Reaction: John Cartwright's Naturalising Ethics: The Implications of Darwinism for the Study of Moral Philosophy

A list of reactions to other evolution~morality papers and chapters and stuff can be found at the linkpost Reactions to papers on evolution~morality.

This reaction looks at the following piece:

Cartwright, John. “Naturalising Ethics: The Implications of Darwinism for the Study of Moral Philosophy.” Science & Education Vol. 19 (2009): 407–443. via academia.edu [DOI 10.1007/s11191-009-9205-7] [https://www.academia.edu/94896217/Naturalising_Ethics_The_Implications_of_Darwinism_for_the_Study_of_Moral_Philosophy]

From the abstract:

Standard introductory texts (e.g., Bowie 2004; Vardy and Grosch 1999) on the subject of ethics rarely mention Darwin or Darwinism (Mepham 2005 is a useful exception) possibly mindful of the fact that the relationship of evolutionary biology to moral questions has had a troublesome history. […] The effect of this has been that whole generations of moral philosophers have given the biological sciences a wide berth and consequently often remain poorly informed about recent advances in evolutionary thought and the neurosciences."

This paper, which is over a decade old, still holds up because it takes generations to deal with generational issues, despite technology speeding up around us at our whim. And even longer as populations dwindle and there is less doing going on, or goings on getting done. Got that? Less is even less.

At the time of Cartwright writing in 2009, DNA from Neandertal & Denisovans were only just becoming available and understood, while we had no idea about ghost archaic humans only known by comparing ancient DNA with modern populations and interpolating their existence. These discoveries makes a mockery of those racial theories (especially their biblical-like timeframes of 'ancient' peoples barely going back a tenth of the time Denisovans were around, and the theories’ expression in fascist-like politics of the mid-20th century, which leads to this "fact that the relationship of evolutionary biology to moral questions has had a troublesome history".

This paper argues that the time is ripe (2009) for ethicists to step back into the breach between evolution and ethics.

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This arena of debate and investigation or noyaux (Robert Yardley's use of Petters' term ) and its effervescence/s (Mary Douglas) had been put on ice. It's noticeable how determined pro-geneticist frameworks are in this freeze, also unable to move forward, stuck in repeatedly putting forward just-so stories full of copium, a form of ritualistic self-abuse in a way.

Thus the paper as well as a call to action provides some syllabus suggestions and frameworks, and so also acts as a good introduction to the subject of evolution~morality.

There is Darwin :

There are weaknesses in this formulation, of which by modern standards the most telling is the idea that the habitual exercise of moral faculties can somehow become fixed in the hereditary material. At this point Darwin had reverted to Lamarckian notions of inheritance that he never quite shook off.

But then Darwin froze himself for decades so as not to upset family.

If the worlding urge is admitted as I have argued, beginning 2019, then morality among Homo is one outcome in a complex of behavioural outcomes in which the genetic component is 'to world', i.e. get organised, and do this doing we call making-do with others. That what we call moral cognition or moral faculties are derivatives and we should not expect to find anything more than at most interim just-so stories to explain their direct causation. Morality, if the result of empathy in worlding within the negotiations of the [noyau/effervescence], where this worlding urge to should combines the worlding we each do as individuals together (parent child, teacher pupil) within the world we live our bodies / our selves, and negotiate our way/s--- (our ways each, severally and jointly, collectively -- as Mary Douglas's grid-group matrix suggests; it's more than a typology). This [arena/noyau/effervescence] is sort-a Lamarckian because the genetic bottleneck is removed from these processes, replaced with an empathy-based parenting/child or teacher/pupil bottleneck, such that the urge to world and its derivatives have no direct path from gene to ethics (this truth is the reason parasites like narcissists and psychopaths are never truly dealt with, and never truly a problem, to the world an our survival, but merely posing near-existential threats from time to time. And time will tell I guess (time of writing late 2023.)

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After Darwin we get the poet Tennyson, the genetics of William Hamilton and Richard Dawkins' Selfish Gene, then game theory, and, at last, some moral philosophy and the fact/value dichotomy (is/ought) which I feel I have successfully dealt with in why we should (2019). Yes, "ethics must be linked with human nature" but not by way of just so stories or just-so game theories.

We then go to empathy and mirror neurons, Pete Singer, then the trolley problem.

Tennyson's long poem In Memoriam was the subject of a first year essay of mine . In the year I attended ANU in 1984 I had chosen all-science units so I would not have to write essays, but Zoology 101 course threw in some essay work (and how we all resent this so much! not just me) using this exact quote in Cartwright's paper, we had to respond to (react??). And now I try to do this a couple of times a week!).

     (Man) Who trusted God was love indeed
                         And love Creation’s final law
          Tho’ Nature red in tooth and claw
                         With ravine shriek’d against his creed.

As is pointed out in the paper, Tennyson throws faith into the gap between the toothed claw redness, and love which makes the world go round.

Then there is some flapping about relativism, this way, that— …but it ends with the call:

Teachers of ethics need to take Darwin seriously, and teachers of biology should not be afraid to practise ‘‘deep biology’’, that is, to explore the ethical ramifications of a decidedly biological human nature.

And there is a useful chart.

Fig. 7 A spectrum of responses to Darwin expressed as a series of boundaries. Left of the Darwinian boundary are those who reject Darwin outright; to the right stand those who accept some version of Darwinism. Left of the naturalism-materialism boundary stand those who reject the application of materialism to all phenomena; to the right stand those who accept materialist explanation for all phenomena. Left of the Darwinian psychology boundary stand those who think Darwinism has little to say about human nature; to the right are those who (in one of at least two disciplines) accept Darwinian explanations for the human mind and behaviour (adapted with permission from Cartwright 2008, Fig 17.1, p. 347 and developed from an idea in Richards 2000, p. 54)

Crossposted on whyweshould.loofs-samorzewski.com