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A Collection of Ethics Essays

~60 min read

Note 02/26/2026: These were a collection of essays I wrote over a summer for an intro ethics class. Writing for classes is weird, because you aren’t necessarily motivated by the subject, but often a grade or deadline. Because of this, or at least in my case, the writing comes out disjointed, merely good enough, without necessary passion or tender care. However I remember engaging pretty well with this class—I actually read the book we were covering! Nevertheless I care about what I do, and I wouldn’t post these if I didn’t appretiate them. Since they are a collection of essays for one class I decided to include them in one clean post. Enjoy.

Table of contents

Mar 31, 2024 | On Ethical Egoism

Prompt: Ethical egoism (as opposed to psychological egoism) identifies right and wrong with self-interest. What are the arguments for this theory? Remember, it is different from psychological egoism. Do not just read Rachels (i.e. his chapter 5) here. Also, in her “Ethics of Emergencies,” for instance, Ayn Rand supports her version of egoism- this is in our supplementary readings. What are the arguments against ethical egoism? Indeed, Rachels mentions many. Make sure not to omit any of the details here. So generally speaking, do you think ethical egoism is just an excuse to be selfish, or do you think that it is a practical serious moral theory? Explain?

Ethical egoism—to some—might seem like the creation of a sociopath made solely to justify their own selfish indulgences under the pretense that it actually contributes to the greater common good of society. Indeed, the notion of an ideology that justifies people to pursue their own self interests seems right out of the dreams of some Wall-street stockbroker who sees their success as a sign of an ever evolving, improving, and revising system run on the backs of people not afraid to work hard against each other. The system, he believes, benefits from his hard work in the products or services he supports, and if he didn’t do it someone else would do it better; Competition breeds innovation, and the best competitors are the most rewarded. But in order to analyze ethical egoism for its true merit, we’d do best to actually define it. “Ethical Egoism claims that each person ought to pursue his or her own self-interest Exclusively” (Pg. 65). It should be noted that this is similar but not the same as psychological egoism, which sneakily states that people do pursue their own self interests. Note the difference between do and ought to. One suggests that people should act according to some ethical theory, while the other suggests humans know no other way to act. For the sake of the argument I will be considering only ethical egoism, and to some extent will be denying (though more so ignoring) psychological egoism on the grounds that it is not an ethical theory, and acts in absolutes, which leaves no real room for arguing. If a human always pursues their self interests, then the definition is somewhat moot, as all actions fall under the purview of the most selfish.

Lets first look at some standard altruistic options that few would argue are unjustifiable. Take Mother Teresa, a Catholic Nun who worked selflessly her whole life to help others in need. She helped people dying of debilitating diseases when no one else would, founding missionaries, schools, clinics, and many other establishments all over the world. For this she even won the Nobel Peace Prize. Members of her congregation—including herself—took vows of poverty and to wholly devote themselves to the service of those in need. One might argue that she is a great example of Altruism. She acted without regard for her own needs and benefited the world greatly. Can anyone else argue that their maintenance of their own desires will be any more beneficial to society than if they adopted a selfless demeanor like her? Ethical Egoism would tell you that she was in fact acting selflessly.

On page 71 of The Elements of Moral Philosophy, it states that, “Ethical Egoism does not tell you to avoid helping others. Sometimes your interests will coincide with the wellbeing of others, so by helping yourself you’ll help them too”. Consider her background. She grew up with and fundamentally believed the core tenets of Christian or Catholic belief. Catholic belief says that the world we inhabit is not the only plane of existence, but a sort-of proving ground for people who will then go on to live out the rest of their existence suffering for their selfishness in hell, or will live in a paradise beyond earthly measure for their benevolence. I’m not saying Mother Teresa was thinking to herself about avoiding suffering or idolizing pleasure while helping others, but at the very least she likely believed wholeheartedly in the ideas presented by her religion. In her mind, it was in her best interest to act charitable. By being selfless, she was actually engaging in the most selfish act she could have, and in doing so she helped the wellbeing of others.

A good example of a stable system governing the wellness of millions of people, and by extension perhaps billions, which operates correctly only when each party acts selfishly, is the federal system of the United States of America. I should note that I am considering the entire history of the United States, not just recent events. Given the historical stability of the United States in navigating the country’s development and in comparison to others spanning hundreds of years, the federal government could be considered quite a successful system, and parts of it have been used to inspire governments around the world. When the nation was founded, the founders considered how corruption had taken over rulers who claimed to rule with benevolence in mind. They looked to philosophers like Thomas Hobbes, writer of The Leviathan, who stated that humans were inherently self interest and self preservant. The founders considered that for a lasting document, no leader, politician,or otherwise should be given special trust that they would act benevolently and not abuse their power. In fact, the systems of government were set up opposed to each other with the ability to “check” each other’s powers so that they would stay “equal”. A system was created in which opposing forces could define a system in equilibrium that would undeniably evolve beyond their comprehension and in directions they hadn’t foreseen. Considering the constitution, though with many amendments, is the second oldest written constitution still in effect, one might consider their experiment a success.

In arguing oppositional to Ethical Egoism, one might consider a scenario where A disaster or an emergency has occurred. If a fire were to occur in which people were trapped or otherwise had their life threatened, many would argue that the best course of action would be to help those in need. This however is seemingly against the tenets of ethical egoism. In this case, to act selfishly would be to ignore the greater good of those also caught in the fire, yet ethical egoism says that one should act in their own interests. In such a situation, how could one act selfishly and in their own interests (not in pursuit of helping strangers), while also benefiting the society as a whole? Ayn Rand offers a solution in her writings, The Virtue of Selfishness. She states that there are “normal conditions of existence” and “emergency situations” (33). She states that, “It is only in emergency situations that one should volunteer to help strangers, if it is in one’s power.” She goes on to say that, “this does not mean that after they all reach shore, (he being a man who has saved others from a shipwreck) he should devote his efforts to saving his fellow passengers from… whatever other troubles they might have” (33). By drawing a distinction between normal and emergency situations, she points out not the logical fallacy of ethical egoism, but the “metaphysical nature” of emergencies. She states that humans are born without knowledge or values, and that they should develop them through discovery and work, and in doing so will develop a knowledge of regular and metaphysical situations which require special rules applied to people’s actions.

Ethical Egoism seems to justify selfish action, but when looked at with scrutiny actually defines an ideal system in which people’s passions and desires can be directed towards good. It doesn’t consider the murderer, freeloader, or thief, whose pursuit of self interest goes against the betterment of others, but the sled dog who, when directed to pursue their own selfish desire, work to the betterment of the whole.

Apr 7, 2024 | The Categorical Imperative

Prompt: According to Kant, morality is absolute. When something is right or wrong, it is always right or wrong. When something is wrong, moreover, it is prohibited no matter what. Yet how can we know what the moral law is? According to Kant, we can ascertain what the moral law is by means of his ‘categorical imperative’ test. To evaluate this test, read the chapters in Rachels on Kant- he is really good on the objections to deontology. Moreover, read Kant himself (i.e. “Morality and Rationality”) from our supplemental readings- make sure to quote from him. Also, read the Ken Westphal article (i.e. “Practical Reason: Categorical Imperatives, Laws, and Maxims”) and quote from that. Does the categorical imperative work to reveal the moral law? Or does it not? Make sure to consider the potential objections (e.g. from Foot) to this categorical imperative test. What do you think, exactly?

