Values
Think about a goal you have. Obviously, the fact that it's a goal for you and you're working toward achieving it means it has some value to you--something that makes it more important than the alternatives. Animals have goals and purpose, too, engaging in all sorts of activities for survival (reproduction, avoiding predators, finding food). Goals imply value, and the presence of value in a teleological cosmos adds another philosophical problem, on top of consciousness and cognition. In this case, the problem has to do with the practical domain--the way we control and direct our own behaviors, and make assessments about our own conduct and that of others. It has to do with our choices and the motivations inspiring them.
Just like cognition depends on a base of consciousness, values depend on a base of cognition. We use our mental abilities to help identify values (good/bad, right/wrong), thinking about reasons for and against certain decisions and courses of action. The question is: are values objectively real, objectively good or bad? Or are they subjective and relative, or dependent on the chance results of evolution and natural selection? It's harder to see how values can be objective than cognition, because mathematical truths are easily seen as universal and logic conclusions are easily seen as necessarily true. On the other hand, it's easy to see how value systems can be subjective (similar to different ethnic groups' languages or customs, which can conflict with each other).
A 'subjectivist' position might say that moral truth just depends on what seems good for us as individuals, based on our own motivational dispositions and responses to the world. For a realist, values would have actual objective value--they'd be correct or incorrect just like math or logic. Subjectivists and realists can agree on one thing: the value that we assign to pleasure and pain is inseparable from our natural responses of attraction and aversion to them. We value avoiding or stopping pain, and seeking out and prolonging pleasure. But for a realist, pain really is objectively bad: appearance and reality coincide, pain is both unpleasant AND bad. But when we move beyond simple pleasure and pain to more complex examples, the subjectivist and realist opinions become less and less similar.
For example, what about "absent experiences," those that don't have to do with our immediate sensations of pleasure and pain? Possible future choices or consequences, the experiences of other beings, situations where certain values come in conflict with each other? For subjectivists, when we consider others in our moral reasoning, it's because we're motivated by self-interest (now and in the future), and an innate benevolent disposition and sense of social responsibility leads to the general welfare (and our own). It's our sentiment--our instinctual emotional programming--that ultimately determines our value judgments.
In contrast, for the realist, the value doesn't depend on our innate dispositions; it depends on us actively identifying the right answer. It just happens that our innate dispositions (e.g., for the general welfare) are harmonious and consistent with the actual "structure and weight of values in the case at hand." We don't hold off an action that will benefit us slightly but greatly harm another simply because our disposition doesn't let us--because we're biologically motivated to do so--but because of the reasons involved, the reasons that we manipulate in our minds: e.g., the fact that the harm is to someone else, not ourselves, is NOT a reason to disregard that harm, and the reason for avoiding their harm is greater than the reason of our own slight benefit.
So what is it about 'others' (their pleasure or pain) that gives us a reason for our own actions, if not a simple feeling of benevolence? Realists don't think values can be grounded in something more fundamental than values themselves, in the way materialists try to ground mental facts in behaviour (only matter is real, mind is an illusion), or idealists see physical facts grounded in subjective experience (only mind is real, matter is a creation of the mind). Values are true in themselves, and not just in relation to something else, like psychological dispositions as a result of evolution, or God's intentions and purposes. Yes, some value judgments are based on natural facts--e.g., if I don't slow down my car, I will run over that dog--but the general moral truth is nothing but itself: "it counts in favour of doing something that it will avoid grievous harm to a sentient creature."
Everyday facts and situations like this one lead us to "more general or basic evaluative truths," as we encounter and respond to them, using our mental abilities (just like we form categories and generalizations about the facts of the world in maths and sciences, for example). And like physical, psychological, arithmetical and geometrical truths, moral truths are true in themselves. In other words, it really is objectively bad to cause grievous harm to a sentient creature, not just because it might make us feel bad.
For a realist, our moral sense is "a faculty that aims to identify those facts in our circumstances of choice that count for and against certain courses of action, and to discover how they combine to determine what course would be the right one, or what set of alternatives would be permissible or advisable and what others ruled out." In that sense it's kind of like logic: If X, then Y. With our ordinary use of reason, we use the building blocks of sense data to come to true conclusions about the world. We can use real-world examples to come to abstract mathematical truths (2+2=4, even if only in principle, we don't need apples), or discern laws of the universe. In a similar way, our base sensations of pleasure and pain, and our 'benevolent sentiment,' are like training wheels, giving us a sense of values, which we can then consider with our reason, reflecting on them, comparing, trying to discern the moral truth that will influence our decision.
