Planting a Defeat

A while back, I got the following feedback on the article Planting a Tiger (I can’t help myself, so I’ve marked typos in red – I just feel so proud when I notice any typos myself rather than having others point them out to me):

Quote: neopolitan (reddit/r/atheism)

A person, on the other hand, who commences with a huge assumption and then brutally twists logic to form a disparate array of lesser assumptions into a bridge between the state of things as they are and the state one should expect if the initial huge assumption were true, is not a philosopher. He is what we refer to as an "apologist".

But both Craig and Plantinga would argue that they are seeking knowledge and understanding. They would argue that they are following the evidence where it leads and not shying away from reality. You can both be an apologist and a philosopher. It is one thing to say that they are wrong (maybe they are) but it is something completely else to say that they are deliberately twisting the truth and don't deserve the title of 'philosopher'.

The article's well written. Correct me if I'm wrong but the crux of your argument seems to be here:

Quote: neopolitan (Planting a Tiger)

Plantinga totally ignores that the scientific method takes into account the suggestion that, individually, our cognition is faulty but that this may be overcome if we don’t assume our beliefs to be true, we gather evidence to support or refute our beliefs, we have the intellectual courage to accept when evidence does refute our beliefs, we invite others to critically assess our evidence and our interpretations of that evidence where it seems to support our beliefs and we have the grace to accept that we were wrong if the evidence or interpretation is shown to be problematic.

What Plantinga tries to show is that the scientific method can't stand up to the same criteria by which it judges everything else. You said at the beginning of your article that scientists are 99.99999% sure before committing to the truth of a claim. Can scientists be 99.99999% sure that our cognitive abilities align with reality? If not, then what does that say about using science as a criterion for judging truth? If we are not 99.99999% sure that our cognitive abilities are reliable then doesn't science itself rest on an unfounded belief?

I was initially responding to a claim (by another redditor) that I had erred in bracketing the word “philosopher” with quotation marks when using that word in reference to Alvin Plantinga.  My contention, as my quote above indicates, is that Plantinga is not so much a philosopher as an apologist (and possibly theologian) despite his apparently impressive academic qualifications in philosophy.  (To address what might seem like a valid reason to call Plantinga a philosopher – and even Craig, for that matter – please see Draconic Philosophy.)

In Planting a Courted Controversy, I related what happened after I had actively sought feedback from the WLC Fan Club at the Reasonable Faith website.  In the conclusion to that article, I agreed that I had not provided a comprehensive argument against the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN), which is what is being alluded to above with “If we are not 99.99999% sure that our cognitive abilities are reliable then doesn't science itself rest on an unfounded belief?”

Here then is my argument as to why the EAAN fails …

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I’ll explain what the EAAN is, as best I can (generally using Plantinga’s words) and put in comments where necessary:

Step 1 – Develop the probability expression P(R|N&E)

If:

R is the claim that our cognitive faculties are reliable,

N is metaphysical naturalism, including the claim that there is no God

E is the claim that our cognitive faculties are the product of evolution

Then:

P(R|N&E)  is the question “What is the probability of R if both N and E are true?”

Step 2 – Argue that P(R|N&E) is low

Since there is no reason to suppose that evolution unguided by God will favour reliable cognitive faculties (see Planting a Tiger for why he thinks this is the case), then P(R|N&E) is “relatively low, somewhat less than 1/2”.

Comment: This is an extraordinarily weak argument.  There is plenty of evidence to support the idea that animals with poor cognitive faculties will die out, this is particularly so if they are delicious – roasted dodo, anyone?

In reality, Plantinga’s argument falls down right here, he fails to provide a convincing argument as to why the beliefs of a human, if they were evolved, would be unlikely to be true.  His argument is so laughable that originally I didn’t think it needed more effort, but let’s continue ...

Step 3 – Argue that P(R|N&E) is inscrutable

Admit that “the argument for a low estimate for P(R|N&E) is pretty weak” and then claim that perhaps it is better to be agnostic with regard to this probability, on the grounds of it being “inscrutable; we just can’t tell what it is”.

