Atheism, Evolution and Moral Nihilism

[Adamoriens]

It is often argued by atheist and theist alike that evolutionary explanations for morality refute the idea that there are any "spooky" moral facts, and that therefore atheists ought to think there are no moral facts. But nobody on this board (so far as I have observed) has actually made a good argument toward this end. Here is the best I can come up with:

The moral beliefs of humans have been created and conditioned by, apart from cultural factors, the impersonal demands of evolution. Thus we find that our moral beliefs tend to facilitate reproduction and the passing of healthy genetic material onto the next generation. The universal tendency to especially value one's own immediate family, offspring and friends, the protection of children and women (chivalry, perhaps), the (general) disgust for murder, rape and incestuous sex, etc. are all explained by evolution's blind selection for adaptive behaviours. Assuming this is true, we can conclude that our moral beliefs are not sensitive to "spooky" moral facts, but rather to the impersonal pressures demanded by survival. And since knowledge requires a causal connection between facts and beliefs, it follows that none of our moral beliefs are knowledge; they have never tracked facts, only evolutionary pressures.

There are two points I'd like to make here. The first is that this challenge to moral beliefs must be met by theists as well; the evolutionary explanations are impersonal, which means that their success in explaining moral beliefs entails that the idea God has endowed us with reliable moral faculties is less probable (probably false). The second is that both the theist and the atheist can conceivably get around the challenge by positing that evolution happened to select for moral beliefs that actually correlate with moral facts; theists might come out in better shape here.

Any thoughts?

[spoirier]

I think we have to employ Ockham's razor; unless animals do something that can't be explained in terms of instinct and conditioning, then animals are just analogous machines running a sophisticated but purely syntactical program.

What would be something that defies our expectations of mere animal behavior? Maybe a treatise on metaphysics or ethics that at least demonstrates an understanding of the concepts involved? One which also can't be explained by conditioning (i.e. I teach a parrot to "explain" the harm principle).

I think you make quite a strange use of Ockam's razor. Somehow I'd say: what's the point for anyone to say that he is using Ockam's razor ? Indeed, in a sense, anybody at any time always has the impression of using Ockam's razor, as he is just always forming the opinion that seems most plausible to him, from the viewpoint of his prior assumptions and ways of thinking. So, it only becomes meaningful to say that you use Ockam's razor if you make a special effort to not be naive but apply it carefully away from the prejudices you may have, rather than just call this name the shortest and easiest path from your current opinion.

You ask for something that "defies our expectations". Whose expectations, please ? The expectations of Catholics who were born in the Bible or in the Cathechism of the Catholic church, who hold these books as more real than the outside observable reality itself, claiming that only man was created by God in his image, so that any reality outside these books that would dare to contradict them ought to provide extraordinary evidence to prove itself against them ? Aren't you here mistaking your personal prejudices for natural intuitions that you assume all other humans must have adopted prior to any discussion ? Don't you know that it just feels obvious and natural for most (non-christian, non-muslim) religious people on Earth, that animals are concious just like humans, so that your personal expectations on this question is not theirs ?

If you want to speak about Ockam's razor, let me tell you how I see it: human conciousness plays an overwhelmingly central role in human behavior, doesn't it ? Now we observe similarities between the behaviors of humans and apes. We know there must have been a continuity in this behavior from the ones to the other in the course evolution, because, well, there had to be a continuity in the ability of survival and reproductive advantage, and behavior plays an overwhelmingly central role in this ability. We do not observe any sudden explosion in the prehistoric human population numbers or any similarly sudden change in the traces of human behavior, as should have been expected if a radical change of the nature of the human thought had occurred.

But okay, the question whether there is any fundamental difference between the minds of humans and animals is still still an interesting question. So it has been extensively studied by researchers, as already expressed in this thread:

At any rate, animals appear to have minds and intelligence, to a lesser degree then we do, and the primates in close relation to humans display intelligence that is a primitive form of our own. It seems reasonable to think, then, that our intelligence has evolved with the increased complexity of our brain, even if we don't know quite how.

It appears that certain animals can pass pretty much any metric of cognition you can throw at them: memory, self-recognition, rational decision making, arithmetic reasoning, introspection etc.

Okay these mentions are rather short, so that they might not be expressive enough to your satisfation about how extensive were these studies, what dimensions of psychology were involved. It may be necessary to refer in more details to the effective contents of these studies, to see if they have anything to do with the criteria that you have in mind for deciding whether animals are concious.
Now you seem to be confident enough to consider and declare here their work insufficient, and you not even see the need to study this body of research in more details for this. You just need to confidently declare that you are much more clever than these hundreds of researchers, and that you have found THE right criteria for truly making the difference between humans and animals, criteria that none of these reseachers ever thought of.
But in this case, and even more preciseIy if you have such a remarkable ability to find out much better than them the true criteria to measure conciousness even before any long study of their research, I still advise you to invest yourself a little more in there in order to go and provide them your new light of understanding, that can help them make some more serious work in finding out differences between humans and animals in the future.

