Empathy's Role in Moral Reasoning

I rarely cry for my own sake. What I do cry over is the suffering of others. I can stoically bare my own grief with almost no problems whatsoever, but as soon as I see a mother crushed under the weight of her grief for her son that passed away, I can bare it no longer. This is wholly due to my capacity to empathize, the ability to understand and share feelings with another. Empathy works in a very interesting way, actually causing us to feel the pain and sorrow of others we come into contact with. When we see someone in pain, the same parts of our brain that are associated with actually feeling that pain become active.¹

This is almost certainly an adaptive trait, forged over millions of years of evolution in order to foster social interactions between individuals that benefit our "selfish" genes. But, even though the "motives" behind empathy are selfish, we can in fact hijack this useful capacity and use it as a tool for our own purposes, namely moral reasoning. 

Empathy is not the foundation of moral reasoning. The foundation must be reason itself, in my opinion, and not a subjective emotional response to stimuli. But, interestingly enough, I think that empathy, even though it is purely affective, actually can be an extremely useful tool for objective moral reasoning. Empathy informs us that another's misery and happiness is as valuable as our own in a very tangible manner. It is a window that allows us to look outside our scope of self-interest and peer, however imperfectly, into a truly impartial world where misery is miserable and happiness is joyous, no matter who experiences it. This is something that could only be done in the abstract without the capacity to empathize, which explains why most sociopaths don't see things this way. They lack this extremely valuable tool, and are thus forced to live inside their scope of self-interest, with not a single window of which to look out.

I, for one, am glad I can look out the window, even though it makes me cry sometimes.

On the equivocation between distinct definitions of OBJECTIVE and SUBJECTIVE

It almost pains me to enter into a discussion of semantics, but alas I think I must. The topic of whether morality is objective or subjective is an important issue, but very few people actually spend time on what they mean when they state that morality is objective or subjective, which definitely confuses the issue, given that there are two completely different objective/subjective dichotomies that could be relevant to a debate on morality.

Dichotomy 1

• OBJECTIVE - not dependent on the mind for existence; actual

• SUBJECTIVE - dependent on the mind or on an individual's perception for its existence

Dichotomy 2

• OBJECTIVE - (of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts

• SUBJECTIVE - based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions
(New Oxford American Dictionary)

Dichotomy 1 seems to be the one used most by moral subjectivists.  When using Dichotomy 1, it is hardly arguable that morality is or could be objective. But, it's not really a victory for moral subjectivists, because using this dichotomy, it is hard to argue that any field of human thought is objective. Mathematics, for instance, is solely dependent upon a mind that defined the values of the various symbols. "1+1=2" is only true because a mind defines (1), (+), (=), and (2) in such a way that it is coherent. The same goes for other forms of logic (and thus anything that applies logic, i.e. science), which are all based on axiomatic systems that require a mind to relate different ideas in a coherent manner. 

What is clear, it seems, is that to have any useful discussion, we ought to use Dichotomy 2, given that I think we can all bow to the arguments posed in favor of subjectivity in Dichotomy 1. For the discussion to be meaningful, we must discuss whether or not personal feelings, taste, and opinions can be transcended in order to develop a coherent, reasonable, universally binding ethical system.

The Purpose of Ethics

The purpose of ethics, that is the study of morality, is something that we do not often discussed. Instead, we usually make moral arguments that are founded on the presupposition that everyone knows what a moral argument seeks to argue. That, I believe, is not useful, and I think it's important to start with a discussion on the nature of morality itself, as opposed to what is moral and immoral. 

Ethics, being the study of morality, concerns itself with discovering the difference between right and wrong, between oughts and ought nots, between desirable and undesirable, between good and bad. It should not surprise you that all four of these dichotomies are in fact the same exact thing. We ought to do right because it is desirable and good, and we ought not do wrong because it is undesirable and bad. The syntax of that sentence can be arranged in many ways without changing the essential meaning. Why is something right? Because we ought to do it; because it is desirable; because it is good. Why ought we do something? Because it is right; because it is desirable to do so; because it is good. Why is something desirable? Because it is right; because we ought to do it; because it is good. Why is something good? Because it is right; because we ought to do it; because it is desirable. And so it goes. All these words mean the same thing, and it is hard to explain one without using the others. I can only assume that the thoughtful reader has a sense of what these words are referring to in fact. 

