I wanted to share a few difficulties that I encountered while examining a reductio ad absurdum of the Golden Rule that is part of the article “Morality versus Slogans,” written by Dr. Bernard Gert, renowned Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy at Dartmouth College. The article may be found at: http://aristotle.tamu.edu/~rasmith/Courses/251/gert-paper.html
Dr. Gert begins his article by saying that he is not going to say anything that everyone doesn’t already know. It is my understanding that he begins many of his lectures this way. I found it disconcerting that he should begin with a rhetorical device usually employed to disarm one’s audience and impose upon them an artificial mindset designed to make them believe that what is about to be said is incontrovertibly the truth. When he continued by saying that his positive views about morality were so ordinary that he expected everyone to agree with everything he has to say, and furthermore wonders why he even bothers to say it, I could not help but think that this must be the philosophical equivalent of saying, “Behold!, I have nothing in my hands, and nothing up my sleeves.”
He then begins his argument by saying that most people claim that they think the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” (1) is a good principle by which to live. I must admit that I happen to be one of those people. Dr. Gert then asks that we consider the following case:
“I am sleeping in my bedroom in Hanover, New Hampshire–a little town, and I don’t lock my doors. Tonight that seems to be a mistake because I am awakened by a noise downstairs. I go out of the bedroom and look down over the balcony and there is a burglar frantically trying to find something of value and stuffing various items into a bag. I see him but he doesn’t see or hear me. I go back in my room where I have a telephone and I am about to call the police. All of a sudden I think of the Golden Rule. Should I hang up the phone and go to bed? That’s what the Golden Rule says to do, doesn’t it? There is no question at all that if I were a burglar I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to call the police on me! Therefore if I act according to the Golden Rule I should not call the police on this burglar. That’s what the Golden Rule tells us. You might object that the burglar himself is not following the Golden Rule. He would not want me to rob his house, so he is not following the Golden Rule. That is correct, but the Golden Rule does not say “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you unless they have done unto you what they would not want done unto them.” So the Golden Rule seems to tell you not to report the burglar. “Oh come on” you say, “there is something wrong with that interpretation.” But I have simply given the Golden Rule a straightforward reading and on that reading it really is a silly rule.”
But the fact is that Dr. Gert has not given the Golden Rule a straightforward reading. Rather he has given a superficial reading of it and in the balance an incorrect one. He seems to be reading it as “Do unto others that which they would have you do to them” or perhaps “Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you, if you were them instead of you.”
It seems to me that the Golden Rule assumes prima facie virtuousness on the part of the person employing it, or else why would they even consider employing the Golden Rule in the first place? The virtue thus employed would be justice, perhaps as Plato defines it. In the case of the burglar breaking into my home, I realize that by his criminal act he must be in desperate straights, must not be thinking rationally, and furthermore is doing his soul (for the moment let us read this as the soul again as Plato would define it) serious damage. Of course I do not know this about him for a fact, but I reason that if I were doing such a thing as this man I would be in such a state as I have described. Therefore by applying the Golden Rule correctly I can see that the best thing for this man is to be apprehended without harm to his physical person, so that he may be restored to his right mind and his soul to a state of virtue. So, I dial 911.
Dr. Gert posits that the only reason that people still think that the Golden Rule is any good is that they haven’t really thought about it at all. I might agree that the average person does not think about these things, but it seems to me that if they did, they should be able to come up with a better argument than Dr.Gert has.
The good doctor offers us another example, this time of an encyclopedia salesman coming to our door. Dr. Gert says that by employing the Golden Rule you would necessarily have to buy a set of encyclopedias and that once the word got out every salesman in town would be at your door expecting the same benevolence. Further proof is offered in the form a personal testimonial by Dr. Girt who allows that he himself used to sell encyclopedias, and therefore knows that there is no question of what encyclopedia salesmen want.
But I must take a different view. Putting myself in the occupation of a salesperson, and assuming that I had the requisite virtue to cause me want to employ the Golden rule, I would not want to sell anyone anything that they did not actually need or could not reasonably afford. Of course I would want to make a living and certainly would want people to treat me in a polite manner and listen to what I had to say, if they were in the market, and would not be unnecessarily inconvenienced by giving me a few moments of their time. Having tried my hand at sales at various times, I discovered that it was almost impossible to sell certain items while retaining my personal integrity. In the article “Truth in the Marketplace” (2) by Burton M. Leiser, the selling of encyclopedias is associated with certain deceptive advertising techniques likely resulting in the type of dilemma I describe above. However, Dr. Gert does not mention as having personally experienced this difficulty while he was selling them.
