Peter Singer disciple may be even more outrageous than the master

I missed this piece from Nautilus just over a year ago, but it's a look at Oxford philosophy prof Julian Savulescu, a disciple of Australian philosopher Peter Singer.

First, he shoots himself in the ethics foot in one area. Call it either the demarcation problem, per old philosophy friend Massimo Pigliucci, or else call it the sorites paradox.

Among things he says many people get wrong, ethically (and he seems to be talking about his fellow professionals in the field, not just outsiders) is something like blood doping for bicyclists. He says he is OK with low-level doping.

That leads to two immediate questions:
1. What is "low level" vs "high level" doping? That's more a demarcation problem than sorites issue, but could be a bit of both. In fact, I see them as interrelated. How many micro-moles of extra oxygen, if I'm oxygen-loading, to reverse the sorites paradox, can I add before I move from low-level to high-level?
2. Why NOT on high-level doping? (He never says why not, in the interview.)

His talk about eugenics is overall more ethically reasonable. That includes the part that classism issues will arise with it until we move to a post-capitalist world. (I agree, and use the word post-capitalist rather than anti-capitalist, in part because of any Marxist implications it has.)

His part about lifespan extension, though, is a fail, especially since he talked about moving to a post-capitalist world on eugenics. Our planet is getting closer and closer to a "carrying capacity" problem. When we hit 9 billion in another 30 years or whatever, and 1 billion more than today of that number trying to have a halfway "Western" lifestyle, including air conditioning that exacerbates climate change in a negative feedback loop, we'll be in trouble. Working to extend the average human lifespan to 120 or more will just put all those problems on steroids, and Savulescu misses that entirely. He does mention resource depletion later, as a separate ethical issue, but doesn't make a direct connection.

Regular readers of my philosophy-related writing know I'm not a system-builder. But, I do think you have to have a systemic consideration, and not just an ad hoc consideration, of empirical facts on, or likely to be on, the table.

Savulescu fails to do that. And, it's not necessarily him alone. Utilitarianism in general at least runs that risk.

Coronavirus, ethics and 'reopening America':Philosophy is indeed a real-world discipline

The New York Times Magazine recently remotely convened five people to talk about the ethics of when and how to "reopen America" from the current coronavirus pandemic. While only one of the five, Peter Singer, is a professional philosopher, all five are using philosophical models for ethics.

There are three main schools of ethics.

The first is virtue ethics, which has seen a resurgence in the past 50 years. It stems from Aristotle, and its base idea is doing good for personal ethical development. I think in small part Aristotle may have developed it as a sort of humanist way around the Euthyphro dilemma articulated by his teacher, Plato. It says that there's a paradox or dilemma on ethical beliefs, and thus actions: do we hold something as good because a god or gods command it, or is something good because it's divinely commanded? The first leaves the door open for divine tyranny; the second for ethics being independent of divinities.

There is one issue, and that applies more directly to the second school. Virtue ethics is relativistic. (Many virtue ethicists will, I think, downplay this if they don't totally deny it. But, I stand by my guns.) Also, while one other ethics theory has problems the other direction, virtue ethics attempts to be normative, but, as shown by Aristotle's 11 principles, there's a lot of wiggle room outside of the social relativity factor.

Wiki uses utilitarianism for an umbrella over what it says are a family of consequentialist ethics. Both these words say something. The first — is the action useful? The second —what is the result? This is often summarized as "the greatest good for the greatest number" or similar.

This is an obviously relativistic school at the top level, and not just at lower levels. Per the "consequences," it also can be seen as "the ends justify the means." Rule utilitarians, per Wiki, try to minimize this by using some basic framing rules. And, people who focus on the word "consequentialist" usually stipulate that the issue of consequences is itself a norm.

Besides this, utilitarianism has one other problem, re the "greatest good for the greatest number." As I have said repeatedly in criticizing John Rawls' 20th-century political science liberal utilitarianism, we simply cannot achieve a "view from nowhere." Something that looks great for 330 million now (as in the coronavirus "lockdown") might be horrible for 50 million in just months. And it might be enough worse for them than the 330 million now to be worse overall. Something that looks great for them in three months (ending the lockdown quickly and with no controls) might look horrible again for 330 million in another three months.

Deontology is the third school. It was formulated by Immanual Kant, keyed by his "Categorical imperative," which tried to nail down a rule-based ethics apart from religious metaphysics.

