I’ve recently come to hold the view that artifacts have morally relevant interests (i.e. artifacts are morally considerable). I came to hold this view because I hold that etiological functions underwrites interests, artifacts have functions in the sense mentioned, and that there is no morally relevant difference between the functions of those artifacts and other things that have morally relevant interests in virtue of having interests derived from functions. I don’t intend to spell out this view or my arguments in detail here. But, I do want to block one objection to my view that I think results from a misuse of reflective equilibrium.
Of course, you probably think my view, re: artifacts, is absurd, everyone in the environmental ethics literature (and probably elsewhere) seems to agree with you. But, as I said above, I think this comes from a misuse of intuitions in reflective equilibrium, the practice of weighting arguments against reflective intuitions to decide whether we ought except a particular view. I’m not against reflective equilibrium. Unfortunately, intuitions have to play a role in our theorizing about anything, including ethics. But what role those intuitions play and what kinds of intuitions should be given weight, are a matter of debate. With respect to my view on artifacts, I think that philosophers have appealed to the intuition that artifacts aren’t morally considerable and given this intuition so much weight that they are willing to reject as absurd any view that entails that artifacts are morally considerable.
With respect to my view, I hold three propositions to be true that entail that artifacts are morally considerable:
Functional Interests (FI): An entity’s having a function (of a certain kind) or having a part or sub-system with a function is sufficient for it to have an interest.
Moral Considerability (MC): Some entities (e.g. plants) are morally considerable in virtue of having interests derived from having functions (or functional parts).
No Morally Relevant Differences (NMRD): There is no morally relevant difference between artifacts and other entities that have interests in the same sense (e.g. plants).
The structure of the argument against my view is as follows:
1. Functional Interests + Moral Considerability + No Morally Relevant Differences entail that artifacts are morally considerable
2. Artifacts are not morally considerable
3. So, one of Functional Interests, Moral Considerability, and No Morally Relevant Differences is false.
In the debate over whether all living things have interests (a view called biocentrism), this argument is typically leveled against biocentrists of a certain type (e.g. Gary Varner). The idea is that the biocentrist is committed to MC + FI + NMRD. The biocentrist typically replies by denying NMRD. This is all to say that it is taken, by most parties, as a reductio of the conjunction of FI, MC, and NMRD that it entails that artifacts are morally considerable.
The above argument is a typical reductio generated by reflective equilibrium. Presumably there are some arguments for FI, MC, and NMRD, but there is a widespread, strongly held intuition that artifacts aren’t morally considerable. It is a consequence of FI, MC, and NMRD that artifacts have this property that we intuitively think they don’t have and so we are moved to reject one (or more of the that set of propositions).
I think this strategy is problematic for several reasons. The first is that it is an abuse of reflective equilibrium to give intuitions enough weight to underwrite premise 2 of the argument. Reflective equilibrium is a model for taking intuitions into account, not for using them as a sledgehammer against any theoretical considerations whatsoever. Sometimes well justified theoretical considerations should result in us rejecting an intuition as misguided and that may be the case here. At best the intuition about artifacts tells us that we should look a bit more carefully at the arguments for FI, MC, and NMRD. But, what if we do and those arguments hold up to scrutiny? It seems to me that if they do, the intuition, and not the conjunction, is then on the chopping block, and I have reason to think that the conjuncts are well justified, so…
Another problem I have with the justification for premise 2 is that I don’t think the intuitions I have are strong enough to justify this premise. Consider the following claims:
A. Nobody has ever actually done anything morally wrong to a knife.
B. Nobody in any conceivable circumstance can do anything morally wrong to a knife.
C. Knives aren’t morally considerable.
It is possible to have intuitions about all three of these claims. In fact, I have intuitions about all three of these claims. My intuition is that all of these claims are true. But, my intuitions come in different degrees of strength. I hold A pretty strongly. I consider all the things people do with knives and I think that none of those things morally wrongs the knife. I’m a bit less sure of B mainly because I recognize that I’m not very imaginative. Maybe you hold B just as strongly as A. It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that neither A nor B entails C. Why not?
