Attack on Human Exceptionalism in TIME
We shouldn't be surprised that Time magazine would allow the evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker to write about what science knows--or thinks it knows--about the phenomenon of consciousness. But the magazine also lets him move way beyond the scientific realm and a recitation of empirical information, into rank philosophizing. That being so, it should have mentioned that Pinker is, along with Dawkins, a debunker of belief in anything beyond the merely material, that is, he is a denier of the potential Truths found in noetic exploration, experience, philosophy, meditation, prayer, and faith. To Pinker, all we are is meat on the hoof, and our value can be determined by the sum and substance of what can be measured in our brains.
But we are much more than that. As Pinker demonstrates by the very act of philosophizing, we are moral beings. In this realm, science can only play, at most, a supporting role. Indeed, science has no capacity to tell us what is moral and immoral, what is right from what is wrong: Not that you would know that from Pinker's essay. He ends his discourse with an explicitly philosophical appeal, steeped in pure scientism: "My own view is that...the biology of consciousness offers a sounder basis for morality than the unprovable dogma of an immortal soul. It's not just that an understanding of the physiology of consciousness will reduce human suffering through new treatments for pain and depression. That understanding can also force us to recognize the interests of other beings--the core of morality."
Why exactly, this is the core of morality, Pinker doesn't say. In fact, in a purely Darwinian sense, this is senseless. If all there is, to use my vernacular, is news, weather, and sports, if all we are is a physical phenomenon that somehow became aware of itself, why should we give two cents for the suffering of other beings?
Pinker thinks it is because we share brain parts:
"As every student in Philosophy 101 learns, nothing can force me to believe that anyone except me is conscious. This power to deny that other people have feelings is not just an academic exercise but an all-too-common vice, as we see in the long history of human cruelty. Yet once we realize that our own consciousness is a product of our brains and that other people have brains like ours, a denial of other people's sentience becomes ludicrous. 'Hath not a Jew eyes?' asked Shylock. Today the question is more pointed: Hath not a Jew--or an Arab, or an African, or a baby, or a dog--a cerebral cortex and a thalamus? The undeniable fact that we are all made of the same neural flesh makes it impossible to deny our common capacity to suffer."
So a dog is the moral equal of a Jew and an Arab because it has a frontal lobe, a thalamus, and a brain stem? It also has a heart and kidneys. Why not include them in the mix? Talk about an exercise in reductionism! But hey, if we want to get reductionist, let's do it right: All flora and fauna are made up of carbon molecules. So, I guess that means we are essentially no different from a fungus or a tapeworm.
"And when you think about it, the doctrine of a life-to-come is not such an uplifting idea after all because it necessarily devalues life on earth. Just remember the most famous people in recent memory who acted in expectation of a reward in the hereafter: the conspirators who hijacked the airliners on 9/11."
How sophomoric. Really.
"Think, too, about why we sometimes remind ourselves that 'life is short.' It is an impetus to extend a gesture of affection to a loved one, to bury the hatchet in a pointless dispute, to use time productively rather than squander it. I would argue that nothing gives life more purpose than the realization that every moment of consciousness is a precious and fragile gift."
This is to whistle past the graveyard, it seems to me. That aside, Pinker is promoting personhood theory, which finds value in consciousness rather than humanness, which is to say, it denigrates human exceptionalism and moves us away from intrinsic human value and universal human rights. Indeed, he seems to believe--and I would have to read more by him to know for sure--that any creature with consciousness deserves equal consideration--just like Peter Singer. Of course, being exceptional beings, only humans will be the ones giving the equal consideration. All other wildlife on the planet will be engaged in the tooth and claw of Darwinian struggle, taking all they can get for themselves and/or family units from whatever source is available.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 3:05 PM
11 Comments
11 Comments:
Why should Pinker not be allowed to philosophize? I dare say he does a better job at it than most of Time's columnists.
You don't really seem to understand the materialist point of view. Obviously Pinker thinks we are both "meat on the hoof" and moral beings. There's no dichotomy between the two as you seem to think. It is a scientific fact that humans are evolved, natural creatures who happen to have a moral sense, which they obey imperfectly.
