This is a linkpost for The Many Fallacies of Dualism by Brian Tomasik, which was published in fall 2013, and last updated on 10 November 2017. Below are the summary, introduction, core argument against dualism, and summary of what various concepts refer to under physicalism.
Summary
Many seeming puzzles in philosophy stem from platonism and dualism. These fundamental illusions are like Capgras syndrome in that they persist in spite of no rational justification. They play central roles in confusions about consciousness, spiritual realms, free will, moral realism, and mathematical truth. Physicalist monism [physicalism] dissolves these conundrums by postulating that there is just physics, and what we think of as platonic forms are merely concepts—"clusters in thingspace"—that our material minds use to categorize and predict physical processes.
Introduction
We naturally have dualist intuitions in many domains:
- Dualism on consciousness: Yes, we have neurons and synapses, but it feels like there must be "something more" to my subjective experience than matter moving around.
- Spiritualism: Yes, the world operates according to physics, but there must be some additional spiritual force that animates it and gives it meaning.
- Libertarian free will: Yes, either my actions are determined or else random, but it feels like there's some extra "agency" property that I have that somehow gives me libertarian free will.
- Moral realism: Yes, I don't like slavery, but there has to be something more—some eternal "truth" of the matter as to how slavery is objectively wrong.
- Mathematical platonism: Yes, these sets and numbers that I'm manipulating are useful for predictions and organizing thoughts, but there must be some additional sense in which they "exist" in a platonic realm of perfect mathematical forms.
There are many flavors of dualism, and I won't explore the intricacies here, but what I mean by the term is this sense that "there must be something more than mere physical stuff."
What's wrong with dualism? The core argument
The fundamental problem with dualism is that it doesn't accomplish anything except to complicate our theories. There are two possibilities.
The first possibility is that the additional substance influences physical events—so-called interactionist dualism. In this case, the substance is not really extra-physical; it's just a different part of physics. The fact that both quarks and gluons exist is not dualism—these are just two types of physical substance. If there were some further, more mysterious force that also affected physical processes, we would say that it was part of physics too. If your dualism invokes a force that affects physics, I wouldn't call that dualism. Let's agree to call it physicalist monism and move on.
The only other possibility is that the additional substance doesn't influence physical events. In this case, what is it supposed to accomplish? Why do I need an entirely separate non-physical thing if it doesn't contribute any extra explanation in the theory? This is called the "interaction problem." You might say that the extra substance explains why we have a sensation of "something more" than physical operations, but that's not right, because your verbal statements that "there's something more" are happening within physics, and if the extra stuff isn't affecting them, then physics by itself accounts for why you feel there's something more. But if physics itself explains why you feel there's something more, then nothing is added by assuming there is something more. That hypothesis is totally useless and amounts to "multiplying entities beyond necessity."
Physicalist monism
In summary, we have a thorough reduction of ontology [context] to just one level of reality—physical stuff.
- What is a table? It's a category into which we classify physical objects that tend to have legs, on which people tend to eat dinner, and that are often made of wood or metal.
- What is "green"? It labels a cluster of the appearance of certain objects, such as summer leaves, grass, and Christmas trees. Empirically it corresponds to light at about 510 nm in wavelength.
- What is consciousness? It's a category into which we classify physical operations by minds when they aggregate, broadcast, and manipulate information in certain ways.
- What is free will? It's a sensation we feel when choosing. It reflects a recognition that our decision procedure has multiple options that it's evaluating and for which different activations in the brain are being generated.
- What is truth? Our brains have epistemological systems that classify some statements as "true" and others as "false." We have additional machinery that allows us to manipulate these statements (using logic) in ways such that, when we act upon the statements expressed by the manipulated versions (deduced conclusions), we tend to achieve successful predictions of observed outcomes. Because of the utility of these systems, evolution has built in this logical circuitry to our brains such that the truths feel a priori.
- What is mathematics? Given certain generalized statements (axioms) that make sense to our brains based on hard-wiring and environmental inputs, we manipulate these statements according to logical rules that our brain finds intuitive in order to arrive at further statements. We can construct more and more complex arrangements of these relationships, and the statements so derived tend to be useful in many domains, such as explaining physical phenomena. We can even apply these rules to completely unfamiliar domains like higher-order infinities, thereby creating beautiful tales of mathematical fiction, which may prove useful at some point in the future.
- What is moral truth? We have feelings about how we'd like the world to be, and there are norms society expects us to follow. We describe them using predicate statements and manipulate them using logical rules. Insofar as we feel motivated by the original statements, we also tend to feel motivated by the logically derived statements. Sometimes we derive conclusions that we don't like and then seek to resolve the dissonance.
