Moral Calculation

Introduction
In preparing my most recent topic, Moral Agents, I am reading challenging background material. This is very helpful in bringing forward the central issues, as well as documenting what people have thought about it. I have already located the central philosophical controversy concerning my proposals. Lined up on one side of the spitting match are those essentialists who believe moral judgement (reason, rationality, etc) is built-in. On another side, near the essentialists, are the spiritualists, who believe what is built-in resides in an unseen world of spirits. In front of the firing squad are those who believe neither doctrine ...

Introduction

In preparing my most recent topic, Moral Agents, I am reading challenging background material. This is very helpful in bringing forward the central issues, as well as documenting what people have thought about it.

I have already located the central philosophical controversy concerning my proposals. Lined up on one side of the spitting match are those essentialists who believe moral judgement (reason, rationality, etc) is built-in. On another side, near the essentialists, are the spiritualists, who believe what is built-in resides in an unseen world of spirits.

In front of the firing squad are those who believe neither doctrine ...

Claims of Intelligence

I am among those classified as "other." This group, reviled by most of society as out of caste, is a motley collection of nominalists, conventionalists, empiricists, connectionists, materialists, subjectivists and many more hair splitters. What characterizes this group is their disunity, their insistence on peculiar definitions and criteria which serve to separate and isolate each would-be philosophical movement.

Perhaps I see these distinctions more clearly than others, because I am one of the disapproved contenders. While I know spiritualists, for example, are divided into hundreds or thousands of bickering groups, each of which solely apprehends the true nature of spirit, I tend to see them as united in worship of an imagined invisibility. Similarly, I believe essentialists are bonded together by their firm belief in Reason or other human faculties, even though they are not united under one flag. The differences among members of one's own society are larger and more ominous than what is observed in far away places. We know a lot more about life on Earth than Mars.

Taking the provincial view, I dismiss spiritualism primarily because of its other-worldliness. Every doctrine that is dualist in nature relies on claims about an unseen world, a parallel Universe of sorts. Because unbelievers and unprepared lay persons do not immediately apprehend that other world, it is claimed it takes special training and faith to discover it. Shamans, priests and ministers of various spiritual societies offer exercises by which the unfamilar can become initiated. Meditation, confession and penance are popular prescriptions for that purpose. Where permitted, rituals and drugs are used as well. Earlier in life I tried some of those mental, physical and chemical potions, but none of them ever brought the voices of the gods or demons into my consciousness. Mostly I got depressed, tired or high from the effort. I always found the next morning best described as "another day." So, even if others find spirituality credible, I feel it is useless. It doesn't help me solve the problem of interest.

On the other hand, essentialists - those claiming Homo sapiens have special "built-in" faculties - are not usually spiritualists or philosophical dualists. They usually agree that modern people are the latest descendants of a long evolution. We are represented in the material before us: ourselves. But I cannot agree with the claim that there is any faculty of Reason or Moral Judgement or anything else like that. John Locke's phrase, tabula rasa, implies more to me than just a lack of experiential knowledge at birth. It also implies a lack of the specific tools by which conscious knowledge is acquired.

From afar, it is certainly valid to criticize the distinction being made. After all, I concede that people do acquire the methods, facts and theories necessary for higher learning and judgement. I think everyone agrees that much is in plain sight. So, what is the difference between people learning everything from scratch after birth, or coming into this world with many preformed abilities?

With respect to intelligence alone, this distinction might not be as important. In fact, it seems to be those who know something of biology, our evolution and primate near relatives who are most insistent on the built-in behavior approach (essentialism). In their works, they point out undoubted similarities of primate behavior with respect to social relations, lifestyles and acts we call intelligent. I don't question any of that scientific work, although I suspend judgement in a few areas where the experts disagree or have insufficient evidence. What that body of work shows is that what we call intelligence in ourselves is, in fact, widely distributed among animals, particulary among primates. But the same work does not show that primates or any other animal have acquired our sort of language or conceptual abilities, or the technology that flows from those skills. Our primate relatives have not yet mastered clothes, the spear, the bow and arrow, traps, the wheel, growing crops, building houses and all that has happened among humans in the last 50 millennia. Now, I have no doubt that if evolutionary conditions are right and Homo sapiens doesn't exterminate them, chimpanzees and bonobos might grow in the same direction.

