Aping their betters

“How do you measure the quality of ethical values?  By reference to another set of such values that you happen to prefer, or by how closely they correspond to some absolute set of values? (leave aside for the moment the difficulty of deciding what this absolute set is).  Are there any other possibilities? “
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The quality of one’s values is determined by what is true of nature, what is true of self as an element within nature, and one’s answer to a single question: “Do you value living?” (that you are living is taken for granted, otherwise, there would be no “you” and no question) If you do value continued living, then, by the standard of what is true of self and of the rest of nature, one’s values must be formed according to that answer. If one does not, one’s values are formed from truths of nature and of self according to that answer. Of course, in practice, all of us are continually shifting in our personal devotion to any pure answer “yes” or “no” and thus, even though we claim to value life, we put our lives at risk in various ways or, if we truly hate life, we do not necessarily value an end to it in the purest sense of that value.

Nature establishes the groundwork upon which one must determine one’s values. Nature is the standard. You have no choice but to abide by what is true of nature. If it isn’t true of nature, it isn’t true.

Naumadd, you say “I hold that “ethics” and “morality” are ... merely terms to refer to a system of values without reference to the quantity or quality of those values.”
How do you measure the quality of ethical values?  By reference to another set of such values that you happen to prefer, or by how closely they correspond to some absolute set of values? (leave aside for the moment the difficulty of deciding what this absolute set is).  Are there any other possibilities?

Although I agree that human beings can hold values that are far more abstract and complex than all other Earth species, I think it false to claim animals cannot hold many similar values to our own. I hold that “ethics” and “morality” are one and the same thing being merely terms to refer to a system of values without reference to the quantity or quality of those values. In that sense, all species can value and thus every species has an “ethics” of its own even if we agree that no species matches the human ability to value and form an ethics quite like human beings.

I’ve never quite surprised but I always find it disconcerting the intellectual effort many give to hold onto their belief that human beings are not only quite unlike any other species of life on the planet but also that human beings are merely some sort of ethereal entity trapped in a physical shell. Such a belief has always seemed to me unjustified and dangerous both to human beings and especially to other species on the planet. Those who believe in this way unnecessarily advance our own species far above its authentic characteristics and abilities and denigrate all other species, regardless of their genuine makeup and skills, far below what they deserve in respect and consideration.

All in all, the most harmful result of refusing to grant what is genuinely true about other species incredibly similar to ourselves genetically is that we delay any authentic knowledge we might gain from studying the real similarities and differences between ourselves and close animal cousins and, of course, granting other species the respect of rights we only wish were true of ourselves alone. Those who delude themselves into thinking humankind is far and away dissimilar to all other life overly complicate the terms “value”, “ethics” and “morality” to cloud what ought to be fairly simple concepts to understand.

Thanks for your answers, Margo. I know that words have power. Actually, some of the things I write here, I would never write in Portuguese, too much prude for that. In my case, the use of a surrogate language is also a form of freeing myself to say certain things.

In respect to the ideas of human specialness, I cannot say I share your worry. You appear to think (correct me if I’m wrong) that by sharing qualities in degree with animals, our vision or our attitude to us will be downgraded to what we see or do to them. I think the other way around: if some animals are more similar to us than expected, their stance in our sight will be upgraded. As a former animal owner, when my dog was doing something which stroked me as an human thing, I never thought that it was I, the template of that action, who was the one behaving like a non-human animal.

Anyway, isn’t there a risk here that by cautioning about the ideas which should not abandoned for the sake of the human society, we end in research dead alleys? Caution in research is usually about paths of small probability of success, but here, it appears to be about undesirable outcomes,… not the best way, unless the debate is strictly philosophical. For me, there are two clears paths in this research: either we previously define a way to recognizes ethical systems in animals and study them (and humans) under that point of view, or else, we might catalog definite ethical attributes and try to project them onto animal behaviors. The first path implies before starting the study, the strong possibility that ethics is relative and swappable. A system of recognition like that must come in the form of (meta-ethical) conditions which the ethical systems must obey as a solution. In principle, we only need to explore all the possible solutions to know if ethics is absolute or not, and for that, we don’t need the results of their observation in animals. They aren’t a relevant issue here. The second path doesn’t offer great dangers too. If we project our ethics onto animals, then we will find only our ethics too. If we are able to defend an absolute ethics, that’s what we will find, if we find something. If possible, it will even reinforce the absolute character of that ethics, since animals are less prone to change their behaviors than us. For some reason, Aesop choose animals to spread his moral lessons.