If I understand this properly from your summary, Vasco (sorry, no time to read the long article), Tomasik lands in something like subjectivism/expressivism? I think naturalism might be a better way out, and it fits physicalist monism well. In naturalism, factory farming/ slavery are bad because of the pain itself, as a natural state in the world, not because of our feelings about it. It's bad regardless of whether anyone cares about it. Obviously, naturalism does not explain why we should care; that's why, e.g., Singer moved towards the "point of view of the universe," with impartiality as an objective truth. I wonder if, by understanding it as a constitutive norm of reasoning itself, we could somehow stay naturalists without the objections that subjectivism faces. I do think most of us think that the suffering is bad for the subject and not because we perceive it as bad, but that's obviously not tackling the part about "what is it that binds us". I feel like morality has an almost Kantian feeling of authority, and I'm unsure we can capture it without stepping outside this monism trip, which might be why Singer is where he is.
Subjectivism is the easiest way out, but it will quickly leave us empty-handed in ethics; we won't be able to defend anything, as there can never be a mistake. But yeah, either we will remain skeptical forever or pick something up. Personally, my brain pushes me into moral uncertainty/philosophical skepticism, but I know a lot of us, understandably, need to anchor in something, sometimes something greater than ourselves, or, in the case above, in part of ourselves :) Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
Good morning Ula.
Yes.
Nitpick. I very much agree factory farming and slavery cause pain to some individuals, but I do not know if they increase or decrease global pain. So I would replace "factory farming/ slavery are bad" with "increasing pain is bad all else equal" in the 1st sentence above. Then it would read "increasing pain is bad all else equal because of the pain itself".
I do not understand how "bad" could refer to something else than "our feelings about it", or how something could be "bad regardless of whether anyone cares about it". How would one justify something being bad without making any reference to human views about it?
Something being good or bad from the "point of view of the universe" cannot be interpreted literally because the universe does not have views about events. In practice, I suspect Peter Singer's "point of view of the universe" means something like "what impartial moral agents will endorse on reflection", which depends on the feelings of moral agents, and what they care about, thus being partial in some sense.
Many people think they would not able to defend anything if there were no gods. However, we can use our built-in preferences to guide us. Very young babies have preferences for satisfying basic needs like not being hungry (while having no views about gods or methaethics).
I like Walter Veit's case for effective altruists (and everyone else) becoming nihilists.
I wonder whether we have a semantic problem here, or if you actually defend subjectivism.
You say "bad" can only mean "our feelings about it." If badness is our attitude toward pain, then pain is bad because we dislike it, not because of the pain itself. If badness is in the experience of the one suffering, then it's bad whether or not any observer cares, which is all I meant by "bad regardless of whether anyone cares about it."
Very few people care about soil arthropods. If badness were grounded in what humans or moral agents feel about it, their pain would matter little, and estimating it would mostly measure human sentiment. Your thinking it's worth estimating suggests their pain matters independently of anyone caring.
The baby example points the same way. A hungry baby shows hunger is bad for the baby, with no beliefs or attitudes required. What preferences don't give us is impartiality. If preferences are the foundation, nothing obliges a human to weigh the suffering of a shrimp or a mite. Impartiality is the part that needs a justification beyond what anyone happens to feel.
On "what impartial agents would endorse on reflection": do they endorse reducing suffering because it's bad, or is it bad because they endorse it? If the first, the endorsement tracks something prior. If the second, a reflective agent who came to endorse cruelty wouldn't be making any mistake, which I find hard to accept.
I often find that nihilists drop words like "wrong" and "bad" while keeping the activity those words were doing, and that activity usually involves a kind of impartiality nihilism can't account for. Like you treat the question of soil anthropods and their welfare as something one can get right or wrong (not a matter of taste), this to me does not seem preference driven. As de Lazari-Radek and Singer argued, evolution explains partial concern for ourselves and our kin very well, but not concern for creatures that give us nothing back. Caring about them looks less like a built-in preference and more like reason taking us past our preferences.
But yeah I would need more definitions to do this discussion well, just to insure we don't talk pass each other, but I probably can't also engage endlessly on this, as these are unsolvable ethical questions with all pathways being prone to problems.
I endorse something like emotivism, which "claims ethical sentences do not express propositions but emotional attitudes". So I do think pain (in me or others) is bad all else equal because I dislike it, and am motivated to avoid it.
I was not clear, but "our feelings about it" was supposed to include the feelings of the people experiencing the pain.
I agree assuming the individuals experiencing the pain are defined as non-observers.
All else equal, I prefer to satisfy the preferences of organisms (including animals, microorganisms, and trees). I would also say doing so is "good", by which I mean my preference will not change upon further reflection. However, I understand many people define "good" differently.
I would say the baby being hungry is bad because they have a stable preference for eating food when they are hungry.
I have a preference for impartiality, and I do not think it will change upon further reflection. So I would say impartiality is good.
I agree.
They would not be making a mistake from their perspective, in the sense there would not be "an action, decision, or judgment that produces an unwanted or unintentional result" from their perspective.
We can get our preferences right or wrong. I may have a preference for not eating a given ice cream, try it one day, be surprised I like it, and update my preferences accordingly. Likewise, people could develop a preference for satisfying the preferences of soil invertebrates after learning more about them.
