Atheists love to snuggle in the warm protective folds of the scientific institution for almost every argument. Science is the only good way, they repeat ad nauseam. The only good way for everything; values and ethics included. Really?
Atheists emphatically declare that since we are decent humans, we can have a moral code independent of religious morality. Agreed, given that the religious moral percepts are all together too simplistic, ill-defined, and in many instances terrifying and destructive. We just cannot not depend on religion for any mature moral guidance, but such freedom poses another problem. If there is no source of a moral code, morality becomes subjective, and the result is moral relativism. What is moral for me might not be moral for you, or what may be immoral for me may not bother you at all!
From a purely utilitarian perspective, can a society function efficiently in this way?
If religious apologists argue for God egregiously to fill the gap of a moral point of reference, the atheists open up the hornet’s nest of moral relativism by rejecting the same God. All right, God may not be required for a system of values, but how does one go about making one? We do need a sound moral framework, don’t you all agree? A standard for values must exist otherwise civilization will descend into depravity and chaos. “If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then what’s the point of trying to modify your behaviour to keep it within acceptable ranges?”, asks Jeffery Dahmer, atheist and serial killer, and quite rightly so.
How do we arrive at a moral standard then? Can science help?
In the ‘The Moral Landscape -How science can determine human values’, Sam Harris starts with eloquent promises but fails to deliver on anything more than a nebulous idea of how it might be possible. “The point, of course, is that science increasingly allows us to identify aspects of our minds that cause us to deviate from norms of factual and moral reasoning—norms which, when made explicit, are generally acknowledged to be valid by all parties”.
Yes? Does it?
Harris espouses Utilitarianism, but to his discredit, it is barely a new idea. Also, unfortunately, it is a swirling, amorphous mass of confusion.The two century old theory of Utilitarianism says that the goal of a moral framework should be to maximise the Preference satisfaction / Happiness / Desire satisfaction (depending on different moral theorists) of the maximum number of people. Harris endorses the theory by suggesting that maximizing human well-being should be the basis of a moral framework.
What is this well– being he talks about? Can he provide a comprehensive definition for it? Note that his meaning of well-being is related to only our conscious experience of pain and pleasure. This means that what feels pleasurable is good and what feel painful is bad. But is that true for all cases? Haven’t we been in situations which felt great in that moment but turned malignant with time? Or what was painful in the beginning became a blessing in disguise later? Remember? One feels ecstatic from drugs, but is taking drugs good? Ok, maybe drugs is too mundane an example, but the idea of deceptive, dangeous comfort can be extrapolated to unexpected aspects of life. People who lived childhoods of acute poverty were driven by that discomfort to reach unimaginable levels of wealth and success. A man without legs turns his disability into motivation strong enough to become an Olympic runner. Maybe without the disability he would have remained ordinary, he admits to that.
So how do you decide what will bring about well–being or not?
“Questions about values – about meaning, morality, and life’s larger purpose – are really questions about the well-being of conscious creatures. Values, therefore, translate into facts that can be scientifically understood: regarding positive and negative social emotions, retributive impulses, the effects of specific laws and social institutions on human relationships, the neurophysiology of happiness and suffering, etc.”, says Sam Harris in the moral landscape.
How will you translate values into facts? Is it so simple?
The concept of utilitarianism: maximising the well-being of the maximum number of people, feels logical quite logical, but it is just a feeling. When social scientists try to build a sound theory from this amorphous idea, it stumbles at every point. If maximizing the welfare of the largest number of people is the core concern, scientists arrive at an inescapable ‘repugnant conclusion’, as identified by Derek Parfit, late Professor of Philosophy at Oxford. In his book ‘Reasons and Persons’, he talks of the unexpected repugnant conclusion which emerges totally against our intuitions.
Say there is a population of 1 billion with a welfare level of 100. If the population was increased to 10 billion, the welfare level could come down to 10 because the welfare of a state is limited. Limited resources will have to be divided equally among the new population, assuming a fair society. Now if the population increased to 20 billion, the welfare level will come down to 1. Since the premise is that a moral framework should achieve maximum welfare for the maximum people, the mathematics is logical. However how is the situation where 20 billion people live in very low welfare of 1 better than 2 billion living with a welfare level of 100? This is the ‘repugnant conclusion’, the strange result from apparently logical assumptions.