This, to me, is a major hang up when discussing ethical questions. People choose different words to describe the same thing, and then end up in disagreement further down the road. Many Christians, for example, do not believe that what is right and wrong is the same as what is (intuitively) desirable and undesirable. But, what is really the case is that they believe certain things are more desirable than other things. They believe, for instance, that obedience to God is more desirable than the pleasure one would get from premarital sex. To them, obedience to God is either desirable in and of itself, desirable as a means to another desirable thing (i.e. heaven), or both. It's much the same for the hedonist that indulges every whim, only opposite. They might say that they think desire is more important than what's right, but what they are really saying is that they believe that base pleasure is more desirable than virtue, or that virtue isn't desirable at all. Now that we hopefully have this problem of semantics resolved, we can actually approach the purpose of ethics itself. 

The purpose of ethics is to find an end or ends of reasonable action, or discover if such an end or ends exist. These ends must be right in and of themselves, good in and of themselves, desirable in and of themselves, and they ought to be pursued in and of themselves. If we say that something is good, right, desirable, or ought to be pursued, then it must either be a means to such an end, an end in itself, or both.

What a Skeptic Requires to Believe in God

An empirical skeptic can be described as someone who does not believe in anything that can be considered superfluous. Given two constructs of equal explanatory power, we are more apt to accept the construct that makes the fewest unnecessary assumptions as the most likely. 

In the case of the question of whether or not there is a divine creator or not, we have two general constructs.

• "The universe exists."

• "The universe exists and was created by a divine deity."

We can see that the first construct is the simplest, and is thus the default position for any skeptic. Notice, the default position is not, "The universe exists and was not created by a divine deity," but just that the universe exists and the idea of a divine creator is subject to doubt. A person that is skeptical of the existence of God maintains this default position. So, the question is, what is necessary for a skeptic to move past the default position and come closer to accepting the existence of God, or any claim for that matter?

The answer is observations that, when analyzed, demonstrate that the more complex construct has greater explanatory power than the simpler one. These observations analyzed observations are better known as evidence. In order to demonstrate this, the analysis of these observations must be such that it puts the construct through a test, where predictions can be made based upon the construct and observations can demonstrably either lend support or refute it. It's a brute fact of human inquiry that in order to ascertain that an idea may be true, that we can conceive of and possibly observe circumstances that would render the idea false. 

So, in short, what a skeptic requires to move towards belief in God is testable evidence that is far better explained by the existence of God than it could be otherwise. I have yet to hear of any phenomena, including near death experiences, mystical experiences, religious revelations, 'answered' prayers, etc., that are better explained by the existence of God or supernatural forces as opposed to far simpler explanations. In fact, I would argue that most concepts of God are untestable, and thus cannot meet the requirements of belief for a skeptic.

Inductive Reasoning vs. Faith

Many religious people tend to argue that non-religious, skeptical individuals have as much faith in their beliefs as they do theirs. This, I think, is a misunderstanding around the means that a skeptic incorporates certain beliefs into their belief system. Most of a skeptic's knowledge is accumulated through inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning is the process of deriving general principles from specific instances or observations. It is uncertain, and only deals in probability as opposed to certainty, but it is nonetheless a powerful tool in acquiring useful, meaningful knowledge. And, to people unfamiliar with it, it appears a bit like faith instead of an application of critical thought.

The key difference between inductive reasoning and faith is that inductive reasoning is based upon statistical probabilities when having "faith in something" implies that there is no real reason other than an emotional or 'spiritual' apprehension to believe in it. Take, for instance, the inductive principle "lead sinks in water at STP (standard temperature and pressure)." What this is really saying is, "based upon an extensive amount of past data being consistent and unchanging in confirming the general principle 'lead sinks in water at STP,' it is probable to the highest degree that new observations will continue to confirm this as a generally applicable principle." Since that's quite a mouthful, the short hand version is a bit easier to use in regular conversation. But, as we can see, the long-hand version takes absolutely no faith, just a rather basic understanding of statistical probabilities. Predicting that a specific instance will result in lead floating in water at STP is simply as silly as betting on number 39 when playing roulette (the wheel only goes to 38). The odds are so stacked against it that it is entirely unreasonable to believe it, and thus entirely reasonable to believe the contrary -- that lead will sink, and that the roulette wheel will land on a number ranging from 0-38 (or 00). No faith required.

