“We were the land before we were people, loamy roamers rising, so the stories go, or formed of clay, spit into with breath reeking soul―”
Heid E. Erdrich (2008), “The Theft Outright,” National Monuments (31–32)
Abstract
The question of what distinguishes moral problems from other problems is important to the study of the evolution and functioning of morality. Many researchers concerned with this topic have assumed, either implicitly or explicitly, that all moral problems are problems of cooperation. This assumption offers a response to the moral demarcation problem by identifying a necessary condition of moral problems. Characterizing moral problems as problems of cooperation is a popular response to this issue—especially among researchers empirically studying the beginnings and limits of moral psychology. However, demarcating the moral in this way severely restricts the domain of moral problems. There are plenty of moral problems that aren’t simply problems of cooperation. In this paper I argue that understanding moral problems as problems of cooperation is too restrictive and offer an alternative way of demarcating moral from non-moral problems. Characterizing what makes a problem moral in terms of cooperation excludes a variety of problems that are ordinarily understood and responded to as moral. The alternative characterization that I propose is based on the American Indian/Native American concept of harmony. Using the concept of cooperation to demarcate the moral removes moral agents from their surroundings or contexts by assuming moral agency applies only to humans or other similarly evolved lifeforms. In contrast, using the concept of harmony allows for moral consideration to be granted to non-humans as well (e.g., non-human animals, plant life, ecosystems, etc.).
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Notes
For an occurrence of the problem presented in this story, see news reports like the following: https://www.newschannel5.com/news/beaver-dam-causes-flooding-concerns-in-hendersonville.
Smyth (2017) has recently criticized these ways of understanding the function of morality. While I find his criticism convincing, my concerns are separate from his, and I will be providing an alternative way of demarcating moral from non-moral problems.
I am not making any claims or assumptions about the relationship between agency and moral responsibility. In other words, when I use the word ‘agency’ I am not assuming or referencing anything specific regarding moral praise or blame.
I will use ‘consent’ to refer to explicit or implicit consent. At most, genuine, sincere, or legitimate implicit consent is required. Assuming people can mistakenly presume there’s implicit consent, it’s not the presumption of implicit consent that matters—it’s whether the consent is actually implied.
Another way of thinking about this is that cooperation requires consent, and consent requires agency.
I will not be making this argument here, but I’m not ruling out that moral problems can exist between a beaver and a tree. On some accounts of what constitutes a moral problem, this may qualify, and I don’t think these kinds of situations should be automatically dismissed as not constituting a moral problem.
Singer (2011) makes a similar point when discussing the evolution of morality. He points out that we have good reason to think that our moral capacities are rooted in biological propensities that we inherited from our pre-human ancestors. As a result, social contract theories, like those of Hobbes (1651/1994), are mistaken in thinking that morality developed out of our cooperation with others. “It is not the force of the state that persuades us to act ethically. The state, or some other form of social power, may reinforce our tendency to observe an ethical code, but that tendency exists before the social power is established” (24).
As was stated earlier, the cooperative definition requires both internal and external components. However, even if this weren’t the case, the point I’m making is that the cooperative definition at least requires the internal component. If it requires the internal component, then agency isn’t only a feature of external factors (i.e., relationships).
Another way of stating this is to say that the internal component is a one-place predicate instead of a multi-place predicate like ‘between’ or ‘lives with.’ In the same way that ‘brown hair’ is a predicate of an individual, the internal component applies to individuals. ‘Agency,’ as required for cooperation, is a conjunction of a one-place predicate (the internal component) and a multi-place predicate (the external component).
For a fuller explanation of the relationship between the concept of harmony and morality see my (2019) example using the Muscogee (Creek) understanding of harmony.
A further explanation of this idea can be found in Jean and Joyotpaul Chaudhuri’s (2001) A Sacred Path: The Way of the Muscogee Creeks.
This doesn’t eliminate the possibility of there being internal harmony. Someone saying, “I’m in harmony” can be understood as still referencing a relationship between parts of their being (e.g., the functioning of their internal organs, their beliefs and actions being aligned, etc.). The point is that a relationship is still being referenced instead of just an individual (e.g., an individual internal organ, or an isolated or individual belief or action, etc.). For example, eating can be a way of restoring balance and bringing someone back into harmony. This is because eating is a way of restoring, or providing, the body with energy and nutrients so that a person can function in accordance with their desires. What it means to be in harmony in these kinds of instances, however, is that there is now a balance between desires and the ability to act on those desires (or some other relationship). Another example of internal harmony can be found in Plato’s (1992) discussion of the parts of the soul in book IV of Republic. Thank you to Colin Marshall and James Maffie for these examples.
I won’t be making the argument here, but it’s possible that agency is primarily a feature of an individual’s surroundings. That would mean we can conceive of the external component (i.e., one’s surroundings) as being an enabling condition for decision-making. A beaver in the right environment, might have the capacity to make decisions. This would require surroundings or an environment vastly different from ours, but I’m not convinced it’s inconceivable. If this is possible, agency may not require any particular internal component, and instead could primarily be the result of how one’s surroundings enable whatever abilities or properties an individual may possess. Harmony, then, may still be compatible with agency, but agency is understood as result from external features (i.e., one’s surroundings).
Harmony may require the external component for other reasons (e.g., assessing guilt, blame, praise, etc.), but the point here is that it doesn’t require the external component as a pre-condition for morally relevant relationships. It’s not as if you first have the external component, then, as a result of this, you are able to develop morally relevant relationships (with some factor other than the external component determining what makes the relationship morally relevant). This would still seem to imply that decision-making (i.e., agency) is relevant for moral status. Instead, the relationships that provide you with the external component are the morally relevant relationships.
Not all relationships have to grant agency. Having agency in some relationships (those with my friends and romantic partners) doesn’t entail that there’s agency in other relationships (those with your boss or police or some other authoritative figures). If someone’s in a relationship where they are unable to make decisions (because they’re not in a position of power), then that relationship isn’t conducive to that person having agency.
Another way of understanding this is to think of the order in which the term ‘agency’ is applied to individuals. The term ‘agency’ could be first applied, then defined; or, it could be defined, then applied. We could first define agency (however we’d like to define it, e.g., as a set of capacities required for decision-making), then apply it to individuals who fit the stipulated definition (e.g., individuals who have the requisite capacities). Or, we could apply the term to certain individuals, and try to define it in light of features that are shared among those to which it applies. Assuming ‘agency’ is a morally loaded term or concept, the distinction between these two approaches can be understood by considering whether ‘agency’ is a morally loaded term prior to how it’s applied, or if it’s morally loaded after it’s been applied. I’m not going to argue that either of these approaches is correct. Nor am I going to argue that the concept of ‘agency’ has any particular moral imports (i.e., that it implies anything particular about morality). These may be projects for future research. However, I’m assuming that it has some moral import. In other words, it’s relevant to discussions of morality in some way. In doing so, a relevant question to ask is: from where does it get its moral import?
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Miller, J.L. Decolonizing the demarcation of the ethical. Philos Stud 177, 337–352 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-019-01395-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-019-01395-w