Comment: This raises the question of why the argument was presented at all if it’s considered, even by Plantinga, as “pretty weak”.  Cynically, one could suggest that he does so in order that the “inscrutable argument” might appear less weak in comparison.  If that was the intent, it worked … by a narrow margin.

Step 4 – Argue that if P(R|N&E) is inscrutable, then P(R|N&E) is inscrutable

I’ll have to use Plantinga’s words here or it will sound like I am misrepresenting his argument (taken from his lecture notes):

Of course the argument for a low estimate of P(R/N&E) is pretty weak. In particular, our estimates of the various probabilities involved in estimating P(R/N&E) with respect to that hypothetical population (comment - a hypothetical population of creatures rather like ourselves on a planet similar to Earth … (that had) arisen by way of the selection processes endorsed by contemporary evolutionary thought – as indicated in an earlier paragraph – ed.) were pretty shaky. So perhaps the right course here is simple agnosticism: that probability is inscrutable; we just can’t tell what it is. This also seems sensible.

What would then be the appropriate attitude towards R (specified to that hypothetical population)? Someone who accepts N&E and also believes that the proper attitude towards P(R/N&E) is one of agnosticism, clearly, has good reason for being agnostic about R as well.

But now suppose we again apply the same sort of reasoning to ourselves and our condition. Suppose we think N&E is true: we ourselves have evolved according to the mechanisms suggested by contemporary evolutionary theory, unguided and unorchestrated by God or anyone else. Suppose we think, furthermore, that there is no way to determine P(R/N&E) (specified to us). What would be the right attitude to take to R? Well, if we have no further information, then wouldn’t the right attitude here, just as with respect to that hypothetical population, be agnosticism, withholding belief? If this probability is inscrutable, then we have a defeater for R, just as in the case where that probability is low.

So P(R/N&E) is either low or inscrutable; and if we accept N&E, then in either case we have a defeater for R.

Now, trying to turn this into English for the rest of us ... the value of P(R|N&E) with respect to a population of evolved creatures is unknown and, according to Plantinga, unknowable (i.e. inscrutable).   If we, as evolved creatures, accept that both N and E are true, but are agnostic about P(R|N&E), as Plantinga argues we must be, then we should rightly be agnostic about R (by which Plantinga seems to mean P(R) since he refers to “this probability”).

In short, if P(R|N&E) is inscrutable and N&E is true, then P(R) is inscrutable.

Comment: My sarcastic wording of this step reflects the fact that, if N&E is true, P(R) = P(R|N&E), irrespective of what the value of that probability is – inscrutable or low or, indeed, high.

Step 5 – Argue that if P(R|N&E) is inscrutable (or low) then R has a defeater

Actually, I can’t really see how he justified this step, but I can see why he does it.

A “defeater” is a proposition which, if in the possession of a person who otherwise would have a justified true belief constituting knowledge about something, would negate the justification or the belief (but not the truth).  It’s a term from epistemology, the study of knowledge, and it relates a particularly esoteric discussion as regards to what we can “know”.

In the tripartite theory of knowledge, in order to truly know something rather than just believe something to be true:

the something in question must be true;

one must maintain a belief that that something is true; and

that belief must be justified.

If you are deluded in your belief about something then you cannot know it (for example, correctly believing that the sun is not the centre of the universe would not count as knowing if your reason for believing is that you also believe that the Earth is the centre of the universe).

Perhaps you might be in possession of a fact which you do not accept or do not understand, for example the fact that the Bertrand Paradox has a unique resolution such that p=0.5, you can’t really say that you know this if you don’t believe it.  (If you believe this fact to be true, but you don’t understand it, you might still know it if, for example, you had been informed by an expert in the field.  So long as it is true, of course.)

Finally, you can’t know something that is not true.

I suspect that there’s an element of equivocation and conflation involved here.  Plantinga talks about R as if it means:

the claim that our cognitive faculties are reliable, **AND**

the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable, **AND**

the knowledge that our cognitive faculties are reliable, **AND**

the fact that our cognitive faculties are reliable

This is cheating on a major scale.

Step 6 – The Grand Finale

If you have a defeater for R, then you have a defeater for any belief you hold, including the belief that N&E is true.  Therefore it is irrational to hold the belief that N&E is true.

