science and anti-intellectual. It doesn’t promote our security to undermine the science and technology that is the source of USA military power. If other countries develop AI, robots, and autonomous weapons first, then nuclear weapons may be obsolete. So it is counterproductive for a country that wants to dominate others or defend itself to make it almost impossible for bright foreign students to get HB1 visas. Of course, the primary enemies of the USA today are domestic ones.

The Question of Life’s Meaning

The Importance of the Question of Life’s Meaning

All my life I struggled to stretch my mind to the breaking point, until it began to creak, 

in order to create a great thought which might be able to give a new meaning to life, 

a new meaning to death, and to console mankind. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

Albert Camus opens his essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” with these haunting lines: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.”[i] Karl Jaspers wrote: “The question of the value and meaning of existence is unlike any other question: man does not seem to become really serious until he faces it.”[ii]Victor Frankl said: “man’s search for meaning is the primary motivation of his life” and “… concern about a meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human.”[iii] The contemporary philosopher Robert Solomon considered the question of life’s meaning to be “the ultimate question of philosophy.”[iv] While major philosophers in the Western tradition have had much to say about the goal or final end of a human life, most have not—until the twentieth century—specifically addressed the question of life’s meaning.

In the Western world this lack of concern with the question of the meaning of life was in large part due to the domination of the Christian worldview. During the long period from about the 5th through the 18th century, the question of life’s meaning was not especially problematic, since the answer was obvious. That answer was, roughly, that the meaning of life was to know, love, and serve god in this life, and to be with him forever in heaven. According to this view all the suffering of the world would be redeemed in the afterlife, so that the sorrows of the world could be seen to have been worth it in the end, when we are united with god. However, with the decline of the influence of this worldview in subsequent centuries, the question of the meaning of life became a more pressing one, as we see beginning in nineteenth century thinkers such as Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. In the twentieth century the question took on a new urgency and western philosophers have increasingly written on the subject.

My own view is that the question of life’s meaning is the most important philosophical question, and possibly the most important question of any kind. This is not to say that it should be the only thing one thinks about, or that noble things cannot be done or happy lives cannot be lived without thinking about it. In fact one can think too much about it and, in the worst cases, compulsive analysis may lead to or manifest mental illness. Socrates claimed that “the unexamined life is not worth living,” but surely the over-examined life is not worth living either. Life may simply be too short to spend too much of one’s life thinking about life. (The Latin translation of Aristotle reads: “primum vivere deinde philosophare,” “First live, later philosophize.”) Many persons in all walks of life have lived good and happy lives without thinking deeply about meaning, or without answering the question even if they have thought much about it. In short, philosophers should not overestimate the importance of their ruminations.

Still, such an important question demands some reflection. Without a tentative answer to the question there seems to be no ultimate justification for any action, or even a reason to be at all. To put it somewhat differently: What is the point of living, if you don’t know the point of living? Why do anything, if you don’t know why you should do anything? You might answer that you live because you have a will to live or a self-preservation instinct; but that merely explains why you do go on, it does not justify why you should go on. Of course you can certainly remain alive without thinking about these questions, and circumstances force many people to spend their lives trying to survive, leaving little time for philosophical contemplation. But for those with sufficient leisure time, for those that have their basic needs met, do they not have some obligation to think about the meaning of their lives, and by extension the meaning of life in general? Might not such thinking improve their lives and benefit others? If so, then thinking about the question of meaning is certainly worthwhile.

[i] Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sisyphus,” in The Meaning of Life, ed. E.D Klemke and Steven Cahn (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2008), 72.

[ii] Karl Jaspers, Nietzsche (Tucson: University of Arizona, 1965), 333.

[iii] Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (New York: Beacon Press, 1963).

[iv] Robert Solomon, The Big Questions (Boston: Wadsworth, 2010), 44.

The Problem of Life

The Problem of Life

Imagine a number of men in chains, all under sentence of death, some of whom are each day butchered in the sight of the others; those remaining see their own condition in that of their fellows, and looking at each other with grief and despair await their turn. This is an image of the human condition.

~ Blaise Pascal

When I consider the brief span of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill, and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant, and which know me not, I am frightened, and am astonished at being here rather than there; for there is no reason why here rather than there, now rather than then.

~ Blaise Pascal

We are not at one. We have no instincts

like those of migratory birds. Useless, and late.

we force ourselves onto the wind,

and find no welcome from ponds where we alight.

We comprehend flowering and fading simultaneously.

~ Rainer Marie Rilke

A precipice in front of you, and wolves behind you, in your rear; that is life.

~ Latin Proverb

Insignificant mortals, who are as leaves are,

and now flourish and grow warm with life,

and feed on what the ground gives,

but then again fade away and are dead.