Dr. Gert concludes that after consideration, everyone realizes that the Golden Rule is not really a very good guide to conduct and sometimes seems to require conduct that everybody admits is not required or conduct that is clearly wrong. I would think that it would be quite a feat among philosophers let alone among hoi polloi to get everyone to agree on anything. But this is certainly not the case regarding the Golden Rule. In fact I think that after serious consideration, given a close reading of the Golden Rule and a presupposition that the person desiring to employ it would have at least some prima fascia virtue to be willing to employ it, a very large number of erudite thinkers would conclude that it is a very good guide to conduct indeed.
A fellow cohort of mine called my attention to a portion of an essay on the Golden Rule by Harry J. Gensler. He says:
“The golden rule is best seen as a consistency principle…It only prescribes consistency that our actions(toward another) not be out of harmony with our desires (toward a reversed-situation action). It tests our moral coherence. If we violate the golden rule, then we’re violating the spirit of fairness and concern for people that lies at the heart of morality.” (3)
This reminded me of something Robin Waterfield had said in the introduction of her translation of Gorgias:
“The truth which Socrates searches for by means of the elenchus is the kind of truth that accompanies consistency…Consistency is close to being the mark of a set of true beliefs; it is at least rationally compelling.”(4)
Perhaps the Golden Rule offers a similar test in that if our actions toward an individual are at least consistent with how we might wish to be treated, then they might have a greater chance of also being moral.
Dr Gert concludes the section on by arguing that the Golden rule only illustrates the obvious. He says that while it has limited uses for instructing children in basic behavior it otherwise only correctly describes the obvious.
“If you are wondering whether to kill somebody, you don’t need that Golden Rule to tell you, “I wouldn’t want to be killed, therefore I shouldn’t kill him.” You knew it was wrong to kill him before you applied the Golden Rule.”
It is comforting to know that apparently everyone that Dr. Girt is acquainted with considers these matters a foregone conclusion. However, the rest of know for a certainty that everyone does not immediately recognize that it is wrong to beat up their fellow man and rob them, or even to take their life. The prisons are full of those who did not make this supposedly obvious connection in time and might have done so had they been more properly schooled in the principle of the Golden Rule.
The poet writes, “O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us.” (5) This is perhaps the mirror image of the Golden Rule. “Let me see myself as others see me, so that I might learn how to be gracious before them.” The Golden rule may be thus extrapolated as saying, “Let me deal with others with the same compassion, understanding, and forgiveness that I myself am so desperately in need of.” It is I think the first and most important moral lesson that every child should be taught and that every adult should remember.
Dr. Gert goes on to lambaste the Ten Commandments and the Categorical Imperative in his article. Perhaps I will post a further commentary on those sections, but for now I am sure that someone in this forum will be kind enough to employ the Golden Rule and assist me by putting forth some view about these issues that I may as yet have failed to consider.
1. Matt 7:12
2. Ethical Issues in Professional Life / edited by Joan C. Callahan. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988, p. 164.
3. The Blackwell encyclopedic dictionary of business ethics [electronic resource] / edited by Patricia H. Werhane and R. Edward Freeman. Malden, Mass: Blackwell, 1998. p. 304.
4. Gorgias / Translated by Robin Waterfield. Oxford University Press, USA; New Ed edition (November 19, 1998) p. xxx.
5. Robert Burns. Scottish national poet (1759 – 1796). Poem “To a Louse” – Verse 8.
Hi Lou,
Since you and I have corresponded on this (and I see you’ve addressed some of my previous objections—I’m flattered), I’ll suspend for a moment certain reservations I have. Instead, I’ll respond to a problem I see with at least one of the examples. I understand, of course, that you did not come up with this example. Rather, you’ve applied a different understanding of the golden rule to Gert’s example.
Thankfully, I have never been pulled from sleep to find a burglar in my home. But I have (as I am quite sure you have) been in dangerous situations. One dark night while I was sitting outside thinking about philosophy, for instance, found myself a witness to an attempted murder. The shooter and accomplices did not know I was nearby.
I did not summon any slogan, rule or ethical theory. And I would not recommend anyone in a similar situation step back, deliberate, apply a moral rule, consider the ultimate state of the shooter’s soul, etc.
I did exactly what I had planned, years before, to do in such a situation. I kept myself hidden and safe and reminded myself that eye witness testimony is usually pretty shoddy but also pretty important. So I paid close attention to things like the color and model of the getaway car, quickly formulated pneumonic devices to help me accurately remember the details of the event and quietly mouthed those devices to myself to commit them to memory. After the shooter and accomplices left the scene, I immediately wrote down everything I remembered and called 911 saying I had just witnessed a crime. I did not speak to anyone (because speaking to people, especially other witnesses, lowers the accuracy of things recalled) until the cops arrived at my home. The shooter and accomplices were caught that night and later plead guilty.