Or they can develop a preference to keep slaves, and keep animals in factory farms, because these preferences were/are shared by so many, how will you defend that they're unethical? Let's say you have 100 people enslaved, and 10,000 who think it's a brilliant idea — in your theory, do the strongest preferences win? Because this would quickly become gamified if a large number of people were oppressing a small group (because they don't include this group in their moral circle).
"They would not be making a mistake from their perspective, in the sense there would not be "an action, decision, or judgment that produces an unwanted or unintentional result" from their perspective." - this is exactly what I mean above: you reduced morality to perspective, so in a society you would just accumulate those and assume whatever this accumulation arrived at is good? Cause meta-ethical views do spill over into practical ethics, and this is then a problem: under some theories, we end up in "do whatever," and under others we end up in "there is something that makes us know that action X or Y is wrong/not desirable/should be outlawed". I can't accept a world where it all depends on the sum of individual preferences; we would make no moral progress if that were the case, and we're clearly expanding the moral circle.
I do not know whether I would defend they are "unethical". It depends on how this is defined. In any case, is the question above relevant in practice? If I cared about decreasing the number of slaves, or farmed animals, I would do whatever achieves this the most cost-effectively instead of focussing on defending that keeping slaves, and farmed animals is unethical. Discussing methaethics would not cost-effectively decrease the number of slaves, and farmed animals because very few people have preferences for keeping slaves, or eating animals for metaethical reasons.
I am not sure what you mean by "win". I think preferences which are stronger and more prevalent now will tend to be stronger and more prevalent in the future.
Not under my definition of "good". I consider something is good if I prefer it, and do not expect my preference to change upon further reflection. My preferences depend on the preferences of moral agents, as I want to satisfy the preferences of moral agents all else equal. However, my preferences may differ from the longterm preferences of moral agents. So longterm outcomes do not have to be good.
Vasco, let me try to say more clearly what I'm getting at:
Societies have repeatedly let large groups oppress smaller ones because it suited their preferences: white people enslaving Black people, most humans keeping animals in factory farms, religious majorities restricting women's lives. In each case, a small group of activists started by saying: this is wrong, it causes enormous harm, and your preferences don't justify it. And we now think they were right, not just that their preferences eventually spread.
As I understand your view, something is good if you prefer it and don't expect that preference to change on reflection. That makes "good" relative to each person. So imagine someone who says: "I like eating chickens from factory farms, and I fully expect to keep liking it." By your definition, factory farming is good for them and bad for you, and that's the end of the discussion. Why should they care about your preference, any more than you should care about theirs? But in real life, that's not what we do. We say: you're wrong, these chickens suffer enormously, and you should help us end this. I don't see how your view lets us say that and mean it.
I'm also unsure how this works at the level of a society. You say you want to satisfy the preferences of moral agents, all else equal. If 10,000 people stably prefer to keep 100 people enslaved, the preference satisfaction seems to be heavily on the enslavers' side. You said long-term outcomes don't have to be good, but on your view that only means they don't have to be good by your lights. What would make the majority wrong, rather than just different from you?
And a related question: chickens and shrimp aren't moral agents. Do their interests count in themselves on your view, or only because moral agents like you happen to care about them?
I think I'm still missing what kind of system you're trying to build, so I'd really like to understand how you'd answer these. But maybe this is to much to continue on the forum.
Right. I would just replace "something is good if you prefer it" with "something being morally good means (under your definition) you prefer it". Many people define "morally good" differently, and definitions are not right or wrong, although they can be more or less in agreement with common usage of the words involved. One should just be clear about definitions to avoid confusion, and not pick definitions which are super far from common usage (like defining "good" as something that is strongly dispreferred, which would easily lead to confusion).
Nitpick. I have little idea if eating chicken increaes or decreases welfare. So it is unclear to me whether it is good or bad.
Someone thinking eating chicken is morally good or bad (under my definitions of these terms) would not necessarily be the end of the discussion. They could be wrong about how their preferences would evolve given new information. They could be very confident chickens do not feel pain, and that they would also not care about decreasing the pain of chickens anyway, but change their minds after investigating the biology and behaviour of chickens, and wacthing footage of broiler farms.
They may care more about my preferences if their preferences have been approaching my preferences. Say they initially did not care at all about chickens, but now care about them as I predicted they would if they reflected on it. Suppose they still do not care about fishes. They may trust themselves less than in the past. They may know they were wrong about which preferences about chickens they would have on reflection, that I correctely predicted how their preferences about chickens would evolve, and that I care about fishes.
Some people could continue not caring at all about farmed animals after going through all the relevant evidence. However, I believe they would be a very small fraction of the population, and I do not think engaging with them would be a cost-effective way of increasing the welfare of farmed animals.
Right.
The majority could be morally wrong by their own lights due to not accurately predicting how their preferences would evolve if they reflected more them. Assuming their preferences were very stable, they would be morally right by their own lights, but they would still be morally wrong by my own lights, by which I just mean their preferences on reflection would differ from mine. I understand many people define "morally wrong" differently.
I would still want chickens and shrimps (and any other organisms) to satisfy their preferences if there were no moral agents.