Ethics as Winning Games

Note that this is part of a series.  Links are provided to where earlier topics were discussed.

One of the most intriguing issues in the field of ethics is the fact that while we may have what we consider to be morals (an understanding that something is wrong, possibly universally wrong) – we transgress against moral injunctions repeatedly.  We cheat, we steal, we kill and we lie.  Despite this, we insist that we are moral creatures and continue to hold our morals in high esteem, no matter how many times we do the opposite of what those morals tell us is the right thing to do.  Why should this be so?

We have discussed game theory, and hinted at the possibility that ethics derives from a form of ‘game’ playing.  One aspect of this should be clarified.  Game theory is not just about playing games – it is invariably about winning games.  Some might argue that for that very reason game theory, like a decision made in a war-like context - all being fair in love and war, has little to do with ethics and morality.  Ethics and morality, as the argument would run, is about what is right and what is wrong.

This is true enough, but when we specifically looked at the framework behind ethics and morality as it currently stands we ran into problems.  What was right was right because it was moral, what was moral was moral because it was right.  We thus got nowhere.  Divinely inspired morality also has inherent problems.  We are therefore left seeking a mundane basis for determining right from wrong.

What cannot be argued is that we each of us have an ethical structure of some sort.  By an ethical structure I mean a framework, or system, by which we determine what is right and what is wrong, ethically and morally.  Note that this is about determination, not identification.  Unless one is intellectually lazy, or dishonest, one can always explain why one thing is right, and another thing wrong.  It is agreed that sometimes this process ends in an axiomatic "it just is" statement, for example the Christian bible lists ten commandments that just are, having been provided by a god who just is, if one uses the bible as the basis of one's morality then one's ethical structure could be said to be based on the bible.  While "killing babies is wrong" is reasonably obvious to anyone bar a psychopath, we can still explain why it is wrong, even if we don't have to resort to books of questionable provenance.  When thinking ethically it is not sufficient to identify something as wrong, it is important to also be able to say why it is wrong.

It must be stressed that while we can make decisions about what is right or wrong within an ethical structure, the ethical structure itself has nothing to do with right and wrong.  In other words, an ethical structure itself is entirely amoral.  When generating an ethical structure one cannot call upon knowledge of right and wrong because until the ethical structure is at least partially assembled, there is no right and wrong.  The ethical structure tells you what is right and wrong.  If one attempts to build an ethical structure based on knowledge of what is right and wrong, it is not needed – because what is right and wrong is already known and you therefore already have an ethical structure.

So, what purpose does our ethical structures serve?  Many argue that ethical structures exist so we may know what is right and what is wrong.  This is hardly cogent because without the ethical structure, there is no right and wrong.  It is akin to saying that the television was invented with the express purpose of being able to watch television programs.  True, we can use the television to watch various fascinating programs, in the same way as we can use our ethical structures to determine what is right and what is wrong.  However, without the invention of the television, there would be no television programs to watch.

I suggest that our ethical structures help us to win a very special game, the only game in town - "survival".  Some may argue that winning the game of survival has nothing to do with ethics, but one cannot logically argue against the importance of the game.  There is no person alive today who has a direct ancestor who played the game of survival so poorly that they failed to produce at least one child.  The vast majority of Europeans, for instance, have relatives who survived successive waves of the Black Death.  Our ancestors have survived drought, famine, war and pestilence.  They managed to co-operate sufficiently with others in their societies such that they were not cast out to die beyond the city’s gate, executed for crimes or murdered – at least for a period of twenty to thirty years or so until they produced viable offspring. 

Furthermore, when the chips were down and it came to the survival of our ancestors and their circle of kin, or outsiders – our ancestors prevailed.  Our ancestors won and they won because they were consistently adequate at whatever ‘games’ they were faced with – they might not have won every single ‘game’, but they never lost one that really mattered.

Our ethical structures are extremely useful when it comes with interacting with other people, as can be seen with the benefits to Prasopgarn and Sukhum (see The Siamese Emperor) - their survival may depend on the efficacy of the imperative to keep one's promises (or the injunction against betrayal, or more simply against lying). 

There is more to an ethical structure than making up a list of things that are right and wrong, telling the world and leaving it at that.  There is good reason to believe that our ethical structures consist of not just arbitrary rules, but rather very special lies which we tell others so often that we effectively begin to believe the truth of them ourselves.  Consider the morality of theft.  This could be blandly stated as “Stealing is wrong.”  But why?  When it comes to most moral and ethical questions, most of us are really more concerned about the actions of other people rather than about imposing limits on ourselves.  We might say “I think that stealing is wrong”, but what we mean primarily is “I want you to think that stealing is wrong”.  We also mean “I want you to think that I think that stealing is wrong”. 