The idea of an absolute right and wrong is an interesting idea, and one that comes easy to human understanding. Everyone inherently orients themselves in accordance with what is right or wrong, even if these polar concepts don’t always represent good and bad in the way one might be inclined to think. Following a map, someone might orient themselves according to the polar North and South. This gives people a sense of direction. We do this biologically as well. The vestibular system within the inner ear maintains spatial orientation and balance. It operates so innately that you hardly realize you have a sense of balance and being, but when it is offset you realize how essential it is to your wellbeing. Astronauts suspended without gravity or in freefall report a sensation of directionlessness; While laying down they feel like they are standing up, doomed to orient themselves only consciously and with effort. Anyone who has used virtual reality or has read a book while in a car might also report a sense of nausea and discomfort as their observed surroundings disagrees with what their inner ear tells them.

Ideas of absolutes are helpful in other more subtle situations as well. Computers at the most basic level orient their programming instructions based on tiny periodic crystal clocks which for all computational purposes dictate a regular interval of time in which calculations will occur for any program on the computer. On a larger scale, computers across the world orient their clocks according to special, carefully crafted atomic clocks that set their time analogous to hyper-specific frequencies of cesium atoms. As defined by the International System of Units, a second is defined as 9,192,631,770 periods of radiation corresponding to the transition between two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium-133 atom. The value of a second isn’t absolute, simply due to it being arbitrarily chosen in the first place. But according to our best understanding of physics the Hz of a cesium atom is absolute, or it is this way due to a variety of observed principles that are themselves absolute. By tying the second to such a thing, it is effectively absolute.

Lastly, formal systems pride themselves in their absoluteness. They are composed of axioms, from which are derived theorems. If you can derive a theorem without something opposed to it also being able to be derived, that system is consistent. Indeed, if in Math you could have 23=6 and 25=6, then such a system would entail the unraveling of much essential logic we use in our ordinary lives.

But why talk about all these seemingly random topics? What do cardinal directions, computer clocks, and axioms have to do with ethics? Immanuel Kant asked the same question. He wondered if morality itself could be absolute. And if so, could we find it? What would that mean for our actions?

In navigating the “map” of life, it would be nice to know if we were taking the right path. Life is tricky, decisions are often gray; Is there a better way? Deontology seems to suppose that our actions do have an innate “goodness” or “badness”. There is no relativism in determining if an action is good or bad, only the absolute as it is defined by something called Moral Law. If utilitarianism is Einstein’s relativity, with its mind-bending and space bending rules that seem to change and adapt to different sizes, speeds and perspectives, deontology is classical Newtonian physics. It’s always true, everything applies equally in all situations, and there is an absolute zero. If absolute moral truths existed, then making your way through life would be like walking with a compass or a flashlight. Even if an action seemed hard, which to our willpower might make an action seem undesirable, it would by definition be right. It adheres to a moral law, one which is absolute, and one with no exceptions.

By setting up an absolute moral law, one must consider the implication or ramifications of doing so. Such a law would be adhered to based on a lack of adherence to empirical results. Kant himself states, “Thus everything empirical is not only wholly unworthy to be an ingredient in the principle of morality but is even highly prejudicial to the purity of moral practices themselves” (338). He claims that our perspective on manners is both subjective and unreliable. People are inherently driven by biological impulse and subject to its deficits. Our reasoning is mortal and fluid, and does not adhere to absolutes without effort. Kant would claim that human decision alone then cannot serve as a basis for universal laws, for they (humans) contradict even themselves sometimes.

This draws an important distinction between those who can realize and follow absolute truths and those who can’t (note that this doesn’t say anything about people who will, only those who are capable). Those who can act according to a higher meaning might be called Rational Agents.These are things capable of acting freely outside of their conditioning or instincts, but have special capabilities that exalt themselves above others. Such special capabilities form a central tenet of modern philosophies and religions, such as stoicism, and for many provide an important distinction between man and animal. Kant appeals to this distinction, and argues it significantly affects how we as rational agents should act. He argues, “Such beings are not merely subjective ends whose existence as a result of our action has a worth for us, but are objective ends, i.e., beings whose existence in itself is an end. Such an end is one for which no other end can be substituted, to which these beings should serve merely as means. For, without them, nothing of absolute worth could be found, and if all worth is conditional and thus contingent, no supreme practical principle for reason could be found anywhere.”(339). He looks to this idea of a “mean to an end” and applies it to rational agents as well as non-rational agents, arguing that to use a rational-agent as a means to an end would be to undermine the system of discovering absolute moral truth itself. He creates a hierarchy that puts rational agents above all, and everything below is justified in serving as a means to an end, with the exception that all rational agents are exempt from this. Kant claims that rational agents should be afforded a dignity that is not shared with others.

On the surface this seems plausible. Our governments (and somewhat by extension, modern-people) value the liberty and equality of all people, a change which coincided with an increase in the quality of life of people all throughout the world and the advancement of civilization. Even today the success of an ideology seems to hinge on its recognition of the intrinsic value of a human, or dignity. People might not be able to pinpoint why they feel “higher” than a mere animal, but they might attribute it to our ability to follow abstract ideas separate from our immediate desires, something every dog-owner has realized upon seeing their pet rummage through garbage.Conversely, there are objects which have no designation or importance beyond their ability to be a “means”. A pencil or pen,for example, is only as useful as it provides utility, and its replacement hardly causes sadness or regret.

If some universal moral truth exists, there still exists the problem of identifying it. Going back to the physics example, if someone were to say they were at perfect rest and everything moving relative to them would be relative to an absolute rest, what’s to stop someone from claiming that their state is absolute rest? Galileo would have you believe there is no solution to this. Accordingly, if someone claims to have found an absolute moral truth, how might that be verified? Is their derivation of such consistent? Kant believed an absolute moral truth could be derived through a simple test. He considered things called Maxims, which are like guides for actions. These maxims can be transformed into Imperatives, which are either categorical or hypothetical, a distinction which will be made clearer later. Kant said that there is The Categorical Imperative, and that it can be derived and verified by asking the question: is it logically possible for everyone (all rational agents) to follow these Maxims? If the answer is yes, then it represents an absolute right.

This seems logical, and ties into our treatment of rational agents. If the categorical imperative can be reached by all rational agents, then it would make sense that rational agents—as a rule of that categorical imperative—could not treat rational agents as a means. They are all equally obligated to understanding and following the categorical imperative. Westphalon, in discussion Kantian deontology, agrees, “Kant’s universalization tests embody at their core equal respect for all persons as free rational agents, that is, as agents who can determine what to think or to do by rationally assessing the merits of the case.” (115).

The text above asserts that rational agents have a right to find and observe moral law, and thus cannot sabotage others by treating them as a means, for they are an end within themselves. This does not, however, actually answer the question of if the moral law can be found, and if the categorical imperative serves as a tool to derive it. Philippa Foot believes this not to be the case. She asserts that moral actions do not always appeal to the categorical imperative but to a hypothetical imperative, which states that an action can be done as a means to achieve any desired end. She draws comparisons between moral law and etiquette, stating, “The conclusion we should draw is that moral judgements have no better claim to be categorical imperatives than do statements about matters of etiquette. People may indeed follow either morality or etiquette without asking why they should do so, but equally well they may not. They may ask for reasons and may reasonably refuse to follow either if reasons are not to be found” (59). One could argue that etiquette isn’t categorical but hypothetical. Culture’s might all have a concept of etiquette, but each one has a different definition of what that is. Foot claims that just as someone can justify or negate etiquette based on the presence of convincing reasons, why too can’t one do that with absolute moral law?