Maybe it doesn't matter exactly how one acquires intelligence, once one has it. There is some advantage to being "hard wired" as that speeds up early learning. On the other hand, the same hard-wired facilities may be a barrier to certain kinds of learning later on. We all know that "you cannot teach old dogs new tricks." So, being "soft wired" or programmable can have greater advantages in higher learning. In any event, the compromise I am willing to reach with those who believe there are built-in mental faculties is this: probably what we and other animals have is a combination of hard wiring and programmed learning. It is a matter of degree and versatility, not either-or. While I promote this as a compromise, it is not a political issue; rather, I believe my proposal is the fact of the matter.

Developing Judgement

But agreeing to resolve such a divisive issue about intelligence is not at all to relent when it comes to matters of judgement; i.e., values. Intelligence and judgement are two entirely different things. There is a fundamental requirement in matters of judgement, that the agent be capable of voluntary choice. Hard-wired agents are, at best, amoral, not responsible actors because they do not have a choice. But, who or what is hard wired? This is where great difficulty begins.

We usually think of machines designed to perform a special purpose as being hard wired. Our cars used to be like that, and so were most of our household appliances, until computers came along. Now everything around us is interactive to some degree, but we might insist that those things are still limited and not free to make choices. They are programmed to do whatever they do, even if the scope of their interactions with humans is far larger than the typical old-fashioned can opener. We can still classify most of these new fangled devices as hard wired, because they lack the ability to make voluntary choices. Generalizing, that method of classification assigns anything with a finite range of action to 'hard wired.' But, even our most advanced humans are hard wired by that definition, since each person will only make a finite number of decisions in the course of an entire life. So, 'hard wired' cannot be just those things limited to a finite set of states.

At this point, I must complicate matters further by noticing that many biological species make choices that appear to be voluntary. We usually think of bacteria, nematodes and plants as being effectively brainless. Everything they do seems to us determined by their genetic and chemical makeup. Moving further up the evolutionary tree, insects seem a lot more able than simpler species. While most of what insects do is just as built-in as bacterial functions, they seem to us to make some choices; e.g., the bee selecting this flower, not that one, of the same plant. Perhaps the bee has a random choice generator, or is attracted or repelled by very small details of the flower or plant. This same sort of choice is much more evident in birds and mammals. It is now well documented that urbanized birds have learned how to use human conditions to advantage; e..g., the crows and blue jays that use cars to crack tough nuts or provide road-kill. Predatory African cats adjust their hunting strategies according to exisitng conditions, so families hunt in unique ways they learn and teach their young. Chimpanzees and bonobos invent tools and strategies which are unique to each tribe, partly because they are careful who they teach new tricks. All that and much more makes it seem undeniable that voluntary choice is a widespread phenomenon. At least, if those species are making choices, then choice is a matter of degree correlated with neural development. The more cortex one has, the more choices are available, which is simply to restate the modern view that the brain is the locus of intelligence.

The foregoing would seem to support those who argue for built-in faculties, possibly including Reason and Moral Judgement. I cannot quarrel with the evidence, but point out my emphasis on the word "seem." That bees and bonobos make choices is our reckoning of their behavior. As far as I know, no one has been approached by a chimpanzee and told, 'here's what I'm going to do ..." If and when that happens, I will be convinced the chimp is not only intelligent, but probably makes voluntary choices. While I would like that to happen, so far all that we have is the suspicion that something mental is going on among the most advanced animals in our world, where "advanced" is how we classify it. The foregoing anecdotes about choice are intriguing, but not a proof of built-in faculties. They lack separation of the observed and the observer.

What might an ant think of our decisions? I cannot get into an ant's mind to answer this question, but I doubt the ant will classify our doings our way. Ants might be confused by our apparently disorganized methods of running cities and assigning jobs. On the other hand, ants might admire our machines and automated devices as examples of what well educated and disciplined beings should be. They might wonder why people don't behave as machines do, or they might attribute our behavior to some disease or maladaptation. Ants might think we are just hapless Dodoes, unable to control our motions and unaware that Nature will soon remove us from its map.

So, for Homo sapiens to observe faculties in other species is possibly to confound our behavior with theirs. When does voluntary choice begin or end? I don't think it is possible to say, since it depends on the applicable criteria. Of course, one can set arbitrary criteria and thereby make it a matter of definition. That might be a useful tactic sometimes, but that does not support any principled answer to the question. Definitions stand alone, delimiting a class, but do not of themselves prove anything.