To claim that a thing is morally considerable is to claim that its interests are to be considered in moral deliberations, but it is not a claim about heavily those interests get weighted. It could be that knives are morally considerable but their interests are outweighed in every possible circumstance where something is done to knives or that there are only very, very rare circumstances where something morally wrong is done to a knife. Now, I’m not sure that I hold that view, but it is possible. And so, having the intuition that A or B is true doesn’t justify C.
What about my intuition that C is true? If I hold that C is true, and don’t hold some weird view about knives, as opposed to other artifacts, wouldn’t justify the claim that artifacts (or at least a large class of them) aren’t morally considerable? I don’t think so and that is because I don’t think we should feel as strongly about our intuition that C as we do about A or B. Why not? My intuitions about A and B derived directly from ethical experience, my experience of the ethical components of the world. I go through life, I see things that I take to be morally right and morally wrong. I reflect on these and the theoretical reasons in favor of those judgments and over time I come to a set of reflective judgments about acts being morally right and wrong or of some thing having moral value or not. This process, it seems to me, is the best I’ve got when it comes to generating intuitions. I get a lot of input for reflection on these intuitions and so the resulting intuitions are pretty stable.
Moral considerability, on the other hand, is not a part of my ethical experience. It is a theoretical construct employed to help capture some of the intuitions derived from our ethical experiences. As such, there isn’t a constant stream of experiences of considerability that, when reflected on, would generate stable intuitions in the way described above. As such, I don’t put much stock in my intuitions about theoretical constructs. Since my intuition that C is true is an intuition about such a construct, I think I should be very cautious in how strongly I believe, cautious enough that I don’t think I should take that intuition as a justification for the second premise of the reductio argument.
These responses are the result of my particular view about the role intuitions should play in reflective equilibrium and what intuitions should really be weighted heavily. As an undergrad, I gave almost no role to intuitions. Eventually, I was turned around, but I still try not to rely to heavily on intuitions. Instead, I view intuitions as markers that tell us where we need to tread carefully and scrutinize arguments a bit more. And, I’m very conservative about how strongly I’m willing to weight intuitions that I think are bound to be unreflective. That being said, I’m not a methodologists and so I could be wrong about how I’m using reflective equilibrium (if so, please convince me). In any case, it seems to me that the reductio is too quick and results in an immediate debate about reflective equilibrium. This debate is important, interesting, and once we acknowledge this, the reductio objection isn’t looking quite so strong as it seemed at first.
6 Comments
-If’moral considerability’ is a theoretical construct that we have little if any experience with, and this suggests (as you say) that we should rethink (2), why doesn’t it also suggest we should rethink (MC), which is also about ‘moral considerability’?
-Perhaps conventionalists like AS are the first to talk to if you want to scrutinize your methodological claims further. I suspect many conventionalists think the intuitions you want to lighten here are, like intuitions generally, quite weighty.
-What do you consider the best arguments for (FI)? I think one popular argument for it turns on the claim that (FI) is part of the best explanation for the intuition that all living things are morally considerable. (Interesting that we’re back to intuitions even though we’re now on your side of the fence. Perhaps it is misleading to characterize the confrontation you isolate as one between the intuition you challenge and the argument you favor. Perhaps better to characterize it is as confrontation between that intuition and the intuitions underwriting the opposing argument. If so, I wonder how much traction you’ll get from a methodological reply to the objection you consider). But I’m skeptical of this defense of (FI). Imagine a lineage of life begins and all subsequent phylogenetic modifications within that lineage owe to evolutionary mechanisms other than natural selection (e.g., owe to drift, mutation, gene flow, etc.). The lineage contains a rich diversity of organisms, but none of these has functions underwritten by selection. Are we then to deny that living things in this lineage are morally considerable? I think not, and so we need another explanation for the biocentrist intuition. I think the chances are that this alternative explanation will not let in artifacts.
Hey Matt,
Nice comments. A few quick thoughts.
