Ethics and Circumstances

I recently read Danny Shahar's summary of Universally Preferred Behaviour: A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics. The summary can be found here. In it, he states that, from the perspective of academic philosophy:

it is emphatically not a formal requirement of a moral theory that it make the same claim about what people should do regardless of the circumstances

I asked (in a comment below that post) if this might not be seen as a failure of the philosophy of ethics. His response leads me to believe that I have misunderstood what he intended with the word "circumstances."

I hope to address that misunderstanding here, and perhaps he will be kind enough to delve deeper, should such delving be necessary, on his blog Back to the Drawing Board.

He first, quite rightly, draws distinctions between murder and killing and theft and taking. The prior two verbs entail an ethical judgment. We can, therefore, say that murder and theft are always wrong. If they were not, they would be killing and taking (respectively). Of course whether or not a death is a murder or a killing (or something else entirely) depends upon the circumstances. This certainly addresses the letter of my question. I concede a sloppy choice of words. We are in agreement that the difference between murder (bad) and killing (indeterminate) is based on circumstances. I believe that S. Molyneux's assessment would be the same.

He then gives another example of circumstances:

For example, take the act of "killing a person." If I'm sitting in a coffee shop, and I see a stranger walk in and order a coffee, it seems like it would be wrong of me to kill her. But if I'm sitting in that same coffee shop, and I see that same stranger walk in, except now she's pointing a gun at me and (seemingly) getting ready to pull the trigger, we might not judge me so harshly if I were to kill her

Again, we are in agreement. There is a material difference between the two circumstances. One that can be described in terms of a configurations of matter (to strip it to its barest components) and conditions which are accessible to observation and reason.

My comment about the (possible) failure of the philosophy of ethics does not stem from a belief that the above examples should be covered by a universal rule that is agnostic of the circumstances.

As an example of the difference between the judgment rendered by a rational, material-oriented ethical framework and those generated by historical ethical systems might be best demonstrated by the following example.

Imagine the coffee shop above. Situation #2 unfolds: a stranger comes in and points a gun at me and is about to pull the trigger (seemingly) and I incapacitate the stranger in some way.

Now imagine a parallel scenario identical in every detail, except that the stranger is carrying an FBI badge.

Do these differing circumstances change the "rightness" of my actions? Physically, there is no difference is circumstances (other than the shield of metal in the attackers coat pocket). Many ethical frameworks, of course, rely on abstract and slippery concepts: authority, legitimacy, jurisdiction, etc. and judge the attacked to have acted in an unethical manner. This is the sense in which I think traditional philosophy has failed with regards to ethics.

I'm curious how academic philosophy would respond to the claim that circumstances matter, but only circumstances that are manifest in physical reality (that may be too strong a restriction, we'll see).

And to follow up on one other point in my comment to Danny's post: is it not reasonable to begin with a system isomorphic to the scientific method? I find it appealing on every level (I know that's not relevant to its validity). The amount of human suffering that is let pass by ethical systems which weigh intangible concepts (usually concepts that favor the powerful and the aggressive) is staggering. Is it only coincidental that an ethical framework grounded in reason and evidence favors instead voluntary relationships and non-aggression? Is it coincidental that civil society, as a matter of course, follows the single maxim of a framework so grounded? Is it coincidence that the only violators are those that interact with strangers by killing or threatening to imprison/kill them?

Again, I know that the validity of the statement isn't determined by the appeal of the outcome. I am wondering if it is possible that a UPB style framework could be workable vis á vis the perspective of academic philosopy, and if so, under what circumstances.

Universally Preferable Behaviour

I have recently become interested in an approach to ethics proposed by Canadian philosopher Stefan Molyneux. His book on the matter is Universally Preferable Behaviour - A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics.

I’m not certain that I understand the book in the way an academic philosopher would, and I may be misrepresenting the intentions of the author. In any case, here’s what I am proposing as the basis for an ethical system. I’m fairly sure this is the essence of his argument as well.

Removing the ability for an individual or group of people to proclaim a statement to be valid requires proposing a new standard by which statements are judged. Judging the validity of statements about reality (the earth is flat, the heart is the center of thought, mercury cures disease) used to be the province of religion. This was the case until it was proposed that claims about reality be measured against reality to establish their validity.