Nowhere in there does Pinker say that a dog is the moral equal of a human. He says that we have compassion for a dog by virtue of our shared neural infrastructure. Surely you can see the difference?
It should be obvious that brains are more salient for morality than hearts and kidneys -- your attempt to equate them is a lot more sophomoric than anything Pinker has to say. As evidence, we routinely replace hearts and kidneys without anybody thinking it's replacing a key part of themselves -- a brain transplant would be something quite different if it were possible. The self is in the brain, not the heart or kidneys.
Why do you think his mention of the 9/11 hijackers is sophomoric anyway? Seems like a cogent point to me.
mtraven: I didn't say he shouldn't be allowed to philosophize. I wrote that if Time--a news magazine--was going to permit him to do that in a long story allegedly about what we know scientifically about consciousness (I thought there was an awful lot of conjecture in the article, but that isn't my area), it should have disclosed where he is coming from. Were Time to give me that kind of space, believe me, the readers would be put on notice "where I am coming from."
He wrote, quoting Shakespeare's Shylock, apparently in support of human equality. (I don't know of anyone who denies that other humans have feelings, but we'll let that go.) He then threw in the dog, whilst arguing that we need to see people as the same. And he used words often used by the animal rights movement, which do proclaim a moral equality. Like I said in my post, I need to read him more. But he is seems to be skating in that general direction.
I raised the heart and kidney point because he basically said that sharing "neural flesh" was morally relevant.
The point about the 9/11 hijackers is not only utterly sophomoric, it has been made by materialists to the point of being a cliche. Religionists could point to the atheists Stalin and Mao. Now there was evil and human murder on a mass and organized scale unmatched in history. To say that their depraved behavior was due to their atheism would also be sophomoric.
Re the 9/11 hijackers -- if Pinker's point was simply "religion is bad", that would be sophomoric, but he was making a specific point about the link between afterlife rewards and devaluing earthly existence.
Sharing neural flesh is morally relevant; sharing kidney flesh is not, for reasons I stated in the previous comment.
I'm guessing that Pinker would say that a dog deserves SOME moral consideration for having SIMILAR neural structures to a human being. A fish is less similar and would have that much less, an invertebrate hardly any.
mtraven: I think you give him too much credit, but people can decide that for themselves by reading his article.
Human exceptionalism says that it is a human obligation to give a dog moral consideration and proper care, not because it shares types of neural tissues with us, but because it would betray our own humanity to do otherwise, given that dogs are sentient creatures.
Methinks a deep ecologists has joined us. Thanks for coming by.
Wow, if that's deep ecology it's too deep for me.
Anyway: Wesley said:
Human exceptionalism says that it is a human obligation to give a dog moral consideration and proper care, not because it shares types of neural tissues with us, but because it would betray our own humanity to do otherwise, given that dogs are sentient creatures.
Those sound like more-or-less the same thing to me. "Sharing neural tissues" is important because that's what produces sentience. If there's a difference, I'm surprised to find you on the side of sentience rather than anatomy, since that is closer to personhood theory.
mtraven: I create distinctions between humans, which should not have to justify or "earn" their moral status, and other life on the planet. Judging who is human is easy and it is, at least for now, objective. But if we are to treat animals properly, we must measure their capacities and needs, to create proper standards of care.
A dog used to be called one of the higher mammals, don't know if it still is. The proper care and treatment of the dog by us must depend on its attributes--not whether it has a thalamus or a brain stem. A hare, which also shares neural tissues with us, let us assume, has lower attributes and capacities than a dog. Our standard of care might well be different for the hare and for the dog.
But such measurement are inappropriate in humans precisely because one is human and the others are not. Personhood theory makes *all life* subject to the same measuring standards, and thereby eliminated human intrinsic worth. It proceeds to create invidious distnictions among humans, with some having the highest moral worth and others having lower or no moral worth. In other words, it has us treat humans in the same way we now treat animals. (See, Tom Beauchamp's essays among many)
That is why I object to personhood, because it relativizes human moral worth, legitimizes invidious distinctions among humans, and hence, denies the potential of universal human rights.