~ Homer

Life is hard. It includes physical pain, mental anguish, war, hatred, anxiety, disappointment, and death. Life’s problems are so significant that humans try desperately to alleviate and avoid them. But mere words cannot convey the depth and intensity of the suffering in human life. Consider that persons are starving, imprisoned, tortured, and suffering unimaginably as you read this; that our emotional, moral, physical, and intellectual lives are limited by our genes and environments; that our creative potential is wasted because of unfulfilling or degrading work, unjust incarceration, unimaginable poverty, and limited time; and that our loved ones suffer and die—as do we. Contemplate the horrors of history when life was often so insufferable that death was welcomed. What kind of life is this that nothingness is often preferable? There is, as Unamuno said, a “tragic sense of life.” This idea haunts the intellectually honest and emotionally sensitive individual. Life sometimes seems not worth the trouble.

Of course the above does not describe all of human life or history. There is love, friendship, honor, knowledge, play, beauty, pleasure, creative work, and a thousand other things that make life, at least sometimes, worthwhile, and at other times pure bliss. There are parents caring for their children, people building homes, artists creating beauty, musicians making music, scientists accumulating knowledge, philosophers seeking meaning, and children playing games. There are mountains, oceans, trees, sky and flowers; there is art, science, literature, and music; there is Rembrandt, Darwin, Shakespeare, and Beethoven. Life sometimes seems too good for words.

Now assuming that we are lucky enough to be born without any of a thousand physical or mental maladies, or into bondage, famine, or war, the first problems we confront are how to feed, clothe, and shelter ourselves. Initially we have no choice but to rely on others to meet our basic needs, but as we mature we are increasingly forced to fulfill these needs on our own.  In fact most human effort, both historically and presently, expends itself attempting to meet these basic needs. The structure of a society may aid us in satisfying our needs to differing extents, but no society fulfills them completely, and many erect impediments that make living well nearly impossible. We often fail to meet our basic needs through no fault of our own.

But even if we are born healthy and into a relatively stable environment, even if all our basic needs are met, we still face difficulties. We seek health and vitality, friends and mates, pleasure and happiness. Our desires appear unlimited. And presuming that we fulfill these desires, we still face pressing philosophical concerns: What is real? What can we know? What should we do? What can we hope for? And, most importantly, what is the meaning of life in a world that contains so much suffering and death? This is the central philosophical question of human life. Fortune may shine upon us but we ultimately suffer and perish, raising the question of the point of it all. If all our hopes, plans, longings, and loves ultimately vanish, then what does it all mean? And the question is not just academic; it penetrates to the core of the human existence.

Are Google and Facebook Evil?

I’ve read two recent pieces which attack the tech giants—google, facebook, apple, twitter, microsoft—in various ways. “Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend,” and “Ashamed to work in Silicon Valley: how techies became the new bankers.”

Let me state unequivocally at the outset that I don’t know almost nothing about how technology works, and I have no expertise in the complex relationship between the techology, politics, and society. So what I say here should be taken with a grain of salt.

First, I have mixed feelings when I read these attacks, mostly because I’m a transhumanist who believes that only science and technology informed by philosophy can save us. Now obviously a lot of junk gets produced by technology companies, a lot of time is wasted on facebook, there are a lot of clueless nerds in the world, and a lot of bad stuff happens when lies about politics are spread on the internet.

It is especially disconcerting when you consider that Google could cut off Breitbart, Alex Jones, and neo-Nazi nonsense from search results in a second, but it doesn’t want to be perceived as “left leaning” or lose advertising money—keeping the advertisers is more important than making sure that people read the truth.

So I do think  tech companies have huge responsibilities, perhaps a model like wikipedia, where they take their civic responsibilities seriously, as opposed to just focusing on profit. Of course this all depends on a new economic model, since the drive for profit as opposed to societal good is by definition a large part of the problem.

As for jobs lost to tech, i’ve written about this multiple times too, and I say again that we need a new economic system to our present one which  encourages despoiling the natural environment and climate, leaves vast wealth in the hands of a very few, etc.

Still tech companies do research and produce things—some of the most important possible research like AI and robotics and longevity is done by tech companies. So in that way they have the potential to do enormous good to. That also provides quite a contrast to Wall Street, the whole point of which is to scam money off others without contributing to the system as a whole.

Finally, let me say that ideally scitech research should be mostly funded by the public sector with accountability towards public good vs. private profit. Or at least there should be enough government regulation to ensure that the private operate in the public interest.

And again, a disclaimer. I am not an expert in such matters and these are complex issues.

Summary of Sartre’s Ethics

[We] condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, [we] responsible for everything [we do.] ~ Jean Paul Sartre

1. Basic Ideas of Existentialism

Could it be that all of the major ethical theories—deontology, utilitarianism, natural law, contract theory—-abstract to speak to an amorphous ethical reality? But perhaps precision in ethics is a chimera. The philosophers known as existentialists generally believed that all the major theories discuss thus far were mistaken—for precisely these reasons.

