[MD] The Moral Landscape

[Steven Peterson]

Hi Platt,

> Steve:
> Why do you think that it is nonrational to make assumptions? Part of
> reasoning is making assumptions and also holding such assumptions up
> to rational criticism. Some assumptions we now make about human
> flourishing may turn out to be wrong. We will know only when such
> assumptions conflict with other things we learn about human
> flourishing.
>
> Consider the parallel to human health.  Not having a precise
> definition of what human health is does not prevent us from pursuing
> it and understanding it scientifically.
>

Platt:
> Yes, part of reasoning is making assumptions, but the reasoning comes after the
> assumptions.

Steve:
It doesn't really matter whether you think of the generating
asumptions as part of reasoning or as a phenomenon that is separate
from and prior to reasoning as long as we agree that there is nothing
_ir_rational about making assunmptions (you actually used the word
"nonrational" which is fine).



> Steve:
> Some measures that are frequently considered are life expectancy,
> literacy rates, poverty rates, unemployment, % of children who are
> underweight, GDP per capita, number of residents seeking asylum in
> other countries, infant mortality, etc.
>
> Platt
> Yes, a fine list of criteria. But, it illustrates my point about begging the
> question. Why are such criteria chosen? Don't they all assume moral judgments?
> If you agree that they do, then the real question becomes, "What is the basis
> of those moral judgments? General agreement among civilized people? Natural
> law? Instinct? I don't see how one can give a rational explanation of why it's
> better, say, for one group to live longer than another.

Steve:
This sort of questioning can get silly fast if you want to play the
extreme skeptic. For example, what is the basis for asking for a
basis? A science of morality couldn't account for certain underlying
values any more than physics can account for the standards for what
ought to count as a good justification in physics. It is simply no use
to ask why we ought to value well-being. It is possible to for the
question in language, but it is as meaningless as asking what is good
about goodness.

It is common sense that all the things listed are important concerns
for wellbeing. This is not to say that there is no room for debate
about whether or not they do, but asking why, say, Harris can justify
that we should want low infant mortality rates is nothing we need to
answer unless you can give us good reason to doubt it. It seems clear
enough that mothers losing their children in childbirth is bad, and
perhaps someday we will have a better understanding of the human brain
to explain more precisely why that is, but in the absence of that
brain science I don't think we have to pretend that we don't already
know that a high infant mortality rate is bad for human wellbeing.

As for your question about having a higher life expectancy, having an
extremely low life expectancy suggests poor health and perhaps
violence and perhaps other indications that a society is not
flourishing at it could be. Again, it is just common sense that human
wellbeing is not best achieved in a society where we live in fear of
violent attack or live in disease. These sorts of objections are
hardly deserving of a response. They only come up in the context of
playing the extreme skeptic. They are not based on real doubts and
without a good reason to doubt there is no good reason to defend
against such fake doubts. In other words, I sincerely doubt that you
would be doubting sincerely if you questioned whether having cholera
is any worse than not having cholera. Though there is almost surely
not just one best way to structure society, infecting everyone with
cholera just isn't an alternative vision of the good life.


> Platt
> I think you have made my point. "Well being" reminds me of "human rights" that
> Pirsig blasted in Lila:
>
> "What passed for morality within this crowd was a kind of vague, amorphous soup
> of sentiments known as "human rights." You were also supposed to be
> "reasonable." What these terms really meant was never spelled out in any way
> that Phaedrus had ever heard. You were just supposed to cheer for them." (Lila,
> 24)
>
> I can cheer for "well-being" along with Harris and everybody else. But, when it
> comes to specifying a basis on which we can agree as to what a moral standard
> like "well-being" will actually lead to in practice, I'm afraid we will
> continue to go around in circles.

Steve:
I think there will always be disagreements since situations are just
so complicated and also since there may be multiple ways of being that
are more or less equivalent in terns of wellbeing, but we won't merely
go around in circles. There is a lot we will agree upon just as soon
as we agree that there are right and wrong answers to moral questions.
For example, if we imagine that there is an isolated population of two
people living on an island, we already know that there are ways that
these two can flourish as well as possible under the circumstances and
ways that they can experience utter misery. We may not know the best
way for them to live the best lives possible, but we do know that,
say, trying to murder one another would be to move in the wrong
direction on the moral landscape while cooperation is likely to have a
far better chance of moving them toward a peak on that landscape. It
is a simpler situation that a large population, but it nevertheless
illustrates that there are better and worse ways to live.



Platt:
> Let's never forget that every dictator in
> history appealed to the "well-being" of the nation to justify his actions. Both
> communism and capitalism appeal to well-being for support, yet the outcomes
> have been radically different.

Steve:
Yeah, well just imagine what a dictator who set out to deliberately
bring about the worst possible misery for his nation could do. Anyway,
this is an argument against dictators rather than against seeking well
being. Everyone already seeks wellbeing. Some of us are especially bad
at it. For example, the Talibans who throw battery acid in the faces
of girls trying to learn how to read are seeking wellbeing but are
very wrong about how best to do it (wrong about what is moral).


Platt:
> Pirsig's defines "well-being" as that which improves response to Dynamic
> Quality, a rational conclusion from his initial assumption that the world is a
> moral order. From what you've told me about Harris, his metaphysics is still
> good old SOM.

I don''t think Harris is doing metaphysics at all, so it doesn't make
any sense to say that his metaphysics is SOM.

Platt:
>But maybe he can tell us on what rationally-determined moral
> basis he defines "well-being."

As I said, we don't currently have a well-defined understanding of
well-being, but we also don't have a precise definition of health or
even life. Nevertheless there is an objective difference between being
alive and being dead. The problem of needing a more clear definition
of wellbeing is one that we will continue to address as we inquire
about how to acheive wellbeing just as we learn about what human
health is only as we inquire about how to make ourselves more healthy.
The one problem does not need and probably can't have a definitive
solution before we start work on the other.

Best,
Steve