It’s clear that if you have a real moral injunction against stealing, then I do not have to invest effort in protecting my belongings from you.  However, there is a more insidious reason why an ethical structure with regard to stealing might benefit me.  If you truly believe that I have a moral injunction against stealing, you may trust me with your property.  This means that if I see an opportunity to take your belongings without detection, and I can be quite sure that you believe I would not have taken them even if I had the opportunity, due to my declared moral stance “I think that stealing is wrong”, then I may steal from you with a better chance of getting away with it than would otherwise be the case.

From the standpoint of our ancestors this makes considerable sense.  During times of plenty, no-one needed to take from anyone else – little was to be gained from stealing from each other.  At such times, though, our ancestors would have made an investment in the future by being overtly trustworthy and ostentatiously respecting other people’s property.  When times got bad, however, our ancestors cashed in on that trust to prevail over those who were overly trusting.

Those who failed to play the ‘trustworthiness’ game sufficiently well did not survive when recurring games, such as bartering at the local market, segued into an end game, such as during war or an extended period of famine.  Therefore, as a species, we have become extremely adept at convincing others that we have an ethical structure and moral values which we hold dear.  The more successful among us are also, however, quite adept at jettisoning those moral values when conditions change, when we are outside our normal social milieu, or when we think that no-one is watching.

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This article is one of a series.  It was preceded by The Siamese Emperor - Part 2 and will be followed by Supreme Indifference and Inhumanity.  It all started with the first prelude, Saving the Dog.

Emotional Ethics: The saving grace of the clinically sane

Introducing Lokee ... take it away, Lokee

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It has come to my attention that an idea, which I imagined would be widely accepted, has in fact been a point of contention in the philosophical community since Aristotle. That is, whether, along with reason, emotions do and even should play a part in ethical thinking.

First, I will make an excuse for why I was unaware of this philosophical hot topic, and my justification is that I am comparatively new to philosophy. With this now known, hopefully your initial shock and disgust at my lack of awareness should dissipate, and in turn your need to vent your frustration at my apparent ignorance, lessen.

Upon my realization I was motivated to research, and based upon this body of research, it is my contention that emotions do and should inform ethical structures.

There are a number of emotion dependent processes and dispositions, including, behavioural dispositions, character traits and attitudes, all of which occur independent of an affective component (Starkey, 2008). That is to say, someone may be defined as a sad woman, without having the associated physiological reactions, feelings or expressions. A person may be angry with a telemarketer who continues to call, again, without having the physiological responses and elements of feeling typically related to anger. These forms of emotion are not the kind that I argue are necessary to effective ethical thinking. The kind of emotion that is essential to ethics are the emotions, which involve a cognitive and affective (physiological) component.

There are hardened rationalists who contend that emotions only weaken a person’s ability to think clearly and logically, and thus they should be avoided or at least only minimally referred to when making moral decisions. I argue, along with others I have read, that emotions are an essential part of the full understanding required to make effective and accurate ethical decisions.

“Without emotions or affects to amplify physiological drives and infuse cognitive processing with subjective meaning, human beings would not care enough to stay alive, much less mate, nurture offspring, create kinship bonds, or pursue art, science, literature or moral philosophy” (Callahan, 1988, pg.10). Emotions provoke thought and thought provokes emotion. An emotion involves a cognitive awareness of the object of one’s emotion along with a physiological reaction and experience of feelings (Starkey, 2008). For example, if a person sees a brown snake slither under their bed (cognitive apprehension), they experience an increase in heart rate, a tingling sensation (physiological reaction), and with these interwoven experiences they understand that there is a venomous snake under their bed, which they should be fearful of. The entirety of this event informs what actions they will take next. If a person were to have no sensation of fear and only register the fact that a brown snake went under their bed, what decision are they likely to make? For emotions not only register feelings, they also elicit memories. A person’s previous knowledge and experiences of snakes is brought forth and used to make an informed decision. They recall why they should be fearful of brown snakes. Thinking interacts with a person’s emotions, perception and physiology to bring forth from memory the information they need (Callahan, 1988, pg.14).

