Richard Joyce introduces the two
tasks of his book as: (i) to address the question ‘is morality innate?’
(chapters 1-4) and, assuming that it is, (ii) to evaluate the philosophical
implications for moral realism and skepticism (chapters 5/6). Joyce attempts to
synthesize interdisciplinary research results into a sketch of a philosophical
viewpoint. He asks specifically ‘whether morality (under some specification)
can be given an adaptive explanation in genetic terms’ (p. 2). For the purpose
of his book morality will be understood as the capacity of humans to make moral
judgments.

Chapter one, ‘The Natural Selection
of Helping’, deals with the question of whether or not moral behavior
(frequently perceived as giving up selfish advantage in favor of other-serving
action) could have been selected for. Before tackling this question Joyce
provides a clarification of the, often confused, terms ‘helping’, ‘fitness sacrificing’
and ‘altruism’ (p.13ff). The main task of the chapter ‘is to outline the
evolutionary processes that may lead to the development of helping behaviour’
(p.19) and Joyce discusses in some detail how kin selection could have
contributed mechanisms that prompt helpful behavior towards kin. Some of these
mechanisms are the principles of mutualism: organisms engage in
non-reciprocal cooperative behavior to achieve ends which they could not
achieve alone, direct reciprocity: providing a benefit to another
individual in expectation of future ‘payback’, indirect reciprocity: gaining,
and profiting from, a reputation as ‘reliable partner’ in reciprocal exchanges
and group selection: groups that contain some helpful individuals have a
selective advantage over groups that are exclusively composed of selfish
individuals. Joyce provides numerous examples from game theory (prisoners’
dilemma scenarios occupy 5 pages) to recent neuroscientific findings to support
his conclusion that helpful organisms enjoy an evolutionary advantage over
selfish ones.

Chapter two, ‘The Nature of
Morality’, explores the possibility that the ‘neural mechanisms for regulating
the mother-offspring bond…in the mammalian brain’ (p.46) lay at the root of human
morality. Joyce argues that helping one’s offspring, which is a biological
necessity for human survival, can be seen as the first step towards developing
a tendency to help others (kin and eventually unrelated humans) and a
willingness to punish those who refuse to help or take selfish advantage of
others. Creatures that make moral judgments need a capacity to understand
prohibitions (p.50). While Joyce rejects Ayer’s pure non-cognitivism he merely
skirts the ongoing philosophical debate regarding the ontological and epistemic
status of moral facts. He defines moral judgments as speech acts that ‘express
… beliefs and conative non-belief states’ (p.56) and have a high degree of ‘practical
clout‘ (p.57). Moral judgments are inescapable — they apply to a
person irrespective of her ends — and they have authority (it would be
irrational to ignore them, p.62). Joyce further provides a detailed discussion
of the subject matter of moral judgments, moral desert, and wraps up the
chapter reiterating seven characteristic points of moral judgments (p.70).

In chapter three, ‘Moral Language
and Moral Emotions’, Joyce argues that moral concepts require (human) language
and that therefore only humans are moral animals. He cites research by
primatologist Frans de Waal showing that non-human apes can distinguish between
acceptable and unacceptable behavior but lack the capacity to formulate and
communicate abstract normative rules (p.77). Joyce distinguishes between three
senses of ought: (i) the ought of expectation (it should rain tomorrow), (ii)
the hypothetical ought (if you want to achieve X you ought to do Y) and (iii)
the moral ought (you ought not to steal). He argues that some animals may have
the cognitive capacity required for (i) and (ii) but denies that a creature
without human language can truly acquire (iii). This is not because moral
concepts are too abstract or too complex but because only language users can
evaluate whether or not the normative standards they employ are justified
(p.82). Joyce provides some clarifications concerning realism and
instrumentalism about moral beliefs without taking sides in the debate and then
presents Robin Dunbar’s hypothesis of language evolution as support for his
claim that ‘an important evolutionary function of language is to convey certain
types of social evaluative content’ (p.92). He further claims that language is
necessary for some morally motivating emotions (predominantly guilt which is ‘central
to the moral conscience’, p.105). It seems that this view would commit Joyce to
disagree with Temple Grandin (2005, p.258f) who holds that language-less people,
like Ildefonso, have morality even though they clearly lack the required
concepts (‘just’ and ‘unjust’ in Grandin’s example). Thus, Joyce’s commitment
might be too stringent.

