Concluding summary and comments about this book.
Some highlights:
- The author focuses on a modified utilitarianism, which he calls “deep pragmatism,” to solve tribal disputes in the modern world;
- He observes that “rights” are claims to end disputes, in order to avoid evidence-based discussions;
- And a long section contrasting the pro-life and pro-choice stances in the abortion dispute, finding both of them incoherent, and then proposing his pragmatic approach, which is to wonder about the consequences of prohibiting abortion, or not.
- And some pointed characterizations about the tribalism of conservatives, and of libertarians, and how liberal philosophies make the world a happier place.
Part III: Common Currency
Ch6, A Splendid Idea
Author summarizes the problem and its answer in utilitarianism, or consequentialism. Is this obvious? Yet it can challenge people’s deeply held values. Author proposes ‘deep pragmatism’ to replace the u-word. How do we determine what ‘works out best’ means? You need some kind of metric. What is happiness? One has to consider things whose absence would diminish our happiness; some kinds of hard work are necessary for long term happiness. Here’s where thinking, and the manual mode of morality, are needed.
Ch7, In Search of Common Currency
What would it be? Author considers religion, reason, and science.
Many believe the morality of their God, but who’s to decide that? Recall Plato’s Euthyphro: Are bad things bad because God disapproves of them, or does God disapprove of them because they’re bad? Theists rationalize this; but interpretations of the Bible change (and believers pick and choose which passages to defend based on personal bias). Kant thought morality was like math, building up from axioms taken to be self-evidently true. But math axioms vary (Euclid’s Fifth postulate). And there are no such moral axioms; at best, reason helps our moral conclusions cohere. Science? But morality is about spreading genes into the next generation, not identifying essential moral truths; to assume what is is what should be is the naturalistic fallacy. Conclusion: there is no moral truth, or if there is we don’t have access to it. And so utilitarianism.
Ch8, Common Currency Found
Scenarios in which, if you could push a button to help someone you don’t know, would you? Or to make them suffer? Most people, in experiments, prefer more happiness for themselves and others. But how to define ‘more happiness’?
–Beginning about here the book gets increasingly technical, and complex, with numerous imaginary scenarios about what people would do in various circumstances. (Some are similar to that in Ursula K. Le Guin’s famous short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.”) For example, if you would make people you don’t know and far away happier by giving away all your money, why don’t you? How do you decide where the balance is?
Ch9, Alarming Acts, and Ch10, Justice and Fairness
Author warns these chapters are ‘heavy-lifting’ and indeed, I read a bit then skipped them.
Ideas include how our base morality anticipates the effects of our plans, but not unintended side-effects, and this is why equivalent Trolley Problem scenarios seem more or less moral.
Ch11, Deep Pragmatism (the last big chapter in the book, at 60 pages)
So: we try to agree on shared values. [[ Again, Brin has made the point that Americans of all stripes agree on many more things than they disagree on. ]] We need to set aside gut reactions and shift into manual mode.
Problems of Me versus Us we’ve solved with emotion (and the entire suite of moral intuitions). Complex moral problems are about Us versus Them. How do we tell which is which? Answer: controversy. It’s when tribes disagree. Then we shift to manual mode.
And then what? There’s a psychological effect called confabulation, when we tell ourselves stories to explain how we fell. (Sacks had an example of this with a patient suffering Korsakoff’s amnesia.) The moral equivalent is rationalization, as Haidt explained (his elephant and the rider). Yet Kant used rationalization to justify popular prejudices (blacks are born slaves) explanations which now seems like a joke. Rationalization is the enemy of moral progress, and of deep pragmatism.
And so: “rights” are a kind of rationalization. They’re a way of side-stepping evidence-based arguments. Similarly duties, rights’ mirror-image. They’re non-negotiable, except when they’re not. [[ Well this is a new take! ]] Rights can be used as weapons, and as shields. We can speak of rights for moral matters that have truly been settled, e.g. slavery. But to persuade an opponent with reason, don’t use the language of rights.