Thus, I think it is very difficult - probably impossible - to establish scientifically that any species has "built-in" faculties. There are varying degrees of intelligence and ability to choose on display in Nature. Which of those we happen to observe is probably connected somehow to our own makeup, but we cannot be certain how that connection operates. The observation of the faculties of interest in other species thus does not establish their presence in ourselves. Further, the same arguments imply that the observation of certain faculties in individuals of our species does not imply that the observers also possess them. We cannot even be certain that those observed have the traits assigned to them. It takes a further set of self-observations to establish the validity of our observations of others, but that suffers the well known problem of conflict of interest.

Self-Declaration

Reviewing these arguments, the difficulty with the idea of built-in faculties is either that voluntary choice is not possible or it doesn't explain how voluntary choices are made. In the former case, a determinate faculty might be considered intelligent, possibly even expert, but would not have the leeway required to make independent decisions. We know what such a creature will decide in advance. In the latter case, the most any built-in faculty contributes is the processing mechanism by which decisions are made. The route to a decision is not predetermined by the mechanism. In this case, we need an additional theory to explain voluntary choice.

If intelligence or moral judgement is merely something we attribute to selected candidates, we will surely know what those terms mean in virtue of our selection. That procedure does not enlighten us about the "internals" of intelligence or voluntary choice; i.e., how those things work as seen by the candidates or other observers. Of course, if we have no other criterion, an arbitrary definition and selection can be a good place to start research. What is not enough is imposing some order on the subject and not looking further.

My solution to the conundrum of voluntary choice is self-declaration, which I describe as the Moral Turing Test. If the agent says it is capable of making a voluntary choice, I take that as prima facie evidence in favor of the assertion. Self-declaration avoids all the problems of finding and documenting hidden faculties of Reason or Moral Judgement. Those presumed to have them are self-identified. This is not to say that others may not also have the desired faculties; it's just that someone speaking up makes discovery all the easier. (Mine is the lazy man's way through a dark forest: hire a guide.) This is also not to say that self-identification may not be misleading or erroneous. Something might set a trap for us by declaring itself intelligent and morally competent, whereas it is only parrotting those phrases. All that self-declaration does is give us a good starting point for further evaluation.

We are fortunate in having several million people on the planet willing to declare themselves intelligent and morally competent. This allows us to double back in determining whether any particular creature is what it says it is. It is also very helpful in investigating other species, as the human examples give us some idea of what we are looking for. But, if and when we find an intelligent non-human primate or ET (ExtraTerretrial), it is only by analogy that we make the declaration. Until we have better methods or self-declaration, finding individuals competent is a risky business. This problem comes up in reverse within human societies in Courts that determine incompetence.

Using self-declaration as the touchstone of intelligence and moral judgement changes the problem, bypassing the centuries-long deadlocks in which traditional, contending philosophical schools find themselves. Self-declaration immediately points out the central importance of communication in morality and intelligence. One aspect of communication is the particular methods, another is the content and a third is the implied social relations. Methods include talking, signing or any other physical construction that transmits signals. Centuries ago communication methods would have been limited to language, writing, signing, etc., but now we also include the telegraph, telephone, radio, television and the internet. Rather than confine the methods of communication to the spoken word, we must generalize our notion to all the forms mentionned. The spoken word, originally "language," is a content of transmission, but not the only content. In modern times, we have to generalize content to include all sorts of graphics and art, almost anything which suggests a meaning (whatever "meaning" is). As McLuhan discovered, the mechanism of transmission also influences content: in the extreme case, "The Medium is the Message." McLuhan's insight is similar to Turing's theory that memory and program are the same thing. Nonetheless, most people continue to separate the mechanism of transmission from what is transmitted; i.e., the medium and the message (content). I think the reason for this sticking point is our affinity for "meaning," the value we attribute to what is transmitted. Finally, communication is always at least diadic, hence social, in nature. The loopback circuit is only of interest in test equipment that has a sender and a receiver.

Turing's Test

What I call the "Moral Turing Test" is a generalization of what Alan M Turing originally proposed¹to determine intelligence. In his "Imitation Test," an observer communicates with those being tested via a teletype. The testees are hidden behind screens, so that it is impossible to know anything about them except their linguistic performace via the typewriter. Turing described his test as primarily about language, which he believed is the sine qua non of intelligence. He was concerned to set up a double blind test on account of the extreme skepticism (that still exists) concerning intelligent machines. But I don't think all those precautions and limitations are necessary. We can conduct a more open, "free range" test, and still obtain valid results using self-declaration.

