Metaethics: The Evolutionary Debunking Argument

This video introduces the evolutionary debunking argument against moral realism.

0:00 - Introduction
1:59 - Genealogical debunking arguments
6:30 - The evolutionary debunking argument
18:19 - A general skeptical challenge
22:52 - The Darwinian Dilemma
24:09 - Option 1: No relation
33:48 - Option 2: Tracking moral truth
40:17 - Third-factor responses
49:34 - Objections to third-factor responses

[mileskeller]

We have really got to stop calling it Darwinian this and darwinian that. It is now called evolutionary theory because Darwin was wrong on quite a bit, and we know better now. Darwin was just the first man to posit the hypothesis.

[danwylie-sears]

You see two lions enter a cave. Then you see three lions enter the cave. Then you see six lions come out of the cave. You infer that if one more lion goes in, the cave will be empty again.

[AntiTheBird]

I admire Kane putting out content like this despite the murderous riots clearly going on just outside his door, very brave.

Jokes aside, great video

[jamespierce]

This all assumes, of course, that macro evolution by natural selection is true.

[Ansatz]

Before we investigate moral epistemology we should settle all issues of moral semantics, at least as an assumption for the sake of argument. To attempt to do moral epistemology without a clear idea of moral semantics is like looking for an answer before we decide what question we're asking. Is it evolutionary advantageous to have an accurate understanding of morality? Before we even attempt to answer that question, let's decide exactly what we mean by "morality" so that we know what question we're really asking.

There are two aspects of the realism debate: the semantic and the epistemic. On the semantic side we have a debate regarding what moral language means; as a label, what does morality point toward? On the epistemic side, we have the question of whether we are justified in believing in the existence of whatever morality points toward. If we decide that "morality" refers to some spiritual fluid and "goodness" refers to possession of this fluid, then we can begin a meaningful debate over whether and how we might know this fluid exists and whether we would have evolved to accurately assess volumes of the fluid.

The evolutionary debunking argument makes sense on the epistemic side of the debate, but it wouldn't make sense on the semantic side. The meaning of words doesn't depend on what beliefs are justified. The meaning of the word "unicorn" is not dependent upon us having justification for believing in unicorns. Words get their meaning from the intentions of the people who use the word, and in this way semantics are social constructs. Therefore it seems that the evolutionary debunking argument must be intended as an objection to the epistemic side of moral realism, and yet it seems to proceed without first clarifying the semantics that it intends to use.

6:32 "(1) Causal premise: Our evolutionary history explains why we have the moral beliefs that we have."

How can we know whether this premise is true without knowing what the word "moral" means? Moral semantics are controversial. We really should not expect a moral realist to define this word in the same way as an anti-realist unless we carefully define our terms in advance so that everyone is speaking the same language. The way I would define "morality" allows evolution to provide a very good explanation of our moral beliefs, but I wouldn't trust this to be true if the word were being defined by an anti-realist.

"(2) Epistemic premise: Evolution is not truth-tracking with respect to moral truth."

I would have said that evolution is very likely truth-tracking with respect to moral truth since moral societies tend to thrive and immoral societies tend to tear themselves apart, so there's clearly some disagreement here and the disagreement probably isn't coming from a difference in opinion about evolution. More likely, people are going to disagree about the meaning of "moral truth." What exactly are we asking evolution to track? This is why it is important to settle issues of semantics before we attempt epistemology.

[juliusljungstrom]

Thank you Kane!
I wrote a bachelor thesis in philosophy on precisely Street's dilemma, so your video is very welcome. Your presentation of the topic resembles mine, which makes me think I wasn't completelely off track, even though the examiner was not too happy with bits of my thesis. I have not seen your whole video yet but I bet you will reach some interesting conclusions way above my philosophical ability. Best regards!

[AlonzoFyfe]

Natural selection has played no role in shaping our moral judgments. Natural selection has had a significant role in shaping our desires (aversion to pain, desire to eat, desire to have sex, concern for one's offspring, dispositions to form friendship). But a desire is not a moral judgments. Some people make an invalid inference from a desire to a moral judgments. The evolutionary debunking argument does show that our evolved desires do not track an objective truth about value. But that just says, "Do not infer moral conclusions from your own desires."

And, indeed, in the larger picture, moral judgments are not derived directly from desires. Moral judgments tend to refer to rules that tend to satisfy desires. For example, the institution of promise-keeping is developed not because we have an evolved intrinsic desire to keep promises, but because we have a reason to nurture an artificial (culturally-reinforced) aversion to breaking promises. By promoting such an aversion people generally can better realize the satisfaction of their desires.

That there are dispositions (such as the aversion to breaking promises) that people generally have reasons to nurture is a natural fact. And that natural fact is independent of what any individual believes or desires, or what the people in a culture believes those natural facts to be. Whole cultures can be wrong about the merits of a desire that they nurture. They may falsely believe that a failure to nurture piety will invite God's wrath or that homosexuality is a trait that they have reason to inhibit because it is intrinsically wrong. Nothing is intrinsically wring, but there does exist a natural property of "being such as to satisfy the desires in question". Given an aversion to pain, there are facts of the matter as to what causes pain, and as to whether nurturing a particular aversion (e.g., to drunk driving) will reduce the overall amount of pain - giving each person with an aversion to pain a reason to condemn drunk driving whether they realize it or not. Just as everybody has a reason to condemn (so as to promote an aversion to) lying whether they realize it or not.

[Alex.G.Harper]

What do you mean by “track the truth” or, as you said a similar term in your video with Mon0, “truth-tracking”?

[jkevo]

The eda responce to the general skeptical challenge seems weak. in essence it boils down to:

1.If true preseption is positively related to evolutionary success then preseption is probaly truth tracking
2. I precive that preseption is positively related to evolutionary success
T. preseption is probaly truth tracking

This only holds true if we presuppose our perceptions are true.