It’s easy to look at this question from a non-philosophical light—to take a question whose answer is uncertain and nauseating and to restructure it so the rules that define it play nicely in our brains. To look for an absolute moral truth is tantamount to looking for any absolute. Computer systems work only if the voltage of a transistor is recognized as a one, and its absence is recognized as a zero. This relation is universal in the context of modern computer architecture (go back to the corner, quantum computing). It sits right at the center of everything else, so much so that to not understand it as a prerequisite to everything else would be nonsensical. In terms of ethics, how is it that an absolute moral truth is not self-evident? Why don’t we run into something so fundamental each and every day like we do for so many other certain things in our life? What about it justifies its subtlety, that it must be coerced into the light and held up by faith alone? Perhaps some Kantian deontologists believe some prime event will occur, in which a metaphysical being will come down and bestow upon them the knowledge: “you were right, and your actions, which previously seemed illogical, were actually correct in adhering to something much further down the line, which is occurring now”. If such a reality were the case, then their Categorical Imperative is no different than a hypothetical one, only that it was the most correct given the biggest scope of context.

I strongly admire the idea behind Kantian deontology. I think the world would be a better place if we rational agents adhered to a virtuous life, and I think reality has been made better by the people who took it upon themselves to do just that. I think our idea of what constitutes a rational agent is a bit antiquated, but essentially correct. Yet as someone who ascribes themselves to a level of logical consistency and trust in empirical results I can’t say I am convinced the categorical imperative works to reveal an absolute moral law—if one even exists.

Apr 14, 2024 | Considerations of Interest

Prompt: Singer says that the key to utilitarianism is that we engage in an ‘equal consideration of interests.’ By this, Singer means that what we owe to others is not that we treat them all equally, but we consider them equally. What are the details of such consideration? Are there any problems with it? Remember, Singer himself addresses some potential objections, especially in his article with Ng from our readings. So do not omit these. Also, Practical Ethics chapters 1 and 2 are both key here. Moreover, book chapters from Susan Krantz (in the extra reading section) are helpful here.

A common critique, to some an achilles heel, of deontology is its requirement of a categorical imperative to work properly. It says that some absolute moral framework must be in place for rational agents to justify their actions. To some, like Singer, a fundamental ethical principle is unfindable. He argues that ethics is not something basic like atoms, but subjective and irreducibly so. Instead of explaining around this problem or ignoring it altogether, he embraces it and formulates an ethical theory built around the subjectivity of moral value. In his eyes, the most optimal ethical theory is that of Preference Utilitarianism, which states that what we determine is best for the majority is the most moral option, and that what is best for someone is determined by their preferences. Additionally, there should be an equal consideration of interests, and no one’s specific preferences should be offered any priority weighting. This opens up several questions that need to be answered though. What determines equal consideration? Do all people then, by extension, deserve equal treatment as well? And if not, how is different treatment a property of equality if it is defined by discrimination? Singer counters this point by stating that equal consideration of preferences does not merit equal treatment.

Almost comically, and likely to the satisfaction of its critics, Singer and Ng model Utilitarianism according to an “Ethical calculus”, a generalized equation that can dictate when one decision is more preferable to another in the context of an affected population. I say comedically because some opponents of Utilitarianism (and as we will see, Singer’s Preference Utilitarianism specifically) see its downfall in its inconsideration of subjective factors like emotions and human dignity that are present in specific, un-generalized ethical situations. Kantz, in Refuting Peter Singer’s Ethical Theory, states that “there are no ethical theories or principles or algorithms or calculi that can “make our moral decisions for us”—each of us is “the man on the ground,” at the interface between principle and specific situation, whenever we make a moral choice”(70). This will be a central idea later in this essay concerning objections to Singer’s theory. Nonetheless, Singer and Ng in the article An Argument for Utilitarianism create something known as a Weak Majority Preference. It states that given a population (or community) of n individuals between two possibilities x and y, and given that no individuals prefer y to x, if at least half the majority (n/2 in even cases, and [n-1]/2 in odd cases) prefer x to y, then x increases social welfare and is preferable (232). This is easy to understand and indeed, is how cases of voting a weak (or simple) majority is employed, such as corporate shareholder voting, primary elections, and U.S. legislation votes in both the House of Representatives and Senate. This is with the important distinction though that the WMP requires that the minority’s preferences are not ignored, which is a likely outcome of a simple majority vote. WMP is an extension of another idea known as the Pareto Principle, that says if one person of a population prefers x to y and none of a population opposes, then x can be chosen. It’s easy to see that if a case of WMP is satisfied, then naturally the case of the Pareto Principle will be valid too.

As a basis, the WMP and Pareto Principle are easy enough to visualize and agree with; Nevertheless, it wouldn’t be philosophy if it wasn’t controversial. Singer posits that situations can exist in which the welfare of people and their preferences don’t align. He imagines an example of a person drinking tea with whole integer amounts of sugar cubes. They notice the increase or decrease (their welfare) and their preferences are adjusted accordingly. Then he imagines a scenario where the difference of sugar cubes is less noticed if a cup had say, 1.8 sugar cubes as opposed to 2. Indeed, though refined our sensory organs are due to millions of years of evolution, many would be less than truthful in arguing they could detect the difference in a cup of tea’s sugar content that differs between 0.2 cubes. This is further justified in arguing the return on investment lessens the more sugar is added. I.e.: a cup of tea with one sugar cube will taste twice as good with two, but with four sugar cubes one more might not add to it in a linearly measurable manner. Comparisons could potentially be drawn here to the psychology of the human brain, which tends to adapt to its surroundings and leads to situations where a man with millions of dollars is no more satisfied than the quaint farmer.

With this in mind, Singer then brings to the table the idea that if welfare could be taken away in an unnoticeable way (in that it doesn’t affect pleasure) and could be used to benefit a majority in a noticeable way, then this would be valid under WMP. This points directly to what Singer means by “equal consideration, unequal treatment”. You can treat a group according to their preferences by redistributing—and even taking away—welfare from a minority.

Some might wonder why the measure of moral justification is based on preference instead of welfare. Is welfare not a measure of the “well-fare” of people? Singer points out that the measure chosen may vary depending on what is intended to be measured. “A statesman is more interested in the welfare of the people” Singer claims, “while a politician is more interested in their preference” (231). Singer argues that preference is easier to capture than welfare, which itself might be difficult to measure. A person’s preference might also indicate their happiness more than their actual welfare as well, which makes it useful for determining someone’s happiness. Notwithstanding, welfare might still remain a good indicator of other things like economic performance.

Differential treatment has several merits, and has applications many people are already familiar with. Disabled people are given closer parking spots, specially attentive education, and aids to movement or hearing, along with many other things. Most people would see this as necessities to ensure everyone is allowed the same level of experience in life. The treatment is special, but only in bringing people up to a “baseline” of experience. Some extrapolations of this might be less popular. Affirmative action, for example, is an aid to minority groups who were historically disadvantaged. Some would argue though that colleges have no obligation to enroll students for any criteria other than education, and that even a good intentioned idea can have negative consequences in implementation. Another large criticism is that preference utilitarianism effectively removes universal human rights. A person, who was born or who has become severely disabled and incapable of cognitive thought, wouldn’t object to having their welfare removed in order to better direct sustaining resources to those with unmet preferences.