It has huger problems than the other two, per that imperative.
1. Different people have different ideas for what should be a universal ethical law, especially once we get away from a hot-button item like murder. (Behind Kant's mindset, IMO, he's trying to create a secularist version of something that runs into Euthyphro. Biological evolution, contra this, isn't determinative for ethics any more than a god, re the first fork, and cultural evolution cannot develop ethical absolutes, re the second fork.)
2. The second bullet point comes off as a crude caricature of utilitarianism, where almost nobody talks about treating fellow humans only as means. (Bentham had not been published until after this, but utilitarian ideas were in the air of the Enlightenment.)
3. It assumes a level of human rationality which the post-Enlightenment real world has devastated. Sorry to friend Massimo and his love of Stoicism, but behavioral economics and psychology, as well as quantum mechanics at base-level physics showing this about the world as a whole, are a good indicator.

In reality, per Martha Nussbaum saying that virtue ethics doesn't clash with either of the other two schools, few professional philosophers, or other professional ethicists, are members of a single school. I would probably call myself about 45 percent virtue ethicist, 45 percent rule-utilitarian within utilitarianism, and 10 percent theoretical deontologist — that is, the idea that per the imperative nature of deontology, we should always seek to codify ethics better.

With that, let's dive in.

Peter Singer, the professional, is a deep-dyed utilitarian. He's well known, or notorious, for his articulation of animal rights issues. He has otherwise declared himself to be a hedonistic utilitarian, among the different schools of utilitarianism considered to exist today. (And that no more means debauchery than it did with Epicurus and Epicureanism.)

Rev. Joseph Barber II would exemplify liberal Protestantism's version of divine command deontology, with an admixture of virtue ethics.

Vanita Gupta, I would say, is about 60 percent virtue ethics and the other 40 percent, given her position, a secularized version of Barber's version of divine command deontology.

Zeke Emanuel is a rule-based utilitarian with some admixture of virtue ethics, as best as I can determine. Outside of medical schools run by religious organizations, this is, from what I grasp, the default position for academically-taught medical ethics.

Anne Case? Aside from jokes about economists and ethics, I would call her, per the piece and what I know about her and Angus Deaton, a preference utilitarianism.

Gupta and Barber both note that both the coronavirus and what we see in governmental response, especially at the federal level, are hammering minorities more. They don't argue for a quick reopening; they argue for more help for the poor.

Case says that some of this is a sort of comorbidity of ongoing "hollowing out" of American economic life, but she doesn't get prescriptive about that. She and Emanuel both note psychological factors of a longer shutdown.

Singer then reminds everybody that their discussion to this point has been focused on America, and to a lesser degree, other affluent countries. He then notes how the poor in India are being devastated by its sudden and brutal crackdown.

As a hedonistic utilitarian, he then talks explicitly about quality of life vs loss of life.

Barber then counters that, as a pastor, this utilitarian type counting offset is troubling in some ways.

Singer also, at least in the short confines of this discussion, doesn't discuss how to weight different hedonic issues within quality of life. And, of course, if he has such a sub-utilitarian calculus, another hedonic utilitarian will differ.

As for starting the reopening? All are OK with schools taking the lead in some way, if parents are OK.

They conclude by discussing long-term consequences. Emanuel thinks the US will ultimately have an "immunity passport." How discriminatory that would be without national health care, he doesn't touch. But, he is Rahm Emanuel's brother. His rule utilitarianism, even more than Case's preference utilitarianism, is in part capitalist driven.

Beyond that, there's some great discussion. I won't try to summarize it.

Friend Massimo Pigliucci noted a couple of weeks ago that deontology hits the wall hard at times like this. Issues such as medical triage are ultimately utilitarian.

That said, the other two main schools hit the wall themselves, albeit a lot less hard. The reality is that on tough issues like this, no single school of ethics controls the commanding heights. With utilitarianism, that's more obvious. Virtue ethics, though, has its own issues. A religious person praying for a dying secularist in the hospital, despite express desires otherwise, is one example. It's virtue developing for the person offering prayer, but a washout at best utilitarianly, and if I try to twist the Silver Rule into a secular deontology different from Kant's, a bad thing there. Wikipedia sadly (one of many shortcomings) doesn't have a separate entry on the Silver Rule.

Can you get an "ought" from an "is"?

The traditional answer ever since the middle of the 1700s, per David Hume on the is ≠ ought problem, is a semi-clear to clear no.

But, Massimo Pigliucci says otherwise, using Philippa Foot's original claim as justification.