[Swpeloquin]

my moral intuitions track with David Enoch. I don't have an answer to if it begs the question. but for the second criticism seems to me that Enoch points out necessary, but not sufficient grounds for morality. The sufficient would be in normative ethics. not in meta ethics

[jimmydurmody]

I am not philospoher but I know what morality is.

Morality is tool produced by biology just like spider web, beavers' dam, bird's nest or human spear. It is an adaptation to conditions of environment. Morality is whatever leads to satisfaction of physiological and psychological needs of the body. When conditions of material reality around you are such that you can afford high morality (rich people sending millions to charities) your moral standard will be sky high, when you will become homeless begger your morality will automatically adapt and eventually you may end up survivng through cannibalism just like people living in harshest conditions.

Social animals as humans have to construct morality also as a tool of social control to ensure that naturally arising conflicts based on oposing interests of individual's bodies (typically two males fighting for reproductive oportunity with same female, parent favoring his child with food over child of another parent, etc.) will not result into genetic extinction of the group.

That is basically it. Morality is just another tool we developed for our own survival. And we will be always changing it/adapting it to make it fit with whatever change/challenge in enviroment around us.

There is no objective morality but there surely is objective to morality and that is improvement of chances for succesful reproduction of our species.

[rohan]

is there any way we could access these slides?

[JackyBunch]

This is a small point, but I've heard you describe moral realism several times as a view that presupposes that we might all be wrong about what the moral facts are in the world. However, it seems to me like you could have a realist position that says something along the lines of "the moral facts are those moral propositions that everyone agrees are true". In this case, if we all assented to some moral proposition then we couldn't be wrong about its truth because its truth is just dependent on unanimous assent to it. I don't think this position holds much weight, but I think it's at least coherent, and a challenge to your account of realism.

[IapitusMcHeimer]

Could you believe in objective morality without being a moral realist?

[BoomShanka]

This is fantastic. Thank you, Dr Kane B! I'm just in the process of writing an Essay on Evolutionary Debunking Arguments against Realism, and this is one of the best summaries I've seen. Is there a way to download a transcription of this video?

[werrkowalski]

Why couldn't a moral realist claim that promoting reproductive success itself is moral? If people who value survival tend to act in ways that promote survival, and this promotes reproductive success, and if reproductive success is moral, then their actions are moral.

Doesn't this solve the dilemma?

[AlonzoFyfe]

Whether the evolutionary debunking argument refutes moral our basic moral beliefs depends on what those basic moral beliefs are.

Consider the following.

(1) Evolution has given us certain desires and aversions - those that tend to promote evolutionary fitness (aversion to pain, desire for sex, desire to eat and drink, to seek a comfortable temperature, the company of others, etc.) There is no objective "truth" associated with these desires - a desire provides a motive to alter the world in a ways that tend to produce genetic replication.

(2) Evolution has also given us a learning system. Desires are not hard-wired; they can be modified by experience. Rewards reinforce certain desires while punishments reinforce certain aversions.

(3) A creature that evolves among creatures having such a learning system can gain an evolutionary advantage by responding to benefit-producing behavior with a desire-reinforcing response and with harm-producing behavior with an aversion-reinforcing response.

(4) Cognitively sophisticated creatures such as humans can simply form better, more accurate beliefs about what types of behavior it makes sense to respond to with desire-reinforcing or aversion-reinforcing responses. We respond to taking property without consent with aversion-reinforcing behavior (anger, condemnation) and we respond to aiding those who are in great need with desire-reinforcing behavior (praise, expressions of gratitude). NOTE: This has stance independent in that we all might be ignorant or wrong about whether it is possible to promote a particular desire or aversion through praise or condemnation. We might think that there are reasons to and that it is possible to promote an aversion to engaging in homosexual acts when, in fact, there is either no good reason to do so.)

(5) Moral beliefs are simply beliefs about what desires and aversions to reinforce and what types of responses are more or less effective in providing that reinforcement.

One doesn't have to accept this theory, but it provides an example of objectively true or false moral beliefs that an evolutionary debunking argument cannot touch. Whether evolution debunks moral realism depends on what one takes real moral properties to be.

[mariecastner]

Hi Kane, huge thanks for this incredibly helpful video! I am working on a paper concerning evolutionary debunking arguments at the moment. I was wondering if you could provide me with the source for one of the arguments you have sketched. This would be the moral realist who claims that our capacity to be rational enables us to know moral truths despite the influences evolution has had on us. Thank you!

[pdhansten]

Excellent! Your arguments against moral realism seem incontrovertible to me. Until watching your YouTube videos on this topic, I did not realize that, as a death penalty abolitionist, I have been arguing against moral realists (who say the death penalty is morally appropriate). Some of them explicitly claim that: 1) certain people are evil, and we in society get to decide who is evil, and 2) we have a moral obligation to kill the people we deem evil. (And they explicitly use the word "obligation.") Kane, am I correct in saying they are moral realists? My response to them has been: 1) Who are we to make the god-like distinction that murderer A should be executed, and murderer B should get life in prison, and 2) It is only your opinion that execution is warranted... I have a different opinion. Why does your opinion take precedence over mine? Am I on the right track?

[DonVoghano]

Premise: I know little philo, not my trade.

BUT consider that survival is definitionally intrinsic in being a living organism, and that natural selection is merely the product of the interaction of the environment pressing with its force onto the organism, which attempts to resist with its own. In this scenario the organism would, again by definition, have to develop survival "values" and related behaviors and physical features.

In this scenario, is not the pressure towards accrual and exertion of force by the organism onto the environment a "Force, " about as "real" as, say, gravity?