Emotion is necessary for full understanding (Starkey, 2008), which is achieved through introspection. Emotions allow a person to focus on what is perceptually relevant and identify what is most important (Starkey, 2008). Returning to the previous example, along with the brown snake slithering under the bed, there is also music playing, the neighbours next door talking loudly and the person in a rush to get to work. The emotion of fear that the person experiences provides them with the necessary information to tune out the music, ignore the neighbours and worry about their boss later, as what is most important now, according to their emotional reaction, is the problem of the possibly venomous snake making a home under their bed. This form of thinking is what has come to be known as the “frame problem” in philosophy. In any given situation a person needs to interpret the multitude of information presented to them and make inferences as to what is of import. Emotions enable people to do this by grabbing our attention

It may have come to your attention that while the example of the brown snake under the bed is effective in illustrating the interweaving of emotion and cognition, it does not involve an ethical problem. Fear not (no pun intended), this will be addressed soon.

Before I do give an example that clearly supports my contention, I will address the rationalists, who argue that emotion is detrimental to rational thought. An intelligent psychopath is clearly somebody who does not “suffer” from an average person’s emotional responses. They have the capacity to understand a society’s moral rules and can even apply them, if need be, but what they lack is the apprehension that moral rules should be reasons in their decision-making. In addition they are not held back emotions such as fear and guilt, when deciding how to act. A homicidal psychopath knows that society frowns on murder, and can apply the “no killing” rule, when it is rational and necessary to do so, for example, it’s best not to stab somebody in the centre of the mall, when there are lots of people around. However, when it comes to the act of killing their next victim, emotions and moral rules do not come into play. The fact that moral rules have no significance to them is clearly tied to their ability to tally up numerous victims without an empathetic emotional response to the individual lives they have taken.

Hardened rational thought can be just as morally dangerous as a psychopath’s lack of emotional response. An intelligent rationalist can easily argue for torture, terrorism, and the mistreatment of others through articulation of a logical dialogue. One only need to look to America for examples of all of these. For example the terror laws, which allow torture of possible terrorists and their imprisonment for indefinite periods of time. It is without the weight of emotional obligation and sympathies that people can ignore moral rules and sentiments. It is only through emotionally informed responses that a person is supported to check their moral options in light of their sympathies and in-built moral intuitions, and ensure a principled decision is made.

So now for my example of an ethical quandary. I have recently been reading a text written by Julian Baggini, titled Ethics: The Big Questions (2012). In one particular chapter he explores a long-standing ethical question, “Do the ends ever justify the means?” To aid in this investigation he relates a decision made by Dick Cheney on September 11^th2001, which was only made public 10 years after the fact. Dick Cheney made the ethical decision, after being informed that two commercial passenger airliners had hit the Twin Towers in New York City, to shoot down two other hijacked commercial passenger airliners, which were on a similar path of destruction. Dick Cheney had decided that, while the loss of the hundreds of passengers on the airliners was terrible, the thousands of potential victims that would be saved justified their sacrifice. As history now tells us Dick Cheney’s decision did not need to be enacted, due to the courage of passengers on one, and the timing of the other. We can only imagine what Dick Cheney experienced that day, while making that ethical decision. There are two possible paths he took, that of a hardened rationalist, or that of a person who garnered a full understanding of the situation. Let us explore the latter.

Cheney cognitively apprehends the event that is about to take place, with the shock of the realization, his adrenaline increases represented by an increase in heart rate and sweat, he feels fear and trepidation at the decision he is faced with. As he weighs up the number of potential victims and the aftermath of such a loss of life, he feels both sorrow and guilt as either way innocent people are going to die as a result. Emotions enable him to recollect previous instances in his life bringing forth similar scenarios, as well as the knowledge he needs to make an informed decision. Logic informs him that the ends do justify the means, while emotion supported him to reach a point where sympathies resonated with the tough moral principles involved.

A rationalist is just as likely to decide that the ends justify the means in this case. As we’ve explored an intelligent hardened rationalist is more than capable of logically arriving at any number of decisions. However to gain a full understanding of such a layered and murky ethical decision, emotions are needed. They support the person to not only perceive the ethics involved, but also to feel, recall and gather the memory necessary to act appropriately. In considering the loss of life, the individuals involved, the magnitude of such an event, emotions are not only needed but also expected. Emotions help us support the intent of an action, rather than merely following a flow diagram leading to a potential action with no real understanding of why that action might be necessary, and in some way, right.

I’ll leave you with this question. If you were a potential victim that day, either on the plane, or on the ground, would you want a hardened rationalist who intentionally ignored the emotions involved, or a human who experienced the event fully, to make the decision?

List of References

Baggini, J. (2012). Ethics: The Big Questions. London: Quercus Editions Ltd.

Callahan, S. (1988). The Role of Emotion in Ethical Decisionmaking. The Hastings Center Report Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 9-14

Starkey, C. (2008). Emotion and Full Understanding. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice Volume no.11 August