That was the basis of my letter on Ashley's case in the NYT.
If a dog is "higher" than a hare, it's because it has a more complex nervous system. There seems to be some confusion: all vertebrates have similar but not identical neural structures. That's what evolution gets you. Differences in function are a result of differences in structure.
So the question is why should we have any moral sympathies for any person or creature at all? We feel compassion for those creatures who are like us, insofar as we can imagine ourselves in their position. Other people are most like us, social mammals like chimps and dogs are very different but close enough that we can identify with them, other animals less so.
I think you and I might agree on the above; where we differ is in the degree of moral compassion deserved by those entities that are genetically human but lack cognitive function and are incapable of suffering or having a point of view.
Hm... too bad his 9/11 point is wrong... most folks don't *know* the names of the hijackers.
Simple test: pick one of the names and find 10 random people. Ask them who that person is. THen ask who Mother Teresa is; see who is more known.
mtraven: On an emotional level, you may be right. But in determining our duties toward animals, we can't just rely on such subjective feelings.
We agree about our differences. I believe at some level, just being human has to matter morally regardless of capacities. You don't. You believe that a minimal level of cognition brings moral value. With regard to humans, I don't.
mtraven:
I actually do have something relevant to the conversation to say, but I had to throw this in (high hopes that I can make someone smile out there!):
In my house, we don't have "pets." We don't have "companion animals." We have four-legged children. I saw my sister-in-law give birth, and after she screamed my eardrum out, I told my mother she better not be pinning any hopes on me giving her any grandkids. So I release my maternal affections on a pair of bratty calico cats, who have chewed through my earphones, disintigrated two vases, and scattered my makeup all over the place. One of my sisters visited my home, noted the general destruction, and promptly bought me a fridge magnet - the silouette of a cat saying, "They feed me, love me, and clean up after me, so therefore I must be a God."
Heh.
Now, the relevant part:
"... where we differ is in the degree of moral compassion deserved by those entities that are genetically human but lack cognitive function and are incapable of suffering or having a point of view."
Remeber what you were saying earlier about how we can assume that someone or something else has is conscious because we share neural tissue with these critters/people, and since we're conscious they must be, too?
See, the problem with that argument is that some consciousness scholars don't believe that *anything* is conscious, and we only *think* that we are because we have an objective POV. You can go the whole, "I think, therefore I am," route, only these guys say, "No, you don't think, your body only responds to electricity stimulating parts of your brain certain ways. You're just fooling yourself."
It's an extreme perspective, and I grant you're no extremist, but by suggesting that some living beings don't have a POV or the ability to suffer, you have to assume a lot - it kind of reminds me of how those scholars say we don't have a POV, we just *think* we do... which has always weirded me out, but still.
Susan Blackmore explains it better than I could, but anyway...
The trouble is, how do you know that someone in a coma doesn't have a POV or isn't capable of suffering? There are cases of people who are "locked in," where they are fully aware of their surroundings but aren't able to respond, and when they come out of lock-in, they can accurately describe things going on around them, and describe their thoughts and feelings. They were aware, they had a POV, but they were unable to move, to blink, to respond. Whether they could feel or not is irrelevant - they were clearly suffering while unable to communicate or break out of their bodies.
Using the "V" word (as our beloeved host so charmingly put it (((eyeroll)))) to describe someone with profound cognative disability might be totally misleading. In tests, a girl who was thought to be in a PVS responded mentally to commands that she envision herself walking down a hallway or playing tennis. The brain scans showed that.
This is why I err on the side of "everybody with human DNA thinks/feels and has a POV." You can't rightly say that you know that they don't. What about the profoundly mentally handicapped? They're able to respond to stimuli, enjoy themselves, play games, etc., but will never reach a "normal" IQ. Does this mean they don't possess a POV or the ability to suffer? Some would say not. I disagree.
Until we can come up with a "mind-alizer" (borrowing from Dr. Christian de Quincey here), that can detect the amount of cognative ability in any creature, we should obey the inner nagging feeling we have when it comes to mistreating others and err on the side of compassion and respect. If nothing else, we'll burn a lot of Karma that way.
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