The book is composed of nine chapters organized into two parts (Part I: Love of Truth and “Moral Sentiments” and Part II: Truth-Seeking and the Hermeneutic Circle) and conclusions. The rare and short notes follow each of the chapters. Appended is also a list of References and an Index.

Ellis’ project intends to confront an increasing relativization of ethics. We may avoid relativistic ethics because – and this is his main thesis – the search for truth is a natural human tendency. If the truth is properly pursued, relativity is blocked. Ellis draws on Jaak Panksepp’s model of the brain (in an Appendix at the end of Ch. 2 Ellis presents all eight unconditioned emotion systems in more detail). According to it the seeking system is one of separate, physiological and innate emotion systems and it “includes […] a desire to explore simply in order to discover the truth about our world.” (4) Like other seven systems, it is independent or relatively independent which is why the search for the truth is independent of the dictate of other emotional preferences. Because motivation produced by the seeking system is immune to external rewards it is well positioned to ground an independent core of a person’s moral being. Accordingly, it is much more reliable than the equally natural – according to Ellis – empathic emotions which can not be universalized in moral principles. In his book Ellis spends a fair amount of time to argue – and he uses examples of both diachronic as well as synchronic parallels – to show how personal relationships, interests, religion, social preferences, are flawed as foundations of moral principles. In consequence, to answer “why be moral?” by saying that “one ought to be moral”, as moral psychologists typically answer, is a bad reply. Ellis recognizes the importance of empathy and other naturally altruistic emotions because without them “we would all be extreme sociopaths” (102), but as such they are insufficient criteria for our being moral. They guide us to do what may not be – and usually is not – the best option, by what he understands an impartial and universalizable way of doing. 

Importantly, the seeking system does not predetermine what truth is. Love of truth does not establish in advance what truth is, especially whether it is pleasant or unpleasant, beneficial or harmful, relevant or irrelevant to our well-being. Given such a tool, a human being is well destined “to find out what is morally right” (20) or at the very least is supposed – with rare examples of extreme sociopaths – to experience a kind of moral awareness which improves her sensibility to her moral acts and, that being so, improves her moral standards. By using the term “truth” Ellis does not subscribe to any particular conception of truth. As I understand him, the search for truth is tantamount to a search for more impartiality and object- rather than subject-based judgment about moral criteria of doing. Moral truth in absolute sense is probably unattainable and we should “accept a healthy degree of epistemological skepticism” (192). Yet this is different to being a moral sceptic. If one is critical, open-minded and honest enough, they may progress morally and be able to judge about their own best position in a given moment. Coherentism resists strong skepticism because it does not make claim to any absolutely definitive truth or truths on the one hand, and on the other offers the best moral solution available as long as it is the most coherent one at hand. And this is how the test of coherence is conducted: “[w]hen the world resists, we know that the situation is not completely a result of arbitrary subjective edicts.” (38) In Ellis’ view moral progress takes place because the world of today has arrived at “more veridical ethical viewpoints rather than simply other equally wrong-headed or arbitrary ones” (33), examples of which are rejection of Nazism, racism, sexism, and homophobia.

Ellis’ project of constructing a coherence epistemology is intended to sap foundationalist epistemologies because it makes no appeal to arbitrarily assumed moral propositions nor common moral intuitions which are not indicative of truth. Coherence epistemology is not founded on ethical judgments which are grounded in statements whose truth can be clearly demonstrated in some way. However, it does not depart from nowhere either. It is built on the data about the independence of a seeking system, itself a claim not ethical in character and obtained from neurophysiology, and then it aims at collecting as much experience as possible in view of truth while still using the test of coherence. Among others, we are supposed to learn from various lessons from the past – and also from the history of academic philosophy and its mistakes – which is a good teacher on a way to develop a more and more coherent ethical view.

Ellis’ proposition is a “big tent coherence” epistemological approach amounting to a careful introspection into reason and emotions, which, importantly, should not be considered as starkly separated. This is about conflicts between “different driving motivations with their own special emotional brain systems and energy mechanisms” (26). His final conclusion as to what strategy to adopt is the following: “the overall coherence strategy is that by using internal logical consistency parsimony, and coherence with reasonably established facts as criteria for the coherence of moral perspectives – both empirical and carefully clarified phenomenological facts – we can compare competing viewpoints and choose the one that, all things considered, is the most coherent.” (201) Thus the main issue in a life worth living is to know how the tension between the explanatory drive, i.e. love of truth, and other systems will be solved. To this end it is crucial to have one’s own attention under control so as to use it properly, that is, impartially and for the sake of truth.

This is a rich book and I apologize for not having considered all issues treated in it (e.g. discussion of Kant’s ethics, importance of phenomenology and emotions for coherence epistemology, among others). In what follows I want, as is customary in a review, to make some critical observations.