That’s it.  Well, he does go into a little pre-emptive defence against defeater-defeaters, but that’s largely irrelevant since you’d have to agree with Plantinga’s arrival at Step 6 and still want to hold onto N&E.  That would mean that you’d have to agree with Step 5 (and maybe Step 2) and you wouldn’t do that unless you were already presupposing the whole outcome with respect to N&E.

Let us look at Step 5 a bit more closely.

Plantinga is arguing that if we don’t know how probable it is that our cognitive faculties are reliable then it is probable that our cognitive faculties are unreliable.  Presumably, therefore, the only way that our cognitive faculties could be reliable would be for us to know that it is probable that our cognitive faculties are reliable.  But we’d only know that if they were reliable, otherwise we couldn’t know anything.

What Plantinga seems to be supposing here is some sort of bizarre bootstrapping – if you know that your cognitive faculties are reliable, then they are, and you know they are because those faculties are reliable, making your belief both true and justified.  However, if you are in doubt about the reliability of your cognitive faculties, they are unreliable by default, you know nothing and everything you believe is suspect.

This is, of course, nonsense.

As I have said elsewhere:

All (Plantinga) manages to do … is show that if naturalism and evolution are true, then we cannot know with 100% certainty that naturalism and evolution are true.  In other words, if naturalism and evolution are true, the scientific fact of naturalism and evolution is precisely the same as any other scientific fact – (because) we don’t know anything to be true with 100% certainty.

(There’s an extremely remote, non-zero chance that The Matrix was actually an ironic mockumentary screened by our mechanical overlords to taunt us and we are plugged into vats precisely as shown in what is portrayed to us as “fiction”.  This extremely unlikely possibility chips away from any otherwise perfect certainty we might have had about our world.  Scientists will think you are some sort of batty philosopher if you raise this argument, but eventually will concede that they cannot know that we aren’t in vats.)

What rational people will do is assume that the world is as it appears to be until illusions can be shown to exist.  As we detect illusions, we try to understand them so that we can account for them in our theories.  Rational people won’t deny that our cognitive faculties are limited, and prone to failure.  Nor will they assume that because those faculties are limited, and prone to failure, that they are completely useless.

And they won’t hang onto illusions just because they are comforting.

Now that I’ve explained, as best I can, the EAAN, I’d like to introduce the EAAT, which is the EAAN Argument Against Theism, or to give it its full glory …

“Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism” Argument Against Theism Version 1

Step 1 – Do the whole EAAN thing

Step 2 – Point out that if N&E is true, then it is irrational to believe anything Plantinga has to say, given that he is just an evolved form of tiger food

“Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism” Argument Against Theism Version 2

Step 1 – Do the whole EAAN thing

Step 2 – Consider the following:

·         If N&E is true then, irrespective of whether or not you believe that N&E is true, then it is quite likely that you will hold beliefs that are incorrect

·         If you continually challenge all of your beliefs, then those beliefs which consistently survive challenge will be more likely to be true

·         If a belief which fails a challenge is modified and then, as a consequence of being modified, consistently survives challenge, then that modified belief is more likely to be true

·         If N&E is continually challenged and consistently survives, then it is likely to be true

·         If N&E is challenged and fails, then is modified and the modified variant, N&E*, consistently survives challenge, then it is likely to be true

·         If another belief, say theism (T), is continually challenged and consistently fails, then it is unlikely to be true

·         If a belief is unchallenged and the holders of that belief are not willing to accept challenge, then the probability of that belief being true is inscrutable (you might want to follow Plantinga’s own argument here to reach the conclusion that holding such a belief is irrational)

From all this, we can conclude that:

·         P(R|N&E|S) is high when S is high (where S is the extent to which naturalism and evolution consistently survive challenges), and

·         P(R|S) is high when S is high (because the reliability of our cognitive faculties is also continually challenged)

The fact that N&E have been modified throughout the years, particularly the E component, is an indication that N&E is more likely to be true.  As a consequence, it is entirely rational to believe both that R is true and N&E is true.