It is only now, safely at my computer with no danger in sight (unless you count my Chihuahua, who thinks she’s something fierce), that I think about things like the ‘good state of a person’s soul.’ But you can bet if I wake up and find a burglar in my home, the furthest thing from my mind will be the golden rule, however conceived or applied. And when I call 911, it won’t be because I have reasoned that doing so will restore a person’s soul to a state of virtue. More particularly, I won’t be doing that type of reasoning while the burglar is in my home.
Cordially,
Jennifer
This last (and rather compelling) comment by Jennifer raises a problem my students often raise: if – in practice – we never use, or apply, ethical theory: what is the point of it? [Other than to make us feel good/bad after the fact]
If our decisions are instinctive, pragmatic – and importantly – rapid: we are not going to apply a utility principle, a Categorical Imperative or the (in my view quite problematic) Golden Rule: are we?
Maybe we apply a set of moral habits too quickly that we know we are doing it…
OR: ethics needs to track back to some kind of psychological starting point…
OR…
To my mind morality is inculcated. “Johnny!, Don’t hit your grandmother in the head with a shovel, it leaves a bad impression on her mind.” Wham! “There, how do you like it when someone does it to you?” “That’s all right, come here, Daddy loves you. Now revive Grandma and tell her that you’re sorry.”
We are born into a state of helplessness and rely on our parents, relatives, teachers, elders, and some might say (snarkle, titter) the sovereign grace of the Living God to endue us with moral knowledge. Then, when we have attained our majority and are confronted with a moral dilemma, we may then rely on a set of intellectual tools, of which the Golden Rule is but one, to employ to solve it. Of course by that time we may do it without thinking in the same manner as we drive our car, or tie our shoe or, if we have the luxury of time for rumination, we may sit back and reflect, “Now what was it that dear old Dad used to say about Grandma?”
Hi – I think training plays a part – but what is the impact on behaviour (and thinking) brought about [if any] by the study of ethical theory/philosophy?
I have asked my students this question at http://www.r-p-e.blogspot.com – and would be interested in the responses of readers of this blog (either here or there, as it were)..
Dave
Lou,
I was only trying to point out that in your example you seem to tell us you might (and maybe we should) act in such a way that you never really would—and in a way we would never really want others to.
As for your inculcation example, I’m sure you’re exaggerating and partly joking, but I think doing something like hitting a child in order to show that child hitting is wrong is an absolutely horrible parenting model. I don’t think I’ve *inculcated* my daughter in any such way. But I have encouraged her to read good novels, watch great films, listen to excellent music, become acquainted with admirable historic figures, ask me tons of questions, show me that I’m wrong and—most importantly—actually and honestly deal with moral problems she faces.
I’m not sure, however, that she even knows what the golden rule is, much less the categorical imperative. I am quite confident she will continue growing into an excellent person without knowing the Ten Commandments or how to maximize utility.
Sometimes I think it’s funny, actually, that people look at a moral problem as if there is some tool or rule that can *solve* it. As if moral life were so easy and simple.
Jennifer
Yes – there are lots of good people who act in respect of others with remarkable sensitivity and respect – who have never been formally instructed in religious or philosophical ethics: but I would concur with Jennifer here that for many there has probably been an implicit moral education.
In your final paragraph above you say people sometimes treat moral thoery as a tool: I think this is why students often (at first) are so keen on Utilitarianism – it looks like it works, and you can then tick off “working out how to act” and move on…
Reality, alas, is a little too complex (and messy) to handled efectivley with such rudimentary conceptual tools as the maximisation of utility I fear…
Cheers,
Dave
[Oh, and thanks Jennifer for starting our discussion at http://www.r-p-e.blogspot.com – I hope you don’t mind me quoting one of your prefvious posts to illustrate a point]
Here are a few comments from my good friend Micheal Roy Eaton…
“Your point that, on issues that have sharp ethical edges all around, responses may be quick and seem merely pragmatic and instinctive, but in fact, that pragmatism and instinct are not random, but previously leavened by a long list of positive influences. Therefore, it is not the speed at which someone responds to ethical issues, including desperate and dangerous ones, but the preprogram behind that speed.
Jennifer writes that she applied no ethical kitchen samplers at all in the perilous intrigue of her witnessing and later, reporting a crime she witnessed. But she did apply a whole kitchen wall of ethical imperatives by doing the right thing the right way. Her alternatives were to “not get involved,” but evidently, she had been taught better than that in life by good people. She also did the work of a witness well, meaning she had also been taught diligence, attentiveness, focus, and completeness. In fact, Jennifer’s response was a granny’s cedar chest of crocheted proverbs from “Do Your Best,” to “Write it Down.”