Decisions like these happen all the time, such as whether or not to cut the life support off of coma victims, severely disabled people, or premature babies. Opinions on what to do in each situation vary widely. Some claim a human life is sacred, and that any amount of care is justified to keep them alive, no matter the situation. In the documentary Singer: A Dangerous Mind, a mother suffering from extreme chronic pain due to cancer found herself unable to remedy this pain. Her very existence was painful, and she admitted to her son that the life she was living “wasn’t living”. This then raises the question: should a person, who is incapable of pleasure and only capable of pain, be able to willingly end their life to negate suffering? She decided they should, but In Australia, where she lived, it is illegal (at the time of the documentary) to engage in any end of life care. Doctors turned her away, ascribing (if not personally, then at least to a system that) to a belief in the maintenance of human life in any case. This did not stop herself from dying. In fact, she committed suicide using help and encouragement from online sources. Due to legal worries, her children could not be present due to the possibility they might be held accountable for her death. She was forced to end her life alone, and in a manner that could only be prepared herself. What if a professional was allowed to help her? She could be ensured that the process was painless and not botched. Additionally, her family could be there so she could pass with them, as many people do during the end of life. Singer would argue that in such cases, an appeal to human dignity leads to a less dignified death. An appeal to utilitarianism can be cold and detached, but in such grim cases the right answer might be the one with the least touch of grey.

Krantz would argue that such cases are harder to deal with in practice than on paper. Indeed, when Singer’s own mother was suffering from end stage alzheimers, he decided that an assisted suicide, though compatible and maybe demanded by his ethical theory, shouldn’t be undertaken. He argues that this was due to the legal status of such a procedure at the time, but doesn’t omit the fact that he was personally uncomfortable with the idea of subtracting from the welfare of his own mother. Singer would consider his emotional considerations a defect in his own decision making, not a flaw in his overarching theory. Krantz would argue it is proof that ethical decision making cannot exist without being “fundamentally a matter of human affection and friendship, in the sense that without this there would neither be, nor be a need for, ethical thinking” (Refuting Peter Singer’s Ethical Theory, 70). If ethics is meant to concern how humans should act, why should their moral intuitions be ignored? Krantz solidifies this, later going on to say in her work Threat to Morality and to Human Values, “it may well be that some moral intuitions (such as kin preference) and some principles of traditional morality (such as the sanctity of human life) are actually indispensable to a genuinely humane moral code. If this is true, since it is a moral claim, it is true regardless of the facts about the sources of the relevant intuitions or principles.” (68). A critic might also find fault in that the driving idea behind WMP is that welfare can be subtracted from people when most would not condonable, They might claim that a “sleight of hand” trick has been attempted in persuading people to agree with an ethical theory in ways they don’t intend.

Much to the chagrin of philosophers and physics problems with weightless ropes, things do not occur in ideal circumstances. People live in non-ideal circumstances and decisions that seem valid in one case might require tests of will and ignorance of personal biases or intuitions which, if followed, would lead to more suffering overall. Whether or not these decisions occur does not stop the related consequences. Singer’s preference utilitarianism is easy to vivisect in practice, because unlike ideal ethical theories, it doesn’t seek to provide an absolute answer. It is cold and detached in situations that seem to highlight its evil nature, but upon closer inspection it only shows that dirty situations can’t escape dirty solutions. Preference Utilitarianism does its best to provide rules to actions in a world it has deemed absent of them on a fundamental level. As the world expands and our systems begin to contradict our natural moral compasses guided by kinship and compassion, Utilitarianism serves as an uncomfortably promising substitute.

Apr 21, 2024 | On Speciesism

Prompt: What is ‘speciesism,’ exactly? Peter Singer is famous for arguing that we are guilty of this. Are we really guilty of speciesism? Is it that bad? To answer this, make sure to cover his arguments for it, and the objections he cites. In the supplementary reading, Bonnie Steinbock, in her “Speciesism and the Idea of Equality” criticizes Singer. Similarly, Carl Cohen, in “Do Animals Have Rights,” denies that they have rights. So make sure to consider Steinbock and Cohen. Who is right? Why? Lastly, if Singer is right that we are speciesists, what can we do about it?

Peter Singer established a (potentially radical) idea of utilitarianism, in which he tried to steer away from the notion that anything is absolutely endowed with a sense of worth. He proposed an Equal Consideration of Interests, in which all creatures capable of suffering, and like suffering, should be considered in the effects of any action. By extension, a good action is one in which the least suffering for all equally considered beings occurs. This notion of suffering is important because it is the only relevant factor in determining if the suffering-able creature is to be considered in the decision calculus of Singer’s utilitarian ethical theory. Traits such as intelligence, ability, or a propensity to communicate need not be considered, and in the case of disabled persons this seems reasonable to most people. This begs the question, what separates this criteria from applying to animals? Animals1 can feel pain and suffer in the same way that humans can, and for those who would argue that this can’t be proven due to our inability to be an animal I would argue this argument applies to other humans as well as we cannot embody their experience either. We must take it on a test of faith that their avoidance of things they’ve identified with pain—in the same way we have—indicates that they can similarly suffer to us. They might not all share the same level of thinking as humans do, sure—a chicken conversing about the weather or driving a car would draw quite a site—but we’ve already established that no factors other than similar suffering is required to qualify under an equal consideration of interests. Babies and the severely disabled, for example, might show less intellect than a mouse or a dog, but are permitted more consideration only due to them being a human. As Singer writes, quoting Jeremny Bentham, “The question is not, Can they reason? Nor Can they talk? But, Can they suffer?” (107).

This seems to be the root of the issue. The capacity for suffering is the vital characteristic that should extend the basic principle of equality to non-human animals. Alas, it is not. Cows and pigs and chickens are grown and slaughtered on an industrial scale that would make the Nazis weep. If humans found themselves relating to such domestic animals in the same way they relate to their own species, or if humans found themselves in the place of these domestic animals, the practice of industrial meat production would be a horrific endeavor in violation of all human rights and the core tenets of most major religions. The key factor here is that humans are not subjected to this. Before I continue into what this reveals, I would like to point out one objection that most people have to practices like animal experimentation and factory farming. They say that animals aren’t being slaughtered for no reason, but are done so in order to feed people. They might also point out that animals kill each other all the time. Some, like carnivores, have adapted to live only off the carrion of others, and are incapable of living a life deprived of death. As a final nail in the coffin, they might point out that humans themselves lived off of hunting other lifeforms for much of our history, and that we are only continuing in our natural practices. I am not going to deny the proclivities or practices of animals acting in balance within their ecosystem, but the idea that killing animals is required to sustain human life is untrue. Energetically, to produce a certain amount of meat requires a living thing to consume the energy of a lesser life form, such as how a cow eats grass. In this conversion, most of this energy is lost in the maintenance of the homeostasis of the cow or through heat. Producing meat is far less efficient than eating closer to the source of all life-sustaining energy on Earth (The Sun, and ignoring chemosynthesis-sustaining bacteria deep under the water), and humans as omnivores are more than capable of living a life eating plants—it would actually be more efficient. The crop required to feed a cow that could in turn feed one person could feed ten people. It is quite literally less efficient and unnecessary to eat meat as opposed to plants. Many of these points apply to animal experimentation as well, but I will save my comments on this for later.

Another objection might be that humans are incapable of anything but speciesism. Bernard Williams, an english moral philosopher of the 20th century, states that perhaps speciesism is real and probably so. In this hypothetical, he goes on to say that maybe we even recognize our prejudice but continue nonetheless. What if we are incapable of changing despite what logic and reasoning tells us? Singer comments on this, and suggests that Williams was pessimistic about the limits of human psychology. Continuing, he states that not only would such a state justify prejudice, but it also is untrue as humans have been shown to consider and change their behavior. I would concur with Singer here. Humans might be predisposed to prejudice in the same manner they are predisposed to social grouping, pattern recognition, and heuristic-based thinking, but they are not bound to it. We have manifested all manners of prejudice, and have corrected the errors of our ways (though some in more ways than others). The human mind is flawed, but it is not limited to pure irrationality.

