Aristotelian Naturalism and Post-Darwinian Biology (2)

Continued from (1)

Objections 

Now that the Aristotelian Naturalist view has been sufficiently explained, we can consider some objections that stem from the perception that it is incompatible with post-Darwinian biology.  The first objection denies that human beings have any stable nature.  Hursthouse quotes Bernard Williams as claiming that “human beings are to some degree a mess, and […] the rapid and immense development of symbolic and cultural capacities has left humans as beings for whom no form of life is likely to prove entirely satisfactory, either individually or socially” (Hursthouse 261).  Hursthouse’s interpretation of what this implies is that “we are beings for whom no form of life is likely to prove satisfactory at all.  Any individuals who flourish individually and socially are an extraordinary accident” (Hursthouse 261).  Given that we have no stable nature, there is no form of how best to live a human life and hence nothing natural about human beings that can ground any ethical claims.  As such, we are left with moral nihilism and despair regarding how to live our lives since flourishing is simply a matter of luck.

Another way of putting this objection is to deny that there is any essence that humans, as a species, have.  Kitcher believes that contemporary biology undermines any attempt to give necessary and sufficient conditions for species membership and so we cannot clearly define what it means to be a member of the human species, let alone determine which individuals are members (Kitcher, “Biology” 165).  Consequently, biological norms are impossible to specify.  For example, many ‘normal’ genotypes found in human beings may be excluded if we define the properties constitutive of the human essence too narrowly, while if it is set too low many genotypes that are associated with disease will be included (Kitcher, “Essence” 66).  Similarly, making rationality an essential feature of human nature excludes many beings that we generally take to be human (e.g., infants, the mentally disabled) and includes many animals that are not human beings (e.g., primates).  Without an essence or a form to guide our assessments of individuals with respect to the species, we cannot say what individuals should be like, only what they are like.

The second objection is that the Aristotelian view of nature is teleological while post-Darwinian biology has discarded any teleological notions, and so any teleological claims rest on a human imposition of value upon nature.  Hursthouse quotes Bernard Williams as claiming that, “the first and hardest lesson of Darwinism [is] that there is no such teleology at all” (Hursthouse 257).  Since humans have evolved and since evolution is a random and aimless process, humans are also aimless in their desires, interests, and goals.  As such, Kitcher accuses Aristotelian Naturalists like Foot of adopting a “pre-Darwinian conception of function that either offers no way of connecting her moral conclusions to biological facts or else does so only because the conception already tacitly presupposes certain moral ends and values” (Kitcher, “Biology” 165).  The link between biology and morality rests on an imposition of value that links biological features with our values because we have placed special importance on these features (e.g., rationality).  Thus, Kitcher concludes that “the effort to use our species essence to identify the human good… fails, because ideas about the good have to be imported” into our biological claims (Kitcher, “Essence 68).

Similarly, Kitcher believes we cannot objectively determine a ‘normal’ environment.  Kitcher rightly points out that “virtually all human characteristics – including all those that are of interest in identifying the human good – result from an interaction between genotype and environment” (Kitcher, “Essence 67).  Thus, there are no purely intrinsic features that can make up the essence of human nature since any such properties “can be expressed in very different ways given the right – or the wrong – environments” (Kitcher, “Essence 67).  So far, the Aristotelian Naturalist is in agreement.  However, Kitcher goes on to claim that “we select environments as normal in virtue of the fact that they permit genotypes to issue in the traits we value” (Kitcher, “Essence 67).  For example, we value our cognitive capacities and so the ‘normal’ environment for humans is one that fosters these capacities.  But this is an illegitimate imposition of our value onto nature and so any ethical claims based on this imposition are not purely objective or natural.  As Kitcher concludes, “the selection of the explananda already involves just those judgments of value which were supposed to be recovered from the identification of the human essence, and we have no independent route to the essence that will avoid prior judgment about what is valuable” (Kitcher, “Essence 75).

Third, Kitcher argues that evolutionary theory is more compatible with an expressivist meaning of ethical terms.  He proposes the following evolutionary story of how biological altruism[15] and psychological altruism[16] arose.  Organisms are primarily driven to pass along their DNA to future generations.  Supposing that an organism cannot or is unlikely to pass along its own DNA, it makes sense for that organism to act altruistically towards a close relative.  That close relative will share much of the same DNA, and so if one’s relative is reproductively successful, one is also in a sense successful in passing one’s DNA along (Kitcher, “Biology” 167).  Similarly, organisms can act with reciprocity such that “if one acts today to incur a small reproductive loss that provides a large reproductive gain for the beneficiary, and if the favor is returned tomorrow, then both gain” (Kitcher, “Biology” 167).  Thus, reciprocity can, over the long term, help all parties to pass along their DNA to future generations.

Since evolution selects traits that enable individuals to survive in the current environment, and since biological altruism is advantageous to everyone overall, it will be selected.  Overtime, biological altruism will lead to psychological altruism to further promote survival by fostering social cohesion.  Along with psychological altruism comes an evolved capacity for normative guidance: a “capacity for articulating rules and using those rules to shape our wishes, plans, and intentions, so that the frequency with which the altruistic tendencies that underlie cooperation are overridden is diminished” (Kitcher, “Biology” 172).  Such a capacity is adaptively advantageous since hominids that have this capacity will “earn a reputation as good coalition-mates, and this secures them access to advantageous coalitions (and to the sub-coalitions that influence the distribution of resources” (Kitcher, “Biology” 172).  In addition, this capacity will further promote social cohesion, leading to an increase in the numbers of individuals within a society.  These small societies will be governed by shared rules that shape member attitudes (Kitcher, “Biology” 172-3).  As these societies grow larger, new sources of conflict will arise and so by relying on our capacity for norm governance, these societies will modify their “traditional norms” to resolve these conflicts (Kitcher, “Biology” 173). 

If such a story is correct, then it seems that such moral norms are merely pragmatic rules that function to coordinate human social behavior (Kitcher, “Biology” 175).  By learning them, one does not learn something objective about the world, but only that a certain rule is used by a certain society to maintain social order.  Thus, Kitcher claims that moral norms are rooted in our attitudes towards the world as shaped by our evolved cultural upbringing, and not in anything natural or objective about human nature.

Continued on page (3)