[[ Well: generally people speak of rights with *claims* that such matters have been settled. But even when *most* people do agree they have been settled, there are a minority — generally conservative tribalists — who will disagree, especially concerning women, blacks, gays, et al. ]]
Then comes a long section in which author uses the abortion controversy as an example. Neither of the positions on the left or right are coherent. On the left: because there’s no boundary between early- and late-term abortions (viability outside the womb depends on technology), while claims about pain, or consciousness, might equally apply to some animals (and yet we are not all vegetarians). On the right: because conception is biology and physics, not magic; it can’t be known when the moment of ‘ensoulment’ occurs (why not of each sperm?) if it does; how feelings about the matter changed from the idea of the ‘quickening’ once ultrasound images became available; so most tribes believe in souls and assign conception as the only discreet point when a soul might be installed (that is, arbitrarily, not evidentially).
Then author presents his ‘pragmatic’ approach to the issue. We ask: what happens if we restrict legal access to abortion? Or if we don’t? If abortion were outlawed three things would happen: first, some people would change their sexual behavior. Second, some people would seek abortions anyway. Third, babies would be born who would otherwise not have been; some of those might be given up for adoption. On the first point, some damaging sex might be avoided, but much more consensual, pleasurable sex would be too, a loss of happiness with no compensating benefit. On the second, people would seek illegal abortions, at more expense and inconvenience. Again, from a utilitarian perspective, this is a loss. On the third, pregnancy is an enormous emotional strain, a disruption of life, and could lead to resentment of the child. Yet, the benefits would be new babies and new people, if they’re lucky. Though the parents might have chosen to have a different child at some other time. The change in net happiness is mixed. The pro-lifer’s argument is a good one, but to be consistent, they should also restrict contraception [[ they’re working on it ]], and abstinence [[ how would they do that? Well, by prohibiting non-heterosexual sex, as a beginning. They’re working on that too. ]]. This is like extreme altruism, turning ourselves into happiness pumps. But this may be too much to ask. On balance, author thinks the pro-choice arguments are good, considering the disruption in people’s lives, and so on.
Summary of pro-life position: be upfront about “your tribal metaphysical beliefs and insist, with a straight face, that the rest of the world live by them.” 326.5. And insist “that [your] faith-based answers dictate the law of the land.” The pro-choice position doesn’t rely on metaphysical assertions, even though there’s no principled place to draw the line; there is no magic moment. If there are arguments for changing the current policy, deep pragmatists should listen.
Is this conclusion unsatisfying? We’d like to find a manual-mode moral theory that gives the same answer as our automatic setting — our gut reactions. But — our gut reactions were not designed for serve [modern] moral ends. They serve “the biological imperative to spread our genes.” So: morality is not what generations of philosophers and theologians have thought. Moral philosophies are just tips of deeper psychological and biological icebergs, 329m.
Author summarizes the three major schools of thought in Western moral philosophy: utilitarianism/consequentialism; deontology (Kant); and virtue ethics (Aristotle). And concludes that our tribal intuitions are causing modern problems. So we turn to manual mode, and simply make the world as happy as possible. That’s the best we can do.
A final section is subtitled “Why I’m a liberal, and what it would take to change my mind.” Aren’t liberals just another tribe? No; author believes liberal philosophies make the world happier. But you could try to talk him out of it.
Here’s where Greene contrasts his understanding of morality and politics with that of Jonathan Haidt. He agrees with Haidt to be less self-righteous, and more open to compromise. But: that’s not enough; the issue is: what should we do?
He characterizes Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory as that liberals have impoverished moral sensibilities. [[ I don’t think Haidt characterized it that way; but remember, I noted that he did not wonder why this was, here ]]. He describes five or six moral foundations, and claims that liberals are indifferent to three of these: loyalty, authority, and sanctity. Author said Haidt blames Western moral philosophers and the Enlightenment. The idea of WEIRD was born: the modern liberal, with an enfeebled moral palate. Is this a problem?