Existentialism is a philosophical movement whose origins are in the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855) and the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900). Other major figures in the movement include, Karl Jaspers (1883 – 1969), Martin Heidegger (1899 – 1976), Albert Camus (1917-1960) and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 – 1980.) Existential philosophy is incredibly rich and diverse and its proponents include communists, socialists, atheists, theists and nihilists. Despite this diversity, almost all existentialists share a few basic ideas that are relevant for our discussion.

Kierkegaard’s rejection of a “rational and philosophical” Christianity serves as a starting point for our deliberation. He believed that Christianity erred by trying to be reasonable, when in fact it’s based upon faith and trust. Faith isn’t a matter of affirming certain rational propositions, but of acting in a certain way. Kierkegaard made this point in his famous retelling of the biblical story of Abraham and his son Isaac. It wasn’t  reasonable for Abraham to sacrifice his son simply because God asked him to; instead, following his God’s orders was an act of faith. From an ethical point of view Abraham action was immoral, but for Kierkegaard faith and religion transcend reason and ethics.

These considerations lead to the first basic idea of existentialism: reason is an inadequate instrument with which to comprehend the depth, mystery, and meaning of life. Reason’s limitations were poignantly described by the Russian novelist Feodor Dostoyevsky who said that while reason satisfies our rational selves, desire is the real manifestation of life. But as we saw in the first chapter, Western philosophy began when the Greeks used reason to understand the world. Greek rationalism led to a search for the rational and objective foundations of knowledge, meaning, truth, and value.

The existentialists reject this tradition. They repudiate the abstract, obtuse, specialized, esoteric, and formal subtlety which divorces the intellect from life. They maintain that life isn’t an equation or riddle to be rationally resolved; it’s more of a mystery to be lived. Reason can’t resolve our most pressing existential concerns; it can’t tell us the meaning of life. Theory, speculation, and metaphysical and moral abstraction are worth less than concrete reality. Thus existentialism emphasizes concrete, personal experience over rational abstractions. This is its second basic idea.

The emphasis on the concrete is also captured in the existential dictum “existence precedes essence.” This means that we exist first, as particular, concrete, human subjects before we are defined by any universal, objective form or essence. Existence refers to ‘that a thing is,” while essence refers to “what a thing is.” For instance, the essence of the four-legged, tail-wagging, car-chasing thing we often see is “dogness.” That is what is! But the existentialist denies that there is any human nature that tells us what we are or what we ought to do; rather, we exist first as concrete human subjects and then proceed to create our essence. Fate or a God don’t determine us, we determine ourselves. We may become saints or sinners, but it’s up to us to decide. In the same way, moral theories can’t tell us what to do. Intellectual theories are too detached from life to provide any guidance in our concrete lives. Theories may provide the rationale for human actions, but they can’t command our assent.

We can easily see how moral theories can’t make us do anything. The prescriptions of natural law, a social contract, the categorical imperative, or the net utility can’t command our conduct because we can always ask, “Why follow these theories?” Moral theories may define our moral duties and obligations, but they mean nothing without personal commitment. Action “x” may violate the natural law, the social contract, the categorical imperative, and the greatest happiness principle but, “so what?”  That doesn’t tell us we shouldn’t do “x.” These theories assume ethics is objective, that some actions really are right or wrong.  By contrast existentialism emphasizes the human subject as the only ultimate source of morality. Only when we commit ourselves to some course of action do we act as moral agents.

The emphasis on personal commitment brings us to a third basic idea of existentialism: human beings are radically free. We are the ones who create the meaning, truth, and value in our lives, and we are totally responsible for our lives. We often claim to be unable  to do certain things, but in fact we don’t do them because we don’t want to. If we wanted to do them we would. For instance, the fact that it’s wrong to steal doesn’t prevent us from doing it, only we can do that. True, we can’t do everything—we can’t fly—but we can choose from our available options and, in the process, create our selves. In summary, existentialism claims that:  Moral theories which derive from rational thinking are defective because they emphasize personal abstraction over experience, and they can’t account for the role that human freedom—manifested by personal commitment—plays in the moral domain.

2. Sartre And Freedom

The famous existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre ( 1905 – 1980) was a philosopher, playwright, political activist, and social critic. The complexities and nuances of his philosophy are formidable, but Sartre’s philosophy best characterizes the unique features of an existential ethics. The key concepts in the Sartrean analysis of ethics are: freedom, angst, bad faith, and authenticity. We discuss each in turn.

We begin our discussion with Sartre’s notion that we are radically free. If we are in a bad mood, for example, it’s because we choose to be. The external world doesn’t impose itself upon our consciousness; we control our moods, thoughts, attitudes, and choices. And we aren’t  determined by our past choices! We can easily demonstrate.

Suppose we are trying to decide whether to study or drink beer. No theory or promise eliminates this choice. Early in the morning we might say to ourselves, “tonight I will forego the beer and study.”  But when the evening comes we must make a choice, beer or books. Or suppose we promise ourselves that on Monday we will start a diet. But when Monday comes, our former promise means nothing. At that moment we must decide, diet or dessert? Our promises, ideas, and theories mean nothing because when the moment of choice arrives we stand face to face with human freedom. In the same way our past promises don’t determine our present choices, our present choices don’t determine the future. No matter how we try to deny our freedom, it forces itself upon us.