Chapter four, ‘The Moral Sense’,
attempts to answer the questions (i) why might a moral sense be adaptive and
(ii) how did a moral sense evolve (p.108). In answer to the why question Joyce
claims that moral judgments can be fitness enhancing when they affect the
motivation to act (or to refrain from acting) in certain ways. Moral judgments
can regulate an individual’s behavior, especially in cases where prudence may
falter, and allow others to evaluate this individual as a potential partner in
co-operative actions. Joyce does not think his view commits him to the claim
that humans evolved to be unconditional cooperators; rather, that ‘there are
adaptive benefits to be had by moralizing the whole plastic social structure’
(p. 118). Moral judgments, as effective personal commitments, will provide an
effective motivational bulwark. Additionally, moral emotions signal
interpersonal commitments. Regarding the ‘how’ question Joyce admits that the
ideal answer, which would be given in neurological and genetic terms, still
eludes us (p. 124). As an alternative he offers a philosophical metaphor: moral
projectivism. Empirical evidence suggests that there is a strong link between
moral deliberation and emotional capacity (Joyce cites the famous Phineas Gage
case) and Joyce claims that evolution could have generated a mechanism by which
certain qualities that appear to be in the world, like the moral wrongness of
killing an infant, ‘owe this appearance to the nature of the perceiver’s mental
life’ (p.126). Joyce is careful to distinguish this projectivism from
non-cognitivism and claims that the former is supported by moral phenomenology:
the view that moral properties seem to be in the world, etiology: the claim
that moral appearances are caused largely by moral activity, and by the, assumed,
fact that we have no evidence to suggest that a moral sense functions to detect
genuine moral facts; if moral judgment were a matter of detecting moral facts
then intractable moral disagreement would be inexplicable. Joyce provides
evidence from archeology, biology, child psychology and anthropology to bolster
his evolutionary ‘just-so story’. Even though I agree with him that ‘the fact
that we do not know the complete answer…should stimulate our inquiry rather
than nourish suspicion that [morality is] not the direct product of natural
selection’ (p. 133) I am not entirely convinced that he provided enough
evidence to ‘declare the first task of the book [to show that the human
capacity to make moral judgments is the result of biological natural selection]
complete’ (p.142). 

Chapter five, ‘The Evolutionary
Vindication of Morality’ would have been titled more appropriately ‘The Failed
Attempts of an Evolutionary Vindication of Morality’ because Joyce claims to
demonstrate how evolutionary moral naturalism — the attempt by prescriptive
evolutionary ethicists to vindicate morality by appealing to evolution,– fails.
Before doing this Joyce clarifies the difference between some philosophical ‘classics’:
Moore’s naturalistic fallacy and open question argument, and Hume’s claim
that it is impossible to derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’. While this
clarification seems justified it appears rather strange to use another classic
(the logical rule of inference that everything follows from a contradiction) to
‘prove’ that, pace Hume, one can derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’:

P1: Paris is the capital of France and it is not the case that Paris is the capital of France.

Therefore: You ought not steal
bananas (p. 153).

Joyce admits that this perfectly valid proof is somewhat odd
but flippantly asks: ‘Who cares?’ (Ibid.). I care, because if we accept the
above argument we also have to accept:

P1: Paris is the capital of France and it is not the case that Paris is the capital of France.

Therefore: It is impossible to
derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’.

Thus, the logical trick got us nowhere, and the
philosophically inexperienced reader is left wondering whether or not he can
legitimately derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’. Next, Joyce evaluates the theories
of Robert Richards (1986), Richmond Campbell (1996), Daniel Dennett (1995), and
William Casebeer (2003) and judges that they all fail to provide an
evolutionary vindication of morality. Some readers may agree with this final
verdict but Joyce’s arguments are not always convincing. For example he
presents Campbell’s view extremely uncharitable to the degree of distortion. The
tennis player example (p.162) is incorrect because, according to Campbell[1],
Kate’s belief that she is the greatest tennis player could only be justified if
Kate also believed that the criterion by which we judge tennis players is ‘who
wears the prettiest dress to the match’. However, even though she might in fact
wear the prettiest dress, this is not the standard by which we judge tennis
players and, according to Campbell, her belief, while providing pleasure to her,
would be an unjustified belief. Further, since Joyce does not indicate that
Kate had a special standard for judging what a good tennis player is her belief
would be simply unjustified, in Campbell’s view. This makes sense because, from
an evolutionary perspective, there could be no justification for beliefs that ‘ignore
reality’ in the way Kate’s belief does: our hypothetical distant ancestor Roy
might derive some pleasure from the belief ‘I can outrun any lion’ but Roy
would probably not survive long with such a belief and Roylike creatures would
not leave any offspring who could pass on their disposition for reality
ignoring self-indulgence. Thus, a disposition to ignore (external) reality in
favor of (internal) pleasure may never evolve because it could not be selected
for. This may in turn confirm that a purely hedonistic moral theory of the form
‘any belief is justified as long as an agent derives pleasure from it’ is not a
justifiable moral standard. Here is not the place to evaluate whether or not Campbell’s theory can vindicate morality, but if it does fail it is not for the reasons
Joyce adduces.

