In a variant of the hoary old ‘ungrounded morality’ question, Barry Arrington has a post up at Uncommon Descent which ponders how a ‘materialist’ could in all conscience take a position as clinical ethicist, if he does not believe that there is an ultimate ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer. I think this betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of clinical ethics. In contrast to daily usage, ethics here is not a synonym for morality.
I can understand how a theist who believes in the objective reality of ethical norms could apply for such a position in good faith. By definition he believes certain actions are really wrong and other actions are really right, and therefore he often has something meaningful to say.
My question is how could a materialist apply for such a position in good faith? After all, for the materialist there is really no satisfactory answer to Arthur Leff’s “grand sez who” question that we have discussed on these pages before. See here for Philip Johnson’s informative take on the issue.
After all, when pushed to the wall to ground his ethical opinions in anything other than his personal opinion, the materialist ethicist has nothing to say. Why should I pay someone $68,584 to say there is no real ultimate ethical difference between one moral response and another because they must both lead ultimately to the same place – nothingness.
I am not being facetious here. I really do want to know why someone would pay someone to give them the “right answer” when that person asserts that the word “right” is ultimately meaningless.
(The last question is an odd one. You would pay someone to give you the “right answer” so long as they believe that there is such a thing?)
Of course you don’t have to go far into medical ethics before you get to genuine ethical thickets. The interests of a mother versus those of the foetus she carries; the unfortunate fact that there aren’t the resources to give every treatment to everyone; the thorny issues of voluntary euthanasia or ‘do not resuscitate’ decisions; issues raised by fertility treatments; cases such as the recent removal from hospital of Aysha King; the role of a patient’s own beliefs. There aren’t many right answers, when you get beyond the obvious things that you don’t need to pay someone to set guidelines for.
It is a bizarre argument to regard moral relativism as a bar to this job. A moral absolutist may believe that blood transfusion is wrong, that faith in the lord is the way to get better, that embryos should never be formed outside a uterus, or some other such faith-based notion. And they have to persuade others of different, or no, faith that this decision is indeed what objective morality dictates, and whatever their own views on morality they must accept that. So I don’t agree that the ‘grounding’ of an atheist’s personal moral principles has any bearing on their candidacy.
Sure, I agree with useful.
My speculation was whether the physical nature of how human perception works might be part of the reason a particular notation or diagramming convention is considered more useful than others.
I think I have a better understanding of how geometry fits into your picture. Thanks.
Dennett spends a whole chapter (71) on that phrase in Intuition Pumps.
He thinks the phrase is misleading , and that some responsibility is enough to assign blame and act accordingly.
How much “some” is and how to “act accordingly” are part of the moral structures of society. Given a pragmatic, naturalistic approach, they are fallible structures, subject to our best knowledge of people as they currently are, our societies, and how well the structures are working.
Keith:
I would understand the entirety of what I’ve read from him on the subject in a way which replaces the phrase “and not merely” with “because”. I have a bit more on that in my above comment about “ultimate responsibility” .
I see that “pragmatic purpose” as having to do with the current nature of people and when they think other people “deserve” something for moral reasons.
Now human nature might be changeable through culture, but if so, I think only slowly. Hence pragmatism.
I used to get a lot of TTC courses form the library, but so much is available on YouTube now from universities and throught Coursera and edX that I do not bother anymore. Plus a lot of the TTC I have tried is not even at a Coursera level (which is freshmen in most cases I have found). However, the little summary books that come with the TTC courses are often very useful even if I don;t want to invest the hours listening to the lectures.
I suspect that the interesting new ideas in this area are coming from psychology and neuroscience, and not so much from philosophy. I’m thinking, for example, of experiments regarding how what we say and what we do can differ, even for “sophisticated” tasks like taking into account what others will do.
Now it may be better to think of this as conscious versus unconsciousness content, rather than conceptual versus non-conceptual. I guess that would depend on how one could operationalize “concept” for scientific study.
