In our last episode I pointed out that, while some of the most noteworthy public intellectuals of the day occasionally pay lip service to the connection between morality and evolution by natural selection, they act and speak as if they believed the opposite. If morality is an expression of evolved traits, it is necessarily subjective. The individuals mentioned speak as if, and probably believe, that it is objective. What do I mean by that? As the Finnish philosopher Edvard Westermarck put it,
The supposed objectivity of moral values, as understood in this treatise (his Ethical Relativity, ed.) implies that they have a real existence apart from any reference to a human mind, that what is said to be good or bad, right or wrong, cannot be reduced merely to what people think to be good or bad, right or wrong. It makes morality a matter of truth and falsity, and to say that a judgment is true obviously means something different from the statement that it is thought to be true.
All of the individuals mentioned in my last post are aware that there is a connection between morality and its evolutionary roots. If pressed, some of them will even admit the obvious consequence of this fact; that morality must be subjective. However, neither they nor any other public intellectual that I am aware of actually behaves or speaks as if that consequence meant anything or, indeed, as if it were even true. One can find abundant evidence that this is true simply by reading their own statements, some of which I quoted. For example, according the Daniel Dennett, Trump supporters are “guilty.” Richard Dawkins speaks of the man in pejorative terms that imply a moral judgment rather than rational analysis of his actions. Sam Harris claims that Trump is “unethical,” and Jonathan Haidt says that he is “morally wrong,” without any qualification to the effect that they are just making subjective judgments, and that the subjective judgments of others may be different and, for that matter, just as “legitimate” as theirs.
A commenter suggested that I was merely quoting tweets, and that the statements may have been taken out of context, or would have reflected the above qualifications if more space had been allowed. Unfortunately, I have never seen a single example of an instance where one of the quoted individuals made a similar statement, and then qualified it as suggested. They invariably speak as if they were stating objective facts when making such moral judgments, with the implied assumption that individuals who don’t agree with them are “bad.”
A quick check of the Internet will reveal that there are legions of writers out there commenting on the subjective nature of morality. Not a single one I am aware of seems to realize that, if morality is subjective, their moral judgments lack any objective normative power or legitimacy whatsoever when applied to others. Indeed, one commonly finds them claiming that morality is subjective, and as a consequence one is “morally obligated” to do one thing, and “morally obligated” not to do another, in the very same article, apparently oblivious to the fact that they are stating a glaring non sequitur.
None of this should be too surprising. We are not a particularly rational species. We give ourselves far more credit for being “wise” than is really due. Most of us simply react to atavistic urges, and seek to satisfy them. Our imaginations portray Good and Evil to us as real, objective things, and so we thoughtlessly assume that they are. It is in our nature to be judgmental, and we take great joy in applying these imagined standards to others. Unfortunately, this willy-nilly assigning of others to the above imaginary categories is very unlikely to accomplish the same thing today as it did when the responsible behavioral predispositions evolved. I would go further. I would claim that this kind of behavior is not only not “adaptive.” In fact, it has become extremely dangerous.
The source of the danger is what I call “ideophobia.” So far, at least, it hasn’t had a commonly recognized name, but it is by far the most dangerous form of all the different flavors of “bigotry” that afflict us today. By “bigotry” I really mean outgroup identification. We all do it, without exception. Some of the most dangerous manifestations of it exist in just those individuals who imagine they are immune to it. All of us hate, despise, and are disgusted by the individuals in whatever outgroup happens to suit our fancy. The outgroup may be defined by race, religion, ethnic group, nationality, and even sex. I suspect, however, that by far the most common form of outgroup (and ingroup) identification today is by ideology.
Members of ideologically defined ingroups have certain ideas and beliefs in common. Taken together, they form the intellectual shack the ingroup in question lives in. The outgroup consists of those who disagree with these core beliefs, and especially those who define their own ingroup by opposing beliefs. Ideophobes hate and despise such individuals. They indulge in a form of bigotry that is all the more dangerous because it has gone so long without a name. Occasionally they will imagine that they advocate universal human brotherhood, and “human flourishing.” In reality, “brotherhood” is the last thing ideophobes want when it comes to “thought crime.” They do not disagree rationally and calmly. They hate the “other,” to the point of reacting with satisfaction and even glee if the “other” suffers physical harm. They often imagine themselves to be great advocates of diversity, and yet are blithely unaware of the utter lack of it in the educational, media, entertainment, and other institutions they control when it comes to diversity of opinion. As for the ideological memes of the ingroup, they expect rigid uniformity. What Dennett, Dawkins, Harris and Haidt thought they were doing was upholding virtue. What they were really doing is better called “virtue signaling.” They were assuring the other members of their ingroup that they “think right” about some of its defining “correct thoughts,” and registering the appropriate allergic reaction to the outgroup.
I cannot claim that ideophobia is objectively immoral. I do believe, however, that it is extremely dangerous, not only to me, but to everyone else on the planet. I propose that it’s high time that we recognized the phenomenon as a manifestation of human nature that has long outlived its usefulness. We need to recognize that ideophobia is essentially the same thing as racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, xenophobia, or what have you. The only difference is in the identifying characteristics of the outgroup. The kind of behavior described is a part of what we are, and will remain a part of what we are. That does not mean that it can’t be controlled.
What evidence do I have that this type of behavior is dangerous? There were two outstanding examples in the 20th century. The Communists murdered 100 million people, give or take, weighted in the direction of the most intelligent and capable members of society, because they belonged to their outgroup, commonly referred to as the “bourgeoisie.” The Nazis murdered tens of millions of Jews, Slavs, gypsies, and members of any other ethnicity that they didn’t recognize as belonging to their own “Aryan” ingroup. There are countless examples of similar mayhem, going back to the beginnings of recorded history, and ample evidence that the same thing was going on much earlier. As many of the Communists and Nazis discovered, what goes around comes around. Millions of them became victims of their own irrational hatred.
No doubt Dennett, Dawkins, Harris, Haidt and legions of others like them see themselves as paragons of morality and rationality. I have my doubts. With the exception of Haidt, they have made no attempt to determine why those they consider “deplorables” think the way they do, or to calmly analyze what might be their desires and goals, and to search for common ground and understanding. As for Haidt, his declaration that the goals of his outgroup are “morally wrong” flies in the face of all the fine theories he recently discussed in his The Righteous Mind. I would be very interested to learn how he thinks he can square this circle. Neither he nor any of the others have given much thought to whether the predispositions that inspire their own desires and goals will accomplish the same thing now as when they evolved, and appear unconcerned about the real chance that they will accomplish the opposite. They have not bothered to consider whether it even matters, and why, or whether the members of their outgroup may be acting a great deal more consistently in that respect than they do. Instead, they have relegated those who disagree with them to the outgroup, slamming shut the door on rational discussion.
In short, they have chosen ideophobia. It is a dangerous choice, and may turn out to be a very dangerous one, assuming we value survival. I personally would prefer that we all learn to understand and seek to control the worst manifestations of our dual system of morality; our tendency to recognize ingroups and outgroups and apply different standards of good and evil to individuals depending on the category to which they belong. I doubt that anything of the sort will happen any time soon, though. Meanwhile, we are already witnessing the first violent manifestations of this latest version of outgroup identification. It’s hard to say how extreme it will become before the intellectual fashions change again. Perhaps the best we can do is sit back and collect the data.