There is a very widespread assumption in modern culture that evolutionary biology replaced religion in the sense of providing an account of human origins. — Wayfarer

Well said.

Instead, I'd say there is a very widespread assumption in modern culture that evolutionary biology replaced ethics in the sense of providing an account of human obligations. My point is that this is an assumption, not a conclusion.

I'd go along with that.

Have a geez at:

Anything but Human, Richard Polt, New York Times.

It ain't Necessarily So, Anthony Gottlieb, New Yorker.

biology replaced ethics in the sense of providing an account of human obligations. — Banno

What do you mean?

Have a look at that top essay, by Richard Polt, lays it out far better than I could. (From a tenured professor of philosophy, by the way.)

, see

The pretence is that there is a scientific account of what we ought do. But on analysis, it comes down to an expression of Counterpunch's personal preference.

Ok got it.

Counterpunch's personal preference.... — Banno

welll, more than personal - it can be social, a widely-held view that an individual also accepts.

That is simply a paraphrase — Wayfarer

I choose my words with care to explain some quite fine distinctions that your paraphrasing is apt to disregard.

I'm generally critical of the way that biological evolution has become a 'theory of everything' in respect of human nature. There is a very widespread assumption in modern culture that evolutionary biology replaced religion in the sense of providing an account of human origins. So in that context it is natural to assume that moral and intellectual capacities can be understood in such terms. And you're doing this throughout this thread. — Wayfarer

Yes, that is what I'm doing.

So that's why I'm referring to criticisms of this attitude from other sources, such as philosopher Thomas Nagel, who has devoted his career to this line of thought. — Wayfarer

I'm surprised Thomas Nagel has heard of me.

Neither he nor I am afiliated with any form of creationism or intelligent design but are mindful of the shortcomings of the current orthodoxy. If you're interested in exploring them, I can recommend some sources. — Wayfarer

I don't know of any other evolutionary theorist who posits a truth relation between the organism and a causal reality; to which the organism must be correct or be rendered extinct. The furthest any have gone along this line of reason, to my knowledge - is some consideration paid to entropy. Ingesting energy and excreting waste - but beyond that, it's as if evolution plays out against a blank background - rather than, a complex environment with definite physical, chemical and biological properties - to which the organism must be responsive, or die out.

There's an over-emphasis in my view, on the random blindness of evolution - which is not to say that random genetic mutation is not the basis upon which selection acts, nor to suggest that evolution has a purpose in mind. And this is why I'm so careful with the words I use - because between these lies the path of my argument; that the organism has to be correct to reality to survive.

I've done lots of reading on this subject, and have my own argument to make - so if you could quit it with the condescending implications that I don't know what I'm talking about, that would be super!

If you like. I was just paraphrasing his "this is my considered opinion".

Edit: I read your linked articles. While I agree with them in the main, there is something a bit unsettling here as well. You see, I agree with Counterpunch that survival is not such a bad thing. Indeed, if made to choose, I would side with him over my posited anti-natalist or Nietzschean.

the organism has to be correct to reality to survive. — counterpunch

It is not condescending to point out that this is an insufficient basis for resolution of the question posed by the OP.

He may not be directly answering the question to the satisfaction of those of us who think the two domains are separate, but it's pretty clear that he thinks only in terms of the descriptive domain, and thinks that answering questions in there is sufficient to answer prescriptive questions too, which makes it clear enough to me that option #2 is the right categorization for his views.

The pretence is that there is a scientific account of what we ought do. But on analysis, it comes down to an expression of Counterpunch's personal preference. — Banno

We have a choice. That's what gives the matter moral import. If we could only walk blindly into extinction, it wouldn't be a moral question. But because we are able to know, and able to choose - it is a moral question, and my answer to that question is, yes, we ought to survive.

My reasons are many, but most basically, it is reasonably possible to secure a prosperous sustainable future, and live well into the long term future. That so, I think we ought to; rather than inflict terrible suffering on our offspring, and allow the human species to become extinct.

I suspect intellectual intelligence matters - in some bigger sense, because of the truth relation between the organism and reality, that describes the entirety of evolution, and that is also the means to a prosperous and sustainable future. I think truth leads somewhere. I don't know where, but intellectual intelligence should play out to its full potential.

Perhaps; however the upshot of my questioning him is that he thinks there is an ought, albeit hidden in the word "correct". He does suppose that we make moral judgements when faced with facts - not that there are only facts.

Hence,

We see the moral implications of those facts. Facts are not a separate magisterium to us, because we are imbued with an innate moral sense, in turn a behaviourally intelligent, evolutionary response to a causal reality. — counterpunch

SO arguably, 4: "They are separate but still similar"

It is not condescending to point out that this is an insufficient basis for resolution of the question posed by the OP. — Wayfarer

It's not insufficient when one considers morality as the behaviourally intelligent survival strategy of social organisms that are built from the bottom up, to be correct to reality to survive.

If you like; my purpose was no more than to ensure that it was clear this moral position is not a deduction from evolutionary science.

