I think there’s a meta intuition here that non-utilitarian intuitions are evolutionarily biased but utilitarian intuitions are not (or less so).
While I share this intuition, I’m not sure it’s logically coherent or justified. Like if a preference for helping neighbors can be debunked by EDA, what principled reason does someone have for favoring impartial altruism over partiality? It seems like one can just as easily argue that impartial altruism is an evolutionary spandrel that comes from kin altruism or reciprocity norms misfiring.
Sorry for the late response. I don’t actually think that non-utilitarian intuitions/principles are necessarily more evolutionarily biased than utilitarian principles. I think certain deontological precepts (like Kant’s categorical imperative) could also be less vulnerable to evolutionary debunking arguments than ‘common-sense’ moral intuitions, for example. I don’t think it’s as easy to argue that something like this, or the principle of Universal Benevolence, is the product of natural selection. It could be, but it seems we have less reason to think it is. And if ethics is about how we ought (in a reason-implying sense) to live, then focusing on what we have most reason to do is sufficient.
Once we’ve reasoned about “who counts?”, we can then move on to “what counts?”
I think hedonism is the most defensible answer to “what counts?”, and when you combine that with plausible answers to “who counts?”, you arrive at hedonistic utilitarianism.
Linch—This is a fascinating issue, whether evolutionary debunking could affect utilitarian arguments as well as deontological arguments.
Once possible way this could work is that we could develop an evo-debunking account of why utilitarians value sentient experience over everything else. From our evolved brains’ point of view, of course sentience seems like the whole point of the cosmos. But I could imagine an alternative ethics that values other kinds of phenomena, such as the complexity and functionality of all organic adaptations. I guess my earlier essay about ‘body values’ alludes to this—our bodies may have moral interests that our sentience is not conscious of.
Also, an evo-debunking of sentience-centric utilitarianism might value forms of computation, information processing, and intelligence that might not be ‘conscious’ in the human sense, but that might still be considered valuable from some perspectives.
Traditionalists and conservatives could also use an evo-debunking of individualistic sentience-centric utilitarianism to argue that certain cultural or aesthetic traditions, legacies, or achievements also have some kind of intrinsic moral value.
I think there’s a meta intuition here that non-utilitarian intuitions are evolutionarily biased but utilitarian intuitions are not (or less so).
While I share this intuition, I’m not sure it’s logically coherent or justified. Like if a preference for helping neighbors can be debunked by EDA, what principled reason does someone have for favoring impartial altruism over partiality? It seems like one can just as easily argue that impartial altruism is an evolutionary spandrel that comes from kin altruism or reciprocity norms misfiring.
Sorry for the late response. I don’t actually think that non-utilitarian intuitions/principles are necessarily more evolutionarily biased than utilitarian principles. I think certain deontological precepts (like Kant’s categorical imperative) could also be less vulnerable to evolutionary debunking arguments than ‘common-sense’ moral intuitions, for example. I don’t think it’s as easy to argue that something like this, or the principle of Universal Benevolence, is the product of natural selection. It could be, but it seems we have less reason to think it is. And if ethics is about how we ought (in a reason-implying sense) to live, then focusing on what we have most reason to do is sufficient.
Once we’ve reasoned about “who counts?”, we can then move on to “what counts?”
I think hedonism is the most defensible answer to “what counts?”, and when you combine that with plausible answers to “who counts?”, you arrive at hedonistic utilitarianism.
Linch—This is a fascinating issue, whether evolutionary debunking could affect utilitarian arguments as well as deontological arguments.
Once possible way this could work is that we could develop an evo-debunking account of why utilitarians value sentient experience over everything else. From our evolved brains’ point of view, of course sentience seems like the whole point of the cosmos. But I could imagine an alternative ethics that values other kinds of phenomena, such as the complexity and functionality of all organic adaptations. I guess my earlier essay about ‘body values’ alludes to this—our bodies may have moral interests that our sentience is not conscious of.
Also, an evo-debunking of sentience-centric utilitarianism might value forms of computation, information processing, and intelligence that might not be ‘conscious’ in the human sense, but that might still be considered valuable from some perspectives.
Traditionalists and conservatives could also use an evo-debunking of individualistic sentience-centric utilitarianism to argue that certain cultural or aesthetic traditions, legacies, or achievements also have some kind of intrinsic moral value.