Nagel acknowledges that it's difficult to prove whether any domain like this (the physical world, math, morality, aesthetics) is true in itself or simply true because we have a tendency to reach the same conclusions (like grammar or etiquette), but he thinks that support for realism "can come only from the fruitfulness of evaluative and moral thought in producing results, including corrections of beliefs formerly widely held and the development of new and improved methods and arguments over time." In other words, good values will have good results.
A realist take on values will have certain implications, just as there were for consciousness and cognition. First, and most importantly, is the idea that consciousness "plays an active role in the world," not just a passive awareness of stimulus and response, and the illusion that we have any control over processes that are entirely a result of cause and effect. Second, just as a comprehensive worldview will have to account for how humans are able to reach correct beliefs about the facts of the universe, it will also have to account for how the cosmos gave rise to "beings capable of thinking successfully about what is good and bad, right and wrong, and discovering moral and evaluative truths that do not depend on their beliefs." Third, instead of Darwinian evolution invalidating moral realism, Nagel thinks moral realism invalidates Darwinism, despite its status in the scientific consensus.
Sharon Street, for example, argues that moral realism is incompatible with Darwinism; that if our value judgments are a result of natural selection, then there is no reason to expect them to conform with any moral truths independent of the mind, because such an ability would not necessarily contribute to 'reproductive fitness.' Being able to correctly read physical facts would, on the other hand, contribute to an organism's fitness (i.e., physical realism is definitely compatible with Darwinism). I need to be able to tell that an acorn is not rock, and vice versa, at least most of the time. But according to evolution, moral instincts (e.g., nurturing, cooperation, etc.) are just here because they helped us survive. There's no reason that they'd have to match up with reality in any way. Even if objective values existed in the universe, outside of human minds, our innate tendencies could be "systematically false," as long as they helped us to survive. For example, an animal might be able to tell the difference between an acorn and a nut, thus surviving and having some sense of reality, but what if it's objectively good to never eat? Survival and values would be incompatible. Or, in other words, if we take pleasure and pain, for example (the pre-rational data for moral sense), their real "badness or goodness" is "completely superfluous" to a Darwinian understanding--pain could very well be objectively good, or even valueless, and we could be blind to this fact.
So if this is true and our basic moral responses have no ground in a moral reality, neither would the more complex systems we devise (the same way all our scientific theories would be worthless if we abandoned the idea of physical reality). But even though a moral system not grounded in reality can still be self-consistent (like systems of grammar or etiquette), Nagel is convinced that Darwinism can't explain the faculties that let humans come to moral judgments, and that there is moral reality: that pain really is bad, and pleasure really is good, at the most basic level. Again, that doesn't mean that pain and pleasure inevitably lead to sound moral judgments; they're just the starting points for moral reasoning.
It's hard to describe an alternative to the consensus view, because pleasure and pain ARE biologically hard-wired and DO play a role in biological fitness. A moral realist might argue that pleasure and pain do have some essential value in themselves, but still has to explain how seemingly chance evolution resulted in an objective system of recognizing real values--the reason they're linked with certain biological functions (like sex or injury). One possible way to explain this would be if these biological functions had a double role: "They are adaptive, but they are something more than that." In addition to being adaptive functions that help organisms survive, they are also "objects of reflective consciousness," from which we can discover moral principles.
So, how does value fit in the Being and Becoming of the cosmos? If we take humans as an example, one of our facts to be explained, not only do we detect value, we're also motivated by it. I don't just recognize that torturing a baby is wrong, but I'm actually motivated not to do it. There's an instinctive motivation built into pain and pleasure itself (to stop pain and continue pleasure). They're not just neutral options. But even when I'm not experiencing pain or pleasure, I can still be motivated by them (working to prevent pain in myself and others, e.g., me giving you some DMSO to relieve your pain). It's not as simple as stimulus-response, because I can ignore the immediate pain or pleasure data when making a moral judgment. It might be painful to leave a relationship, but it might be the right choice. In complex cases like those involving honesty or dishonesty, justice or injustice, loyalty betrayal, my immediate sensations are only one thing that I take into consideration. I'm not simply ruled by my responses to external stimuli. I can even make a choice that goes against everything seemingly influencing me--my habits, my education, my upbringing, my family, my government, my boss--if I deem it to be wrong based on my own conscious judgments.