With respect to rethinking MC because it is based on intuitions, I don’t think that it is. I think there are some claims about moral considerability which are justified by intuitions, but they are about organisms that we take to be paradigm entities that are morally considerable. Moral considerability is a construct we start out employing to talk about humans. We appeal to the kinds of interests in humans we think matter in moral deliberations. Some of them, I think, cannot be underwritten by psychological interests (that will certainly be controversial). In any case, the intuitions we have about people give us traction to make an argument for MC, a no morally relevant differences style argument.
As far as FI, I think the arguments for FI are independent of the moral considerability of plants. So, one way to argue for FI is to get interlocutors to admit that it makes sense to talk of the interest of plants (independently of whether those interests carry any moral weight). Then, you can argue that the best way to underwrite those interests is by appeal to functions. It takes a further argument (again, a no morally relevant differences style argument) to establish that those interests get any moral weight. As I mentioned above, I think there are certain human interests that are best explained by appeal to functions (plants will have interests of the same kind) and these interests are morally considerable. This serves as fulcrum for arguing that plants are morally considerable.
With respect to your last point, I want to be clear that biological interests are sufficient for moral considerability, but not necessary. I think there are interests that are psychological, and not functional, in nature. If you have the intuition that some of the evolved individuals in your lineage have interests, even though they lack psychological interests and lack what I’ll call functional interests, I’m not sure what to say. As far as I can see, these organisms are just like rocks (which I take to paradigm instances of entities without interests). I’m open to being convinced otherwise. Still, I’d want to hear a more fleshed out thought experiment if I’m going to be convinced that individuals in the lineage do in fact have interests and I’d like to know what underwrites these. Given that I’m not committed to the necessity of functions for an entity to have interests, I’m not really sure that the experiment would speak against my view.
Does that make sense? Am I missing anything?
Woops, the comments I said were about FI were about MC.
The idea is that it is not interests underwritten by selected functions that make living things morally considerable. This stems from the thought that we could imagine complex life forms (not just rocks) that evolved by chance processes other than selection. I think we’d feel we couldn’t attribute functions to them or their parts (though if you’re a conventionalist about functions–a position that sometimes tempts me–you might disagree). And say they have no morally relevant psychological properties. Nonetheless I’ll bet the pre-theoretic biocentrist will claim these things would be morally considerable. Say they’re right. Maybe this suggests we were off track all along in trying to underwrite the moral considerability of plants by appeal to interests underwritten by selected functions. We need a new explanation. Maybe interests will still be involved, but maybe not. In any case there is the threat that you didn’t have the sufficient condition you thought you did. (I agree, necessity isn’t the issue here.) Some other actual considerations were disguised as the ones you exploit. Now, for this to pose a problem for your argument, one might need to also challenge, or just complicate, (FI) by distinguishing between psychological interests and biological interests, then claiming that the former but not the latter are sufficient for moral considerability. I think this would be enough to block your particular argument for the moral considerability of artifacts. (And of course also block similar Singer-style arguments for biocentrism, while leaving other routes to biocentrism open; I’m sure Varner has resources you could borrow in reply here, I just forget what they are).
Were the burden on your objector to further show, along these lines, that artifacts aren’t morally considerable, she would need to articulate the alternative explanation for the moral considerability of the non-selection-produced organisms and actual plants, and show that this explanation doesn’t or can’t extend to artifacts (i.e., that the needed no-morally-relevant-difference strategy won’t work for you here).
On MC being free of intuitional support: I thought people were included in the scope of your MC (not just non-psychological organisms like plants), in which case some of the support for MC probably comes from intuition. Even were this wrong, it seems intuitions are going to provide some of the support for your argument. Hard to see how it is just “argument vs. intuition” and not “intuition vs. intuition”.
These are very quick thoughts. Given the craziness of your view, I suspect you’ve felt the need to think through it thoroughly, such that you’re in position to rebut my thoughts quickly.
Hey Matt,
I think you overestimate the extent to which I think through my views!
Anyway, some quick replies.
First, I don’t know that very many biocentrists have pre-reflective intuitions that plants have moral status. Maybe some do, but mostly I think it is a position they are driven to. At least, they don’t typically appeal to the intuition that plants are morally considerable in making their case (there are some exceptions). They definitely have the intuition that plants can be benefited or harmed, but not that this matters morally. In any case, for the reasons I mentioned, I would want to discount their intuitions about which entities have moral status.
