Bill's Big Stuff

The Maverick Philosopher posted a link to Dallas Willard’s paper, “Naturalism’s Incapacity to Capture the Good Will,” I printed it, and read it. I immediately realized it was both important and dense. I finished reading it and then reread it, this time slowly with a pen in my hand, underlining and making margin notes. What follows is the outcome of that exercise.

This sentence received my first thought:

one can say that Naturalism (in the modern sense of the term) has presented a problem for morality, and has seemed to many to undermine any prospect of a moral basis for individual or collective human life.

Then it would be immediately apparent that there is a problem with Naturalism since our perceptions of reality are that moral issues are real and resolvable.

In reading his first section on the four ways that Naturalism and Ethics would interact:
The first understanding has a risk of stating a tautology—Naturalist ethics is natural. However, this is Willard’s preferred approach to ethics and Naturalism. The second understanding underscores the idea that Nature and Naturalism in the context of this conference is strained compared to more common understandings. It also highlights the problem that moral properties may be first principles in themselves. The third understanding is used to do a superb job later on in the paper to show the limitations of the “scientists” arguments. And demolishing the fourth understanding is the main thrust of the paper.

In the second section, this statement was very evocative of comment:

modern Naturalism is often specified simply in terms of an exclusive application of "scientific method" in all inquiries. But how can that method support claims about the nature of reality as whole. For example, one might state that the only realities are atoms (quarks, strings, etc.) and derivatives thereof. But how is he to support his claim?

I generally consider this problem as one of the nature of science being epistemological—measurements and how we know things, not metaphysical—stating the nature of reality. But if science is epistemological in nature, then how do we arrive at metaphysics? I think it comes from our desire to “make sense” of things, to discover patterns behind what we observe and measure. This means that the fundamental nature of science and the fundamental nature of metaphysics are totally separate. Findings from science can motivate the alteration of statements in metaphysics , but metaphysical statements are not derivable from science. For example quantum mechanics and relativity are both based on statements of measure. Metaphysics, ethics, and philosophy in general are attempts to provide a shorthand for dealing with the world and to create ways to deal with new situations by having generalizations that work outside the data from which they came. There is a tension between science and metaphysics. Metaphysics can generalize and say what science should see. Science looks and either sees or does not, with a resulting impact on metaphysics. Science in the above comments is the sum of individual sciences applied individually or collectively as appropriate.

I then went on to find that the entire second section was a much deeper and more precise statement of parts of the above comment. A summary would be that Willard argues very persuasively that science cannot make metaphysical statements.

In the section “The Dilemma of Naturalism” Willard shows the inadequacy of science and scientism to provide a grounding for Naturalism. However it would appear that the following reasoning all but destroys Naturalism as metaphysics.

For these reasons I take it that the appeal to science cannot serve to specify naturalism. There are, then, good reasons to be a "Puritan" if you want to advocate Naturalism. Naturalism has to be an honest metaphysics; and that metaphysics has to be "unqualified physicalism" as referred to above. But then a thinker who would be naturalist would feel pressure to have recourse to some specific apriori analyses to render his ontological specification of Naturalism plausible.

…
In addition to the difficulty of coming up with the required a priori analyses, however, to turn to such inquiry as might produce them would (as I have already indicated) be to break with the epistemological monism essential to Naturalism and introduce something like a "first philosophy." This would be discontinuous with the empirical methods of the sciences. In showing its justification through apriori analysis, Naturalism would simply give up the game.
In specifying what Naturalism is, therefore, one seems to be faced with an inescapable dilemma. Either one must turn to apriori (non-empirical and extra-scientific) analyses to establish its monism (which will refute Naturalism's basic claim about knowledge and inquiry), or its claim will have to rest upon a vacuous appeal to what "science" says.

Willard then rescues Naturalism in the form of a straightforward physicalism for his arguments as a proposal rather than a philosophical claim, and asks,

What are the distinctions, with the corresponding properties and relations, that Naturalism (as Physicalism) would have to account for if it were to encompass the field of ethics successfully?