Nagel writes, "When we ask ourselves, for example, whether revenge is a true justification or just a natural motive, or what kind of weight we should give to the interests of strangers of other species, we should think of ourselves as calling on a capacity of judgment that allows us to transcend the imperatives of biology."
This process seems to involve some level of conscious control of action that can't be written off as mere physical cause and effect, with some sort of consciousness-byproduct on top of it. It seems to include some form of free will: actual, real choice, not determined by physics, chemistry, or biological conditioning. As a "value-sensitive agent," values affect my behaviour because I recognize them as reasons. To make a comparison, when I think in terms of physical facts, I actively recognize my reason for a certain conclusion (e.g., the sun rises to my right, therefore I must be driving north). When I act, I actively recognize my moral reason for making a certain choice (e.g., if I don't brake, I will run over that dog). Reasoning just doesn't work automatically, like a computer. There is an active agent that sorts out and makes sense of the data available, and that makes conclusions and decisions based on it.
(As an aside, I should point out that just because people seem to have these abilities, it doesn't mean they use them. I might not consciously notice what direction the sun is rising. I might even have a 'blink' that something is 'off,' but until the data reaches my active consciousness, I can't reason about it and come to rational conclusions. This leaves open the question as to the nature of the adaptive unconscious. And of course there are people who don't seem to respond to value, or to lack the ability to form complex moral judgments. They live more like animals, slaves to their immediate and self-serving sense-data.)
So, for our two Being options (reductive or emergent), a reductive explanation for this is difficult. Just like cognition, it's hard to imagine it as a combination of its parts. It seems irreducible as a function of an individual, rational subject of consciousness. Pleasure and pain might be explained reductively, but not the fact that we can transcend them by active, practical reason. Moral reasoning needs a fully conscious being with reason, suggesting an emergent answer (value-recognition only comes along with reason). But Nagel points out that this problem applies at every level: how to reconcile the apparent unity of a conscious subject with the possibility of a reductive, psychophysical monism. It may not be clear what the connection is between the parts and the whole, but there may be one, and perhaps we shouldn't rule it out.
As for the historical Becoming of the cosmos, it has to account for evolution, as well as the ability of humans to control actions in response to reasons. If we didn't have such an ability, we would be motivated solely by our desires, with no control over our actions, no ability to override our immediate sensations and emotions. Our actions would be compelled to be guided by our immediate perceptions, our past memories, and our theoretical reason. Our active control over behaviour may be compatible with natural selection (or at least not contradict it), but something additional to the Darwinian account has to explain it.
"As I have said, the process seems to be one of the universe gradually waking up"--first physics and chemistry, which allow the formation of certain molecules that make up the first conscious organisms, whose lives are filled with value ("huge quantities of pain as well as pleasure"), then the development of self-conscious beings capable of building on top of these primitive abilities to sense value and reality: to transcend mere outer appearances, and discern lawful relationships, and to transcend mere immediate experiences of value, and discern truly good courses of action. The universe slowly wakes up to itself, comes to know itself, and to direct its own action toward the goal of the greatest value.
For the earliest organisms, things could go well or badly (i.e., they had a "good": surviving). With self-conscious beings came the ability to recognize that what happens to them is either good or bad (just like we came to recognize that the universe is actually real, transcending appearances and sense-experience), and they could then learn to think about "how these reasons combine to determine what they should do." Then, to collectively share and think about not only themselves, but others. Nagel writes that "Only beings capable of practical reason can recognize value, but once the recognize it, they find it in the lives of creatures without practical reason. In the broadest sense it is probably coextensive with life [i.e., value is probably inherent in life itself] … It seems too simple to hold that only the value in conscious lives generates reasons. As Scanlon says, it would be callous and objectionable to cut down a great old tree just for the fun of trying out one's new chain saw." (More evidence that not everyone uses this ability…)
Two things must be explained to answer the Becoming question: (1) "the appearance of value in the myriad forms it takes in the variety of lives capable of having a good," and (2) "the appearance of reasons for actions and of those beings capable of recognizing them and acting on them." Whatever explains the origins of life would also explain the first one, as value is an inherent part of life. But for the second, is whatever accounts for reason enough to also account for value? Nagel doesn't think so. General cognitive ability does NOT necessarily imply the capacity to recognize and respond to reasons for action. "Practical reason is a development of the motivational system and of the will, not merely a development of the system for forming beliefs." I can form a belief and have absolutely no motivation for it to influence my behavior, for example.