You are right that if, for some reason, they had good reasons to hold their intuitions and they had the intuitions you mention about the non-selected organisms, they would have exactly the project you describe, finding some account to underwrite those. They then could try to argue that artifacts don’t meet whatever conditions they propose. I think this might be a good project for the biocentrist to embark on. I’m not sure they’ll have much luck and if they don’t, they’ll have to give up their intuitions.
With respect to your last point, I certainly don’t want to frame this as an issue about intuitions vs. arguments. I think intuitions play an important role in determining what kinds of interests are morally relevant. The intuitions I’m worried about are the ones that particular beings are morally considerable. I take it that there are paradigm instances of moral wrong to humans and that the best account of some of these wrongs is that we fail to satisfy some human interest. We then employ a concept of moral considerability to be the kind of moral status a human has in virtue of those interests. Intuitions are appealed to hear to say what kinds of wrongs can be done to humans (note: I’m a pluralist about moral status, so people can have moral considerability in virtue of interests as well as for other reasons…intrinsic value, etc.). I think we appeal to intuitions again in cashing out which kinds of interests, when they go unsatisfied, are of the kind that are morally relevant (in the sense that might preventing that interest from being satisfied would constitute a prima facie moral wrong). Now I have a concept of moral considerability and have appealed to intuitions to make the case that certain kinds of interests are morally relevant. It just so happens that the best account of those interests appeals to functions (I think).
It might turn out that the biocentrist project mentioned above would result in some account of interests which includes all the human interests I’m worried about without appeal to functions. But, I think it hardly counts against my view that there is a potential account that is better than mine.
Does that make any sense?
Hey JB,
On a second read through your initial post I felt less sanguine about your distinction between moral wrongs and moral considerability. You say we have direct moral experience of the former, but none of the latter because the latter is a theoretical construct. But don’t we have experience of both, and it just happens that the asymmetric use of the terms “moral wrongs” and “moral considerability” conceals this? Sure, “moral considerability” isn’t thrown around in lay speech like “morally wrong” is. But this reflects the words we use, not the experiences we have. Just as we go around witnessing acts we think are clearly morally wrong, don’t we go around witnessing things we think clearly have a place in our thoughts about morality? Indeed, it seems your opponent could co-opt your description above and merely sub in the relevant “morally wrong” terms for the relevant “morally considerable” terms, as follows: “I go through life, I see things that I take to be worthy of some (any) weight when thinking about what’s right/wrong. I reflect on these and the theoretical reasons in favor of those judgments and over time I come to a set of reflective judgments about things having a place in my moral reasoning.”
Put a similar thought this way: you think it is methodologically sounds to weigh some intuitions heavily because they come from reflection on paradigm cases involving people. I think it’s the paradigmness that does the work here (if anything does). And lawnmowers are a paradigm case of things unworthy of weight in my moral reasoning. The clear-cut, paradigm nature of this suggests we should weigh heavily the intuition that artifacts aren’t morally considerable.
You might be right that the potential alternate account I pointed to hardly counts against your view. But I’m not clear on this yet. I worry whether there is the evidence for the truth of (MC) that you need, given that:
a) we can imagine the organisms in my hypothetical example in such a way that their moral considerability seems secured,
b) (a) holds despite the lack of functions in the mentioned hypothetical case,
c) (a) and (b) give some reason for thinking that it isn’t from selection-functions that actual plants have morally relevant interests, and
d) (a) and (b) and other general worries about considerability grounded in selection functions, and the psychological basis of the considerability people enjoy, suggest that people’s considerability isn’t ground in selection-functions either.
These considerations call the evidence for (MC) into question, and isn’t that a problem for your view? The problem is amplified if your distinction between intuitions about “morally wrong” and “morally considerable” is brittle as I suggested. This is because our intuitions against the moral considerability of artifacts might then carry more weight then you allowed. The intuition might suggest that you do have a reductio on your hands and that; then, suggest the best explanation for this might be the falsity of (MC).
Don’t get me wrong, I think your view is cool. I might even hold it.
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