In spite of my kneejerk reaction to say “Dennett, Shmennett” every time somebody quotes him to me, I generally agree with all that.
If Popper is the philosopher scientists in general like, then Dennett has got to be the philosopher-hero of IT people.
Half his stuff seems to be taking ideas from computer science and seeing how he can use them in philosophy. (eg the intentional stance comes from talking to AI people; chess playing programs and determinism; and his use of the Game of Life, computational compressibility, and signal filtering in Real Patterns.
I don’t know how the term “concept” is operationalized — that’s actually a good question that I should know the answer to. My rough guess is that it involves a many-to-many stimuli-response pairing, where the same stimuli can give rise to different actions (depending on how the stimuli is ‘conceptualized’) or where different stimuli can give rise to the same action (because the stimuli are classified together).
I’ll have to ask my friends who work in cognitive science and philosophy of cognitive science for more information about this.
That would be interesting.
Maybe we also need the corresponding definition of mental content from the same people; that could help to frame an operational way to think about non-conceptual content.
Related point: the philosopher and part-time animal psychologist Kristin Andrews is posting in Brains about her work on human and animal cognition.
keiths:
Bruce:
The sentence “criminals deserve their punishment because it serves a pragmatic purpose” doesn’t make sense to me. Perhaps your use of “deserve” differs from mine.
I take “criminals deserve their punishment” to mean that the suffering of criminals is a desirable end in itself, as “repayment” for their crimes. That makes it desirable independent of any pragmatic consequences of the punishment, such as rehabilitation or deterrence.
Dennett is definitely not arguing that desert is an illusion that should be tolerated for pragmatic reasons. He genuinely believes that criminals deserve their punishment:
He isn’t merely saying that punishing them is a good idea; he’s saying that they actually deserve it. I don’t agree, because I think punishment would be deserved only if people were ultimately responsible for their actions. They can’t be, because ultimate responsibility is as chimerical as libertarian free will.
ETA: I thought of a good way to summarize my position vis-a-vis Dennett: I agree with him that compatibilist free will is a meaningful kind of free will, deserving of the name. I accept the idea of “compatibilist moral responsibility”, where to freely will something in the compatibilist sense is to be morally responsible for it in the compatibilist sense. Here’s where we disagree: I think punishment is never deserved, because compatibilist moral responsibility is insufficient to justify it.
What I like about the Teaching Company courses is that they’re designed specifically for folks who are watching or listening electronically. A lot of the online stuff is generated by simply by putting a camera in a classroom, which makes it harder to watch.
Some of the Teaching Company courses are dumbed down, as you note, but I’ve been able to avoid them by reading the online descriptions carefully before buying. Plus you can return any course, no questions asked.
What is it to be morally responsible in the compatibalist sense? I.e., is it to be REALLY morally responsible (or only in pretend)? Do you have to have been able to help it to be held to be at fault for some action?
Keith:
I agree that a lot of the discussion in this thread is about when it is appropriate to use certain terms of moral discourse.
One way to take what Dennett is saying is that he is trying to find a useful, accurate way to use the word “deserves” in a pragmatic, naturalistic framework for morality. That is also essentially what a lot of my comments were about when talking about moral terms in general.
I see Walto has asked the same question that occurred to me about your position.
So let me ask a couple of related ones. Given your understanding of compatibilist moral responsibility, should we change the following and if so how?
1. Our criminal justice system.
2. How people talk about wrongdoers.
Keith:
You are right about YouTube: you get the real thing but the quality and camerawork vary a lot. And there is no way to test your understanding. For technical courses, I try to find a related book which has problems and answers. Philosophy courses are different, since the only way to learn is to hold discussions, write essays, and get feedback. That is why forums like TSZ and Scientia Salon are so helpful to someone like me.
Coursera and edX try to have it all: free, online viewing, problems with answers and feedback, essay questions, discussions forums for debate. A drawback is that automatic evaluation only works for multiple-choice quizzes; math and essay questions are evaluated by peers in the course and you usually have to do 3-5 of other peoples to get yours marked. No thanks. The discussion forums are also very much a mixed bag, with a lot of noise due to the large number of people involved and their varying backgrounds.