Also, if total and average welfare is to be calculated for a mathematical framework of morals, it leads to some very absurd results. Total welfare count is rejected because it will never take into consideration the gap between the best off and worst off in any society. Who can forget the constant outrage caused by the fact that the richest 1% people in the world today own 50% of global wealth? Do you want to live in such a world? Would you not prefer one where the same total wealth is distributed to increase the average wealth? Hence, averages calculation of welfare makes better sense. However, even this averages count proves to be effectively useless. Suppose out of a population of 2 million, only one person has a negative welfare value of -20. In another scenario all 2 million people are leading just a slightly better life at a welfare value of -15. (see Sikora 1975; Anglin 1977, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). In terms of the average welfare calculation, the second set seems to be a ‘happier’ population, but just imagine what that implies. 2 million people with a bad quality of life is better than 1 with a very bad quality of life among other 1.99 billion with a decent quality of life! This still leads to the ‘repugnant conclusion’ again, does it not? What is mathematically correct turns out to be repulsive to our intuitions.
Additionally, in such scenarios there is no limit to the mathematical level to which welfare can fall, because one can keep getting poorer and poorer. Welfare can become negative mathematically, no? On the other hand, increasing welfare has a ceiling, as resources are not infinite. You cannot keep getting richer and richer. Ultimately then, a population where you keep sharing the resources will end up with negative average welfare! This is called the ‘absurd conclusion’. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (“Absurd Conclusion” (Parfit 1984)). Absurd indeed!
In a real-life scenario, suppose a young woman from a deeply conservative, patriarchal society where woman are married off early, wanted to take up higher education and marry a man out of her caste and race. She would risk immense grief for her parents, who would become outcasts in their society. The quest for her individual pleasure would cause pain to a great many number of people around her. Society would revile her family, and in an extreme hyperbole, murder them or her for such a transgression. Going by the concept of utilitarianism, this woman’s act is immoral because it has caused pain to many more people than it has provided pleasure. However, isn’t it absurd to think that wishing for higher education and a free hand in choosing a partner could be immoral? That is absurd, isn’t it?
Also, depending on how different ‘values’ are calculated can have different implications on the average welfare of a population too. For example, one of these methods of calculating average welfare arrives at the ‘sadistic conclusion’ (Arrhenius 2000a, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Without focussing on how the calculation is done, it is enough for us to understand what it implies. In a queer scenario, adding more lives with negative welfare to a pre-existing group can strangely increase the average welfare level of the new group. That is indeed torturous. The mathematics may be correct, but the suggestion is abhorrent!
There is a new idea in contemporary philosophy and economics called the ‘capabilities approach’, which aims to identify and measure all the components of welfare and well-being. But how will one determine its constituents, its parameters? Let’s say the welfare of 2 billion has to be shared among 10 billion people. For that we will have to abolish some high cost luxuries enjoyed by the rich and redistribute other resources. Will the removal and redistribution of all items that comprise ‘welfare’ have an equal impact? What about the aesthetic value of welfare and well-being? Suppose fine dining at a Michelin star restaurant is abolished from the system so that more people can be given potatoes and peas. Will this truly increase the welfare of the maximum number of people? Who is to decide? The scientists? Maybe eating at a high-end restaurant once is better for happiness than eating peas and potatoes every day for somebody! How will you know? How will you decide? What constitutes well-being for me might be acute discomfort for you. I might thrive in open spaces outdoors, in a simple rustic life, while you might love the buzz of a busy city and a swanky apartment life. You might need access to high quality artwork for your creative impulses while I could find them an utter waste.
How will we mathematically calculate the components of welfare if we cannot decide objectively what well-being comprises? How can values translate to facts then as Sam Harris claims with confidence? No atheists, the framework of logic is not doing a very satisfactory job of formulating a theory of ethics and values.
In fact, most moral theorists agree that a robust theory of ethics look like a very difficult proposition; it has gloomy prospects. This turns my hunch about the incompetence of science to tackle issues of morals into a deeper conviction. Irrespective of what Sam Harris says, and he does not say much of significance, anyway.
What is welfare then, what is happiness? What about the existential aspects of well being? How will we measure existential angst? How will we measure meaning and purpose? How will we measure fulfilment? Also, can this logical calculus fine tune for happiness both in the short and long term? We all realize, don’t we, that what seems pleasurable in the short term could be harmful in the long term and vice versa. Remember the example of the tradition defying woman from earlier? What if her troubling actions in the present turn into a feminist revolution emancipating many women in the future? Won’t her current actions become moral in that case?
What should we consider then; present welfare or a future welfare condition? If we were to consider a future welfare condition, what is that horizon for it? What will be the goal?
So then, a moral code that is neither dogmatic nor plagued by such value relativism seems to be our only answer. Can there be other sources from which such a structure for morals can be derived?
Maybe.