The Golden Rule, obviously, was in there too, as the victim of that crime she witnessed, reported and helped solve will hastily confirm. That she was unaware of the ruling power of her cumulative influences that prompted all the good she did seemingly by instinct, is only a testament to how deeply and solidly her ethics had been sown in her by good parents, teachers, friends, associates, and long dead folk made alive to her in books. Her responses were not instinctive at all, but instilled. Had she been influenced by all the wrong people in life, she might have waited until the attempted murderer had fled, then ventured out to see what spoils she might be able to glean for herself. There are cretins who do this, and even though we know we are cretinous by nature, if your parents were amoral, and your teachers were ethically challenged, and your friends all on the take, and your whole world is full of players and users, then you will more likely reflect that garbage-in existence in your responses to ethical issues.
Dave W also seems to discount the consuming importance of having been raised well and heartily in the arena of ethical response. Nothing we do in ethical matters can be separated from our past cumulative influences, good or bad. Acting on pure instinct is just about impossible unless you are a leopard. One acts inevitable on their ethos, especially in matters that tug on the conscious, and haste, danger and dire circumstances have little impact on the ultimate result. There’s always enough time, in any situation, to stop and think “What’s in this for me?” There’s equal time to also think, “What should I rightly do?” If you just do a bad or a good thing seemingly without thinking, it just means you acted “instinctively” on that ethical framework already long in place. ”
Michael has been mentoring me for years.
In response to Jennifer’s aside, I am a proponent of corporal punishment, combined of course with many other gentler methods of child-rearing. I do not believe that hitting is wrong, I believe that hitting the innocent is wrong, and that people who do so should be vanquished. I believe that children should be taught that there is a terrible price to be paid for mean-spirited wrong doing and unjustified rebellion.
If a child runs out into the street that child may be run over by a car and be killed. If he or she plays with matches the house may burn down and others may be killed as well. If one is impolite to the wrong man, he may respond by trying to take one’s life. These are serious matters. Better a swat from a loving Dad then a death-blow from some other source.
Of course, both my boys received considerable martial arts training from me both ancient and contemporary. Once I ruled over them. They are men now, gentlemen, soft spoken and polite to their elders and their contemporaries, chivalrous to those in need. They are restrained only by the Constitution of the United States, the just laws of this land, and their own ethical and theological viewpoints. One of them is now head our extended family and so in essence rules over me. One is in the military and the other is a businessman, each exhibiting some virtues more than others. They have their weaknesses, but the appropriate and effective use of force is not one of them.
One of my sons has a three-year old boy. As yet no hand has been laid upon him. He is sheltered in the company of the women, who coo and sing to him, even as he loudly shouts “no!” and has screaming temper tantrums. His father and his uncle and I look at other and smile for we know his day is coming. His education is soon to begin. Life is hard, life is work, justice is fearful, mercy is welcome, honor is above all. Should his father have cause to physically discipline him, it will not be in a spirit of anger, but with a determined resolve that his son should learn how terribly wrong being wrong is.
To Dave: I am quite happy, of course, that my comments sparked discussion on your blog. To answer your question over there, can I just say “Ditto what Rico said”? He totally took my answer!🙂
Concerning Michael Roy Eaton’s comments: I didn’t mean to imply that I acted from ‘instincts from nowhere.’ I did not, however, consciously deliberate, choose a rule and proceed from there. But I do think it is problematic for me—or anyone else—to say, “Oh, look, in that situation, you *really* employed principles X, Y and Z.” If my own mind in not transparent to myself, it is certainly not transparent to someone else who looks at a rather short bit of my personal history (that actually has a lot of things omitted) on the internet. I do think I was a good eyewitness, and a great deal of it is because I have background in psychology and have friends in law. Again, my point was to show that Lou’s example is not what someone would actually do. Human psychology is much more complex.
To Lou: In child raising, I am primarily concerned with psychological health (which I see as connected to moral health) and years of psychological research shows the parenting model you defend is not the best way to promote psychological health.
Best,
Jennifer
Jennifer, I’m not sure aligning yourself with my position is a virtue, but it’s nice to know I have some company … on this point, at least.🙂
FYI: For those interested, Eric Schwitzgebel has an interesting and related post at The Splintered Mind:
http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2007/01/is-it-fair-to-expect-ethicists-to.html
Rico—Don’t worry, I’ll make sure we never agree again!
Thanks for The Splintered Mind link. That’s really interesting.
Jennifer
The reductio only works for a narrow view of `others.’ If one interprets `others’ to also include one’s neighbors, then the golden rule would have one report the burglar to the police as quickly as expedient.
Well Lou, you know I don’t really see this from your POV, regarding Gert. I like Gert. And, let’s face it, as philosophy goes, it’s an easy ride. Try reading a little phenomenology and you’ll want to have a love affair with Gert.
