Darwinism and Normativity
Darwinism and Normativity
In The Descent of Man, Darwin asks, “Why should a man feel that he ought to obey one instinctive desire rather than another?” 9 His subsequent answer is that the stronger of two conflicting impulses wins out. Thus, the otherwise timid mother will, without hesitation, run the greatest risks to save her child from danger because the maternal instinct trumps the instinct for self-preservation. And the timid man, who stands on the shore wringing his hands while allowing even his own child to drown out of fear for his own life, heeds the instinct for self-preservation.10
What Darwin never asks, and thus never answers, is why a man ought, in fact, to obey the one rather than the other. The best he offers here is the observation that if instinct A is stronger than B, then one will obey A. What he does not and, I suggest, cannot say is that one ought to obey A or that one ought to feel the force of A over B. That is, whereas Darwin may be able to answer the factual question that he does ask—why people believe and behave as they do—this does nothing to answer the normative question of how one ought to behave or of what sets of instincts and feelings one ought to cultivate in order to be virtuous. It is, of course, one thing to explain why people believe and behave as they do; it is another to say whether their beliefs are true (or at least warranted) and their behaviors right. As it stands, Darwin appears to have precious little of moral import to say to the timid man.
One could, I suppose, reply on Darwinian grounds that the father who lacks a strong paternal instinct is abnormal, lacking traits that are almost universally distributed throughout the species and are, perhaps, even kind defining.11 Darwin refers to the man who is utterly bereft of the social instincts as an “unnatural monster.” Doesn't this observation lend itself to a normative evaluation of behaviors? Who wants to be a monster, after all? But it is not at all clear that this can give us what is needed. After all, departure from a statistical average is not necessarily a bad thing. If the average adult's IQ is around one hundred, Stephen Hawking is something of a freak. And, presumably, the first hominids to use tools (Hawking's direct ancestors perhaps?) or to express themselves in propositions were unique in their day.12 Indeed, the Gandhis and Mother Theresas of the world are certainly abnormal, enough that one evolutionary naturalist refers to them as “variations,” yet we tend to like having them around.
I suppose that the evolutionary naturalist could go on to observe that not only do we notice that the timid father is different in that his parental instinct was not sufficient to prompt him to rescue his child, but it is a difference that naturally elicits negative moral emotions. We disapprove of him and think him blameworthy. Indeed, perhaps the man later experiences some negative moral emotions himself such as “remorse, repentance, regret, or shame.”13 According to Darwin, the sense of guilt is the natural experience of anyone who spurns the prompting of any of the more enduring social instincts, and it bears some similarity to the physical or mental suffering that results from the frustration of any instinct of any creature. Darwin considers the suffering of the caged migratory bird that will bloody itself against the wires of the cage when the migratory instinct is at its height. Indeed, he considers that conflict between the migratory and maternal instincts in the swallow, which gives in to the former and abandons her young in the nest. He speculates, “When arrived at the end of her long journey, and the migratory instinct has ceased to act, what an agony of remorse the bird would feel, if, from being endowed with great mental activity, she could not prevent the image constantly passing through her mind, of her young ones perishing in the bleak north from cold and hunger.”14
Like the moral sense in general, guilt is the yield of a sort of recipe: one part spurned instinct to one part “great mental activity” that permits remembrance and remorse. And so, when our timid man's own personal danger and fear are past so that the strength of his selfish instinct has receded, the scorned paternal instinct will have its revenge. Also, because we are social animals, we are endowed with sympathies that make us yearn for the approbation of our fellows and fear their censure. The cowardly father is thus likely in for a long bout of insomnia. Further, Darwin may explain that the experience of remorse may result in a resolve for the future, with the further result that the paternal instinct is bolstered and stands a greater chance of being the dominant of two conflicting instincts. Thus, “conscience looks backwards, and serves as a guide for the future.”15
But even if we are assured that a “normal” person will be prompted by the social instincts and that those instincts are typically flanked and reinforced by a set of moral emotions, we still do not have a truly normative account of moral obligation. Nothing in Darwin's own account indicates that the ensuing sense of guilt, a guilty feeling, is indicative of actual moral guilt resulting from the violation of an objective moral law. The revenge taken by one's own conscience amounts to a sort of second-order propensity to feel a certain way given one's past relation to conflicting first-order propensities (e.g., the father's impulse to save his child versus his impulse to save himself). Unless we import normative considerations from some other source, it seems that, whether it is a first- or second-order inclination,16 one's being prompted by it is more readily understood as a descriptive feature of one's own psychology than material for a normative assessment of one's behavior or character. And, assuming that there is anything to this observation, an ascent into even higher levels of propensities (“I feel guilty for not having felt guilty for not being remorseful over not obeying my social instincts”) introduces nothing of normative import. Suppose you encounter a man who neither feels the pull of social, paternal, or familial instincts nor is in the least bit concerned over his apparent lack of conscience. What, from a strictly Darwinian perspective, can one say to him that is of any serious moral import? “You are not moved to action by the impulses that move most of us.” Right. So?
The problem afflicts contemporary construals of an evolutionary account of human morality. Consider Michael Shermer's explanation for the evolution of a moral sense, the “science of good and evil.” He explains:
By a moral sense, I mean a moral feeling or emotion generated by actions. For example, positive emotions such as righteousness and pride are experienced as the psychological feeling of doing “good.” These moral emotions likely evolved out of behaviors that were reinforced as being good either for the individual or for the group.17
Shermer goes on to compare such moral emotions to other emotions and sensations that are universally experienced, such as hunger and the sexual urge. He then addresses the question of moral motivation.
In this evolutionary theory of morality, asking “Why should we be moral?” is like asking “Why should we be hungry?” or “Why should we be horny?” For that matter, we could ask, “Why should we be jealous?” or “Why should we fall in love?”
The answer is that it is as much a part of human nature to be moral as it is to be hungry, horny, jealous, and in love.18
Thus, according to Shermer, given an evolutionary account, such a question is simply a nonstarter. Moral motivation is a given as it is wired in as one of our basic drives. Of course, one might point out that Shermer's “moral emotions” often do need encouragement in a way that, say, horniness, does not. More importantly, Shermer apparently fails to notice that if asking, “Why should I be moral?” is like asking, “Why should I be horny?” then asserting, “You ought to be moral” is like asserting, “You ought to be horny.” As goes the interrogative, so goes the imperative. But if the latter seems out of place, then, on Shermer's view, so is the former.
One might thus observe that if morality is anything at all, it is irreducibly normative in nature. But the Darwinian account winds up reducing morality to descriptive features of human psychology. Like the libido, either the moral sense is present and active or it is not. If it is, then we might expect one to behave accordingly. If not, why, then, as a famous blues man once put it, “The boogie woogie just ain't in me.” And so the resulting “morality” is that in name only.
In light of such considerations, it is tempting to conclude with C. S. Lewis that, if the naturalist remembered his philosophy out of school, he would recognize that any claim to the effect that “I ought” is on a par with “I itch,” in that it is nothing more than a descriptive piece of autobiography with no essential reference to any actual obligations.