Going back, it seems clear that the major difference in our inconsideration of the interests of animals seems to be their lack of humanity. Peter Singer uses the term ‘speciesist’. Bonnie Steinbock, in her work Speciesism and the Idea of Equality goes on to say that ‘speciesist’ is, “a word intended to make one think of ‘racist’ or ‘sexist’. The idea is that membership in a species is in itself not relevant to moral treatment, and that much of our behavior and attitudes towards non-human animals is based simply on this irrelevant fact” (247). Signer and Steinbock were smart to point out the parallels behind human and animal discrimination. They both include the fact that discrimination of a group is occurring due to an otherwise irrelevant fact. Sexism involves the unequal treatment of humans due to their gender, and racism involves similar mistreatment due to the color of their skin. Over the years other arguments were brought in to justify such mistreatments. People of certain races were said to possess more or less intelligence than others, and women were said to be too emotional to bother themselves with important, and often independent, decisions. In both cases these arguments have been deemed without-base and unscientific, and were focused on characteristics irrelevant to moral treatment. Animals, by this reasoning, should have their non-humanness be irrelevant as well to moral treatment.

There are still problems with this theory. A human, on the grounds that it can suffer, as well as say a monkey or a dog have no grounds on which to refuse either’s suffering for consideration. Singer used this same argument to justify equal consideration for all humans too. But this is not to say that humans are not different from other animals. A human dislikes pain as much as a rat, and so it would be right to consider their ability to suffer as much as ours. But when I say “imagine a white cat” it is only the humans that are capable of doing so. A human can be motivated by altruism for example. They can treat others in accordance with a notion of fairness, and it is true to say—not tinted under some notion of speciesism—that only other humans can be expected to understand and potentially reciprocate. A non-human animal (as far as we have seen, and as far as we are regularly dealing with at the time of writing this essay) is incapable of abstract understanding and acting outside of their limited motivations. Steinbock presents a perfect scenario, “If rats invade our houses, carrying disease and biting our children, we cannot reason with them, hoping to persuade them of the injustice they do us. We can only attempt to get rid of them. And it is this that makes it reasonable for us to accord them a separate and not equal moral status, even though their capacity to suffer provides us with some reason to kill them painlessly, if this can be done without too much sacrifice of human interests” (253). Intelligence then doesn’t affect our consideration for suffering, but it does separate us into moral categories that don’t necessarily require equal treatment. A lion should not be expected to converse instead of fight, because it has no capacity to do so. We do not, then, have to consider this in treating it. A human, generally, can be expected to act with reason, and ones who don’t should be treated as such. Steinbock wraps this up perfectly, writing, “In our treatment of other entities, we must consider the desire for autonomy, dignity and respect, but only where such a desire exists. Recognition of different desires and interests will often require different treatment, a point Singer himself makes.” (253).

Steinbock goes further to say that experimentation might be justified then, in that experimentation might be done to ensure humans can exercise their unique abilities that other non-human animals have. This is only the case if such abilities could only be exercised if experimentation, through the development of medicines, prevented the proliferation of pain or disease (254). Humans’ special abilities are valued higher—and thus humans are valued higher—than non-human animals not because they are distinctly different, but because these abilities are what define the rational basis for equal consideration of interests and moral theory itself.

Carl Cohen, in his work Do Animals Have Rights?, uses Steinbocks’s idea as an argument for why animals do not have rights. He proposes that “all rights entail obligations” (94), though he is careful in stating that this does not necessarily convert simply to say that all rights entail obligations. If a human is obligated to treat a fellow human with respect, he has a right that he will be respected as well. If he were to disregard that respect by infringing upon the respect of another, it follows that he would no longer himself have the right to his own respect. This is the basis for social contract theory. You sacrifice a little but you’re thus ensured that you’re protected by what you sacrificed. If everyone agrees to not murder, that might be a setback for the Pro Murder Party, but at least they can be ensured that their political efforts won’t be sabotaged violently by the Win-at-All-Costs Coalition. He does, however, go on to say, “it surely does not follow from thai that one is free to treat them [non-human animals] with callous disregard. Animals are not stones; they feel. A rat may suffer; surely we have the obligation not to torture it gratuitously, even though it be true that the concept of a right could not possibly apply to it.” (95). Cohen seems to agree with Steinbock then. Animals incapable of adhering to a mode of reasoning shouldn’t be expected to act in accordance with this reasoning, and thus aren’t protected by this. Cohen would say that they have “no rights”. He also states that this does not justify mistreatment of them. Even if he did not go on to say that humans are obligated not to torture them, this idea would still be compatible with an equal consideration of suffering.

This says nothing about the potential for animals to be capable of abstract thought and actions beyond their immediate desires. Non-human animals might possess the prerequisite concepts required for abstract thought and the communication of such that we might consider intelligence. Aliens, potentially, could possess intelligence equal to or even surpassing our own. Would we consider them equal to us? Or would we manifest a notion of xenophobia into our thoughts and institutions as we have done with racism and sexism? Nonetheless, this is statistically (and in the case of aliens, currently) not the case, and humans would not be wrong in assuming most dogs aren’t willing to discuss the value of virtue ethics and Kantian philosophy.

Under Singer’s notion of utilitarianism, non-human animals seem to be barred from the consideration of interests only due to the irrelevant fact that they are not human. The treatment of animals makes little to no consideration of their like suffering, likened to ours, and arguments for this seem to offer no scientific basis in justifying themselves, revealing their thinly veiled motivation to be convenience and paradigms which are unwilling to shift that echoes other social prejudices such as racism and sexism. This is not, however, to suggest that humans are totally equal to non-human animals. Steinbock and Cohen point out the unique characteristics of humans to embody intelligence, communication, and desire, which dictate how they can be obligated to treat others and how they are guaranteed the right to be treated on this basis. This does not, however, undermine one’s consideration of a being’s suffering—a shared quality—that is under no justification to be ignored or exploited.

Like a hydra, the slaying of one head seems to spark the growth of three more. Intelligence and the ability to reason is not something that has to be considered in the case of all animals under the pretense of a sliding scale of intelligence, but this conveniently ignores the idea that intelligence might manifest in ways unfamiliar to us. Douglas R. Hofstadter, in his book Godel Escher Bach, writes on the topic of intelligence, “Perhaps we are unknowingly burdened with a similar chauvinism with respect to intelligence, and consequently with respect to meaning. In our chauvinism, we would call any being with a brain sufficiently much like our own “intelligent”, and refuse to recognize other types of objects as intelligent… …consider a meteorite which, instead of deciphering the outer-space Bach record, punctures it with colossal indifference, and continues in its merry orbit. It has interacted with the record in a way which we feel tempted to call the meteorite “stupid”. But perhaps we would thereby do the meteorite a disservice. Perhaps it has a “higher intelligence” which we in our Earth chauvinism cannot perceive, and its interaction with the record was a manifestation of that higher intelligence. Perhaps, then, the record has a “higher meaning”—totally different from that which we attribute to it; perhaps its meaning depends on the type of intelligence perceiving it. Perhaps.” (172).