Skepticism - “Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence”

Many people who are not familiar with skepticism are introduced to it through the rather vague remark that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." What many of these individuals do not realize is that the idea of something being "extraordinary" to a skeptic has a bit more meaning than it does to the general public. Although this may seem obvious to any diligent student of skepticism, I doubt that much of the general public has read David Hume, or even Carl Sagan for that matter. So, here I will try to give a brief introduction on what a skeptic means when he uses these terms. 

First and foremost, almost anyone you run into that happens to call themselves a skeptic will likely be what's known as a empirical (or scientific) skeptic, that is they question the validity of claims that lack empirical evidence. As far as I know, this line of thinking has much of its roots in the writings of David Hume, and is spelled out explicitly in his empiricist tome An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Empirical skeptics accept the epistemological view that contingent claims (claims dealing with the way things are in fact) cannot be verified through deduction alone, but can only be instead verified by experience. For example, an empirical skeptic would say that for us to conclude that lead sinks in water is not a product of logical necessity, but instead it is our experience of that fact that leads us to the conclusion that it in fact sinks. 

This, however, illuminates a problem, known as the problem of induction. According to Hume, we develop a sense of how things are in fact through induction (deriving principles from specific instances) as opposed to deduction (deriving specific instances from principles), but induction is inherently imperfect as a means of acquiring knowledge. Where a conclusion necessarily follows from its premises in deductive reasoning, that is not the case with induction. This leaves us with an inherent uncertainty in the validity of all contingent claims. Going back to our example, we must conclude that just because our experience is that lead sinks in water does not necessarily mean that that is always the case. The descriptive principle, "lead sinks in water," is tentative and by no means certainly true. In the empiricist's view, however, the more a principle is confirmed by experience, the more certain we can become of its validity. We can reasonably expect that lead will sink in water because it has always done so in the past.

So, in this context, an "extraordinary claim," as opposed to being a mere claim to the unusual, is the complete opposite of this sort of empirically supported claim. It is a claim that isn't confirmed by experience, and may even be contradicted by it. The claim, "lead floats in water," is an extraordinary claim. That is not a matter of subjective opinion, but a statement that our cumulative experience, mainly our extensive understanding of physics, contradicts this claim. Disregarding trickery or other extraneous variables, lead sinks in water every time anyone tries to test it.

So, when a skeptic says that Jesus rising from dead is an extraordinary claim, we are actually pointing to the body of evidence produced by the study of human physiology, as well as our cumulative experience that people stay dead after being dead for three days. 

The next step is to establish what an empirical skeptic means by “extraordinary evidence.” Extraordinary evidence is empirical evidence that meets the rigors of the scientific method. There are a few basic criteria for this type of evidence: it must be testable, falsifiable, and robust. The first two are so intertwined that they are hard to separate from one another in an explanation.

The concept that ideas need to be tested in order to be justified is the foundation of the scientific method. For, if you can not test an idea, you simply cannot determine if it is true or false. To believe in something without putting it to a proper test is to simply take it on the claimant's say-so. 

A proper test requires that we are able to distinguish between a world where a claim is true and a world where the claim is false. Thus, the principle of falsifiability comes into play. If a claim is falsifiable, that means that there is a possible test for which, if certain conditions are met, that the claim can be discredited. For example, the claim that "all men are immortal," is easily falsified through the observation of a single dead man. If, however, a claim is unfalsifiable, then it cannot be tested. For, a world in which an unfalsifiable claim is true is completely indistinguishable from a world in which it is false. Thus, such claims are entirely worthless, and warrant extreme skepticism.