That said, I want to just say this of your mentor’s comment: “Acting on pure instinct is just about impossible unless you are a leopard. One acts inevitable on their ethos, especially in matters that tug on the conscious, and haste, danger and dire circumstances have little impact on the ultimate result. There’s always enough time, in any situation, to stop and think “What’s in this for me?” There’s equal time to also think, “What should I rightly do?” If you just do a bad or a good thing seemingly without thinking, it just means you acted “instinctively” on that ethical framework already long in place. ”
Maybe Michael never played children’s games like “slaps” and “made you blink”. I’d be interested to see him truly defend a position that can reasonably attest to a life in which one would have to be a leopard to simply react.
I have reason to suspect that at no point during your experiences driving has a dinosaur ever stepped in front of your car while you were driving and reared back in a threatening roar. So you have no experience with three-story tall game threatening to mangle you and your ride. But I have a sneaking suspicion that if it were to happen you would do something and do it fast. You’d have no historical precedent for what should come next. No context. And, unless completely consumed by paralyzing fear, some action would follow. A fight or flight instinct? A reaction?
Even studies with crawling babies show they won’t crawl over a Plexiglas covered chasm. Those infants aren’t noodling over the finer points. They just don’t want to die. No framework necessary except a little biological hardwiring.
Peace,
Cathleen
Thank you, Cathleen, for continuing this conversation. I must agree that we are very much creatures of instinct. Even at my advanced age, I realize this every time I behold a beautiful woman. Your comment about the crawling baby demonstrates nicely our instinct for survival. A mother who sacrifices her life for her child …an example of the nurturing instinct. I have read recently about chimpanzees demonstrating altruistic behavior, so perhaps there is something to be said for empathy being instinctual as well. Or perhaps, as Mark Twain said, it is that God created monkeys because He was so disappointed with man.
I know that within my heart there reside vicious instincts as well as virtuous ones. Even at this late date some of the more venal ones are beyond my control. For instance, I appear to lack ‘sophrosune’ in great measure, exhibiting in my person the unfortunate result of such a lack. Throughout my life I have observed in myself the preeminence of some vices and the lack of some virtues. Conversely I have achieved the suppression of some of these vices and encouraged the flourishing of some virtues by experience, instruction, contemplation, study, resolve, repentance, supplication to the Deity, and what other measures seemed efficacious. As it says in Psalm 51:3 “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.”
It is this search to be a better man, and a desire to share this quest with friends of like mind that I consider to be the purpose and definition of the philosophy of ethics. The Golden Rule provides me with a great light to illuminate that journey. It helps me to sort out my varied instincts and hopefully prevent me from acting upon those that are immoral and encourages me to act upon those that lead to moral ends.
Well, Louis, I think you’d like a little book called The Evolution of Morality (Joyce), if you haven’t yet read it. It follows a scientific and Darwinian explanation for the evolution of moral instinct and makes a good case for sociobiology. My only misgiving with the book was that it fell short of explaining things like blushing which seem to lend some credence to group selection. But if you think empathetic monkeys are interesting, you’d find this book pretty compelling. You might find there’s much more that drives you to moral ends than simple character.
I don’t think there’s a problem with the use of the Golden Rule per se. But to borrow from the exchange we shared off-site and to let other posters in on the grist there, allow me to paste this in:
—-
I think the Golden Rule is a fairly simplistic one that Gert uses to affect to demonstrate how easily people accept notions on their surface without much intellectual consideration. In other words, some things have a “feel good” factor that lets them fly under the radar. His point, if I understand it correctly, is that taking these things at face value without the benefit of considering them critically can lead to errors in logic. This kind of thinking seems fairly innocuous at first pass but consider that it would be nearly impossible to treat others as you wish to be treated and have that congruent with others being treated as they wish to be treated. I snapped this off a website but I think it works for my purposes: “The golden rule is best seen as a consistency principle. It doesn’t replace regular moral norms. It isn’t an infallible guide on which actions are right or wrong; it doesn’t give all the answers. It only prescribes consistency – that we not have our actions (toward another) be out of harmony with our desires (toward a reversed situation action). It tests our moral coherence. If we violate the golden rule, then we’re violating the spirit of fairness and concern that lie at the heart of morality.” (http://www.jcu.edu/philosophy/gensler/goldrule.htm)
In other words, our actions to others should be in harmony with our desires in the same situation (tho reversed). But should they? I remember listening to a Michael Shermer lecture once and he described a Caltech experiment. In it, women approached random men they met in coffee shops or grocery lines with a series of leading questions: Would you like to have coffee with me? Would you like to go out with me tonight? How about if you just come back to my place? Then the roles were reversed and men asked women the same questions. I won’t say which group had which preferences but I will say that one group thought that last question was overwhelmingly fabulous whilst the other group thought it was absurd and provactively vile.