On the other hand, however:

·         P(T|F) is low when F is high (where F is the extent to which theism fails being challenged), and

·         P(T|A) is low when A is high (where A is the extent to which theism avoids being challenged – see also being an infidel and apostasy).

Unlike with many other sorts of beliefs, there is great resistance to variations to T, therefore there is no T* as such (where T* is an improved version of theism) and T has no avenue by which to evolve towards a truth statement.

In other words, yes, I agree with Plantinga: many beliefs held by evolved creatures are likely to wrong, especially if they are untreated.  Even some of the smartest humans that ever lived used to believe such things as:

·         everything is a combination of up to four elements

·         phlogiston is a substance that escapes matter when it burns

·         there is an aether that conducts light

·         those enormous bones unearthed by mining and erosion are the bones of dragons

·         narwhal horns belonged to unicorns

These people were wrong.

Who knows, maybe string theory is a load of old cobbler’s.  But the point is, even if this is the case, scientists are actively encouraged to investigate string theory, to uncover how the theory is wrong and which associated beliefs are wrong.  Scientists working in the field will then, collectively, attempt to come up with something that is slightly better, but almost certainly also wrong in its own special way – and the process will continue.

This sounds like a terrible system, and perhaps it is.  A far worse system, however, is to cling unquestioningly to a demonstrably false belief which requires you to brutally corrupt logic in order to divert attention from the wealth of evidence against that belief.

Abusing the Children

I’ve recently been reading some of the stories posted to r/atheism.  Now this “subreddit” has been somewhat of a cesspit, with far too many people apparently taking great joy in offending as many people as possible, but there are occasionally nuggets of gold.

My attention is often drawn towards horror stories involving religious schools and home-schooling parents in America who either misinform their children or shield them from modern education.

In 1995 Madeleine Albright, as the US Ambassador to the UN, signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.  This Convention has still not been ratified by the US Government, due in part to the efforts of special interest groups who have concerns regarding Article 12:

"Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child ... the child shall in particular be provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child..."

Some in the US also want to retain the ability to execute juveniles and sentence them to life imprisonment, which the Convention prohibits.  While there is now a Supreme Court decision that finds the execution of juveniles to be unconstitutional, as of 2010 only six states prohibits life imprisonment for juveniles.

Returning to Article 12, this wording could easily be interpreted as prohibiting private and home-schooling that is oriented at religious indoctrination, although some of those agitating for ratification argue that this isn’t really the case.

What disheartens me is the occasional comment on reddit that reflects the attitude that a child is some sort of chattel who a parent is entitled to indoctrinate any way they see fit.  This seems to border on child abuse, especially when the indoctrination requires that a child be kept ignorant of facts that are inconsistent with a parent’s faith.

A child home-schooled by young earth creationist parents will be taught that there is no support for evolution and plenty of support for creation.  This is bad enough, at the very least the child should be presented with evidence for both sides of the argument (to the extent that it exists), but in order to prevent inconvenient questions, such a child is taught not to think critically.  There is a wealth of material available to home-schooling parents, but a disturbing amount of it is linked to biblical thinking – which indicates to me that “critical thinking” for some people means being selectively critical of anything which is not biblical.

It’s amusing that such people consider atheists to be overly focussed on the material, when they assume there is a huge delineation between harming a child materially (in other words physically) and harming a child intellectually.  If a parent were to remove the eardrums of a child, even if there was a religious motive, such as an injunction against modern music, this would be considered a clear case of child abuse.  But if a parent retards the intellectual development of a child by limiting education to that which is consistent with the words of an ancient book, this is merely “home-schooling” as protected by Supreme Court rulings on parental rights and religious liberties.

The last thing an atheist activist should be saying when seeing evidence of abuse (by fundamentalists, creationists and the like) is “it’s the parent’s right to raise the kid anyway they want” – shame on those who do.

Some Musings on the Moral Animals of reddit

There have been some interesting responses to The Moral Animal although unfortunately not in the comments section of the blog.  You can find them at r/philosophy and r/atheism.  I chose those two areas of reddit.com because ethics is a school of philosophy and because I am curious to know what, in general, atheists think about the moral agency of animals.  Of course, the volume of responses I got doesn’t really give me any indication of the general view, but it was interesting to see people who identify themselves as atheist defending some sort of top-down version of morality.