For Sartre, freedom derives from human consciousness. We are conscious of both objects in the world and of ourselves as subjects, and this self-consciousness is the source of freedom. Self-conscious beings can imagine themselves as more muscular, attractive, knowledgeable, famous, or wealthy. In short, they can be conscious of what they lack, and can freely choose to fill these voids. Thus, freedom emanates from our consciousness of possibilities, particularly the possibility that we can be more than we are now. The concept of freedom is difficult to conceptualize and articulate precisely because, Sartre says, it isn’t an abstraction. Rather, it’s intensely experienced in the moment of our actual, concrete choices.

Unfortunately, freedom is paradoxical. We are free to do anything except not make choices, thus we cannot not be free. We are, in Sartre’s words, “condemned to be free.” This frightening phrase captures the essence of the paradox of freedom. We can’t escape freedom! To illustrate, suppose that we want to know if we should perform active euthanasia on our terminally ill parent. We can choose to do it or not, but we can’t not choose because not choosing is itself a choice. There is no escape from the fact that human beings must choose and that they are thus responsible for their choices.

Consider another example. We are trying to choose between believing or disbelieving in the existence of the Judeo-Christian God. We can choose to believe, to not to believe, or to hold our belief in abeyance. But any choice carries with it an awesome responsibility. If we believe because we think it’s the safest choice or because we have been told to, we are responsible for our pragmatism or credulity. If we don’t believe because we have no evidence or because we don’t care, we are responsible for our skepticism or apathy. And if we don’t choose at all, we are responsible for our indecision because not choosing is a choice itself. Thus we can’t avoid making choices.

One way to try to escape our freedom is to accept creeds and theories which tell us what acts must be performed. But this doesn’t solve the problem. We have simply taken the choice to another level where the question becomes, “what creeds should we subscribe to?” Thus there is no escape from the fact that we are prisoners of freedom. We are alone; we are without excuses. It seems we are “condemned to be free.”

3. Angst, Bad Faith, and Authenticity

According to Sartre, when we encounter freedom and realize its paradox, we experience angst or anxiety. This anxiety results from the grave difficulty we have in accepting total responsibility for our acts. We are alone in the world without any guidance or any eternal principles to inform and console us. Instead, we must create our own values; we are like Gods! We experience the dread of knowing we can do anything. But angst, anxiety, or dread result from the complete responsibility that accompanies our freedom to create value.

So great is freedom and its accompanying angst, that it’s easier to deny freedom by avoiding painful decisions and pretending that freedom doesn’t exist. Sartre says there are three ways this can be done. The first is to fail to choose. But, as we have just seen, to not choose is itself a choice, thus non-choice doesn’t allow one to escape from freedom.  The second is to be what Sartre calls a “serious-minded” individual who pretends that some objective values dictate the right choice to them. But these values mean nothing unless we make them our own. They can’t make us do anything.

Sartre’s demonstrates how moral values fail in the example of the young man who must decide whether to stay home with his mother or go off to join the French Free forces fighting the Germans in World War II. The young man’s brother had been killed trying to stop the German offensive, and he wants to avenge his death, but his mother wants him to stay in France with her. What should he do?

Sartre claims that no moral theory could resolve this dilemma. It doesn’t help to claim that the young man should do his duty, since he experiences a conflict of duties. It doesn’t help to recommend that he should do the good or the natural, inasmuch as he can’t ascertain what the good or natural is. It’s no help to follow the principle of utility either, because he doesn’t know what might happen. He might stay home and feel guilty, or go to war and be killed. He can’t even be sure what is in his own interest. Sartre asserts that the young man must choose a course of action by himself and live with complete responsibility for the consequences. Abstract theories fail in real life situations, Sartre says, because real life isn’t an esoteric puzzle. Life is about flesh and blood, men and women, and life and death.

The most important way to deny freedom is to act in bad faith. We act inauthentically or in bad faith by thinking of ourselves as passive objects manipulated by other people, social conventions, religious commands, or moral codes. In other words, we deny our subjectivity! Sartre tells the story of a young woman who is being slowly seduced. As the young man’s hand begins to touch her, she pretends not to notice. She believes that something is happening to her, that she is a passive object. But she isn’t. She is allowing this to happen and can stop the young man, and she acts in bad faith by pretending not to be free. Or consider students who don’t want to read and study and who blame the teacher or school for their failure. They are mistaken; they could study hard.  When we avoid painful decisions and pretend that we aren’t  free, we are acting in bad faith; we are refusing to take responsibility for our actions.