Maybe Gert picks on the Golden Rule a little but it’s to make the larger claim that without critically thinking about tenets we seem to swallow easily we can form misguided, allbeit well-intentioned, views. We are, by nature, predisposed to our own preferences and the Golden Rule, at minimum, falls prey to what Rawls’ veil does: how can you achieve some neutral place to make your claims?
You know George Bernard Shaw said: “Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.” True enough.
—
I’d like to add that while the Golden Rule might be used to good purpose from time to time it’s clear that using it solely as an infallible tool is at least illogical. You may never have occasion to mis-apply it but Gert (and Shermer) demonstrated the counter-examples.
Perhaps one’s sins are always before him. Perhaps even knowing what we must change in ourselves we are still attracted to that which corrupts the pursuit of it. Self contradiction is as cross-stitched into our psyche as the Golden Rule and Home Sweet Home. Wasn’t it Wordsworth’s sonnet to Milton where he said: “Do I contradict myself?/Very well then I contradict myself.”
And so it goes.
Peace,
Cathleen
Peronally, I have a huge problem with the widespread ethical application of sociobiology. Given the complex nature of human culture, most attempts to attribute ethical norms that have been widely found to evolutionary benefit to the group that adopts them are crass and simplistic.
Some almost seem convicing (e.g. widespread taboos against incest) – but is the evolution of these due – as it is in Darwinian theory – really due to a mutation?
There seems a category mistake here… We can see the development of human codes of ethics as analogous to evolutionary processes, but that does not mean that ethics has really “evolved”. There is a lot more to moral behaviour than ‘character’ (which I doubt is enhanced by physical violence), but I am not sure we are going to learn it from monkeys…
Hi, Lou: I want to thank you for starting this thread because it has made me think (again) about how we think about our moral thinking; about how we understand—or possibly misunderstand—our own deliberative processes, etc.
Cathleen: You bring up some really interesting points.
Since the focus has veered to discussion of instinct (and since it is all my fault!🙂 ), I think I should (try to) clarify the point I think I was trying to make.
It seemed to me that a certain sort of autonomous agency was implicitly included in Lou’s rendition of Gert’s burglar example. What I might like to say is that (i) We are probably rarely this type of agent. (ii) We probably shouldn’t strive to be (mostly or purely) this type of agent. (iii) It might be either comedic or tragic to be this type of agent when a burglar is in one’s home.
But even if we are not typically this type of agent (which I would likely call Kantian), I’m not sure it follows from this that everything, morally speaking, is instinct. That seems a little hasty to me. By questioning a certain sort of autonomous agency, I didn’t mean to imply that I accept pure instinct instead. This is why I focused on the complexity of moral psychology and the complexity of ethics generally; I really do mean complexity.
For those interested in reading a similar view re: moral psychology, might I suggest Nomy Arpaly’s “Unprincipled Virtue.”
When I have a little more time, I will try to write a more substantial post here on this topic.
Thanks again, Lou.
Cheers!
Jennifer
I’m not sure I advocated a “widespread application of sociobiology”. I think in most modern science on the issue reputable scientists disavow the same. At its most generous I think it boils down to a 50/50 equation and that’s being very charitable in both directions.
There is no dispute in biology anymore that certain propensities are tied to biological markers, including those we might have once thought to be simply morality. Not that humans are foxes but the Siberian fox experiment is a really good example of how environment and selection can result in the morphing of both physical and tempermental traits in tandem. Certainly one could not tie all of human interaction to biology and I think its disingenuous to accuse biologists of doing so. But I think its a disservice to the philosophical pursuit of understanding the depth of morality that many philosophers are willing to summarily dismiss biology out-of-hand. To me it seems a bit of a professional tit-for-tat as I’m sure philosophy has had science peer down its nose at philosophical claims as unimportant. To my mind, they are equally important.
To return to Jennifer’s point though, it seems we have two distinctly different scenarios to address and maybe the point of error is in Lou’s example (no offense Louis😉 . Sometimes in rendering an example we trip over one that fails to make the point and people get off track dissecting the example. In a crime situation I hope even Dave would agree that grappling with philosophical issues could be consumed by more basic instinctive behaviors such as fight or flight.
Maybe what we need is a less life threatening example. Let’s say you have a family dog who is like another child in your home. He gets fed occassional table scraps, has a warm bed inside and is very pampered for a mutt. Across the road neighbors have moved in and in the year or so they’ve live there you’ve barely seen them except to hear them shout angrily at their young boys in a language you don’t understand. You’ve attempted to greet them and the woman has looked away while the man dismissed you gruffly. Once they locked the eight-year-old boy outside in 40 degree weather in his pajamas as a punishment until you knocked on their door when they yelled at the boy and pulled him indoors, closing the door in your face. You feel a sense of shock but have to keep telling yourself that your own dad once drove away from you at a baseball park because you kept saying “one more minute” and failing to get in the car. You wouldn’t have wanted your own dad judged as a child abuser!