Willard then summarizes the history of ethics, pointing to Hume’s emphasis on epistemological considerations. He makes the following observations:

The emergence of non-cognitivism in ethical theory was, I believe, quite inevitable, given the ascendancy of Empiricism to dominance in the theory of knowledge and the domination of ethical reflections by the theory of knowledge. Naturalism is the current reformulation of classical Empiricism. One might easily suspect that if Empiricism is the correct analysis of knowledge, there will certainly be no moral knowledge, because the substance of the moral life is not empirical. It is not something that is feeling or sensation or is of what can be felt or sensed.
… But the urgency of those demands did not resolve the underlying issue. Namely, the issue of the nature of moral phenomena and knowledge thereof. Those issues are still hanging fire today, and that fact also makes the problem of understanding the connection between ethics (or the moral life) and naturalism difficult to state in any satisfactory way.
…
Richard Brandt in his Ethical Theory (1959) says: "The essential thesis of naturalism is the proposal that ethical statements can, after all, be confirmed, ethical questions answered, by observation and inductive reasoning of the very sort that we use to confirm statements in the empirical sciences.... [T]he meaning of ethical statements is such that we can verify them just like the statements of psychology or chemistry." (p. 152) That is, they refer, in the end, to sense-perceptible or at least 'feelable' facts (such as desire or pleasure or pain or social behavior). The appeal to rationality as the ultimate point of reference in moral judgment might with some justification be seen as the most recent effort to "save" moral phenomena for Empiricism, currently called Naturalism. By it moral phenomena are completely externalized.
Well, but one might also say that this is only "saving" moral phenomena by abandoning them altogether and substituting something else. (Like "liberating" villages by destroying them.)

The implied understanding is that moral principles have been replaced with behavioral and sensory objects which are erratic guides at best.

His final comments on this approach to ethics in effect state that it will not work, and that one must change direction to reach a debatable issue. And here he returns to Hume, but this time we are to depart from empiricism to discuss moral quality.

"The external performance," Hume says, "has no merit. We must look within to find the moral quality...." (T 477-478) I agree. For him, the moral distinctions fall between what he calls "qualities of mind." These are his virtues and vices. Not actions but the sources of action in the human system are the fundamental subjects of moral appraisal. Moral appraisal is not basically about what people do, but about what they would do, could do. What they actually do is, from the moral point of view, of interest primarily because it is revelatory of what they would or would not do, could or could not bring themselves to do, and therefore of their moral identity.

He also notes Kant:

But Kant was not so restricted and he identifies the central moral phenomenon as the good will. This, he famously says, is the only thing good without qualification, good regardless of whatever else may be true. Again, I believe he was entirely correct about this. The good will is the primary moral phenomena. … and he insists in his doctrine of virtue that the good will has two a priori (non-empirical) ends: one's own moral perfection and the happiness of others. These are the material ends of the good will for Kant, imposing obligations in their own right.

He mentions Hume and Kant because:

It was a tradition that focussed upon the will and the role of the will in the organization of the "ideal self." The 'ideal self' was, of course, the good person, which everyone finds themselves obliged to be.

Here is his definition of a morally good and a morally bad person:

The morally good person, I would say, is a person who is intent upon advancing the various goods of human life with which they are effectively in contact, in a manner that respects their relative degrees of importance and the extent to which the actions of the person in question can actually promote the existence and maintenance of those goods.

The person who is morally bad or evil is one who is intent upon the destruction of the various goods of human life with which they are effectively in contact, or who is indifferent to the existence and maintenance of those goods.

He notes that to make the distinction of good and bad will is something no one appears ready to discuss, mainly due to the ethical theories currently in vogue. Yet he says this distinction is one we make daily. In addition, through his quote from Aquinas, he makes the good will the foundation of natural law. In so doing he basically has already answered the question he will pose. He has defined morals as non-empirical and a priori from the start in distinction to Naturalism which requires all things to be empirical. His clarifications are well-said.

His final argument is so well-written and compact that I include it intact, with some comments of my own.

The Argument--Finally

Can the moral identity of the good (or evil) person be captured within the categories of Naturalism as Physicalism? I believe it clearly cannot. The argument against it is an old and simple one.

Suppose that we have an acceptable list of physical properties and relations. We might take them from physical theory, as the properties and relations corresponding to the concepts of current physics: location, mass, momentum and so forth. (Who knows what the future or ultimate physics will look like?) Or, moved by the above doubts about what philosophy can soundly derive from the sciences, we could turn to the "primary qualities" of Modern philosophy, and, for that matter, add on the "secondary" ones as well: color, odor, etc. I don't think we need, for present purposes, to be very scrupulous about this list either. Let us agree that whatever goes on such a list will count as physical properties, and that narrow Naturalism is the proposal to confine our inquiries and conclusions to whatever shows up on the list and combinations thereof.