In perhaps his most famous example of bad faith, Sartre tells the story of a waiter who thinks of himself as an object controlled by the role he plays. He denies his freedom to leave at anytime, to just walk out. But Sartre says the waiter isn’t controlled by the role, the rules, the society, moral theory, God, or anything else. He can be what he wants, even if that means becoming unemployed and living on the streets. It’s the awesome nature of this responsibility that invites a retreat from freedom and exemplifies bad faith.

Our actions—not ethical theories or abstract principles—create our value. We often deny this and reduce our existential anxiety and doubt by accepting systems, theories, and principles that give certitude. But in so doing, we fail to ask questions and we don’t actualize our potential to doubt and thereby be fully human. We refuse to search for the values that make life meaningful, and don’t confront with courage the anxiety that accompanies the creation of value in our own lives.

If we do have the courage to create value, the courage to commit to a course of action and accept full responsibility for our choices, we act authentically, or in good faith. Sartre doesn’t say much about good faith except that it involves choosing the values, purposes, and projects for which we take full responsibility. Authentic individuals don’t allow anything to dictate to them, they simply choose to commit themselves to particular course of action.

4. Problems for an Existential Ethics

The most obvious problem for Sartre’s ethics is whether freedom exists to the extent that he supposed, or if it exists at all. And there are other difficulties. Consider again the Sartrean project.

When acting in bad faith, we pretend that something controls our behavior. Now imagine individuals who live according to the moral principles with which they have been raised. Occasionally, they have considered that these principles may be groundless and that they could be rejected. However, the idea that they must create their own principles, values, and meaning in life is frightening. So they silence their doubts.

Sartre believes such individuals are morally culpable for accepting their initial moral principles, for supposing that these principles control them. But are such individuals really so bad? Suppose they are pleasant, dutiful, conscientious, and kind? Is it really true that those who deceive themselves into thinking they are controlled by moral rules, or who have never considered the possibility of other principles, are immoral? It doesn’t seem so.

Now our appraisal would probably be different if these individuals had accepted were more dubious principles. If they had been taught since youth to torture animals and set houses on fire, we would likely condemn the actions that follow from their principles. But this suggests that we condemn their acts, not because they performed them in bad faith, but because their principles and actions are immoral. This suggests that it doesn’t matter whether actions are done in good or bad faith, but whether the actions are good or bad.

The point becomes even clearer if we examine cases of actions done in good faith. Imagine individuals who strive all of their life to create their own values. After a long and arduous intellectual journey, they decide that there are no gods or objective values. Nonetheless, they dedicate their lives to working arduously in cancer research. They give no reason for their choice other than to say, “We freely commit ourselves to this project and take full responsibility for the outcome of our life.” Whatever else we may think of it, there is something praiseworthy about this enterprise; this life lived in good faith.

This exemplifies what some existentialist call a project. Projects are self-created endeavors which allow us to experience freedom and authenticity. Whether our project is to be parent, medical researcher, plumber, teacher, dancer, or concert pianist, the way we do it, according to Sartre, says more about the morality of the action than the action itself. This follows from the fact that there are no objective values. If we act in good faith—the unique expression of our own being with full recognition of our freedom and its attached responsibility—then we act morally.

The problem here is with sincere killers, torture advocates or Nazis. If they really believe they are doing the right thing—say killing for their gods—and they do it without hypocrisy and in good faith then, according to Sartre, they act morally. In fact, it doesn’t matter what they do as long as it’s done in good faith. Here we encounter the same problems that plagued other theories of subjective value. If there is no objective foundation to morality, then anything is allowable. Thus, good and bad faith are unable to distinguish between what we ordinarily assume are right and wrong actions. This suggests that something more is needed to understand the nature of morality than mere commitment. Is there any way for Sartre to avoid this conclusion?

5. Other Existential Thinkers

Sartre’s could rely upon a God as the ultimate source of objective value, but Sartre was an atheist. For Kierkegaard, ethical principles have their place, but they are subservient to a God who can suspend them. Moreover this God doesn’t always share our moral judgments, or the dictates of our moral conscience. If that were the case, we would only need our conscience in order to be moral, and would not need God. According to Kierkegaard, faith is higher than reason in the moral domain, inasmuch as moral principles and theological abstractions mean nothing without an intensely personal commitment to the moral or religious way of life.

Other religious existentialists have taken up the Kierkegaardian project. They generally reject proofs for the existence of a God and absolute moral principles. They emphasize human subjects and their freedom, accepting a God as the source of objective value. Thus a religious existential ethics rejects the rationalism of natural law ethics and, at least in Kierkegaard’s case, moves in the direction of a divine command theory. However, by positing an objective source for morality, ethics may more properly be called religious than existential. Such theories are open to all the philosophical objections we may pose for any religious claim. A theological existentialism must be built upon a theology with all its attendant philosophical difficulties.

Another existentialist who tried to respond to the criticisms of existential ethics was the French writer Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986).  Like Sartre, de Beauvoir made freedom central to her ethics. In The Ethics of Ambiguity, she argued that we recognize the lack or the emptiness in our being and try to fill these spaces by freely choosing projects. We devote our labor to projects that, hopefully, disclose our unique being. By engaging in a project we experience the freedom to give our lives value and meaning. In the struggle to overcome the obstacles inherent in our project, we discover our own being as free.