One day you see a puppy in the road at the end of their driveway. You take the dog to the door to ask if it’s their dog. The woman looks frightened and takes the dog, thanking you and rushing to the backyard. She closes the gate and you see the puppy nosing his way out of the gap in the gate. You show her how to close the gap with a rope and notice the dog’s food is sitting by the gate with ants on it. The puppy seems to have very loose bowel movements. He has no collar or tags. He’s scratching a lot.
For the next week you see the puppy outside at the gate crying for hours while the family is gone. It’s not freezing outside but in the low 40’s and the puppy is clearly cold. You see the man yell at the dog and pick it up by the scruff a few times. But you never see him injure the dog. The man seems to detest the dog but the boys seem, at least, excited by the idea of the dog.
Using the Golden Rule what do you do? Your own sister thinks the pinch collar you use on your dog is cruel. Your uncle owns hunting dogs that are kennelled outside and never part of the family like your own dog. If either of those families applied the Golden Rule to what you should be doing you’d be wrong. If you call animal control on your neighbors their dog might be taken from them, at least temporarily, causing stress to the kids and maybe to the puppy. If you don’t are you being negligent to this sentient being who may be the victim of abuse? What if the pup is only the victim of a less than stellar life?
What would you want “others” to do to you? — Leave you alone or interfere?
I think in the kind of situations where we are really faced with applying the Golden Rule the problem is often more grey than black and white. And I think to Shermer’s point it is nearly impossible to anticipate, properly, what another would “want done unto them” accurately.
Peace,
Cathleen
Quick response – –
I had not claimed, I think, that science had claimed the area once thought of morality as now its own. You tend to get over-ambitious applications of socio-biology from non-biologists (esp. evolutionary psychology, for example).
My point was, that while an understanding of biology and evolution can aid us in reflecting on why we act in certain ways – and no doubt with instinct this is very helpful – but it leaves the ‘ought’ unsaid – unless we decide the notion of ‘ought’, of value, is itself the product of biological/evolutionary impulses – which is rather more of a bold position to take.
Yes – we have instinct. As a cyclist in urban environments I am very aware of the way it protects me (and endangers me when I swear and gesticulate at the thoughtless antics of drivers of “Chelsea Tractors”).
But instinct is not ‘pure’ – it is not an essence that is equivalent to a notion of human nature. It is, surely, to a large degree a set of highly conditioned responses – we are trained moral agents (not as much fun as trained secret agents, but never mind..). If we all had a set of bio-induced response-instincts and that was the primary source of moral codes – surely we would agree more often?
I know I have ignored the Golden Rule a bit here – but I thought that if I did, others might start to as well…
Dave
Cathleen,
This is a great example in part because it has the usual messiness of real life moral problems.
Recently, someone told me about how Frankfurt, when dealing with a possible objection to a position of his, said something like, “Well, that’s not a problem for my position alone. That’s a problem for life.”
The example you give does show some of the difficulty of the golden rule, but if you think about it, it also shows the difficulty of applying slogans or simple rules in general. Think of whatever moral rule you are familiar with (I’ve been sitting here thinking of maximizing utility in this example) and you’ll see the problems. What would the Ten Commandments say here, for instance?
Your example, I’d say, is not a problem for the golden rule alone. It’s a problem for life.
A recurring worry of mine is that when some moral rule is attacked in this way, defenders reply with an example showing how it’s not really a problem. And in the examples they give, we sometimes end up being, for example, the type of agents (moral, not secret—sorry Dave!) we never really are in order to save the rule. I’m not accusing Lou of consciously doing this.🙂 I’m just saying it’s a worry I have.
Best,
Jennifer
I share your worry Jennifer. And I think that life is made of stickier stuff than rules can manage. Rules, golden and otherwise, offer ways to frame answers. I see the same with most philosophical positions as well. They are tools one can use to come at the issues of living. And to really milk my own metaphor, no single tool fixes all things which is why a person with a good tool box and the acumen to use what’s in it has a better shot at success than the ill-outfitted and under-skilled.
As for the biology debate, well, we shall have to agree to disagree it seems, Dave😉 You wrote: “If we all had a set of bio-induced response-instincts and that was the primary source of moral codes – surely we would agree more often?” I don’t know—are you trying to tell me that human mothers in every culture, everywhere don’t nuture
their children? Can you find me a culture where reciprocity of a kind isn’t important to the fabric? I hardly think that’s an accident. I think disagreeing on finer points is less worrisome.