First, I see a problem when it comes to the more technical and philosophical task of defining how we should understand “value”. Ellis’ “objective” definition of value runs thus: “"X has value" means “Any rational being with the capacity for empathy would value X if attention were directed to X.”” (89). But is this really a definition or maybe rather an explanation of what Ellis means by “X has value”? Or, still, its application, which is, as I understand it, that X has a value if a value is ascribed to X? This is the problem since, as long as no definition of value is given, it is difficult to assess a number of Ellis’ claims. For example, Ellis recurrently speaks about valuing creatures but it is not entirely clear what he means by it. These include birds and dolphins (see 92), but also the Nazi (see 129). These are creatures that are “in the process of creating value by valuing things” (92). In the section Coherence and the Value of Valuing Creatures Ellis says that “we acknowledge the value of valuing creatures to the extent that we focus our attention on the valu-ing component of their existence” (97) but it could be argued that not all creatures possess valuing component to the same extent and, as a result, they are not valuing to the same degree. Elsewhere he says: “[t]o have value means to be worthy of taking some action toward the value.” (105). Again, what is valuable is not obvious to me. It looks as if valuing would create the value of the one who values. But what’s the value that the valuing creature creates by valuing it? This is all the more peculiar that nothing is said about the structure of the valuing process: why do I value this rather than that? (For a similar problem see D. Sobel, From Valuing to Value (OUP 2016), a remarkable defense of subjectivism, for he says, inter alia, “things have value because we value them” (1).) Ellis insists on detaching the value of an object from the existence of the subject. An object still has a value even if nobody values. This is an important claim which makes the existence of value independent of the subject and it forms a substantial step for advocating realism while rejecting relativism. Yet Ellis insists on directing attention as pivotal in creating values. If X has value, it will be valued as soon as any attention is given to it. But what about attention which might be focused to a lower or a higher degree? It is odd to say that the value of anything depends on the attention directed to it. Maybe there is something more to Ellis’ book apart from drawing my attention to it that makes me value it more than another one. Finally, I think, unless I misunderstand it, that in Ellis’ view all persons, animals, plants, and things have an equal value, and if they do not this is because of my selective, i.e. defective, attention. It strikes me that he gives an example of “an ice cream cone [that] can have value if it is valued by a valuing creature, because the well-being of the valuing creature itself has intrinsic value” (103). I must say it is unclear to me what value confers an ice cream cone to the well-being of the valuing creature. Absence of the hierarchy of values is conspicuous here even if in the same chapter Ellis refers to Max Scheler.

A second criticism concerns Ellis’ overall picture of human beings, which is too optimistic, in my view. We are told that love of truth is present in all of us. Ellis credits all humans – with the exception of a narrow margin of no more than 5% of sociopaths, that is, pure egoistic hedonists, explainable, according to Ellis, by “physiological brain condition caused by orbitofrontal brain injury” (30) – with such “considerable intellectual capacity” that they “seek out the most coherent achievable account of what kinds of things have value” (40). For him in 95% of people there are various degrees of criticism, open-mindedness and honesty. Ellis goes as far as to grant them an “inability to disrespect the truth” (165), although towards the end of the book Ellis is less categorical and says that “[t]he explanatory drive can steer us in the needed direction […] can inspire us to look for the truth […]” (184), weakening thus his claim about the undeniable role of the seeking system. But, in effect, if it only can inspire instead of “motivat[ing] the search for the truth” (7), it is no more clear to what extent it constitutes a reliable and effective ground. According to Ellis “people actually use (or at least try to use) coherence epistemology in forming their ethical beliefs”, and they “want to select epistemological criteria that have the best chance of leading as far as possible away from false and self-deceptive viewpoints, and in the direction of more veridical ones” (133). If indeed the drive to truth is so universal, why worry? If, as Ellis says, “coherence epistemology is actually the way we normally think” (193), what about the numerous examples of cases of inner conflict and self-contradiction in people? Is it enough to say that they should direct attention to what to think in order to obtain more coherence? If so, does it follow that whatever directs their attention to what they think may be wrong? Or that their explanatory drive may work poorly? What about people who abandon the truth and liberty for the sake of security, those who are literally afraid of truth, say of learning facts about themselves, or those who simply need bread and circuses and have no interest in truth? Claparède intriguingly said in his Autobiography that he possesses a relatively easy to acquire but rarely possessed virtue of scientific impartiality. Socrates’ experience, if we believe Plato’s reports, were complex in this regard: some individuals, even when helped, rejected searching for truth. In Aristotle’s typology only one of three types of lives is devoted to searching the truth. And St Exupéry famously remarked that “[g]rown-ups never understand anything on their own”.

In his final chapter Ellis writes that “if we don’t ground ethics in psychology, we end up asserting that people ought to do things that they are incapable of being psychologically motivated to do.” (193). I think that this is where the crux may lie. For from the fact that the human brain has such a thing like the seeking system and therefore people are physiologically motivated to do certain things, search the truth for instance, it does not necessarily follow that they are psychologically motivated to do so. If it is so that while having a similar brain construction, people are so different in their desires, aspirations and motivations, and that not all of them follow what their seeking system would tell them, it would suggest a gap rather than a link between physiology and psychology.

However, despite the above criticism, Ellis’ book  is remarkable. Not only does he make an effort to preserve the autonomy of ethics and focuses on the reality of values against egoism, relativism, and nihilism; he also underscores the autonomy of a human being which is seen in a light of the seeking system motivating an action rather than considered as a passively reactive machine. Relying on anatomy does not ineluctably mean to end up with a determinist or physicalist stance. Ellis’ book is a stimulating work with a lot of food for thought for anyone working in moral psychology as well as those interested in the position of ethics and the argument of its being realistic rather than relativistic.

 

Robert Zaborowski, thymos2001@yahoo.fr, University of Warmia and Mazury