This is the argument I want to object to.
1. Ethical intuitions are influenced by extraneous factors.
therefore
2. Ethical intuitions are too unreliable to be a source of knowledge.
BTW: feature of university philosophy—reconsideration of an argument
you are evaluating. Not for balance: you are not the BBC and I do not
want you to argue for and against for the sake of it. I want the truth.
(campbell is here again because he says philospohy is thinking in slow motion.)
So why think that intuitions are too unreliable to be a source of knowledge?
One possible reason is cultural variation.
cultural variation, illustrated by purity
* gay marriage
* euthanasia
* abortion
* pornography
* stem cell research
* environmental attitudes
(Graham et al., 2019)
BTW university research—it’s not an anecdote from Herodotus, it’s based on an
actual discovery.
300kya there were maybe maybe nine hominid species. Why all except one disappeared remains
controversial, but it’s unlikely to be a climate event and more likely to have something
to do with the humans.
In evolutionary history, different groups of humans have faced quite different
environments and challenges.
In fact homo sapiens look like an extreme case even compared to other hominis,
who were quite versatile (for example, very cold and very warm places;
very wet and completely arid places;
woodlands, grasslands and coastal plains).
Caption: ‘Map showing the potential distribution of archaic hominins,
including H. erectus, H. floresiensis, H. neanderthalenesis, Denisovans
and archaic African hominins, in the Old World at the time of the evolution
and dispersal of H. sapiens between ca. 300 and 60 ka’
Source: Roberts & Stewart (2018)
Perry et al. (2007, p. figure 2a)
People in different regions eat different proportions of
starch, and have done for thousands of years.
More starch your group eats, the more copies of the AMY1 gene
and so the more amylase in your saliva.
‘Our high-starch sample included two agricultural populations,
European Americans (n 1⁄4 50) and Japanese (n 1⁄4 45), and Hadza hunter-gatherers who rely extensively on starch- rich roots and tubers (n 1⁄4 38)12. Low-starch populations included Biaka (n 1⁄4 36) and Mbuti (n 1⁄4 15) rainforest hunter-gatherers, Datog pastoralists (n 1⁄4 17) and the Yakut, a pastoralist, fishing society (n 1⁄4 25)’
(p.~1257)
‘the pattern of variation in copy number of the human AMY1 gene is consistent with a
history of diet-related selection pressures, demonstrating the importance of starchy
foods in human evolution.’
(p.~1259)
[connecting evolution to MFT]: ‘pathogens are among the principle existential threats to organisms,
so those who could best avoid pathogens would have enhanced evolutionary fitness.
Van Vugt and Park contend that human groups develop unique practices for reducing pathogen
exposure---particularly in how they prepare their foods and maintain their hygiene.
When groups are exposed to the practices of a foreign culture, they may perceive its members as
especially likely to carry pathogens that may contaminate one’s ingroup’
(Graham et al., 2013, p. 93)
van Leeuwen et al, 2012 figure 1
(van Leeuwen, Park, Koenig, & Graham, 2012, p. figure 1)
Historical pathogen prevalence
‘binding foundations (mean of Ingroup/loyalty, Authority/respect, and Purity/sanctity).
The data for contemporary pathogen prevalence showed a similar pattern.’
‘When controlling for GDP per capita, the pattern of correlations between historical pathogen
prevalence and endorsement of moral foundations remained largely unchanged;
however, contemporary pathogen prevalence was not significantly correlated with any
of the moral foundations’ (van Leeuwen et al., 2012).
.notes.
‘historical pathogen prevalence
---even when controlling for individual-level
variation in political orientation, gender, education, and age---
significantly predicted endorsement of Ingroup/loyalty [stats removed], Authority/respect,
and Purity/sanctity;
it did not predict endorsement of Harm/care or Fairness/reciprocity’
(van Leeuwen et al., 2012)
.notes.
Maybe you are sceptical about confounds ... but actually the researchers were
very careful about this.
.notes.
‘Participants were 120,778 adult visitors (42.0% female, median age=35 years)
to the Web site YourMorals.org who completed the MFQ (Graham et al., 2011) and provided demographic
data for country (for participants who moved to their current country at age 14 years or older,
the country they grew up in was used instead, cf. Graham et al., 2011). Data from the MFQ were
available for 147 countries for which historical pathogen prevalence data were available’
.notes.
No invariance testing done!
cultural variation, illustrated by purity
* gay marriage
* euthanasia
* abortion
* pornography
* stem cell research
* environmental attitudes
(Graham et al., 2019)
1. Between cultures there are inconsistent intuitons.
therefore???
2. Intuitions are too unreliable to be a source of knowledge.
Intuitions about purity has played a role in enabling our species’ colonization of diverse environments during difficult times in which, tragically, many other hominins species became extinct. This seems to indicate that the intuitions are in at least one important sense reliable after all.
True, intuitions are not perfectly reliable because (as we saw above), between cultures there are inconsistent intuitions.
But they can be a source of knowledge while imperfectly reliable
To make the argument from cultural variation work, we would have to
show that intuitions are too reliable to enable ethical knowledge.
This would be very difficult. (How reliable would intuitions have to
be? How can we measure degrees of reliability? How are intuitions
supposed to enable ethical knowledge anyway?)
1. Ethical intuitions are necessary for ethical knowledge.
2. Ethical intuitions are too unreliable to be a source of knowledge.
therefore:
3. Ethical knowledge is not possible.
So this was the argument we were assessing.
Premise 2 was in question.
The claim earlier was that ethical intuitions are too unreliable to be a source of knowledge because
between cultures there are inconsistent intuitions.
Second table discussion. Over to you.
qr code is in case you need online handout to look something up.
Are ethical intuitions a source of ethical knowledge?