Chapter six, ‘The Evolutionary
Debunking of Morality’, provides positive arguments for Joyce’s view that moral
beliefs lack epistemic justification. He conceives of a thought experiment
concerning belief pills (p.180f) and claims natural selection would have a
similar effect on our moral belief system as these imaginary pills. The
essential claim is that it might have ‘been useful for our ancestors to form
beliefs concerning rightness and wrongness independently of the existence of
rightness and wrongness’ (p.183). Joyce is careful to avoid the non-cognitivist
conclusion but asserts that for the usefulness of moral beliefs it is
irrelevant whether or not moral facts exist[2]. He
claims that moral naturalism cannot overcome what he calls Harman’s (1977,
1986) challenge: the claim that there could be a complete explanation of moral
judgments that ‘neither presupposes moral facts nor acts as a reductive base of
moral facts’ (p.186). It seems that Joyce’s argument rests mainly on his
assertion that naturalistic moral facts could not ‘provide the inescapable
authority we apparently expect and require of moral values’ (p. 191,
original emphasis). Again, some of Joyce’s analogies seem questionable. He
attempts to demonstrate the difference between the ‘practical clout’ of
etiquette and morality by imagining himself ‘to eat like a pig in front of the
TV’ (p.202), in the privacy of his home; and compares this with the imagined
case of Jack wanting to murder John ‘at the edge of an abandoned well shaft in
the middle of a dark and lonely moor’ (p.203). Joyce claims we would agree that
he could violate the rules of etiquette if he desired to do so: his desire
would outweigh any obligation arising from etiquette, while in Jack’s case we
would have contrary intuitions: moral obligations should override Jack’s desire.
Therefore, morality has a qualitatively different ‘practical clout’. I think
the reason we have different intuitions is simply that in Jack’s case another
human being, John, is directly affected by the imagined act. I doubt that an
immoral act that affects no one, if such an act is even possible, is any more
reprehensible than a violation of etiquette that affects no one. However, an
unfortunately chosen example does not disprove the point it was supposed to
support. Whether or not Joyce’s main point concerning the status of moral facts
is correct remains a matter of heated philosophical debate.

Overall Joyce has written a thought
provoking book. He provides a good selection of relevant literature for the
reader interested in questions of morality and evolution. The work would
possibly have profited from fewer but more carefully analyzed examples. And a
more neutral language in reference to natural selection would have been
desirable. ‘[F]ar more…than natural selection ever dreamed of’ (p.22), ‘natural
selection loves to kill two birds with one stone’ (p.95), ‘why would natural
selection bother with that mechanism?’ (p.114), ‘the function that natural
selection had in mind’ (p.131), ‘natural selection has taken a direct interest
in…’ (p.180), are only a few examples of language use that attributes purpose
to a process that has been acknowledged as purpose-free by virtually all
biologist. At best this language is careless; at worst it creates unjustified
expectations regarding the ‘products’ of natural selection. This is an
important issue because if it turns out that human morality is the result of
natural selection then we will need to answer the question whether we could
expect a mechanism that produces ‘inescapable practical authority’
(p.199, emphasis added) or merely a mechanism that provides more
practical authority than other (evolutionary possible) mechanisms. Much work
remains to be done before we can answer this question and either agree or
disagree with Joyce (p.209) that no form of moral naturalism can account for the
practical clout of moral judgments, the core desideratum of any moral theory.

 

References:

Campbell, R. (1996). Can Biology Make Ethics Objective? Biology
and Philosophy 11. 21-31.

Campbell, R. (2003). Feminist Epistemology Naturalized in
Nelson, L. and Nelson, J., (Eds.), Feminist Interpretations of W. V. Quine.
Pennsylvania State University Press.

Campbell, R. and Woodrow, J. (2003). Why Moore’s Open
Question Is Open: The Evolution of Moral Supervenience. Journal of Value
Inquiry 37, 353-372.

Grandin,
T. (2005). Animals in Translation. Scribner.

Joyce, R. (2001). The Myth of Morality. Cambridge University Press.

 

© 2006 Christina Behme

 

Christina Behme, MSc (1986, Biology, University Rostock,
Germany), MA (2005, Philosophy, Dalhousie University) is currently a PhD
student in the philosophy department at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Her research interests are philosophy of mind and psychology,
cognitive science, and philosophy of language.