But there IS something 'subjective' about value: it's tied to the content of each particular form of life. Bees and humans have different values. In other words, "value must be seen as pluralistic: The domain of value, if there is such a thing, is as rich and complex as the variety of forms of life, or at least of conscious life. … since value realism can accommodate agent-relative reasons for action, the recognition of what is objectively valuable in the life of one creature does not automatically settle the question of what reasons it implies for the actions of another." Value is objective, but it takes many forms. In other words, the reasons we take for our actions are unique to us (as species, and even as individuals, to some extent). There's good, bad, and the specific situation that determines which is which. Life and consciousness come into being "already freighted with value," and only further along the evolutionary ladder, we can recognize this fact.
A cause-and-effect explanation (in contrast to teleology and divine intervention) is as difficult as a reductive one. It would only be by accident that anything would come to have objective value, or to allow us to recognize it and act in harmony with it. A teleological answer, on the other hand, would say that "life is a necessary condition of the instantiation of value, and ultimately of its recognition." In other words, in order to produce something capable of recognizing value in the world, life is a necessary step. Conscious beings, like animals, are necessary 'intermediate stages' to a being capable of recognizing value and acting on it. First the universe needs beings with an innate tendency be motivated by value (pain and pleasure), which higher beings can then use as the basis for more complex moral reasoning. Nagel writes, "In brief, value is not just an accidental side effect of life; rather, there is life because life is a necessary condition of value."
If teleology is correct, the world would have a natural propensity to "give rise to beings of the kind that have a good"--all actual and possible forms of life. Evolution would exist in order to bring value into the world, in a great variety of forms. Nagel points out that "the emergence of value is the emergence of both good and evil." You can't have one without the other, and it's obvious that our world contains evil. The world is not purely benign, tending towards the good. Evil needs to be present in order to allow both the existence of good, and its recognition. (There wouldn't even be a question of discerning moral truths if everything tended to be good.) "In fact, no teleological principle tending toward the production of a single outcome seems suitable. Rather, it would have to be a tendency toward the proliferation of complex forms and the generation of multiple variations in the range of possible complex systems."
This view acknowledges Darwinian evolution and natural selection, but its explanation for the existence of DNA and the forms it makes available for natural selection is different. Natural teleology, based on some tendency to form life not found in the laws of physics and chemistry, might provide an alternative to the two "miracle" accounts: "either in the sense of a wildly improbably fluke or in the sense of a divine intervention in the natural order." The world isn't an accident. It's the way it is because it's supposed to be this way.
Once there are beings who can respond to value, their own intentional action adds something to, and becomes part of, the historical pictures. We become agents in history and the cosmos, introducing our own aims and purposes: "The universe has become not only conscious and aware of itself but capable in some respects of choosing its path into the future--though all three, the consciousness, the knowledge, and the choice, are dispersed over a vast crowd of beings, acting both individually and collectively."
So, to sum up, the Darwinian account fails to provide an adequate explanation of the Being and Becoming of the cosmos. It leaves too much to chance, assuming the universe has to make sense, but not offering any in its account of the facts. And its popularity is "a heroic triumph of ideological theory over common sense." Physical cause-and-effect cannot explain consciousness, knowledge, or value. Divine intervention asks us to take certain aspects of the universe as unexplainable and unknowable. Rather, value, reason, and consciousness are built into the very fabric of the universe.
We may not fully understand the cosmos, but that doesn't mean we should throw in the towel and give up trying: "It is perfectly possible that the truth is beyond our reach, in virtue of our intrinsic cognitive limitations, and not merely beyond our grasp in humanity's present stage of intellectual development. But I believe that we cannot know this, and that it makes sense to go on seeking a systematic understanding of how we and other living things fit into the world."