I remain unconvinced, and told Massimo so, including telling him that I thought she was practicing "discourse ethics."

At a minimum, the claim that it's "super easy, barely an inconvenience," as Philosophy Now says, is laughable.

Several things to unpack.

Per the top link, Hume himself, didn't always dodge this bullet. But, I would argue that, first, this might be a case of Emerson's foolish consistency. I would also argue, as the link notes, that Moore and others took similar stances.

Foot is a moral realist as part of being a virtue ethicist. I'm not a moral anti-realist, but I'm not planted in the moral realism camp. I'm really some kind of moral skeptic, but one who rejects moral error theory. I'm probably more a non-cognitivist, then a Pyrrhonic moral skeptic second. I think Hume, today, with his famous statement on the passions, might see himself as a non-cognitivist, calling moral statements emotional ones in many cases.

Or, like Massimo himself, as I blogged about a year ago (that's maybe a sound of a petard you hear, Massimo), I'm a moral naturalist, who, if you want to use other labels, is a moral non-realist, or a person who "mu's" moral realism. But, it's not totally the sound of a petard hoisting, not there.

And, I'm an eclecticist on schools of moral thought; I have some ideas that square more with utilitarianism, while not being fully planted there, either.

I think the criticisms of moral realism in the last paragraph of that Wiki link are cogent. Other than a few clear moral stances such as "do not murder," why are there multiple, not just two, but three, five or seven, different stances on many moral issues if moral facts exist? And, since Foot herself invented the trolley problem, and people's thoughts on this run a broad spectrum, and there's a different broad spectrum when one actually has them do this in a virtual reality machine, we're at least halfway into petard-hoisting right now.

Massimo seems to try to avoid the petard when he says he's a moral non-realist but not anti-realist. He then calls himself a moral naturalist.

The evolution of ethics along with human psychology is also of note. Plus, moral realism doesn't seem to leave room for cultural evolution. In fact, if we substitute "Mother Nature" for Kant's god, it risks running into a deontology brick wall. And, here, I think that includes Massimo. And the petard. That said, humans' ability to evolve culturally is itself ultimately a naturalistic artifact, so Massimo may be back off the petard, especially as he stresses the importance of cultural evolution elsewhere. But ... I don't really think that's in his moral naturalism stance.

I think, if Hume were alive today, he'd look at the behavioral economics of Amos Tversky, Daniel Kahneman, Dan Ariely, et al, and build on his empirical background to articulate a parallel theory of "behavioral ethics." Just as they challenged the idea that we are rational economic actors, I think he'd use similar modern behavioral studies to challenge the idea that we are rational moral actors, which virtue ethicisists essentially claim we are.

He, good philosopher that he was in many ways, wouldn't confine that within psychology, though.

Ethics thoughts on utilitarianism, contractualism, deontology, Kant and Rawls

This overview of theories of ethics by Massimo Pigliucci, followed by this particular one on contractarian versions of ethics, and this specific one on John Rawls' veil of ignorance, reminded me of a few things, some of which I've specifically articulated either here or on Massimo's blog, but others that have ben just wandering in my head.

They are, in no particular order after No. 1 —

1. John Rawls is overrated;
2. Rawls is, if not a classical utilitarian, some sort of consequentialist;
3. The veil of ignorance is really just a specialized view of the utilitarian "view from nowhere";
4. Though I'm not a system builder, ethics in my philosophical mindset depends much more on a correspondence theory of truth, contra Massimo, who allows more room for the coherence theory of truth to guide ethics. (As I posted on his blog recently, that may be part of what explains his love for virtue ethics.)

I'm going to unpack 1-3 more, with the unpacking of 2 and 3 explicating No. 1, which means I'll unpack them first.

No. 2 comes from Rawls' own famous "justice = fairness" phrase. What is that if not some sort of consequentialist? Now, he may put that in a contractarian background, but I believe that if push had ever come to shove (assuming Rawls accepted either one of the labels as applying to himself) he would have called himself a consequentialist first.

Now, some people will criticize me for this, the same who criticize the a few of my book reviews, but I came to hold that Rawls was overrated by reading about him more and before actually reading him.

The linchpin? Walter Kaufmann's "Without Guilt and Justice," which simply blows Rawls' "justice = fairness" ideas out of the water. 

Kaufmann starts with the obvious, which I will slightly rephrase to fit into terms of the current discussion.

That is that the "veil of ignorance," or the more general "view from nowhere," is an idealized abstraction which isn't even close to achievable in reality.