When I use the term “top-down version of morality”, I am referring to statements like:

“basic morals are inherent”

“lower species are … morally superior”

“there is a substantial difference between morality and trained behaviour”

These all seem to imply that there is a morality which we can identify in ourselves, and possibly in other animals, but which is not a human invention.  Now, I might be misreading this, since it is possible that these people simply mean to imply that humans invent this idea of morality, define it in some meaningful way, and then look to see if we and other animals demonstrate it (an example being monogamy, a state that ducks are accused of maintaining).

There were a couple of responses which implied that the morality of animals is (or perhaps should be) defined in terms of their interactions with humans.  For example, the dog who mauls a toddler to death would have done something that is morally wrong.  Dogs who rescue children are morally righteous.  An orang-utan who rapes a girl is morally wrong.  (I’m editing this in Word and the grammar checker tells me that I shouldn’t use “who” when talking about a dog, anthropocentric bias seems to be built into at least Microsoft’s version of English!)

Other responses framed the question of morality more in terms of intraspecies interaction, so it’s not all bad.  For example: house cats rarely kill each other (although they certainly fight and male lions kill their rival’s cubs), other apes practice reciprocal altruism and dolphins commit a form of gang-rape.

Perhaps the major thread in the responses was my own fault.  The headline at r/atheism spoke only of animals being moral, rather than being moral agents.  The r/philosophy headline was better phrased, but even there, there was a heavy focus on “what is moral?” at the expense of the question addressed in The Moral Animal, “can animals be moral agents?”

However, much as it was my own stupid fault, in one comment thread despite repeatedly stating that I was only considering the absolute minimum requirements for being a moral agent, rather than whether animals are moral, my interlocutor seemed unable or unwilling to take that onboard.  The final comment from this chap, who has the handle okayifimust, was so full of assumptions that I could not do it justice in that comment thread.  So, I’d like to address it here.  I’ll reproduce a little section of thread, first me (as wotpolitan), then okayifimust (for the earlier discussion and anything following, see r/atheism):

wotpolitan

Absolute minimum requirement for moral agency. I've said it a few times.

I think animals have it. I think there is evidence to support the idea that they have it.

Furthermore, given the vagueness associated with the terms "right" and "wrong" (for which a definition is required to use the wiki definition of moral agency in any sensible way), I think that animals can be moral agents. I define for my dogs what right and wrong is, and they know in the specific context of that interaction what right and wrong is. And they act "morally" in that context. Now, like humans, they will act "immorally" if they think they can get away with it. Unlike humans, however, they aren't that good at working out what they can get away with. That means they appear less moral than humans, but I think that's probably an anthropocentric illusion. I may be wrong on that, but it's another discussion.

okayifimust

| Absolute minimum requirement for moral agency. I've said it a few times.

Agreed. But since it's not a sufficient condition for moral agency - what is the point?

| Furthermore, given the vagueness associated with the terms "right" and "wrong" (for which a definition is required to use the wiki definition of moral agency in any sensible way), I think that animals can be moral agents.

Yes, we have to define "right" and "wrong" somehow. But in order for X to be a moral agent, all we have to do is agree that X is somehow aware of the concept; we don't have to agree with it, even.

| I think that animals can be moral agents. I define for my dogs what right and wrong is, and they know in the specific context of that interaction what right and wrong is.

But then a dog who doesn't shit on your carpet is equally "moral" as a dog who mails toddlers to death, just as long as that is what you train them to be. The dogs lack any consideration of morality, they just fear punishment.

| And they act "morally" in that context. Now, like humans, they will act "immorally" if they think they can get away with it.

Look, if you keep putting every word in quotes that we absolutely need to be very, very clear about, we might as well stop discussing it.

And, no, humans will not always try to do things that they can get away with. Humans can be moral agents, they can decide that an action is "wrong" as opposed to "likely to result in punishment if i am found out".