For physics courses, Brian Greene has a nice one on special relativity with the basic mathematics and a lot of problems. He is promising GR and QM. There are also the Susskind lectures of course.
Any particular TTC courses you recommend? I did get a lot from Modern Intellectual Tradition: From Descartes to Derrida (although Heidegger remains a bit fuzzy to me, to say the least).
Just to add my two cents: I don’t have any intuitions one way or the other about whether the concepts of “desert” and “punishment” require ultimate responsibility in the libertarian free will kind of sense. But since libertarian free will is nonsense, and the concepts of desert and punishment are deeply bound up with our second-person reactive attitudes, I have no objections to someone trying to make sense of those notions without the spurious metaphysics.
I will say, however, that it seems odd to me that someone would accept that the concept of free will can be rehabilitated in a compatibilist, pragmatic-naturalist sense but that the concept of deserved punishment cannot be. I would have thought that the linkage between the two sufficiently strong that if the former can be rehabilitated, then so can the latter.
That’s my sense also. Seems like they’d stand and fall together.
I am not a philosopher. My objection to punishment (other than “natural” justice) is that it doesn’t work as a deterrent, doesn’t teach acceptable alternatives to outlawed behavior, and is in general, counterproductive.
Other than those objections, I like it just fine. Revenge feels good.
The other traditional purpose of punishment (besides retribution, deterrence and rehabilitation) is to keep perpetrators from continuing to harm others. I hope you’ll at least admit that It’s tough to commit crimes when you’re either behind bars or have been previously snuffed out.
ETA: I guess if you’re in prison, you can continue to commit crimes against other prisoners or corrections personnel (or try to anyhow), but….you know.
I think Neil’s having a congratulatory party sometime in October, where all non-philosophers can get together and kvell about how much better they are both personally and academically just because they lack that particular designation. Sounds like it might be fun.
You might be asked to bring cider, though.
walto:
Yes, “compatibilist moral responsibility” is real, and “libertarian moral responsibility” aka “ultimate responsibility”, being incoherent, is not.
I reject the tacit assumption that to be morally responsible for X means that one deserves punishment or reward for X. More on this below in my reply to KN.
I don’t know if the libertarian theory of moral responsibility is incoherent, but I agree with you that it’s wrong. (I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but you think that EVERY proposition you don’t agree with is incoherent –as well as “obviously and unequivocally” false–in spite of both your oft-claimed fallibalism and your prettiness.)
But, anyhow, what do you mean by ultimate and non-ultimate responsibility?
Locking up offenders is not synonymous with punishing them. Punishment is defined by causing pain (broadly defined).
Deterrence is defined by reducing the frequency of undesired behavior.
Restraint may cause pain or discomfort, but it does not necessarily have that purpose. With children, sometimes simple restraint (as in time out) allows destructive impulses to dissipate.
I’m not endorsing any particular behavioral technology. I’m merely pointing out that there is a difference between methods that motivated by vengeance and methods motivated by the desire to reduce the frequency of anti-local behavior.
The most important difference is what you count as success and how you track usefulness.
Locking up offenders is not “synonymous” with punishment–it is one form of punishment. And a very common one at that.
I think a distinction needs to be made regarding how you interpret the success of an action. If inflicting pain or discomfort scores points, you are talking about punishment.
If improving the general social climate by reducing the prevalence of violent or criminal behavior scores points, you are talking about something else.
Locking up offenders is not automatically one or the other.
My gripe is with people who say they have a goal, but who do not implement appropriate methods for tracking results.
petrushka,
It doesn’t always succeed in deterring offenses, but it certainly works some of the time. Imagine how many people would cheat on their taxes if they thought they could escape without punishment of any kind.
You mentioned time-outs with kids. Those don’t merely provide time for impulses to dissipate. They also discourage repeat offenses.