De Beauvoir admits that ethics is ambiguous, but not that it’s absurd. If life were absurd, nihilism follows. But amidst ambiguity, we have the opportunity to give life value and meaning. If values were transparent or translucent, we would not have this chance to disclose ourselves as free being through our projects. Since values are more opaque, the genuinely moral person lives in a world of painful and continually questioning. Ambiguity provides the realm in which we may create our values.

In the final analysis, freedom was the ultimate value for de Beauvoir, and she opposed any action that limited human freedom.  The ultimate precept is to respect the freedom of others. She gave the following example of how the precept worked. If others attempt suicide under the influence of intoxicants or temporary depression, we may interfere with their freedom. But if they want to end or ruin their lives after rational deliberation, we should allow them to do so.

Still, despite her claim to the contrary, it seems unlikely that freedom is the only value or even the most important one. For example, most people don’t think that freedom is more important than justice or life itself. In addition, whenever principles other than freedom are introduced, we move away from the spirit of an existential ethics. This isn’t to say that freedom can’t function as the ultimate moral principle, only that if it does we have another objective moral theory.

6. An Assessment

If we really do create values by freely choosing projects, then there is no way to distinguish good projects or actions from bad ones, other than to say some are freely chosen and some aren’t .  But it just doesn’t seem true that our commitment to something makes it valuable. Nor does it seem true that our lack of commitment makes something worthless. As with various elements of other theories we have examined, there is something counter-intuitive about existential ethics. It appears that the existential account of value is just too subjective.

Another difficulty with the existential theory of value is its irrationalism. If ethics is merely a matter of choosing, then no choice is irrational. If we ask existentialists why they chose “x,” their only possible reply is, “we just choose.” But this is unsatisfactory. If we can give no reason why we choose something, then our choice isn’t rational. Existentialists can give no reason why they chose anything precisely because there is no reason to choose. If there were, then ethics would be rational and objective. This is another problem with the existential account of value; it’s too irrational.

Of course an existentialist rejects this critique. They argue that the whole point of an existential ethic is to show that reason is an inadequate instrument to understand morality. But are we really satisfied with a theory that can give us no reason why we ought to do something? If I tell you that you should go jump in the lake but can’t tell you why, aren’t you hesitant to do it? And doesn’t this show that reason must play some role in ethics? Thus, even if the existentialists are right about reason’s limitations, it doesn’t follow that reason plays no role in the moral sphere.

Other existentialists try to overcome the subjectivism and irrationalism with God, freedom, or some other objective standard.  But this undermines the radical nature of existentialism, suggesting that ethical theorizing is necessary to uncover the objective foundations of morality. Remember, existentialism was attractive because it proposed to bypass the task of uncovering the principles operative in the moral arena, but without principles existential ethics is bankrupt. The existentialists are correct when they argue that morality involves personal commitment, but if they can’t tell us what to be committed to or why, the theory is deficient.

Summary of Natural Law Ethics

“To disparage the dictate of reason is equivalent to condemning the command of God.”

~  Thomas Aquinas

The Divine Command Theory

Let us now consider the view that morality rests upon religion. Assuming that a relationship between some God and morality exists, how do we characterize it? A classic formulation of this relationship is the divine command theory which states that “morally right” means commanded by God, and “morally wrong” means forbidden by God.

But there are multiple problems with this theory. Its defense necessitates philosophical arguments to prove a god exists, or is at least rational plausibility. Next, one needs to determine the gods commands. This would be especially difficult, since people have imagined the gods to command antithetical things like: celibacy and polygamy, the right of kings and social revolt, war and peace, humanitarian aid and witchburning. But even if we knew the gods commands, we would still have to interpret them.

This last point presents grave difficulties. Take a simple command, “thou shalt not kill!” When does it apply? In self defense? In war? Always? To whom does it apply? To animals? Intelligent aliens? Serial killers? All living things? The unborn? The braindead? Religious commands such as “do not kill,” “honor thy parents,” or “do not commit adultery” are ambiguous. For instance, where do the Christian Scriptures speak unequivocally about abortion?  For the sake of argument, let us grant that we can demonstrate some the gods existence, know that the gods commands,  know that those commands are good, and interpret the commands correctly. (This is saying a lot.) May we then suppose the divine command theory adequately accounts for morality?

The great Greek philosopher Plato suggested that it did not. In the dialogue the EuthyphroSocrates posed one of the most famous questions in the history of philosophy: Is something right because the gods command it, or do the gods command it because it is right?  It seems the relationship between the gods and morality must be characterized in one of these two ways.