By the way, I like your concept of “secular sacred”.

To add to my previous comment about why it’s important to see humans as “special”, I believe that there are certain entities - both physical and metaphysical - that we have obligations to hold on trust for future generations. We are their custodians, not their owners. These entities include our physical environment, including our human genome, and our values/ethics environment. These are threatened in unprecedented ways by the new technoscience, which only humans have access to. So, seeing humans as special means we don’t only deserve special respect, but also we have special obligations.

To fulfil those obligations I’ve proposed that the entities, such as the ones I list, should be regarded as “secular sacred”, that is, quite apart from religiously based restrictions on harming them, all of us must have very clear justification for interfering with them; they are not ours to destroy. In short, I believe we have obligations not only to present generations, but also to future generations - although I note that not everyone agrees with the latter - and that, among other important functions, a concept of human specialness helps us to fulfil those obligations.

Yes, Joao, moral has tended to be closely associated with religion and, as Tim says, with sexual morality. So one reason to use a different word is not to automatically alienate people who reject religion.

Also I think there was a feeling that morality was imposed on one by authoritarian figures and institutions, especially religious ones, and was an institutional restriction on personal freeedom. With many people abandonning religion and accepting “intense individualism” as a governing principle, we needed to use a new word to argue that there were still some shared “rules” we could find and that we still needed. The theme of my book The Ethical Imagination is the need, in contemporary societies, to find a shared ethics and some thought about how we might go about doing that, whether or not we are religious and, if we are religious, no matter to which religion we belong.

To briefly answer your question JPA: “By the way, could you explain in more detail why do you think “it’s dangerous to abandon the ideas of human specialness”?

Because if, as I argue, animals are not moral or ethical beings, then neither are we, if we are no different from animals. Or if animals are moral or ethical, then the same rulles should apply to us as to them - Peter Singer’s position.

As well, if we humans are not inherently moral or ethical beings and uniquely so, it becomes easy to argue that there are no absolute moral or ethical principles and, if we still choose to use such principles, that at best they are simply the way we personally prefer to live at the time. That’s exactly the stance of moral relativists and utilitarians such as Peter Singer, and supports the position that we can choose to see abortion, euthanasia, human embryo research and so on as moral. It creates a system in which ethics and morality become simply a matter of personal preferences and denies that something can be ethically and morally wrong from the perspective of a natural law or natural ethics base.

Also a “personal preferences approach” to ethics diffuses the content of core values and that loss of content is progressive over future generations, so I believe it creates a grave danger of ethical and moral nihilism for future generations.

Hi Margo, about your answer, are you saying that we use the word Ethics more today because “Moral” is too much associated to religion? Is that it?

I can only think how a while ago, Francis surprised me saying a known atheist would object against the use of the word “Hope” because of his association to the Christian virtue of the same name… it appears to be a similar argument.

By the way, could you explain in more detail why do you think “it’s dangerous to abandon the ideas of human specialness”?

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“But even if that’s not accepted, maybe obligations can persist from the past, or be foreshadowed from potential futures.”

Why? If someone is utterly alone, he only owns to himself: He is free to follow or not follow, whatever he compromised to follow in the past. It must be said that I agree it is not possible to us to be utterly alone… we are gregarious/social beings and probably would turn mad if that happens. The preservation of values would be our token of faith that we would regain companionship in the future. But this is still the same as to say that our values has not an absolute relationship to us, independent of others. 