Perhaps you would reconsider your original post here:

If you like; my purpose was no more than to ensure that it was clear this moral position is not a deduction from evolutionary science. — Banno

I answered "none of the above" because morality is behavioural intelligence. The capacity to have a moral opinion is a consequence of evolution, and reducible, in turn - to the truth relation between the organism and reality. The capacity to have a moral opinion is not the same as an expression of that moral capacity. If you ask me - ought humankind survive? Then for all sorts of reasons, yes. But I do not have that opinion by dint of some sperate magisterium, or Platonic ideal, less yet, God given rules of conduct. I am able to form that opinion because morality is a sense ingrained into the organism at the behaviourally intelligent level by evolution in a tribal context. So again, none of the above.

It's not insufficient when one considers morality as the behaviourally intelligent social survival strategy of organisms that are built from the bottom up, to be correct to reality to survive. — counterpunch

‘And then you bring in all these things I hadn’t thought of and writers I haven’t heard about which criticises this view. How condescending! You’re just insufferable!’ :razz:

the truth relation between the organism and reality — counterpunch

...it might be worth someone pointing out that this phrase is quite obscure...

He may not be directly answering the question to the satisfaction of those of us who think the two domains are separate, but it's pretty clear that he thinks only in terms of the descriptive domain, and thinks that answering questions in there is sufficient to answer prescriptive questions too, which makes it clear enough to me that option #2 is the right categorization for his views. — Pfhorrest

:up: I notice you do explicitly mention 'scientism' in that option.

Also I was going to suggest that 'normative' might be a better term than 'prescriptive' - means the same, but 'normative' is more recognisable in the context. Not that it really matters.

And then you bring in all these things I hadn’t thought of and writers I haven’t heard about which criticises this view. How condescending! You’re just insufferable!’ — Wayfarer

It's almost certainly, not my view being criticised. So wherein lies the benefit? Here's one of your quotes:

the reason [Dennett] imputes to the human creatures depicted in his book is merely a creaturely reason. Dennett's natural history does not deny reason, it animalizes reason. It portrays reason in service to natural selection, and as a product of natural selection. But if reason is a product of natural selection, then how much confidence can we have in a rational argument for natural selection? The power of reason is owed to the independence of reason, and to nothing else....Evolutionary biology cannot invoke the power of reason even as it destroys it. — Leon Wieseltier

Should I defend Dennet then? If Leon Wieseltier wants to criticise Dennet, I'm sure Dennet can take it, but what has it to do with me? Dennet's conclusions are not my own. I thought Darwin's Dangerous Idea was a great book - but toward then end, we diverged.

I can give a probable explanation of the occurrence of intellectual intelligence, and it's not primarily as a product of natural selection. In 'The Neanderthal Enigma" James Shreeve identifies an event in evolutionary history dubbed 'the creative explosion.' It's the sudden appearance in the archaeological record of artefacts that display a truly human mode of thought. Cave art, burial of the dead, jewellery, improved tools etc. There is no concurrent increase in cranial capacity or change in diet that explains this change in behaviour.

I think it was conceptual evolution occurring in behaviourally intelligent homo sapiens that jump started intellectual intelligence. It could relate to a Creator God concept - as an answer to the question, formed for the first time ever: Who made me? Who made the world? I think primitive man was cast from innocence into superstition in the blink of an eye, and that intellectual intelligence is a consequence of this paranoia. But then, I've also read a lot of psychology.

↪Janus
It sound like the first option is the one for you. — Pfhorrest

↪Pfhorrest
I think you're missing the option 'one domain viewed from different perspectives'. — Wayfarer

No, I don't agree with the first option. I think Wayfarer's right; that's the option I'd go for.

I thought Darwin's Dangerous Idea was a great book — counterpunch

I figured you might. That's why I mentioned Dennett. But it's not specific to him - it's a general observation.

I think primitive man was cast from innocence into superstition in the blink of an eye, and that intellectual intelligence is a consequence of this paranoia. But then, I've also read a lot of psychology. — counterpunch

I've just learned an interesting phrase from modern philosophy 'the hermeneutics of suspicion', to wit:

The “hermeneutics of suspicion” is a phrase coined by Paul Ricoeur to capture a common spirit that pervades the writings of Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche. In spite of their obvious differences, he argued, these thinkers jointly constitute a “school of suspicion.” That is to say, they share a commitment to unmasking “the lies and illusions of consciousness;” they are the architects of a distinctively modern style of interpretation that circumvents obvious or self-evident meanings in order to draw out less visible and less flattering truths

So, whereas I might depict the advent of self-consciousness as opening up new horizons of being, you might depict it as 'paranoia'. I guess there will be, ultimately, no way of adjuticating that, but I know which one I'd prefer to believe.

Also I was going to suggest that 'normative' might be a better term than 'prescriptive' - means the same, but 'normative' is more recognisable in the context. Not that it really matters. — Wayfarer

I’ve been shying away from using “normative” because so many people seem to misunderstand it to mean specifically “regarding social norms”, as in what other people will approve of, or what’s commonly accepted, rather than what is right or good, regardless of whether or not that equates to social approval.