I think there is little I can do to comment on the eloquence of Hofstadter’s writing, but I wished to include it nonetheless. Prejudices throughout history seemed to be justified due to our lack of importance in addressing the underlying problems in relation to other more important problems. Who cares about women’s suffrage if no human is guaranteed a right to survive, such as in a neolithic society. Who would care about suffrage at all? Problems are addressed in a manner of convenience, and as things get more convenient we are more capable—and perhaps obligated—to address deeper problems and prejudices. It seems silly now to consider the intelligence of a meteorite, but if it did embody a different intelligence to us, would we be any the wiser? Would our notion of intelligence—the correct intelligence—create a new form of prejudice?

Humans are a social creature. Like other mammals such as zebras, deer, and even ocean-faring whales and dolphins, we have evolved to depend on our communities for safety. The basic idea is that a creature alone is less capable of surviving than a group and indeed, in the case of massive herds of zebras and African buffalo this survival comes from simple statistics: if a lion kills one animal from a group each hunt, then a group of equally abled animals will have their chance of survival directly proportional to the inverse of the amount of animals in the group itself; an animal in a group of two would have a 50% survival rate, while an animal in a group of 100 would have a 99% survival rate. It does go further than that though. In the case of most mammals they rely on others to look after their young, to offer protection, and to provide food for those who are less capable of providing for themselves. Indeed, some of the earliest human bones discovered show signs of debilitating—but healed—injuries, likely showing they had enough communal support to recover from their injuries. Humans themselves seem “improperly designed”. Human babies come out predeveloped compared to other animals, and depend entirely on their mother for support in their early years of life. Some sharks, on the other hand, come out swimming and actively seek to get away from their parent in case they are mistakenly eaten. A human mother would not only benefit from the support of a group but would actively depend on them for survival—-it really does take a village.

Our greatest weakness turned out to be one of our greatest strengths. The payoff of an indefensible early childhood meant humans were capable of developing more powerful brains, capable of abstract thought. This isn’t an anthropology essay, but the supremacy of humans and the development of civilization likely came from this factor, and indeed it is a trait shared only by us (or at least exploited to such a capacity).

Our heightened social ability to form groups also works the other way around. To group is to separate and to separate is to discriminate. Early humans likely separated themselves into tribes and were loyal only to their communities. Modern tribes worldwide follow this practice as well, and every school child remembers how kids separated themselves into groups of like-interests or even grouped by simply proximity (think neighborhood kids). It seems irrational to make such separations but it makes people undeniably uncomfortable to do otherwise. People feel security in groups and feel stressed in isolation. In a much more general sense, people like it when things fit into patterns nicely. Look at any piece of media that is pro war and you will find one side portrayed as absolutely good and the other as absolutely bad. Look at its antithesis and you’ll find the reality is much more gray. The world does not fit nicely into patterns, but that doesn’t stop humans from trying.

May 05, 2024 | On Greene

Prompt: In his opening chapters, Greene mentions the Northern and Southern herders, as an allegory for group behavior. According to Greene, what is the clash between the groups, exactly? Could their conflicts have been avoided, or not? To what degree? How? To answer this question, make sure not just to cite the first chapter on “Commonsense Morality,” but also the experiments cited in “Moral Machinery” and “Strifes on the New Pastures.” Specifically, include how the idea of ‘biased fairness’ makes cooperation more difficult. Indeed, to appreciate the conflict, we must consider this kind of bias.

A downside of intelligence is that all observable instances of it that we know of seem to come with stipulations to its existence. Humans, animals, and even cells embody some level of intelligence as they analyze, decipher, and respond to phenomena in a way that is somewhat more advanced than random ambient physical reaction. Physarum Polycephalum, a type of slime mold, can move through its environment to forage in a manner that is isomorphically2 similar to a shortest path convergence computation. Yet as I stated, intelligence is not without strings attached. For it to exist (as far as we have observed) it must supervene on logical processes which themselves have to be mapped onto physical processes. These physical processes must be stable enough to operate consistently and correctly for as long as they need to serve their purpose. Note that they don’t need to be perfectly stable, just stable ‘enough’. In some cases a lack of stability might be a good thing, (I’m looking at you, DNA) but that is neither here nor there. A simple way of explaining this is that for a brain to work, the brain obviously needs to be intact. It can’t be too hot or cold, in too high-pressure of an environment, and—at least for me—my brain usually works best when it is still located within my skull attached to the rest of the body. Similarly, a computer can’t do its computery stuff like calculating if it can’t complete its circuits and access memory locations required to compute numbers. Put even simpler: we know of no way in which to create arbitrary phenomena (or functions) such as intelligence without mapping onto pre-existing fundamental processes. These fundamental processes just so happen to be physically based and thus require a semblance of organization and order. Matter is naturally opposed to order. It requires work to keep things in order, and that work will eventually run out. Therefore it seems that life as we currently know it is guaranteed a date of death and nothingness just as the particles it is composed of are; Que Sera, Sera.

Personally I see no reason why intelligence as a phenomena or inherent property couldn’t be fundamental. This exact question has been fought over by philosophers, hippies, and neuroscientists for over a millenia and there seems to be no signs of stopping. Perhaps the rocks themselves are sentient around us and are just as capable of intelligence as we but without that nasty mortality. They might be split open, ground up, and vaporized, even converted into a quark plasma at the lowest level of organization possible, but they might have an irreducible sentience to them that can never be broken down. Maybe. If this is the fact then the question arises, why aren’t they doing stuff? Well perhaps they can—and maybe have—but currently have no incentive. Going back to the slime mold, we can imagine it moving and retracting, finding paths and then gathering along the most direct routes until they’ve approximated a shortest path. What are they pathing to though? Food. If we imagined a slime mold that was constantly satiated, it would have no reason to display its intelligence. It would forever be capable of it, but that interesting display would be forever locked behind a need that never arises. Perhaps this is the case for our immortal beings. It would then seem that although a detriment, need, or challenge is required as an incentive for function. Any system wants to lead back to a more resolved state. Humans strive for a state of equilibrium and stability, and in striving to do so in contrast to their predicament (hunger, scarcity, aging, etc) have developed civilizations, cultures, art, technology. If those oppositions didn’t exist, then perhaps they’d go the way of the rocks and delegate themselves to observation and contemplation, as if they had no intelligence at all.

Fundamental intelligence is then a lot like faster than light travel. There’s nothing that specifically denies its existence, but there doesn’t seem to be a clear path to it either. Nonetheless, an immortal, unmotivated intelligence seems to me a rather boring affair, and I think is best ignored. This is important because we can ignore a hypothetical utopia where all humans have their problem solved, even if the intention of a moral system is to get to that point.

You’re probably wondering why this is important. Sure, a thinking machine needs a physical base—la de da. That’s probably important to scientists or engineers but why is it important to you? What does this have to do with morality? Well humans as it turns out have a lot of requirements for basic function. They cannot exist without energy to keep the chemical fires deep in their cells stoked, or essential primordial soup to build and maintain their biotic machinery. In a world with lots of humans and only a limited amount of life-sustaining resources, life is scarce3. A human surviving in such a world might have a hard time providing for themselves, but the solution itself is simple, they just have to keep themselves from dying to the environment. If we consider the environment to be some wilderness area on Earth, the singular human would find themselves potentially able to provide for themselves but undeniably incapable of taking too much from the environment—they don’t leave a big enough footprint4.