Oh, sure, we strive for it, and sometimes obtain it in some special issues that have at least a degree of ethical freight. An obvious example is the practice of major symphony orchestras to give tryouts to new players by having them play from behind a screen. This is designed to screen out, pun intended in some way, any female bias from the conductor, the principal chair in the section with the opening, and others involved. (And, yes, such bias was real, and huge, before the screens were raised.)

But, that's not what the likes of Rawls are getting at. He, and followers, act under the idea that we can take this veiled view out into situations outside the original setting, including settings where, Kaufmann charges, it's not only impossible to remain veiled, but where some people will demand we become unveiled.

Ergo, it's a thought experiment with little relation to reality. (Short of some Brave New World future which would entail some overseers controlling the veils.)

Or, to put it more pithily, there are always oxen being gored — and sometimes, their owners' complaints are rightfully made.

Or, even more to Kaufmann's point, there are always oxen being gored — and sometimes, some people think with good reason their owners' complaints are rightfully made, and other people think with good reason these complaints are out of bounds.

So, contra Pigliucci, no, Rawls' idea doesn't grow on me. The Platonic cave and the Theory of Ideas once did grow on me, but I was less than half the age then that I am now, and still a conservative evangelical Christian.

To me, Rawls' thought experiment only grows on people who, in terms of political philosophy, do not  put "skeptical" in front of "liberal" or "left-liberal." (Unlike yours truly.)

Now, to the degree a view from nowhere might seem to be an unveiled, but theoretically detached, utilitarianism. However, this is where consequentialism in general fails.

Human life, like space-time, has four dimensions. Humans are, of course, not temporally omniscient. Therefore, we can never say that our utilitarian judgments are correct. For all we know, maybe we should have let Hitler kill more people, if one wants to stake out a deliberately Godwin-like position.

Beyond that, utilitarianism fails in other ways. The hedonic calculus does so even without the view from nowhere falling short. On matters of taste, and hedonic benefit, it runs smack into the old Latin maxim: "De gustibus non disputandum." On this account, shouldn't the National Endowment for the Arts give more money to punk rock bands and less to symphony orchestras?

And, no, the arts aren't the same as ethics. The above question is in part rhetorical, but not entirely so.

On ethical issues, we have a certain natural compass from biology. The arts? Not so much. Let's stay within fine arts. A lot of people don't call what Picasso does "art," or what Schoenberg does "music." So, somebody else might say, no, we shouldn't give NEA money to punk rock, but, we shouldn't give it to a symphony orchestra, either, unless it pledges itself to not play any post-1900 music. 

And, not in terms of NEA money, but in terms of ticket sales, exactly that happens. Blue-haired ladies around the country refuse to plunk down money for classical concerts that have serial music on the program. A few of the largest cities in our country have orchestras that specialize in modern music, but they struggle.

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As a sidebar note, this is a good example of why I identify myself as a skeptical left-liberal on this blog, and elsewhere. I'd love it if Rawls were right, but I just don't see that.

Why Peter Singer and the Buddha are wrong about universal love

In an installment of "The Stone," one of the ongoing guest column series at the New York Times, Stephen Asma explains why we can't show equal, disinterested love to all humans, let alone all sentient beings.

It's all about human finitude, in two ways.

First, our level of emotional outreach is simply finite, even if we can perform a detached utilitarian calculus to help non-kin just as much as kin.

Second, we're not omniscient. Contra the classic utilitarian calculus, we don't know which of our actions truly will provide the greatest good to the greatest number of people. Asma could have referenced the pseudo-Chinese proverbial story, with its recurring chorus line of "could be good, could be bad," as part of this.

Asma focuses on Singer and other modern ethical philosophers. But, his argument applies to Buddhism as well

And, I can go even better than Asma there. Buddhism's philosophy and theology actually seems to promote universal detachment, or universal indifference, not universal love. I can then reverse-argue that to modern utilitarianism, saying that, once utilitarians realize their calculus simply doesn't work, should accept that universal indifference is the best they can do.

How much would you spend on pet health?

A New York Times column, with a couple expecting their first kid also staring at a $4Kdoggie health bill, is one of several things, both reading and real-life issues, that bring that to mind.

Beyond paying a vet that much, we get next to pet health insurance. After that, you get into the world of air-conditioned doghouses and more.

Even if I had more money, or made more money, than I actually do … the utilitarian in me simply can’t see spending that much money on a pet.

How much would you spend, speaking of utilitarianism?