But first, may I repeat my question which you did not answer yet: do you have any experience living with animals ?

but the atoms of thought are recalcitrant to pure syntactical expression, since they can only be expressed in terms of logical atoms (i.e. they can't be expressed as the relationship of two or more atoms). In other words, I could state
F
and if it is the case that F isn't equivalent to any composite statement like

P K

You cannot determine that these two phrases should have the same meaning or even the meaning that they do only by analyzing the signs themselves; you'll have to go out in the world and see what people are talking about.
I could teach that "It is snowing" means it is snowing by pointing to you snow that is falling.

But this pointing out of snow is made of perceptions (the visual image of snow, that would take some megabytes of information as a video), thus of an information flow, isn't it ? And google translation is able to translate "snow" between languages with no need to understand what it means. Of course this required it to someday receive from outside the information of the correspondance of words between different languages, but how does this differ from the perception of the child that is shown snow and told it is called "snow" ?
Do you think that the idea of snow is an atom of thought ?
Do you think the idea of snow has a sort of identity of nature with the snow itself, or is this idea merely a sort of symbolic representation me make of the snow in our mind, for the convenience of our decision making ?

Now ok. Let's admit for a moment that you are right and that you found the right empirical criterion for deciding whether a living being is concious or not. The criterion you gave is: the ability to write "a treatise on metaphysics or ethics that at least demonstrates an understanding of the concepts involved".

In this case I'm afraid there are some odd things in the Catholic dogma, for instance its prohibition of abortion. Indeed the Church declares that a human being is already formed on the first day of fertilization, so that the abortive pill that gets rid of the embryo just in the first week after fertilization, is already a murder. But a one week old embryo is not able to write a treatise on metaphysics or ethics that at least demonstrates an understanding of the concepts involved, or is it ?
Okay, if you think it's far-fetched based on the potential for these embryos to write metaphysics treaties in the future, let's take another example: the case of Trisomics. The Catholic Church also condemns abortion in their case. But, even in the future, Trisomics won't be able to write metaphysics treaties, or will they ? If you still believe that Trisomics are concious human beings despite this unability, wouldn't you be, perhaps...

Anthropomorphizing.

?
Okay, let's forget this, and consider more normal cases of humans. Now are you aware of the fact that very few people in the world have any interest in philosophy ? Many people have very different interests. Some are sportsmen, some are engineers, craftsmen, with a low opinion of philosophical activities. There are even many people in the world (and there has been a larger portion of humanity in past centuries) that cannot read and write. Based on this, a few centuries ago, many people had regarded native peoples of other continents as not real humans beings, so as to justify slavery and other treatments inflicted to them.

Now do you still wish me to take seriously and admit your criterion of conciousness, that is, the ability to write "a treatise on metaphysics or ethics that at least demonstrates an understanding of the concepts involved? "
Well ok, just for one minute I can admit this hypothesis, to please you. Then, you know what ? I would feel tempted to conclude that you are not a concious being, because I think your metaphysical writings do not demonstrate at least an understanding of the concepts involved.

[otseng]

It's clear I'll have to do some research before returning to this topic.

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[AquinasD]

The ability to understand symbols and meanings and words is simply a means for individuals to share information with everybody else which enhances survivability.

Are you agreeing then that humans possess a unique ability in regards to the understanding of signs?

[AquinasD]

You ask for something that "defies our expectations". Whose expectations, please ?

Are you going to make a bunch of assumptions about how I form my opinions, or were you going to try and offer any reasons why you think what I offered is wrong? Perhaps you have your own method you'd like to propose?

The expectations of Catholics who were born in the Bible or in the Cathechism of the Catholic church, who hold these books as more real than the outside observable reality itself, claiming that only man was created by God in his image, so that any reality outside these books that would dare to contradict them ought to provide extraordinary evidence to prove itself against them ?

I am not a lifelong Catholic, nor do you seem to understand what sort of philosophy I hold about the Bible as a Catholic. I would ask for evidence in all things; I have given my opinion of the evidence so far offered. If you think my opinion on the given studies (i.e. exemplifying conditioning abstract consciousness) is wrong, could you please explain why?

Don't you know that it just feels obvious and natural for most (non-christian, non-muslim) religious people on Earth, that animals are concious just like humans, so that your personal expectations on this question is not theirs ?

I was never making a statement about my intuitions. I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't care about people's intuitions; most people are wrong about most things. People's feelings on the matter contribute nothing; in my view, that people attribute abstract, human-like to animals (which they do for other things as well, or have you forgotten about polytheism?) showcases our tendency towards anthropomorphism.

If you want to speak about Ockam's razor, let me tell you how I see it: human conciousness plays an overwhelmingly central role in human behavior, doesn't it ? Now we observe similarities between the behaviors of humans and apes. We know there must have been a continuity in this behavior from the ones to the other in the course evolution, because, well, there had to be a continuity in the ability of survival and reproductive advantage, and behavior plays an overwhelmingly central role in this ability. We do not observe any sudden explosion in the prehistoric human population numbers or any similarly sudden change in the traces of human behavior, as should have been expected if a radical change of the nature of the human thought had occurred.

