debitage

30.8.07

Congratulations, You Know Where You Live

Mark Liberman reassures us that, contrary to the premises of a question recently asked of a beauty pageant contestant, only 6% of young Americans -- not 20% -- are unable to locate the United States on a map.

But Liberman then goes on to dismiss the problem of geographical ignorance as "periodic hand-wringing." He says "Needless to say, the 94% number was not featured [in the press release about the poll]." Well, duh -- that's basic knowledge you expect people to have. Whether an American can find the US on a map is only interesting if they fail, just like you don't see headlines about all the people who drove to work and didn't cause a 4-car pileup on the freeway. And it's not like the remaining questions produced similarly rosy results -- for example, well over half of the respondents couldn't find Iraq or Afganistan (who would have thought Ambrose Bierce was not cynical enough?). Unless Liberman has some evidence he's not mentioning that would show that the questions were asked, or the results reported, misleadingly, the poll shows exactly what it's billed as showing: Americans don't know where stuff is (and the level of performance is low enough that "Americans are ignorant" is a more important story than "Americans not quite as ignorant as beauty pageant judges think").

It would be one thing if Liberman thought that geographical knowledge was unimportant, or if he thought that the kind of formal trivia-quiz knowledge tested in the poll is a poor measure of people's real geographical competence. But I have a very hard time being impressed with someone's knowledge just because they can locate their own (very large) country on a world map.

Liberman also points out that poll-sponsor National Geographic obviously has something to gain if people take the issue of geographical ignorance seriously. This is true. But in the absence of any evidence that National Geographic is misleading us about the state of geographical knowledge or failing to deliver on their promise of aid, I don't see why this is so horrible. In fact, it seems like a good thing that for some problem, there's an entity with a vested interest in drawing attention to it and promoting a solution.

Stentor Danielson, 20:24, |

29.8.07

Mad Scientists

The concept of the mad scientist captures two fears in our culture about science. The obvious one is the fact that science is powerful yet amoral, and hence susceptible to being used for evil. The second is the singleminded pursuit of knowledge at all costs. The mad scientist is someone who steams ahead with his research without giving any thought to the ethical implications of his methods.

I'm dubious that there's any scientific knowledge that it's intrinsically unethical to have* -- things we're "not meant to know." But it is clear that there are some things that it's unethical to find out, because ethics bars us from using some methodologies. Pretty much everyone recognizes this -- you'd have a hard time finding anyone who thought the Tuskegee syphillis study was justified, or who is disappointed that B.F. Skinner didn't really raise his daughter in a box to see what would happen. If there were some piece of knowledge that we could only get from a study like one of those, I think we'd all agree that the world will just have to do without that knowledge.

It's frustrating, then, to see the way many defenders of science seem to fall into the mad scientist storyline when discussing other proposed ethical restrictions on scientific research, such as repatriation of Native American remains, bans on animal research, or bans on stem cell research.

The issue is not whether you agree with the claims -- I happen to think the above-mentioned proposals are justified, sometimes justified, and unjustified, respectively. The issue is whether you recognize them as ethical concerns and respond to them on their own terms. It's fine to argue either that the claimed ethical concern is groundless (e.g. because being a morally considerable being depends on X criteria, which embryos or animals don't have), or that it's outweighed by the intrinsic and/or instrumental value of the resulting knowledge (e.g. all of the examples I've used have been claimed to produce knowledge useful for curing deadly diseases, so an argument could be made that a certain level of killing or stealing is a justified -- or even obligatory -- cost). What raises the specter of the mad scientist is to respond with outrage that someone would dare question science, and to present the advance of scientific knowledge as a self-evident moral imperative that trumps everything else. "There's no other way to find out X" is only a complete justification for research to a mad scientist -- sane scientists have to go on to argue that the ethical pros and cons of the research are of certain magnitudes and the former outweighs the latter. (And sane opponents must do likewise, or at least make an argument that the harms in question trump any other concerns**.)

On the other hand, it doesn't help when those proposing the restrictions oversell the possibility of having your cake and eating it too. Native American traditional knowledge, tissue cultures and computer simulations, and adult stem cells are all worthy avenues of research to have available if we decide that the associated restriction on other methodologies is justified. But none is a complete replacement, and so the critics would do well to face up to the fact that their ethical concerns will result in the world foregoing some knowledge.

*As opposed to particular facts, such as information about someone else's personal life, which there can be ethical problems with knowing.

**It's far more plausible (especially if you hold a strong version of the act-omission distinction) to think that killing always trumps the advance of knowledge than the other way around.

Stentor Danielson, 12:12, |

28.8.07

Metaethics

Chris at Mixing Memory describes a study of laypeople's metaethics -- that is, what they think about the status of ethical rules (e.g. are they objective) and how they're justified. What I found interesting was this bit (bulleting added):

Finally, at the end of the study, participants were asked to indicate how they justify their moral beliefs. They could choose from the following justifications:
* "ordained by a supreme god,"
* "every good person on earth, regardless of culture, holds these beleifs,"
* "a society could not survive without its citizens holding these beliefs,"
* "their truth is self-evident."
Each participant could pick as many of the different justifications as he or she wanted.

This list seems curiously incomplete. My own view (which is that thinkers like Habermas and Hare are in the right neighborhood in terms of basing ethics on the inevitable presuppositions of acting and explaining one's actions to others) isn't in there, but I wouldn't expect many non-philosophers to volunteer that idea. More surprising is the absence of any of the following:
* "That's the way I was raised" -- to academics, citing upbringing sounds like just the way you'd dismiss someone else's beliefs as socially constructed. But many laypeople cite their own upbringing as authoritative. An action is wrong or right precisely because my mom or dad taught me so. (Though it at times becomes circular, when the moral authority of mom and dad is justified on the basis that they do, and teach, morally right conduct).
* Some version of the harm/consent principle. I'd speculate that in a modern Western society, this would be the most popular justification, even if only for reasons of social desirability, because in a liberal society harm/consent is considered the least controversial basis for making a claim against others. Of course, you now get into questions of overlap among the rationales, since most of the other metaethical foundations have the harm/consent principle as a derivative rule. But I think there are many people whose metaethical reasoning stops with harm/consent as the bedrock axiom.
* "Wrong actions are disgusting/shameful" -- this represents a sort of affective (emotion-based) intuition, in contrast to the more cognitive (thinking/logic-based) type of intuition implied in "their truth is self-evident." Here actions are wrong if they feel bad (for a normal person) to do or think about.
* Conscience -- The idea of conscience may overlap somewhat with the two forms of intuition, or with religion (since consciences are often described as god-given), but I think it's plausible that many people would see it as a separate possibility. For them, the conscience is conceived of as a quasi-independent homonculus supplying expert ethical advice.
* Enlightened self-interest -- in contrast to the statement about the stability of society (which may be maintained by moral rules that sacrifice some individual's benefit), one may believe that morally right conduct is that which benefits the actor in the long run. My impression is that this is one of the most common views among young, educated people in the West.
* "I don't know, it just is" -- this option is important because many studies have shown how people cling to their moral evaluations even when the scenario they're evaluating is constructed so as to undercut all of their claimed rationales. This claim expresses a confidence that there is a deeper justification (in contrast to explicit intuitionism), but without being able to specify what that justification is.

Stentor Danielson, 11:27, |