I think you're missing the option 'one domain viewed from different perspectives'.
— Wayfarer

No, I don't agree with the first option. I think Wayfarer's right; that's the option I'd go for. — Janus

I would consider Wayfarer’s option to fall within either the first or fourth options, depending on whether you think the things seen from those different perspectives should be treated by different or similar methods.

I think (in my option 4 view) that there’s only one world that we consider in descriptivism and prescriptive ways, for instance; but I think both of those ways of considering it deserve the same principles be applied in the approach to them. If instead you think e.g. that prescriptive views, unlike descriptive ones, can’t be objectively settled and so much either be held on faith or left only relative to their holders, that’s option 1.

Fair enough too. :up:

but I think both of those ways of considering it deserve the same principles be applied in the approach to them. — Pfhorrest

I'd say that ethical and aesthetical disagreements can't be settled the way that empirical disagreements can. Correct answers in mathematics and the more mathematical sciences can be determined, but not so much in the "softer" natural sciences and in the so-called humanities. Subtle ethical questions are even less amenable to determining what is correct.

This may often be due to things, for example, like determining what constitutes a person, when it comes to issues like abortion or animal rights. It hard to see how it will not always be a matter of interpretation with such questions.

So I'm not seeing how the "same principles" (other than general good faith and intellectual honesty) can be expected to apply in the various domains of inquiry.

In this thread I'm not trying to argue that my views are correct, but just to find out where other people's views fall, and it's clear that yours fall into what I intended option #1 to be.

I think that the questions of what is real and what is moral are inherently separate, respecting the is-ought or fact-value distinction, much like Gould's NOMA; but I think that similar methodologies can and have been applied to both of them, — Pfhorrest

You can only be objective with respect to topics which can be framed in terms of subject-object relations. To say this doesn't undermine objectivity, because it covers an immense range of subjects; there's a huge range of disciplines which benefit from objectivity and in which objective criteria are fundamental.

But there are also matters of judgement which transcend the scope of objectivity. This includes for example, moral principles, historical and even judicial judgements. I mean, juries can disagree in all manner of ways, even in cases where 'the facts' seem to be cut-and-dried.

But the implicit appeal of 'objective truth' is that it is 'the same for everyone'. You will notice that those who venerate objective truth tend to trivialise or subjectivise moral principles or at any rate to reduce them to matters of opinion. Also notice that this is specifically what Plato abhored about the sophists of his day, Protagoras and the like. In saying that, I don't want open the door for simple relativism or subjectivism, either. I believe there are real moral laws, but to say they're 'objective' overstates what objective judgement is capable of.

So, what I want to say is that there is therefore no method by which to judge moral statements. There are, instead, moral codes, which are frameworks of judgement which have been foundational to every culture. And yes, these do contain, and arguably rest upon, religious revelation.

But a code is not a method. The problem modern culture has, is that it believes scientific method is universal, that it therefore derives truths which are just so for everyone, but it doesn't deal with those subjects which cannot be framed in purely objective terms. 'One of the crucial differences between the method of science and the non-theoretical understanding that is exemplified in music, art, philosophy and ordinary life, is that science aims at a level of generality which necessarily eludes these other forms of understanding. This is why the understanding of people can never be a science. To understand a person is to be able to tell, for example, whether he means what he says or not, whether his expressions of feeling are genuine or feigned. And how does one acquire this sort of understanding?'

So, no, there can be no 'similar methodologies' between the descriptive and the normative, because normative judgement transcend methodology as such.

I'm not seeing how the "same principles" (other than general good faith and intellectual honesty) can be expected to apply in the various domains of inquiry. — Janus

Agree.

In this thread I'm not trying to argue that my views are correct, but just to find out where other people's views fall, and it's clear that yours fall into what I intended option #1 to be. — Pfhorrest

I figured you might. That's why I mentioned Dennett. But it's not specific to him - it's a general observation. — Wayfarer

What, in your mind is the purpose of these sly asides?

I've just learned an interesting phrase from modern philosophy 'the hermeneutics of suspicion', to wit:

The “hermeneutics of suspicion” is a phrase coined by Paul Ricoeur to capture a common spirit that pervades the writings of Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche. In spite of their obvious differences, he argued, these thinkers jointly constitute a “school of suspicion.” That is to say, they share a commitment to unmasking “the lies and illusions of consciousness;” they are the architects of a distinctively modern style of interpretation that circumvents obvious or self-evident meanings in order to draw out less visible and less flattering truths

So, whereas I might depict the advent of self-consciousness as opening up new horizons of being, you might depict it as 'paranoia'. I guess there will be, ultimately, no way of adjuticating that, but I know which one I'd prefer to believe. — Wayfarer

So in your view, the advent of self-consciousness involves an apple tree, a talking snake and a pissed off deity? What one might call the "scrumping for consciousness" hypothesis? Provocative, certainly!