Yes, people do not commit offenses while locked up, unless you count the offenses they commit while locked up, or the training young people get while locked up.
I have to ask if you have thought seriously about how you would measure the efficacy of imprisonment and compare it with other possible measures, such as restitution.
Again, I do not have instant answers to difficult social problems. I have problems with the lack of interest in testing intuitive or traditional methods.
KN,
I would have agreed with that a few years ago, but I now question the tacit assumption that moral responsibility automatically implies desert.
I think “compatibilist moral responsibility” is tightly linked to compatibilist free will, but I don’t think moral responsibility implies that retributive punishment is deserved. (I even have doubts that libertarian moral responsibility, if it existed, would justify retributive punishment — but that’s a separate subject.)
I’ve been trying to think of a pithy way to communicate the distinction I’m drawing. Here’s my best attempt so far:
To choose according to your nature is to have (compatibilist) free will. To deserve retributive punishment, I think you would (at minimum) have to choose your own nature — which we don’t (and can’t) do.
Keith:
Dennett agrees that he cannot justify ultimate responsibility but still wants to punish agents who have compatiblist responsibility for wrong behavior.
You don’t accept “deserves” punishment , but do you accept “should be” punished?
For me, there is no difference in the meanings. So I’d be curious to know if you accept the “should be”, as in criminals “should be” punished.
If you don’t, does that mean you don’t think crimes should have negative consequences (ie punishment)?
But if you do accept that criminals should be punished, then it just means you see a difference in meaning between “deserves” and “should be” which I am not grasping.
Bruce,
Yes, I accept the need for punishment, but not for retributive punishment. I also don’t think that “should be punished” equates to “deserves punishment”.
“Should be punished” can simply mean that there are pragmatic reasons for punishing someone — for example, if it is likely to keep them from reoffending. “Deserves punishment”, to my ears, means that the punishment is an end in itself and that the suffering of the offender is itself desirable, independent of any downstream effects.
I think the expression “deserve retributive punishment” is too loaded to be helpful. On your view, can one without libertarian free will be at fault for something or be held responsible for an action? Should they ever be sorry for something they did? Or better–does it make sense for them to be sorry?
It is worth pointing out that it is certainly consistent for compatibalists to have no use for retributive punishments. The question isn’t whether retribution is a good idea–or anybody ever “deserves it” (E.g., I take it the New Testament is agin it) it’s whether people can be morally responsible without libertarian free will. So the introduction of retribution here just confuses matters. (I’d call it a red herring, but I don’t want Alan to whack me.)
Best,
W
Keith:
Thanks, that helps me to understand your position.
I agree that punishment is not an end in itself. So I would not accept that interpretation of “deserves”.
As indicated, while the belief that retribution is required or deserved may entail this or that theory of personal responsibility or freedom, I don’t think it’s entailed by any of them. That’s why it mostly just confuses matters to bring it into this discussion. Most compatibalists I know of–starting with Hobbes, Hume and Mill–had no truck with retributivism. And, again neither do lots of Jesus-loving libertarians. The moral is that discomfort with retributivism no argument against personal moral responsibility or just punishment.
keiths:
petrushka:
I’m not speaking only of incarceration. Other punishments also deter, such as fines or public shaming.
I don’t think restitution would work for something like murder. The victim doesn’t benefit. Also, if you’re speaking of monetary restitution, then rich people could essentially purchase the right to murder.
You could even have crowdsourcing campaigns: “You hate Mr. Z just like we do. Contribute
X will pay the hitman’s fee, and the rest of the money will go toward restitution for Mr. Z’s family.”
Regarding the efficacy of incarceration, here’s an enlightened approach:
Welcome to the world’s nicest prison
Check out the recidivism numbers.
This is not without adherents.
walto,
My response to walto is here.
walto,
I hope so, since I’m a compatibilist who has no use for retributive punishment!
That may not be your question, but whether (and in what sense) punishment is deserved is exactly what Bruce and I have been discussing.
petrushka:
That quote is from me, not Bruce. And yes, there are tons of people who think that the suffering of offenders is intrinsically valuable, and that justice demands it.