This seemingly obvious idea had been floating about for a couple thousand years. When the church’s grip faltered and the scientific method was finally applied on a broad scale, it had a tremendous effect, unleashing a wave of human creativity never before seen in history.

In order to remove the authority of individuals and groups to proclaim actions to be ethical or unethical, we must find a new standard by which those actions can be judged. Until a better mechanism is proposed (and I would be very interested in any such proposal), I think the clearly superior candidate is something parallel to the scientific method.

What would that look like in practice?

The basis of the scientific method is so well known to us that I won’t belabor the details. In short: statements about reality must be internally consistent and empirically verifiable. Anything failing either criterion does not accurately describe reality.

Thus, we can throw out any system handed down from divinely inspired desert nomads, or anything else whispered in the ears of prophets by undetectable sources. This is not to say that the contents of their ethical systems won’t be arrived at by our own (“don’t murder” seems like it could come in handy).

Another key aspect of the scientific method that I want to draw attention to is that experiments to determine the validity of a claim should be repeatable. In the case that a second experiment achieves dissimilar results, the experimenter must find the relevant context that caused the difference, or discard the tested claim as invalid.

Our parallel is the oft repeated by rarely understood maxim: “All people are equal.” This claim, much like the claim that no omnipotent god exists, might, in some parallel dimension, be disproven. Until we have access to that information, the biological evidence, which has found no genetic markers for greater ethical capacity, stands.

For our ethical system, this indicates that all proposed ethical rules must be universally applicable. If it is wrong for A to kill B, then it doesn’t matter if A is a man and B is a woman; A is white and B is black; A is a Muslim and B is a Jew; A is an Italian and B is Chinese; A is a cop and B is a “civilian.”

If it is right for B to kill A (say that A is going to kill B), then it is right for all the examples above.

There is nothing ethically relevant, from our scientific method inspired ethical framework, about the gender, race, religion, nationality or outfit of the two participants.

To fast forward a bit, this framework for evaluating ethical systems admits only one rule: the non-aggression principle (no violence except in self-defense). This in itself shouldn't be too surprising--the foundation of most every moral system is something like "The Golden Rule." Of course, they often add "burn the unbelievers," but you have to give credit where credit is due.

I have only seen one cogent review of this idea that was critical of its approach. Danny Shahar blogged about the book. He had some problems with it. Since I think this approach (if not UPB, then something similarly grounded in rationality and empiricism) is critical to the organization of a healthy world, I wanted to start a conversation with him. I hope to understand his concerns and determine whether S. Molyneux's approach is valid or if, perhaps, a more effective formulation might be arrived at.

Why Ethics?

The subject of ethics has been whirling around in my head recently. Apparently, it’s been whirling around in the heads and on the blogs of others as well.

For most of us, the application of ethics comes naturally, almost unconsciously. We don’t need to reason through a moral framework to decide not to kill our grocer and steal his money. Nor do we need to figure out how we feel when we hear that someone was raped in the park last night. We understand these things for what they are: abominable acts carried out by broken humans.

Aside from the occasional poaching of office supplies, lying to avoid family obligations, or turning away while the dog does its business in a state park, most of us lead relative ethical lives by any standard. Those of us who don’t probably aren’t interested in ethics anyway.

So why is ethics important?

Human beings want to do the “right thing.” It’s very difficult for someone to commit an act they know is wrong, and the degree of difficulty increases proportionally to their perception of its “wrongness.” Only sociopaths are free from this constraint, which is what makes them such unpleasant company.

Anyone who wants you to participate in something would benefit greatly by casting it as the “right thing” (I’m going to start to use “good” interchangeably with “the right thing” to save typing—I’m open to arguments that they aren’t synonymous in the way I use them).

For this reason, religion and government are two of the institutions most interested in managing the conversation about ethics. If tithing is good, religious people will do it. If fighting terrorism is the right thing to do, 70% of Americans will support the invasion of multiple countries.

I believe that ethics is currently a tool of power—a way that the strong justify the use of violence against the weak. A claim could probably be made that it always has been such. The evidence for this claim abounds, as goodness and right have been used since words have been written to lead populations to stupendous acts of barbarism against other populations.

Thus I see ethics as one of the areas in which it is critical that we bring clarity. That is the purpose of this blog—that and to pass the time while my wife is out having her nails done.