I look at this way, Dave. Humans are born with an operating system and some rudimentary software programs. Just because you have Word loaded to your machine hardly guarantees you’ll write one sentence nevermind become a great writer. You have to not only learn to use the software to be a great writer you also have to add an element that is decidedly not part of the software at all. Evolution tends to upgrade the OS over time. The basic programs are enhanced by the more robust OS. But in the end, the greatest OS in the world and the best version of Word can’t make a writer all by themselves. Experience, imagination, creativity, practice, skill…those are the world outside of simple biology. I wouldn’t claim biology fully defines human nature but I would claim that it is a rudimentary source of our moral nature as much of what frames our moral actions also, it just so happens, serves our survivial. That can’t be much of an accident.
Peace,
Cathleen (Secret Agent😉 )
Cathleen – hi.
Maybe you are convincing me… Maybe not… There may be biological factors in driving some of our moral instincts – but might we not also be tempted to take the line that our biology drives us to acts of violence and things we might otherwise class as immoral? The nurturing of the young seems a good example (and I will ignore examples of non-nurturing mothers for now), but we might find counter-examples of the desire of one individual to survive (instinct, nature, Darwinian) putting a whole community’s survival at stake (by say, eating the last grain – preventing it being planted for next year’s harvest): is morality in this case not about opposing 0ur biologically-driven instincts?
I can see some merit in the line you take – but fear it. I feel that an ‘evolutionary ethic’ is rather malleable and dangerous. As per your first point – the world is messy, confused and full of places where conceptual borders are grey and indistinct. I am not sure instinct can get us through this – and while you have a healthy suspicion of rules here – it is via a process of reflection, calm and introspection that we might navigate a path through all this…. (I know – it’s all going a bit Buddhist here – but it always does with me).
Dave, you’re killing me! 😉 How am I to get one thing done when I keep being pulled away into this meaty little distraction. I was going to blame Rico if I failed my courses this term but now I shall have to heft part of the blame on to you.
I think you’ve taken a hard and soft line all at once. Is all violence immoral? Surely you can’t think that. Given the choice to kill Hitler, wouldn’t it be immoral NOT to kill him? Violence in the forms of war, murder, et al. might be crude and simplistic but I don’t think it would be fair to call all such acts immoral and in some cases such acts are quite fitness competitive.
Naturally there are non-nuturing mothers. But seriously, we can agree that such is more the exception than the norm. And when it is the exception, don’t we think something is “wrong” with that mother? And not just “wrong” in the moral sense. Intuitively, we think there is something funny going on in her mental hardwiring. Admit it…you know you want to! 😉
It makes sense to me that we have, over time, evolved to carry traits for altruistic behaviors, etc. because they are, ultimately, fitness enhancing qualities for social creatures. But that said, I want you to understand that I certainly don’t think those account for the great nuance of morality just as the existence of paint doesn’t account for the Mona Lisa. Without paint, there is no Mona Lisa, true, but it was never any guarantee of artistry. The moral fabric of choice and living is artistry but that doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate canvas and paint for their roles.
And who could ding Buddhists? 😉
Namaste,
Cathleen
ok – out of compassion (and as I will get murdered if I don’t do some rather tedious timetabling tasks), I shall pause for some hours before I respond to this….
D.
Lou,
You wrote, “It seems to me that the Golden Rule assumes prima facie virtuousness on the part of the person employing it, or else why would they even consider employing the Golden Rule in the first place?”
I’m not quite sure that this response to Gert works. If you modify the rule so that we only think about the wants and dispositions of the morally virtuous persons, we cannot use the rule in order to recover what it is that the morally virtuous person wants or is disposed to do.
Essentially you’re getting around Gert’s attempted counterexamples by building in a clause that so far as I can tell makes the Golden Rule something like this:
GR+: Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you so long as what you want them to do is the right thing.
That rule seems to be universal and infallible, but one we can only apply after having figured out what the right thing is. In other words, not useful.
Cathleen Jensen-Gall, your post of February 17th, 2007 at 5:31 pm is right on target. Gert is not simply attacking the golden rule for fun. He is attempting to show that one liners such as they are fail to produce any meaningful code by which to live ones life morally, and, worse, could be used as the justification for bad behavior. I don’t think there is a big question in most people’s minds as to what the Golden Rule means. I do see, however, where it could run into a problem because people want different things. In that regard, Gert’s point is that the rule fails to be universal. Do we want masochists applying this rule. Gert might say something like, “Don’t do unto others as you would have them do unto you, because they may not like the same things you like.” After having read Gert’s list of moral rules and ideals, I have to admit that I find his position appealing: “ Don’t hurt people, and, if you can, help hurt people. There, I just turned Gert’s proposition for a universal moral code into a slogan. He seems to be making the point that situations are unique and need to be addressed according to the particular circumstances, and that reducing the consideration of your response to blind following of a cute little rule is irresponsible and might be of no value. We should, instead, apply whatever moral rule, exception or ideal as laid out in his summary and as would fit the situation.