What kind of evidence could exist to demonstrate abstract reasoning, other than the signs of human civilization such as writing? Just because humans may have abstract reasoning, it doesn't follow that humans will start living in a greatly different way than other animals. Even Plato needed to eat and relieve himself. Aside from his writings, you find nothing different about him than from any other animal.

So pointing to all the ways in which we are alike does not demonstrate that what is essentially different must also be the same.

A wife and a mistress might differ in only a few ways, but I'm sure the wife has a great concern about this difference.

But first, may I repeat my question which you did not answer yet: do you have any experience living with animals ?

Yes. My girlfriend has two cats, I see them nearly every day. My grandmother (whom I currently live with) has had several dogs. I would like to have a guinea pig of my own, but my current living situations make that inconvenient.

What does it matter my experience living with animals? Should I be swayed by some emotional appeal? Sure, I can feel sad about a dog who gets hit by a car, but I don't forget that it is just a dog, and that even if it may have some kind of experience of pain, it isn't a human with the ability for abstract reasoning.

But this pointing out of snow is made of perceptions (the visual image of snow, that would take some megabytes of information as a video), thus of an information flow, isn't it ? And google translation is able to translate "snow" between languages with no need to understand what it means. Of course this required it to someday receive from outside the information of the correspondance of words between different languages, but how does this differ from the perception of the child that is shown snow and told it is called "snow" ?

There is the fact of the pointing. The pointing in our case can be recognized for what it is; the fact of symbolizing, bringing together that which is observed and the sign that stands for it which can be understood in-itself.

Do you think that the idea of snow is an atom of thought ?

I'm not sure.

In this case I'm afraid there are some odd things in the Catholic dogma, for instance its prohibition of abortion. Indeed the Church declares that a human being is already formed on the first day of fertilization, so that the abortive pill that gets rid of the embryo just in the first week after fertilization, is already a murder. But a one week old embryo is not able to write a treatise on metaphysics or ethics that at least demonstrates an understanding of the concepts involved, or is it ?

Your treatment of the principle is so crass.

My statement is not one about individuals, but about kinds. As a kind, we have the potential to write a treatise on metaphysics or ethics. As a kind, dogs do not. As individuals, we may or may not actually do so, but for individual dogs, we know they shall never do so because their kind has no such potential.

Okay, if you think it's far-fetched based on the potential for these embryos to write metaphysics treaties in the future, let's take another example: the case of Trisomics. The Catholic Church also condemns abortion in their case. But, even in the future, Trisomics won't be able to write metaphysics treaties, or will they ? If you still believe that Trisomics are concious human beings despite this unability, wouldn't you be, perhaps...Anthropomorphizing.?

Humans with some accidental differences are still of the kind human. That you can't appreciate this calls into doubt your grasp of the relevant metaphysics on essences to which I am obviously referring.

[Abraxas]

The ability to understand symbols and meanings and words is simply a means for individuals to share information with everybody else which enhances survivability.

Are you agreeing then that humans possess a unique ability in regards to the understanding of signs?

Ability, no. There are other animals known to be able to recognize signs to some degree.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ape_ ... n_language

Our scope is unique, to our knowledge, but the ability is not.

[Artie]

The ability to understand symbols and meanings and words is simply a means for individuals to share information with everybody else which enhances survivability.

Are you agreeing then that humans possess a unique ability in regards to the understanding of signs?

No. I don't even know what you are trying to say. I don't see any evidence that a human being is anything else but a highly developed animal and that this "unique" ability you speak of is simply a result of us developing a more competent brain. Is there something in our DNA that couldn't possibly have been a result of evolution and that has resulted in us developing these "unique" abilities? If not, where do these "unique" abilities come from?

[AquinasD]

Ability, no. There are other animals known to be able to recognize signs to some degree.

I know this. My point is about how we can understand the signs in a way that no other species can. Not merely better to a degree, but different by a quality.

That qualitative difference is in our recognition of the signs for what they are, our ability to focus on the concepts and abstractly understand them according to their logic and meaning. Animals, even those who recognize and use signs, do not. They might react appropriately to signs, but reacting appropriately does not in-itself demonstrate abstractive understanding.

[McCulloch]

My point is about how we can understand the signs in a way that no other species can. Not merely better to a degree, but different by a quality.

So humans are the only existing animals with the ability for complex abstract thought. We still are animals. Chimpanzees mental acuity is really rather amazing compared to starfish.

[AquinasD]

So humans are the only existing animals with the ability for complex abstract thought.

Not just complex abstract thought, but abstract thought of any kind, complex or simple.

We still are animals.

Never said otherwise. My point is only that we are rational animals.

Chimpanzees mental acuity is really rather amazing compared to starfish.

Granted. There are other ways we can measure intelligence in animals that doesn't amount to saying "And the intelligence of other animals is the same in quality as it is in humans."

[Haven]

I maintain that the difference is one of degree, and not simply of kind. Human intelligence is a more advanced form of ape intelligence, as others have pointed out on this thread.

Not just complex abstract thought, but abstract thought of any kind, complex or simple.

Actually, academic studies have shown that quite a few other species are capable of abstract thought, for instance, chimpanzees and crows.