I’ve got mine right here.
Right. And I’m telling you it has nothing to do with free will or moral responsibility. You are, of course, free to continue to discuss any red herring that appeals to you.
If there are adherents to that view for certain types of transgressions, then keeping those people happy IS a downstream effect. So if you took that effect into account, punishing people would not be independent of downstream effects.
Whether it is a good idea to punish that person under that downstream effect is a separate question of course that would need a case-by-case analysis.
Example: keeping certain religious groups happy to satisfy their dogma would not be a downstream effect that would justify punishment in a secular moral system.
I do not personally think vengence is a virtue, but it is honest. What I strongly object to is the unexamined assumption that punishment is an effective deterrent.
Bruce,
I think you misunderstood me. The question isn’t whether the punishment has any downstream effects — it almost always does. The question is whether the downstream effects are the reason for the punishment, or whether the offender’s suffering is considered desirable in itself and sufficient to justify the punishment regardless of whether there are, or aren’t, any downstream effects.
If your reason for punishing criminals is to “keep those [other] people happy”, then you don’t necessarily think that the criminals deserve their punishment. You’re doing it because it leads to a preferred social outcome. To “those people”, however, the punishment isn’t justified by the fact that it makes them happy. It’s justified by the fact that the perpetrators deserve to suffer.
walto:
keiths:
walto:
Sure it does. When people consider whether Bobby deserves to be punished for crashing his bike into Susie’s, one of the first questions they ask is “Did he do it on purpose?” They are trying to establish whether Bobby is morally responsible for the crash, because if he isn’t morally responsible, then they don’t feel he deserves punishment.
And you are, of course, free to continue labeling important issues as “red herrings”.
petrushka,
Again, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.
It’s ineffective against crimes of passion, for example, but more effective against tax cheats.
I assume you can back this with research that includes comparison with alternatives.
petrushka,
Yes.
No, but why should I? I haven’t made any claims about relative effectiveness, nor have I made policy recommendations that would hinge on such claims.
Now, about your claim:
It surprises me that you would make such a categorical statement. The fact that punishment deters isn’t controversial at all. The controversy swirls around how effective certain punishments (most notably, the death penalty) are, under what circumstances they are effective, and how (or whether) policy should change in response.
The fact of deterrence should be obvious from your own life, unless you are very unusual. Do you slow down on that stretch of road where you know the cops set their speed traps? That’s deterrence. Do you keep the parking meter fed, even though it’s a bother? That’s deterrence.
A while ago you described being locked up in a psychiatric hospital after losing your temper with an IRS employee. While that presumably wasn’t intended as punishment, it was clearly aversive, and I’ll bet it deters you from losing your temper quite so readily or to such an extent. (And if not, it would certainly have that effect on most people.)
Deterrence is not a fiction. It does work in some cases.
Bruce,
Yes, I liked that one too, though I found myself talking back to my mp3 player from time to time, like when Cahoone was defending Derrida’s obfuscatory style as being necessary for the ideas he was trying to convey. I don’t buy that at all.
A recent favorite of mine is Mastering Differential Equations: The Visual Method. I learned far more from it than I ever did from my college diff eq classes.
Heh. I came across this video while doing some Googling on the obscure writing style of Derrida and other continental philosophers:
John Searle – Foucault and Bourdieu on continental obscurantism
To me, the elephant in the room in this discussion is the need to address poverty and unequal education. Legalizing drugs might need to be part of the solution, too.
Better to spend more money there then on optimizing punishment and deterrence, I think.
Keith:
Thanks, more helpful clarification. My comment was actually more directed at Petrushka’s comment on your statement.
We definitely understand “deserves” differently. For questions of morality, I find it hard to separate the fact that something is a moral norm in a society from the consequence that a person “deserves” appropriate punishment for violating it.
If no punishment is deserved for violating the norm, then can it still be a moral norm? We’re not talking about ice cream flavor preferences!