In the more than fifty years since Turing's paper, we in Western societies have become acutely aware of the ill effects of prejudices. There is no reason to suspect racial and ethnic minorities or women of being less than white men. In all the essential aspects of life, especially with respect to making moral judgements, there is no logical, rational or scientific basis for disabling all those who are not WASP men. The same non-discrimination cirteria also apply to non-European societies. Thus, I have no a priori reason to believe that women or ETs who declare themselves Moral Agents are any less capable of voluntary choice than other self-declared Moral Agents.

If, however, some assertion of disability is still made, we can always use Turing's double blind Imitation Test to examine candidates. Just as we do in Court, appropiate questions can be asked of the candidate and a known reference candidate to determine which is capable of voluntary choice. The Imitation Test is like a hearing on competence in examing the one brought before the Court, but more scientific in having a reference candidate against which to measure the results. (If the reference candidate is worthy, and the candidate weighs as much or more, the candidate must also be worthy.) Thus, the open self-declaration standard is always measured by the Turing Test.

Self-declaration opens important possibilities beyond the Turing Test. If intelligence and voluntary choice are artifacts of evolutionary processes, there is more to them than what can be studied in the computer laboratory. Our minds were not sprung fully formed as Athena from the brain of Zeus. Rather, millions of years ago our ancestors were barely different from today's non-human primates. In between, we developed the physical mechanisms of speech and the brain circuitry to use them effectively. We developed a better mechanism of memory and pattern recognition, together with peculiar powers of prognostication. (Forecasting seems to me related to dreaming and imagining, our easily ability to confuse what isn't with what is.) None of those things appear to have happened overnight. Even the last step in the development of modern Homo sapiens (sub species sapiens), about 250,000 years ago, could not have happened in less than several generations. What was it that made the Cro-Magnons, then us, more successful than our immediate predecessors and Neanderthals? While that is a matter of intense controversy and on-going research, one aspect of the research is the origins of self-declaration; i.e., intelligence and consciousness. Adopting self-declaration as starting point moves moral judgements into the realms of science, specifically cultural anthropolgy and sociology, outside the Cognitive Sciences department.

Studying morality as part of culture makes sense to me for several more reasons. Any preliminary survey of various societies will show that different peoples make vastly different judgements about related subjects. Muslims, for example, believe that polygamy is justified by sufficient wealth, although the Qu'ran recommends a limit of 4 wives. Traditional Confucian culture discouraged polygamy, but tolerated it among the wealthy, Mandarins and noble families. Possession of many wives was tolerated in Chinese culture because the rich and powerful maintained harems, while ordinary people could do nothing about it. The same social values were evident in most of India's history. Buddhism had little to say about such marriage customs. The same marriage customs are documented in the Torah. Monogamy was the peculiar invention of Christians, probably not because of any doctrine of women's equality, but because militant and Puritanical Christians disdained sex except for reproduction. Monogamy and polygamy are cultural practices, usually associated with religious beliefs. If those instutitions are involved with moral judgements as most people believe, studying them should reveal how morality came about and what principles are involved.

One of the results of cultural studies might be determining what is or isn't "moral." Suppose, for example, that sexual habits and rituals for the most part have no moral content. Suppose they are just cultural artifacts. We might be able to discover that fact if we have an independent ethical standard of measurement. But what standard would we use? Comparative studies might be very helpful in teasing out the principles. This is to argue that Kepler's discovery of elliptical planetary orbits depended on his having measured planetarey motions, and also being familiar with his predecessor's astronomical observations. No doubt Copernicus' ideas were helpful in extracting the law of equal areas, because Copernicus focussed attention on circular geometries rather than Ptolemaic "wanderings" of the planets. But, even starting with the concept of a non-Copernican system, a skilled geometer might still arrive at Kepler's laws by tabulating the observations the way Kepler did. The story of scientific studies is replete with examples of something new and different discovered in the study of the old and accredited.

Ethics as Generalization

What these notes suggest is that the knowledge which I call ethics arises out of findings about morality. Just as Kepler discovered laws later explained in Newton's system of the world, making observations and piecing together regularities of morality should lead to systematic principles of ethics. That is, in the end, we hope to explain whatever is moral about behavior in terms of more general knowledge. If there is any hope for a science of ethics, not just educated opinions, this is how we will develop it.

1."Computing Machinery and Intelligence," MIND LIX(236):433-460, (1950), reprinted in The Turing Test, Stuart Shieber, ed., London: MIT Press, 2004, pp. 67 ff.