“I’m not happy about society as the source of authority for morality, given the morals of many actual societies, past and present.”

I must be more precise at this. I have a lot of experience with small children and my impression is: they are not born with values, instead we must teach them, show them, tease them to it. Our example is important to them. I cannot say for sure if there aren’t innate values, but it is sure that the most part are first taught by the parents, by relatives, by the tribe, and eventually learn from other sources when we are able to read them… in another words, by the society, and so, the society must be the authority to the theme. I’m not speculating who taught the society, but individuals are taught by it.

“it will not do to admit apes as members of human society”

I think what Singer was trying to say is that we cannot continue to use anymore the argument that the animals has not “ethics” to justify their different treatment. We might use other arguments but not that. While appearing academic, these arguments have sometimes profound consequences, judging from other rules in the past. For example, there was times when black slaves were allowed because it was thought they had no soul; Jesuit missions in South America were massacred because they were caught converting natives; and Jews were considered the church slaves in Europe (and as such, with permission to do what a good christian could not do, like lend money with interests) for his role in Christ’s death. To allow certain demeaning roles to them, it was necessary to find some fundamental flaw in them who would keep them apart. By saying some animals are only a degree apart, Singer opens a door for future legal actions of Genocide against whoever contribute to extinctions, for example.

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No trouble at all, Tim. I’m addicted to think and your comment was a good food for thought. I was also interested to see the answer to your last question so I thought I should add myself to the plea…

When I said that the light and the eye is a slippery example, I was including myself in the ones would could slip on it. To turn the tables on me is simple: we, humans don’t need to rely solely on the eyes, since we can construct instruments to see in (almost) all the spectrum. You had only to have pointed this, to show the argument more in favor of an absolute ethics than a relativist one. Of course, analogies are not the subject itself, but they are great mind teasers, are not?

Even so, the argument that we don’t need more than certain kinds of light to “walk” has a certain weight. It is not simply a question of “poor” light (intensity) but of “quality” too, and quality highlights different qualities of the world. If I was a bee looking in the ultra-violet, my flower-world-view would be probably very different than what we humans expect, with flowers which for us are uniformly colored, being enriched in detail to say where is the pollen. Fortunately we don’t need that kind of detail (flowers created it “thinking” on insects) or our view of a flowering field would be impossible rich in detail (or maybe simply a blend of all of it). Perhaps this is the kind of argument that we must embrace if we try to search for an absolute ethics: it would be so much full of detail that it would be impractical to follow.

Just a little more food for thought: knowing we translate light into excited 4 different photo-pigments, it is possible to us to create the illusion of images in TVs using only 3 colors… however, my (late) dog never bought the illusion, even if it was presenting other dogs. Maybe that’s why some stories I see on TV felt so fake: they are playing on cultural cues to transmits verisimilitude. Once I’m out of these, all falls apart. The interesting about this is that it happens with story producers which would claim I’m from the same cultural sphere as them… maybe we are not that similar as we would thought.

“Your point that morals are only relevant in relation to others is interesting.  If one is absolutely alone, are there any moral obligations?  I would say that being alone is not possible (on religious grounds).”

I count with that. If someone believes, he cannot ever stop from well behaving.

Thank you again, MercatorNet, for these forums that encourage so much valuable discussion.
Those of us who aren’t scientists, philosophers, or theologians are reminded of basic truths in global conversations of this kind.
Tim: what you’ve just said to JPA and MS is very helpful.

João, many thanks for your careful analysis of my highly speculative (and admittedly slippery) analogy.  I’m flattered that you took such trouble.  You develop it very skillfully, and in a way that I’d happily go along with, for some distance at least.  But I’m not convinced by your conclusion.

As you say, to be objective, one must consider light as the external phenomenon, the electromagnetic spectrum, rather than the mental sensations that the observer registers.  I don’t see that it’s relevant that we can’t observe the whole spectrum - we observe what’s most useful and significant to us (as you say, we have what we need).  Nor that we are not born knowing how to see, but have to learn to do it (in part, at least).  The same may well be true of ethics. 