This is once again a ‘rather boring affair’. I’m sure a human living in the wilderness with all the tribulations that would accompany them would make for an interesting drama, but there’s little in the way of moral questions here. The situation would seem to me utterly amoral. Now imagine if there were multiple people living in this region. Their situation would be analogous to one similar to how much of humanity made their living over the past 200,000 years, herding, hunting, and foraging in forested and grassland regions, and in groups of families that were loosely organized into tribes. This is the scenario Josh Greene presents in the chapter of Morale Tribes, The Tragedy of Commonsense Morality, and we will return to this later to fully elaborate on these tribes and how they interact. First, though, we should go back and explain how and why groups of humans collaborate at all on these new pastures to form a single tribe.

“Morality”, Josh says, “is a device for enabling cooperation… …a collection of devices, a suite of psychological capacities and dispositions that together promote and stabilize cooperative behavior” (28). Humans as products of evolution didn’t evolve to do this because it was cool, but because they had to. They existed in groups in which they were all taking from the same resources. Unlike the story of the singular human in the wild, a group of people are capable of making a dent in an ecosystem’s production by taking from it before it can recover. The selfish acts of an isolated human that are essential in keeping it alive, multiplied by a group, could find themselves starved according to the same dogma. This is a problem of cooperation, one that Greene cites as “Hardin’s Parable of the Commons” (28). The solution? Well, take your pick. Some cultures might find themselves distributing land to each family according to their size. If it takes a square meter of land to feed a single person, then a family of five would be allowed five square meters of land (I’m sure that’s unrealistic but for the sake of the argument it is fine). If that same family finds themselves cut in half due to a plague, then half their land would be taken away and given to a family in need (2). Another tribe might adopt a more competitive dogma. A family might own huge swathes of land while others get by on a meagre plot of land. People in this tribe aren’t guaranteed any land, but conversely are assured that there is no limit to the land they can obtain by their own efforts—or inheritance (2). There is no one way to construct a morality system, but they all require mutual restraint through consensus and cooperation.

Greene stated that morality is a collection of psychological capacities and devices. This refers to biological and psychological inclinations that are deeply intertwined into the human experience. Cooperation, it seems, comes natural to the human brain and thus has notable strengths and limitations that are present across cultures. This is not to say humans aren’t capable of operating under rules greater than their most immediate reasoning skills (in fact, much of our laws and governments are structured in ways that seem orthogonal to commonsense morality), but that is not what humans will immediately jump to to interact with others. One most immediate catalyst to cooperation is kin selection. Brothers will help their siblings and mothers will care for their children. To oppose or argue this would be nonsensical, as this trust seems inherent to all cultures and even to span species. Greene proposes the scientific explanation for this, stating, “Genetically related individuals share genes (by definition), and therefore, when an individual does something to enhance the survival of a generic relative, that individual is, in part, doing something that enhances the survival of his or her own genes.” (31). He argues that species have evolved to trust and support members of their own geneline as a competitive survival solution, one that benefits the individual yes but on a greater level only as a means to ensure the survival and proliferation of the genes themselves. It will be a common theme that cooperative techniques boil down to competitive survival strategies, including the concept of morality itself. Humans aren’t that good at recognizing biological kin though. They aren’t running around with cotton swabs and centrifuges to test each other’s DNA as a stipulation of cooperation. People often adopt children they aren’t biologically related to and take care of them as if they were their own. Such connections might be biologically rooted, but the feelings people have to make these attachments can allow them to feel empathy for and cooperate with much more than biological kin. Greene says that “The neural circuits that support empathetic responses to strangers may derive originally from circuits that evolved for maternal care”. He further connects these adapted cooperative tendencies to our past, stating, “Our capacity to care about others, including unrelated individuals, is almost certainly an elaboration of traits we inherited from our primate ancestor” (38). The same principle applies to friends too. How many people when they were younger considered their best childhood friend their ‘brother’ or ‘sister’?

Another form of cooperation is reciprocal altruism, in which people cooperate as long as their cooperation benefits each of them better than non cooperation would (32). Successful cooperation could instill a sense of trust and even loyalty between friendly parties. Failure to cooperate and breaches of trust could cause anger and a decreased chance of cooperation in the future. This can go deeper too. Not only can people have opinions about each other that will influence their actions, but they can communicate these opinions to others. Depending on how people perceive each other, this could influence the weight with which they consider each other’s advice. Imagine a group of three people, Artemis, Apollo, and Loki. Artemis and Loki cooperate to secure some food from a hard to reach area. Artemis is strong and capable, while Loki is much more feeble and yet socially minded. He tells Artemis of a tree where they can find some food that he himself can’t get to, and tells Artemis he’ll split the food with her. Artemis, dissuaded by the notion of hunger, has no reason to doubt Loki and hoists his fragile body into the tree. Loki then laughs, exclaiming that it was all a ruse and that he exploited Artemis and will now keep all the food for himself.

Angered at her loss and gullibility, she returns to Apollo—her brother—and explains the situation. She warns her brother that Loki is single minded and not to be trusted. Later on, Loki comes up to Apollo with much the same offer he made to Apollo’s sister. Apollo questions Loki on why his sister is now hungry despite their escapade, and Loki delivers a story that is quite antithetical to the one Artemis conveyed. He says that Artemis was the one that tried to steal the food and leave Loki with nothing despite his trust in her. He argues that not only should Apollo help him, but that he shouldn’t trust Artemis, for she is untrustworthy.

Apollo considers his options. He can trust Artemis, his sister, or Loki, a relative acquaintance. He has no evidence to corroborate either of their stories, and can only go off his trust in either party’s truthfulness. Seeing as Apollo and Artemis are twins, they would be inclined to believe each other due to their biological bond. If he did so, Loki would then be left untrusted and incapable of surviving, probably wishing he had given food to Artemis so as to stay trustworthy in the eyes of the majority and thus more likely to be supported.

The social factor of a group only grows in importance as the size of the group expands. This is because people gossip about each other. Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist, says that about 65 percent of human conversation is dedicated to gossip. He also states that not only can people gossip as a form of social control (to enforce cooperation), but they do so automatically and with minimal effort (45). Acting uncooperatively might be observed by watchful eyes, which are “nearly always connected to running mouths” (45). This dissuades people from acting uncooperatively because it simply isn’t worth it given consideration of the social environment. Such an environment could spread among a population so much that a ‘common’ sense of decency on how to treat people might affect how people act around even complete strangers.

The social circles people occupy could be many, some of which overlap, and others which envelope each other. There is the kin, which includes family members and perhaps very close family friends who are a small group but one that is very trusting and supportive. Next is the friends, then acquaintances and distant associates, and then perhaps the rest of the tribe itself that is connected by general proximity and similar senses of morality. Humans exhibit a tendency to locate those who we are close to and those who are different from us, and we favor those who are close to us. Greene calls this tendency ‘tribalism’, or ‘parochial altruism’ (50). The structure of these moral systems and the importance of different factors, as Greene showed earlier, can vary.

Some cultures might emphasize the importance of tight familial bonds and the consequences of going against this, but don’t put too much pressure on strangers to trust one another. A different culture might hold that men should be encouraged to socialize only with other men, and women with only women. Procreation and raising a child in such a culture would be an odd affair but in theory doable, albeit with unforeseen consequences. Greene cites several experiments in several different cities all across the world that test people’s relation to cooperation in different scenarios. A study by Joseph Heinrich in which people are encouraged to bet money to potentially make money found that people’s willingness to cooperate with strangers varied widely. In Athens people were far less willing to put money forwards than in Copenhagen, which is interesting given that they are in relatively close proximity to each other. The people in Copenhagen, who were more willing to trust and cooperate with strangers, contributed more money and made more money on average. Likewise they also chose to punish those who contributed less or “freeloaded”. In Athens, the opposite happened. Not only were they less willing to cooperate but actively punished those who contributed (75). In the American south, Greene noted, honor is much more important than in the North. As such people are much more willing to fight in defense of that honor (79). All of these cultures are different but are nonetheless valid, and their continued existence is proof that they operate on functional principles. The only thing that matters is that the moral theory is internally functional, no matter how bizarre or arbitrary its practices may be. In other words, each culture has a definition of what is ‘fair’, and each culture’s definition varies.