The argument, then, is simply that no such physical property or combination of thereof constitutes the basic components of the good will or person, such as intentionality, knowledge, choice or the settled intentions that make up moral identity and character. At the simplest level, none of those properties or their combinations constitute a representation of anything, or qualifies their bearer as being of or about anything. The properties of those properties (and of combinations thereof) are not the same as the properties of representations (ideas, thoughts, propositions, beliefs, statements), much less of intentions, decisions and the permanent inclinations that make up character. If this is correct, and if the narrower Naturalism admits only these "physical" properties, then there are no good or bad wills or persons in the world of the narrower Naturalism.

Of course if there are no representations, there is no knowledge or choice, and if there is no knowledge or choice, there are no settle intentions with reference to anything, much less the goods of human life. The logical relations required in thought, knowledge and choice also will not show up in the world of Naturalism. The ontological structure of the good will therefore cannot be present in the world of narrower Naturalism--nor, for that matter, in the world of the actual sciences as now commonly understood. [In other words, science is amoral, a point I have argued before.]

Note that my claim is that such physical properties never constitute the good (or bad) will and its sub-components. I say nothing here about the latter not emerging from the physical properties of, say, the human brain. This is not because I think they may so emerge, although some form of interaction between them and the brain, body and social world, for example, surely does take place. Rather, it is because I can only regard talk of the emergence of irreducibly mental properties from the brain or the central nervous system as mere property dualism cum apologies. I accept that emergence can be employed as a valid and useful concept in numerous domains, e.g., chemistry, sociology and the arts. But its valid employment requires some degree of insight into why this emerges from that. Such insight is lacking, in my opinion, in the case of the brain and experiences generally, and certainly with respect to the substructures of the morally good (or bad) will. [This last statement would be subject to argument by Daniel Dennett. His qualification to morally good will, might be valid. However, there is also the issue of good people turning bad and vice versa. Is that structural? And if so, how?]

Finally, Naturalism as a world view lives today on promises. "We are going to show how all personal phenomena, including the moral, emerges from the chemistry (brain, DNA) of the human body." And, of course, the actual sciences (specific investigative practices) have made many wonderful discoveries and inventions. But after 300 years or so of promises to "explain everything," the grand promises become a little tiresome, and the strain begins to show. And anyway, nothing in actual practice by scientists going about their work depends upon the grand promises--which can and do force sensible people to say things that have nothing to do with sense or science. A justifiably well regarded worker in the field of cosmology was heard to say at this conference: "It all begins in a state of absolute nothing, which makes a quantum transition to something very small, and then 'inflation' sets in...." What which?

He summarizes his argument as follows:

Really, all I have said in my basic argument is that a close adherence to science as that would be commonly understood, or to Naturalism as a "first philosophy" (Physicalism/Materialism), has the effect that the primary structures and properties of the moral domain--those involved in the good (or bad) will--are lost sight of, and hence cannot function in the coherent organization of either the understanding (ethical theory) or the practice of the moral life.

And further states:

They have vanished at present, and that has led to the current situation (deplored by Anscombe and MacIntyre) where there is no moral knowledge that is publicly accessible in our culture, i.e., that could be taught to individuals by our public institutions as a basis for their development into morally admirable human beings who can be counted on to do the "right thing" when it matters. This is what I call "The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge." That disappearance is now a fact in North American society.

Here we have a clear statement of our current cultural status—rudderless morally, and how it came to be that way.

Summary comments:
In effect Willard has defined Naturalism not as an effective metaphysical philosophy but as a proposal. He then showed that Naturalist attempts at empirical ethics were ineffective. He then establishes what he considers a correct approach to ethics and shows that it cannot be obtained within Naturalism. Yet because of the supremacy of Naturalism in current thought it must find an ethical theory within itself. He does not expect Naturalism to find a moral ground and establish a moral culture regardless of how much it needs to. If his arguments are correct, and they are very persuasive, Naturalism may have reached its peak. If so, it will fail from its inadequacies and be replaced with something more robust. From my comments above on relative morals, however, the desire will be strong to ignore the failures, since they allow unbridled desires to rule.

My final comments:
This paper supports my thesis that science and religion are co-equal and not competitors or contradictory to each other.

I do wonder though, let us start with primitive brains and evolve. Could not morals evolve as does mental capacity? Could not observations of what is most efficacious for man’s well-being become a “Good Trick” a la Dennett, and passed on? However, just because they may have evolved with mankind, does not make them empirical in the Naturalistic sense. A mental construct is not a physical constant. It may have a physical basis, but is not necessarily a stable structure. Also even though the result of moral or immoral action may be pleasure or pain, respectively, the outcomes may act as feedback but they are not the determiners of morality. That would depend on whether one is a utilitarian or deontologist, and for that distinction to even occur argues that morals are not Naturalistic.