Author thinks not. The modern world is a confluence of different tribes with different values. The Enlightenment philosophers wrote at a time when the world was interconnecting, and science was making it comprehensible. These philosophers were looking for deeper, universal moral truths. That is—the metamorality. A post-tribal philosophy. Thus, liberals’ moral tastes are more refined. . –And now I’m going to quote, from page 339:
For the most part, American social conservatives belong to a specific tribe–a European American, white, Christian tribe that remains lamentably tribal. This tribe dismisses the knowledge gained from science when it conflicts with tribal teachings. Moreoever, this tribe regards its own members as the “real” Americans (implicitly, if not explicitly) and regards residents who challenge their tribal beliefs as foreign invaders. According to Haidt, American social conservatives place greater value on respect for authority, and that’s true in a sense. Social conservatives feel less comfortable slapping their fathers, even as a joke, and so on. But social conservatives do not respect authority in a general way. Rather, they have great respect toe the authorities recognized by their tribe (from the Christian God to various religious and political leaders to parents).
Thus their disrespect for Barack Obama, and all their conspiracy theories about him. Similarly about the UN, Muslims; similarly for loyalty (only if to America). And thus, I would comment myself, in their loyalty to Trump, which trumps any regard for truth, or law and order.
In sum, American social conservatives are not best described as people who place special value on authority, sanctity, and loyalty, but rather as tribal loyalists–loyal to their own authorities, their own religion, and themselves. This doesn’t make them evil, but it does make them parochial, tribal. In this they’re akin to the world’s other socially conservative tribes, from the Taliban in Afghanistan to European nationalists. According to Haidt, liberals should be more open to compromise with social conservatives. I disagree. In the short term, compromise may be necessary, but in the long term, our strategy should not be to compromise with tribal moralists, but rather to persuade them to be less tribalistic.
Comment: so yes, Greene doesn’t put it quite this way, but the split between liberals and conservatives is that liberals have outgrown the tribal morality that is unsuitable to the modern world. The most primitive moral instincts.
If liberals are eroding the moral fabric of American society, then decidedly liberal nations such as Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, where only a minority of citizens report believing in God, should be descending into hell. Instead, they have some of the lowest crime rates, highest-achieving students, and highest levels of quality of life and happiness in the world.
Should they import Christian fundamentalists from rural America to balance their lopsided politics, as Haidt suggests? At the same time, social conservatives are very good at making each other happy. They avert the first tragedy, but are very bad at averting the modern tragedy.
Author allows that libertarians (like the northern herders in his initial parable) may be right in situations where liberals are wrong. Yet a lot of their anti-government sentiment comes in two flavors. Their resentment of big government is an Us vs Them fear. Tribalism. Second, many are wealthy people who want policies that favor themselves. Self-serving, even if they’re sincere. Still, they don’t work harder than others to the proportion they earn more. Taxing to pay teachers, e.g., isn’t socialism; it’s deep pragmatism.
Almost concluding: Our intuitive morality can be hard to change, but a good argument can change the shape of things. Examples of Bentham on gays, Mill on women’s rights. As a deep pragmatist, author feels the kind of progress that involves *thinking* is not yet done.
Ch12, Beyond Point-and-Shoot Morality: Six Rules for Modern Herders.
We are cooperative organisms, with brains and intelligence, and have made great progress. But more remains to do. Moral tribes can’t agree on what’s right or wrong. We need to think slower and harder. How do we decide what is the best? We cannot rely on our gut reactions. So author has some practical suggestions.
1, In the face of moral controversy, consult, but do not trust, your moral instincts. (“Don’t believe everything you think.”)
2, Rights are not for making arguments; they’re for ending arguments. (When you have no evidence-based arguments.)
3, Focus on the facts, and make others do the same. (Provide, and demand, evidence about what works and what doesn’t.)
4, Beware of biased fairness. (Beware of our own biases.)
5, Use common currency. (with “science the most widely trusted, by far, and for good reason”)
6, Give. (That is, consider how making small sacrifices can make the world a better place.)
The moral laws within us are a mixed blessing. It’s more marvelous that we can question them and replace them with something better.
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A final note about the unique way endnotes are referenced. There are 27 pages of notes, in tiny print, identified by page number in the text. Through the book, author uses one asterisk * to indicate and endnote that is merely a reference; two ** to indicate a comment; and three *** to indicate a long comment. A couple of the last are two or three page tiny print discussions.