Okay, responding as I must:

I’m not, at this point, talking about moral agency per se. Earlier in the discussion I had highlighted a passage from The Moral Animal:

The absolute minimum requirements of moral agency … are an ability to understand and predict the consequences of action/inaction (comprehension) together with an ability to make decisions and act on them (volition).  Note that at this point I am neither assuming nor proposing any definitions of right/wrong, or good/bad, or moral/immoral.  An actor meeting the absolute minimum requirements of moral agency merely is able to choose between at least two predictable consequences of action/inaction.

The redditor okayifimust was surprised that I wanted to “claim ‘moral agency’ without considering the distinction between moral/immoral”.  I directed okayifimust’s attention to a response to another redditor, NukeThePope, in which I had written (clarifying edits in brackets):

Like I say (elsewhere), I am only talking in (The Moral Animal) about moral agency, by which I mean the ability to make a decision and act upon it while understanding the consequences of potential choices. Perhaps it would help to think about it in these terms - before we've decided what is right and wrong, even before we've decided on the basis (bases, perhaps) upon which we would make the decisions regarding right and wrong, we can consider moral agency. In other words, presuming that there is a morality with which we (and animals) may interact, what must we have to be able to interact with that morality?

Taking the viewpoint of some theists for a moment, say there is a god who either by its existence or by divine decree establishes a range of things that are right and good, and a range of things that are wrong and bad. Say further that the only creatures capable of interacting with this divinely inspired morality are humans. Therefore, in such a world, there is something different between animals and humans. What is that something?

Some theists, although not all, put that down to a soul, some element of likeness to their god. These people are saying, in a way, that the soul is the tool which determines for us what is moral. (I may be horribly simplifying a brilliantly exquisite point of theology here, but it is not my intention to attack theists on that point.)

Now, what I am saying is that I agree that to be a moral agent, we … must be able to work out that something is in some way wrong - that can be because it is against the rules, or something else, like an inbuilt moral detector, tells us it is wrong. Furthermore, we … must have volition - which theists along with many atheists would put down to free will.

I'm not saying anything about empathy, or needs and desires of others, I am just saying that my dogs know that if they take certain actions, then there will be certain outcomes, and they do have the volition necessary to choose one action over others. I'm not saying that they thinking morally, pondering on the action that will cause minimum suffering to those around them, but I am saying that they have the skill set necessary to act morally, if they had the ability and inclination to consider the potential suffering of those around them.

I really am just talking about the absolute minimum requirements for moral agency here.

I’d like to expand on this a little.  Imagine a situation in which a moral question must be answered, it could be anything, but I’m not particularly interested in a situation which has no clearly correct resolution (so that eliminates dilemmas such as the trolley problem).  Let’s use the finding of a large sum of money instead.  You come across a briefcase in which there is $1,000,000 along with a letter which indicates that the money is legitimately owned by a Mr Smith of 1 Smith Street, Smithton (and that it is not associated with any criminal activity).  That address is just around the corner, you are not busy and it’s on your intended route (you’re even walking so it’s no bother whatsoever to drop it at Mr Smith’s house).  However, it’s late at night, no-one is around, no-one knows that you are in this area, and $1,000,000 would make a significant improvement to your standard of living.  No-one would ever know if you just continued on your way and took the money home.  What is the correct course of action for you?

Now, the morally correct answer is pretty clear: you should take the money to Mr Smith’s house, returning it to the rightful owner.  But let’s look at you as a moral agent for a moment.  Say that you walked right past the briefcase without noticing it was there.  Would you in that case have had a moral obligation to return it?

I would argue that you would not, the obligation had not been triggered.

Say instead that you saw the briefcase, you opened it, and found that it contained scraps of meaningless paper, all about the same size in nice bundles, with another meaningless paper with various squiggles on it.  Would you then have a moral obligation to return it to Mr Smith, noting that in this situation you would not know that it belonged to Mr Smith (because the letter explaining the money and detailing his address was unreadable to you)?

Again I would argue that you would not.

In order to have a moral obligation, you must be cognitively aware that an obligation exists.  You must have comprehension.

On the other hand, suppose that you do become aware of an obligation, but when you try to lift up the briefcase, you find that it is incredibly heavy, or stapled immovably to the pavement.  Do you have an obligation to drop the briefcase at Mr Smith’s address?

I don’t think so, since you can’t lift the briefcase.  You might have the will, but not the ability to act.

