Principles vs Preferences: Action, Morality, and Explanation

In a lengthy, but content-packed interview "Epic Veganism Debate With a Literal Soy Boy" (01/05/2018), biologist JF addresses vegan Isaac's (Ask Yourself) position on eating chickens as a moral nihilist—one who holds that there is nothing intrinsically moral or immoral. The debate moves away from specific animal-related questions (e.g. "name the trait" that separates humans from animals) to ontological and epistemological questions—issues of what exists, what is knowable, and how individuals fit into the world.

As I seek to live my life as a moral realist—one who regards that there are real rights and wrongs, derivable from (empirical) experience with the world and rational inquiry—it was interesting hearing the perspective of a moral nihilist, who believes in no such real right and wrong. From my naïve understanding, it seems that society-wide moral nihilism would spell societal disaster... [1]

How are the actions of the moral nihilist constrained? How can we have peaceful society where actions like murder aren't regarded as inherently wrong?

In this blog post, I'll try to summarize some of the main arguments brought up in the linked conversation between JF & Ask Yourself and relate them to some other topics discussed on this Minds channel—philosophy of science, tools & tasks, explanation of social phenomena, and of course ethics/morality. 

Alright, grab your chicken sandwich (or vegan substitute); let's dive in.

(Moral) Preferences

Being a moral nihilist does not entail roaming the streets killing people, torturing animals, or similar actions society calls evil. A moral nihilist, however, would not maintain that doing such actions are intrinsically evil. 

To be a moral nihilist, moral preferences are just like any other preferences—for example preferring one flavor of ice cream over another—though the potential consequences of having moral preferences at odds with society could be very dangerous. As such, most people come to have moral preferences (felt in the form of thinking some things are "right" while others are "wrong") that promote survival and reproduction. Darwinian time has baked moral preferences into us.

One person may have a moral preference for veganism for a variety of reasons. A moral nihilist, however, requires no justification for moral (or any other) preferences. Conversely, no justification is required for eating meat.

Biologically Motivated Morality

In the interview, JF presents an interesting explanation (somewhat trolling?) for his own views regarding meat consumption. Chickens, like dogs, have evolved alongside humans for thousands of years. Some birds chose to go closer to humans rather than flying away long ago. Then, for thousands of years, they have "traded" with humans: meat at the end of their lives for guaranteed survival of their descendants.

The spread of veganism amounts to a "chicken Holocaust" wherein  the numbers of future chicken gene lines are systematically reduced by human actions. Rather than bringing more chickens into existence to trade present suffering for future survival, veganism is human intervention choosing to limit chicken populations, maybe just letting small populations survive in sanctuaries ('reservations') and the like.

Chicken life, like human life, has suffering hard-wired into it. Are we justified in wiping out many humans à la Thanos to reduce suffering? JF says no to wiping out lines of descendants, even if that means essentially guaranteeing more suffering in the future.

Civic Ethics

Should you be concerned if your child is a moral nihilist? Must individuals be constrained by principles they have internalized in order to thrive among other humans in society?

The law does not require morality to function—we can evaluate evidence, assess whether or not an individual that committed some bad action (e.g. killing someone) is likely to repeat that action or simply made a mistake...

The moral nihilist sees no contradiction between having laws that create a peaceful society and their philosophical society. The argument here is largely consequentialist—if we have a preference for societies without murder, rape, and all those bad things, then it makes sense to have institutions that can prevent these things from happening. No moral condemnation is needed to punish criminals or enforce laws—actions have consequences which humans are able to design/engineer for more preferable societies.

We can encode principles (such as the Non-aggression principle) into frameworks of civic ethics. This is the "software of society". Non-preferable behavior can be encouraged while preferable behavior is incentivized. Advocating for such a system is consistent with the nihilistic position that there is no inherent right or wrong, though people may have preferences.

On the other hand, most people don't prefer overly-domineering institutions—this is one reason why being an anarchist or minarchist is also compatible with nihilism.

Nihilists can have preferences for more authoritarian or less authoritarian systems of governance. Crucially, their preferences are not rooted in an appeal to an intrinsic moral good of one over the other.

Personal Ethics

In past blog posts, I've advocated for the silver rule as a universal ethical principle. Thinking about the moral nihilist position a bit, I can see how one can consistently advocate for something like the silver rule or the non-aggression principle as civic ethics while not internalizing it as personal ethical preferences (regardless of whether those preferences are derived from principle, or simply arise as intuitions).

Perhaps the best way to spread our moral preferences (which we may also believe to be moral truths, for moral realists) is to convince others that adapting those preferences is in their best interest.

JF seems to deny that (most) people can consistently (or, as he puts it 'autistically') follow principles in their lives. However, preferences come quickly and automatically. I think that this is a good point which I myself fail to understand at times—too much abstracting and rationalizing makes me subconsciously assume that others are doing (or will be receptive to) the same thing.

Descriptive vs Prescriptive Approaches

We can look at history and see what does/doesn't happen and then try to find models to make predictions and get what we want. This is the descriptive approach. 

On the other hand, we can prescribe how we think things ought to be and make recommendations accordingly.

We can use a combination of these approaches, using descriptive techniques to learn about the world and then prescribing best practices.

What certainly doesn't win is bringing overly-complicated descriptive approaches into the prescriptive realm, trying to get people to do complicated moral calculus to figure whether or not they should cross the street.

Notes and References

[1] A consequentialist concern.