But the eye evolved to show us what’s there. Of course we may misinterpet what we see, and we may imagine things.  But there are things there, with an independent existence, and light helps us to see them, even if we make mistakes from time to time.  I say that our moral sense is like light, and that we use it (most of the time) to make (more or less) objective assessments of external moral realities.  I don’t see how the ‘poor lighting’ analogy suggests a relative morality. 

Your point that morals are only relevant in relation to others is interesting.  If one is absolutely alone, are there any moral obligations?  I would say that being alone is not possible (on religious grounds).  But even if that’s not accepted, maybe obligations can persist from the past, or be foreshadowed from potential futures.

I’m not happy about society as the source of authority for morality, given the morals of many actual societies, past and present.

As to Singer, I admit that biologists classify us as apes - and very properly, for their purposes.  But (adopting for a moment your proposal that society determines morality) it will not do to admit apes as members of human society. That is not to say that we have any right to mistreat them.

Dr Somerville, thank you for your explanation.  That makes matters much clearer for me, enabling me to understand your comment that ethics are based upon morals, which (taking morals and ethics as synonyms) I had found confusing.  It’s interesting that ethics have a better name these days, perhaps because professional people have them (or are supposed to) while morals are rather looked down on, as old-fashioned, superstitious, and unduly concerned with sexual behaviour.

On a related subject, anyone here heard about a dog who tried to save another dog hit on a highway?

In reply to Tim Roberts:
“To diverge to lesser matters, a request for help.  I use (it seems wrongly) “ethics” and “morals” (and their adjectives) as synonyms.  How should I properly distinguish between them?”

This question points to a great deal of confusion in our use of these two terms and their proper use is an issue that raises controversy.

Many people now do use ethics and morality as synonyms. Others use morality to refer to intangible philosophical beliefs, principles or concepts and ethics as a shorthand term for “applied ethics” - ethics in practice. This latter approach probably reflects the history of the use of these terms.

Ethics (morality) as a subdiscipline of moral philosophy is centuries old. What today we’d call “applied or practical ethics” had its origins in the early 1970’s when we were first confronted with the unprecedented power of the new medical technologies, especially organ transplants, in particular, the first heart transplant. We quickly forget how astonished we were and concerned about the morality of what we were doing and the discussion that ensued.

I believe we used the word ethics rather than morality to try to cross old divides between us on matters of morality and to get stuck there with, as a result, no possibility of finding a consensual approach to dealing with the moral/ethical issues we faced. We can disagree on the moral principles that should apply in a given case and inform our conclusions, but agree on the practical steps that should be taken or not taken in that case - we use ethical analysis to achieve that, for instance, whether we should proceed with a heart transplant.

There are also some people who deplore the use of the word “values” and believe it is a substitute for the word “virtues” and want to return to that latter term. But for the same reasons as articulated above, I believe the word values is useful, even if some of us also want to talk about virtues.

In short “words matter” and “language is never neutral” and we have to comnsider to whom we are speaking and which choice of language can best communicate our arguments, reasons and messages to them for their consideration.

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I think this solves the conundrum: there are no personnel preferences involved, except if we are able to exert the preference for other society/company and this one accept us. If we are not alone, the important is to have an ethic, absolute or not.

In respect to your last question, I would like to know its answer too. But moral and ethics appears to be synonyms to certain ideas, so your confusion (and mine) is probably not very problematic.

Last, Peter Singer, the biologists already classify humans along “monkeys”. In taxonomy, we are alone in the gender but not above. But a difference in degree may mean a world apart. Humans has usually a vocabulary of a two thousand words. A fraction of that and you can read a dictionary easily. But if we had only a vocabulary of ten or five, it is doubtful if we could do it… a difference of a degree may makes an world of difference. In the same sense, we could perhaps trace our ethics to earlier ethic behaviors honed by natural selection, but once we enter in the domain of the brain and the “human” reason, with his fairy stories and imagination for scenarios, the game changes entirely.