Alternatively, perhaps just as you realise what you should do, you are knocked unconscious and carried home.  In this situation, it is surely ridiculous to expect that you have a moral obligation to return Mr Smith’s money while you are being carried home in a stupor.  You don’t have volition.

Even as a human, I argue, in order to be a moral agent as an absolute minimum you must have comprehension and volition.  Taking that a little further, it occurs to me that animals also have comprehension and volition, which means that they satisfy the absolute minimum requirements for being a moral agent.

Yes, we have to define "right" and "wrong" somehow. But in order for X to be a moral agent, all we have to do is agree that X is somehow aware of the concept; we don't have to agree with it, even.

Hm.  I might not really understand where okayifimust is going with this one.  I think he means that for X to be a moral agent, then X must have some sort of concept of morality, even if we don’t agree with that morality.  For example, X might be moral if X kills every second red-haired person she meets, because that’s in her moral code (“Yea verily, I say unto thee, thine brothers and sisters with hair of red that are without souls are an abomination to me, let the first walk freely but smite every second that thee doth meet so that I may glory their suffering, for I am a vengeful and capricious God.  So sayeth the Lord.”  [Leviticus 17:12].)  We don’t have to agree with her morality, but if she follows her convictions, we could say she is acting morally.

Personally, I don’t agree with that.  Perhaps there are people out there who consider that people who follow their own convictions are moral no matter how depraved their actions are in terms of what the rest of us think, but I do doubt it.  Anyway, I’ve talked about moral cowardice elsewhere.

That all said, can such people be moral agents?  Well, I think they satisfy the absolute minimum requirements for being moral agents, sure.  And I think they can be moral agents, but I still think that their morality needs some work.  And they could be retrained to exhibit a more widely accepted morality – which is to say, I am not convinced that there is a substantial difference between morality and trained behaviour.

But then a dog who doesn't shit on your carpet is equally "moral" as a dog who mails toddlers to death, just as long as that is what you train them to be. The dogs lack any consideration of morality, they just fear punishment.

This is just a total misunderstanding of the point.  If a dog comprehends what is right and what is wrong (in terms dictated by a human owner or the pack) then, if that dog is free to act (has volition), then it may be a moral agent in that it may choose to do what it knows to be right or it may choose to do what it knows to be wrong.  If an owner successfully teaches a dog that mauling toddlers to death is good, then it’s just doing the right thing in the same way as righteous humans in history have performed many acts that we today see as abhorrent.

I agree that we fear punishment, along with dogs.  However, certainly for humans, that punishment does not need to be external.  I think that punishment is also internalised in other social animals, albeit to a lesser extent.  Certain domestic animals exhibit guilt, perhaps that is fear of punishment or fear of disapproval, but then again humans are also conditioned by similar considerations.

Look, if you keep putting every word in quotes that we absolutely need to be very, very clear about, we might as well stop discussing it.

And, no, humans will not always try to do things that they can get away with. Humans can be moral agents, they can decide that an action is "wrong" as opposed to "likely to result in punishment if i am found out".

Well, okayifimust, I put quotation marks against the words “morally” and “immorally” because I was using an unusual definition of the term.  Returning to ducks, who are accused of being monogamous, I’ve seen a female duck being mounted by a drake who was not her partner (that partner was right alongside her looking as distressed as I’ve ever seen a duck look).  The assertion that life-long monogamy is morally good is somewhat arbitrary, particularly when applied to ducks.  They tend to be monogamous, but whether that is morally good or just is, well, that is another question.

Humans do act “immorally” by being unfaithful or only serially monogamous, you might want to argue that that is morally bad, but please argue that case – don’t just assume that your assumption is correct and that everyone agrees with you.  I’m not saying you are necessarily wrong, I’m just saying that we have perhaps arbitrarily defined life-long monogamy as moral despite the fact that the vast majority of people don’t actually practice it.

And yes, I agree, humans don’t always try to do what they know to be wrong if they think they can get away with it.  I do get a little deeper into that in the series of articles of which The Moral Animal is only the first.  Hopefully things will become clearer to okayifimust once the relevant articles have been published.