If we characterized the relationship the first way, then right and wrong depend on the the gods will. Something is right because the gods say so! Two basic problems attach to this view. First, it makes the the gods will arbitrary. The gods could have commanded lying, killing, cheating, and stealing to be right! You might be tempted to say that the gods wouldn’t command us to do these things. But why not? Remember the the gods will determines right and wrong, on this view, so that if the god said, “thou shalt kill,” that would be right. The second problem is that the theory renders the notion of the the gods goodness superfluous. We ordinarily attach meaning to the notion that “The the gods commands are good.” We believe we are attributing a property goodness to the the gods commands. But on this second account good simply means “commanded by the gods” so that “The gods commands are good” just means “the gods commands are commanded by the gods,” a useless tautology.

If we characterize the relationship the second way, then we must accept some standard of morality independent of the gods will. What the religious want to say is that in the gods’ infinite wisdom, they know that truthfulness, for example, is better than untruthfulness. On this view, the gods commands things because they are right. But this is much different from making something right. On this second view, the gods recognize the moral truth, but can’t change it. The gods can’t make killing, lying, cheating, and stealing right anymore than we can. Thus, the moral law limits the gods, since they can’t change it. And if we accept this second option, we have given up the divine command theory.

Two options present themselves if the standard of morality is independent of the gods. First, the standard for morality may lie beyond our comprehension, forcing us to rely on authority, revelation, or tradition to explain morality. Going this route ends philosophical ethics. The other alternative uses human reason to understand the gods law. Let’s pursue this second alternative.

The History of Natural Law Ethics

The genesis of natural law ethics is in the writings of Aristotle, who first identified the natural with the good. All things “aim at some good,” he says at the beginning of his treatise on ethics, “and for this reason the good has rightly been declared that at which all things aim.” For individuals, ethics is a study of  the goal, end or purpose of human life. Politics, on the other hand, is a study of the good, goal, end, or purpose of society.

But what is good? Aristotle distinguished between real and apparent goods. Real goods satisfy natural needs, and they are good for us independent of our desires. Food, clothing, and shelter are examples of real goods. Apparent goods satisfy acquired wants, and are called good because we desire them. Shrimp, designer clothes, and mansions are apparent goods. A good life consists in the acquisition, over the course a lifetime, of all the real (natural) goods. These include external and bodily goods such as food, clothing, shelter, health, vitality, and vigor, and, “goods of the soul” like love, friendship, knowledge, courage, justice, honor, and skill. To obtain these real goods requires that we must act with good habits or virtues.  The person of good character exhibits moral virtues such as temperance, courage, and justice, and intellectual virtues like wisdom and prudence. A life full of  virtue is a good, happy, and fulfilling life. It is a life in accordance with our nature.

The idea that each thing has a goal or purpose in accordance with its nature, Aristotle called teleology. (From the Greek telos; meaning goal, end, or purpose.) We can understand this if we consider an artifact like a pen. A pen that writes well is a good pen; it fulfills its purpose. Aristotle also believed that teleology was also a component of the natural world. Acorns develop into oak trees, caterpillars into butterflies, and little children into mature adults; the eyes are meant to see, the hands to grasp, and the kidneys to purify. Whatever satisfies its teleology is fulfilled; whatever fails to do so is defective. To be fulfilled means to actualize the potential inherent in the thing, whereas to be defective refers to the failure to do so. Thus, actualization of natural potential is the essence of teleology and supplies the moral imperative for human beings.

The Stoics further developed the doctrine and first used the term natural law. Stoicism flourished in Athens in the third century B.C.E. and later in the Roman Empire in such great figures as Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Cicero. Unlike Aristotle, the Stoics believed that human happiness was possible without external and bodily goods. They also emphasized rationality and the control of emotions. The Stoics insisted that we have adutyto follow nature, particularly our rational nature, rather than convention. The source of natural law was Logos, the universal power or energy personified in nature’s laws.

That natural laws should prevail over cultural conventions led the Stoics to the idea of the cosmopolitan citizen. Roman jurisprudence, which needed to formulate rules to deal with various cultures, adopted the idea of a natural law for all the world’s citizens. Its basic premise was the natural law’s independence from cultural mores.

This idea had tremendous repercussions throughout human history and would inform the interaction of western Europe and much of the new world. In the sixteenth century, for instance, the Spaniards vehemently debated its applicability for the civilizations they discovered in the New World, and in the eighteenth century the idea influenced the founders of the American government. But the next great development in the idea after Stoicism occurred in the thirteenth century. 

3. St. Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas Aquinas (12251274) synthesized  Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and Christianity to give the natural law its classic formulation. In addition to Aristotle’s natural virtues, he added the theological virtues faith, hope, and charity. And to earthly happiness he added eternal beatitude. For Thomas, action in accordance with human nature fulfills God’s eternal plan, and Scripture’s commandments. Thus, the natural law is God’s law known to human reason. Unlike the lower animals, we have the ability to understand the laws of our nature, and the free will to follow or disregard these laws. But how do we attain knowledge of the natural law? It is not innate, intuited, or easily derived from sense experience. Instead, we use reason to determine the conformity of moral conduct and nature. Since fulfilling natural needs makes us happy, the natural is the good. What then constitutes the law? While all mature individuals know its most general principles like do not kill the innocent, controversy surrounds reasoned conclusions about its specific applications.