I said I would return to ‘Greene’-er pastures and indeed here I am. In his scenario, Greene imagines that a selection of forested area separating the different tribes burns down and, after a time, grassland is able to grow back with vigor due to the new infusion of nutrients in the soil. The land is uninhabited and prime for expansion from all the nearby tribes. As these tribes expand into the new territory there is a great deal of specifics that can occur, but the bottom line is that eventually the tribes will come into a conflict between each other in which the moral decisions of one tribe has to be adopted in lieu of another. Perhaps one tribe believes the spoils should go to the worthy, and another believes it should go to the needy. They would disagree on how to parcel the land and descend into discord. Another group, perhaps in peaceful proximity to another, finds the traditions of the other tribe’s people abhorrent and demands they change their rituals. Some changes must be made to resolve these conflicts, and they don’t always have to be done willingly. Greene writes, “The tribes of the new pastures are engaged in bitter, often bloody conflict, even though they are all, in their different ways, moral peoples. They fight not because they are fundamentally selfish but because they have incompatible visions of what a moral society should be… …Each tribe has its own version of moral common sense. The tribes of the new pastures fight not because they are immoral but because they view life on the new pastures from very different moral perspectives” (7-8). Greene’s term for this problem is, titularly named, The Tragedy of Commonsense Morality.

It is here that we come to a paradigm shift in our understanding of morality. It is true that morality helps people cooperate. It sets limits on how self minded people can be where selfishness on a mass scale could be people’s downfall (or, the tragedy of the commons). Beyond the extent of the immediate group that operate under a single definition of moral behavior, morality was not made to extend between groups. In fact, since morality serves to benefit an inclusive group due to cooperation, it is just as easy to say that morality is as much a strategy to exclude others and to compete with them.

We’ve found systems to encourage cooperation between people into groups (or tribes), but this system directly leads to conflict between groups. Each group comes up with their own definitions of what is ‘fair’ or right, but in relation to other groups they might have different definitions of fairness. Indeed, from an individual within a group, they might be more willing to support a definition of fairness if it is better for them. A lethargic person might argue that “everyone should be given exactly what is needed to survive!”, while a hardworking person might say, “I find this atrocious, under this system I’m rewarded the same amount for doing more work!”. In his eyes, he might advocate for a sense of fairness where you get what you put in, similar to a modern capitalist perspective. This appeal to different notions of fairness is known as biased fairness, and is a major stick in the gears of cooperation. Interestingly, the more symmetrical the situation is between the groups, the less biased fairness appears to be a problem. An experiment by Kimberly Wade-Benzoni, Ann Tenbrunsel and Max Bazerman put people in the shoes of fish stockholders, with people having shorter or longer interests in the fishing industry. In cases where people’s interests were more aligned, negotiations were agreeable 64% of the time. In cases where the situation was asymmetric, agreeable negotiations occurred only 10% of the time (86).

Notwithstanding the issue of the pasture, biased fairness severely affects intergovernmental decisions all the time. Global warming, for example, poses a very real threat to humanity in the long term—a long term that is increasingly becoming the short term. Yet for some enough profit can be made in the short term that it is sufficient for them to ignore climate control methods, such as those in the energy business. Issues of taxes is another example, where those who earn more are inclined to support lower taxes and regulation to keep their money, while those who make less believe that taxes for the rich should be raised to support infrastructure and a greater quality of life.

What is the solution? How can groups be expected to cooperate and make concessions if each thinks selfishly and in accordance with their own definitions of what is right? For one, there must be an incentive. Indeed, for all the situations before, new developments in cooperation were developed due to a strict need. Morality developed to prevent the tragedy of the commons. In this case, there are very real threats to all groups of people if they don’t adhere to some concept of metamorality. In real life that threat is global warming, worldwide epidemics, violence, poverty, even nuclear war. To the occupants of the pasture it is perhaps self decimation. These problems should affect everyone. No one is safe to ignore them, and hopefully any asymmetry in relations is then “buffed out” to an extent. This problem is a mutual problem (88).

In cooperating and negotiation, concessions will have to be made. Groups and peoples won’t always feel as though a common agreement is immediately beneficial to them and sometimes it won’t be. Nonetheless the best way to find common ground is to speak a common language, one of facts. Decisions about what is what shouldn’t adhere to self interest beliefs but to pragmatism. Greene agrees with this, stating that “the best thing we can do is appeal to consequences, giving equal weight to everyone’s interests”.

The problem of greater cooperation is still fundamentally the same initial problem of cooperation between individuals, only concerning new parties and a much larger scale. The difference is that this level of cooperation does not come naturally to people. We make most of our decisions on emotions and “gut reactions”. Our prisons, for example, satisfy many people’s notions of justice and vengeance. Yet those who go into the prison system often come out no better than they started and cost the government—and in turn the people—more money than if they were rehabilitated in a less emotional manner. Humans are amazing at picking up patterns, often unconsciously. We group people based on age, gender, skin color, clothing, all without even thinking about it. Experiments show that some of these distinctions go deeper than others (53), such as with gender in comparison to race, which is more of a cultural thing. These associations serve well to organize us, but they have their limits.

The strife of the pastures is predictable, horrible, but it doesn’t have to be that way. All the herders are fundamentally the same. They want to live well and to be satisfied. In cooperating amongst each other as a tribe they developed moral systems which are fair given a problem that makes all their situations symmetrical—scarcity of resources. Their impetus to cooperate among all tribes and come to a new formulation of fairness will require a new mutual problem that is realized among all the tribes, and an adherence to reason/logic will be the language in which these negotiations are made. There is no room for negotiation with logic; What is true must be adopted, what is false must be cast astray. We’ve come very far since then in our real world. Our pasture is much bigger now, and the tribes are many. There are several common problems that are here for us, some old, some new, but they’re all here to stay, and it will be the same principles that will have to drive cooperation between groups to summit these obstacles. Lastly, in the words of FDR, perhaps rather clichely, “Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off”.

Footnotes

  1. When I use the word ‘animal’, I am likely referring to it in the colloquial sense of an animal which is incapable of abstract thought and reasoning. A human is technically an animal of course, but when used in contrast to a human it is meant in the sense that an animal does not necessarily indicate humans. However, I do use the term ‘non-human animal’ when I wish to emphasize this lack of ability or when quoting. ↩

  2. Isomorphic in the colloquial sense, I know that’s a heavy word in technical context ↩

  3. Note that scarcity and beings communicating/cooperating with each other to manage their needs is not strictly a human problem. The general problem and potential solutions can be simplified greatly, as shown by several games and computer simulations used to study morality problems. ↩

  4. Everything in the essay up to this point is somewhat astray from the immediate context of the essay’s point. It serves as background or an extended introduction to the situations in which moral systems arise, which I consider important, but ultimately to me it was more of an opportunity to exercise creative writing. I do hope though that it serves as an interesting—if not extended—hook into why morality is necessary without being overly pedantic. ↩