The fundamental principle of natural law ethics is that good should be done and evil avoided. This general principle may be specified into moral axioms like: “Do not kill!” “Be faithful!” “Preserve your life!” “Care for you children!” “Do not lie or steal!” “Life is a universal human good!” All of these axioms are both natural and good. We further specify these axioms by rational analysis and by reliance on Church, scripture, or revelation. As Aristotle pointed out, natural inclinations and tendencies are good, and we fulfill them by acquiring the elements which constitute human happiness such as: life, procreation, friendship, and knowledge. Nevertheless, within the boundaries set by human nature, the specific way one satisfies natural inclinations may differ. So a range of activities might satisfy, for instance, our aesthetic or intellectual needs. However, we all need the universal human goods. Thus, morality demands that we follow the laws of our nature which are the same for all on the basis of our shared humanity.

Still, we need not satisfy all of our natural tendencies. For instance, we must curb aggression and dishonesty, so that friendship and society thrive. In this way, we see how reason makes value judgments and imposes moral obligations upon us. The moral law demands that we develop our reason, and act in accordance with reason’s imperatives. As we have seen, nature directs us to live well, flourish in human communities, and, finally, to experience the beatific vision. Therefore, beginning with human nature and using reason to determine the goals nature sets for us, we determine what we ought to do.

Perhaps a simple illustration may help. If we want to become nurses, then we ought to go to college and study nursing. Employing our rational faculties, we impose a non-moral obligation upon ourselves, given an antecedent goal or purpose. Analogously, reason imposes moral obligations upon us. If we want friends and friendship demands justice, then we ought to be just. Of course, the examples are very different. Moral obligations may not depend upon self-interest in the same way that non-moral obligations do. But the basic idea is the same, without goals nothing is obligatory. If we don’t want to be nurses or don’t want friends, then we probably have no obligation to study nursing or be just. And if there are no ultimate purposes in human life, then there probably are no moral obligations either. On the other hand, according to the natural law, the complete actualization of human potential demands that we develop our talents and be just. If we fail to do this, we violate the natural law.

4. Some Philosophical Difficulties

Natural law theory derives values about what we ought to do from facts about our human nature. This is a major philosophical difficulty. When we derive what we ought to do from what is the case, we commit what philosophers call the naturalistic fallacy. This fallacy involves the derivation of ethical conclusions from nonethical facts. Isn’t there a logical gap between what is the case and what ought to be the case? Even if it is true, for instance, that humans are naturally aggressive, does that mean they should be? Though a conception of human nature is relevant to morality, it seems unlikely that one could explain morality by appealing to human nature. Yet, if values don’t come from facts, where do they come from?

A second difficulty with the theory is that modern science rejects teleology. Explanations in science don’t refer to goals, values, or purposes. Rocks don’t fall because they desire the earth’s center, as Aristotle thought, nor does it rain in order to make plants grow. Rather, physical reality operates according to impersonal laws of cause and effect. Evolutionary theory rejects teleology and all of cosmic evolution results from a series of fortuitous occurrences. This brings to light another difficulty. Natural law theory traditionally maintains the immutability of human nature, which contradicts modern biology. Furthermore, technology transforms human human nature. What happens when gene splicing, recombinant DNA, and genetic engineering become normal? For various reasons then, natural law as traditionally conceived and modern science are at odds.

5. Final thoughts

Of course the fact that, with the exception of the Catholic Church, the theory of natural law has fallen into disfavor doesn’t mean it is mistaken. If we believe that we can philosophically demonstrate the existence of a source of values and purposes for human beingsand believe also that knowledge of this source is accessible to human reasonthen one may rationally defend the theory. Furthermore, without such presuppositions, moral thinking is likely futile. A number of contemporary philosophers suggest that without some ultimate, objective source for morality, notions like obligation, duty, right, and good make no sense.

Nevertheless, natural law theory does rest upon a number of dubious philosophical propositions. We should not forget that, at least in the formulation of the Catholic Church, the natural law ultimately comes from God. Like the divine command theory, natural law ethics is open to all of the objections of philosophical theology. Is there a God? Are there any significant proofs for God’s existence? Why is God so “hidden?” How do we know our reason is sufficient to understand God’s natural moral laws? Moreover, a nontheistic natural law ethics must answer the challenge of the naturalistic fallacy. Why is the natural, good?

Whatever the conclusion, the gap between a nonteleological, factual, and scientific account of human nature and a teleological, ethical, and religious conception constitutes the central dispute in contemporary culture. We do not know how to reconcile the two poles, or if one or the other is bankrupt. But, as the historian of philosophy W.T. Jones asserts: “The whole history of philosophy since the seventeenth century is in fact hardly more than a series of variations on this central theme.”