For example, in A Demon Haunted World, Carl Sagan proposed to his readers that a dragon lived in his garage. When you went to look in his garage, however, he told you that it was an invisible dragon. When you tried to spread flour on the floor to see its footprints, Mr. Sagan explained that the dragon floated. When you tried to detect the heat of the fire that it spewed from its mouth with infrared sensors, he was so kind to explain to you that the fire it breaths is heatless. And, when you finally decided to spray paint the dragon, he told you that it was an incorporeal dragon. In other words, this dragon is completely beyond our detection. Carl Sagan's claim to its existence is not subject to falsification, and to say that such a dragon exists is rather meaningless, because a universe where such a dragon exists is entirely indistinguishable from one that does not. 

The last factor in considering evidence is its robustness. When claim is robust, that means it is supported by an entire body of evidence, and contradicted by little or no evidence. This is important because one specific piece of evidence tends to never point to a single conclusion, but instead is readily open to interpretation and could easily fit with several or even dozens of different hypotheses. It requires not just one single piece of evidence to support a claim, but an entire body, so that all are pointing towards the validity of that claim without mutually supporting any others. An example of a lack of robustness would be alien abduction claims. It's certainly an interesting phenomenon, given the consistency of the experiences between different individuals and the powerful (and quite real) emotional responses to them. However, in them we have a complete lack of robustness, because there are other (more terrestrial) explanations that explain the phenomenon just fine. A combination of sleep paralysis (of which I'm a rather frequent sufferer), hypnagogic hallucinations, aliens in popular culture, and perhaps even effects of magnetic fields on the brain, all explain the phenomenon as well if not better than the idea that aliens are actually visiting Earth and taking human specimens in their sleep. The evidence doesn't only point to the extraordinary claim, and thus less the extraordinary claims are much more likely. 

What we’ve learned is that the principle "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" can be, more formally, written as "Claims that are not confirmed by experience, or contradicted by it, require testable, falsifiable, robust empirical evidence in order to justify them." This is the bread-and-butter of skeptical thought, and once you understand and accept this, you are well on your way to becoming a skeptic.

'The Fine Art of Baloney Detection'

Now that I have presented the difference between skepticism and denialism, I want to clear up what exactly skepticism is. Since he is perhaps one of the greatest champion of skeptical thought and is great at demonstrating ideas in a way that is easily understood, I will be borrowing much from Carl Sagan (specifically his chapter in The Demon-Haunted World of the same title as this post).


Sagan described skepticism as a Baloney Detection Kit, which contains the tools "to construct, and to understand, a reasoned argument and -- especially important -- to recognize a fallacious or fraudulent argument."


So, what's in the tool kit? There is a list of do’s and a list of don’ts.


DO
• Independently confirm the "facts" wherever possible.
• Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
• Spin more than one hypothesis. If there's something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.
• Quantify. If whatever it is you're explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you'll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses.
• Make sure arguments follow. If there's a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work (including the premise) -- not just most of them.
• Use Occam's Razor. This convenient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler.
• Ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified. Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much.
• Perform controlled experiments wherever possible.


DO NOT
• Use arguments from authority, as they carry little weight -- "authorities" have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.
• Get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours. It's only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don't, others will.
• Use logical fallacies.


So that's the basic gist of skeptical thinking right there. As someone who is rather innately gullible, I find these tools to be extremely useful.


In fact, everyone tends to find use of skeptical thinking in some aspects of their life. For instance, I am currently looking to buy a car. Most people apply skepticism to such an endeavor. For instance, when I go look at a car tomorrow, I'm going to bring my father (who worked as a mechanic for some time) with me because I really don't know a lot about cars, and I know he can ask the right questions and spot anything obviously wrong. This is what skeptics do, but they apply it to more things than just car purchases. They hopefully apply it to religion, economics, politics, and general claims about how our world works.


I can say with reasonable certainty that skepticism works. Science wouldn't be what it is without skepticism (they are really the same thing), and the world simply wouldn't be the same without science. It is that skepticism that breeds valid claims, and rejects invalid ones. Skepticism allows for a meaningful progression of knowledge; knowledge that we can apply to improve not only our understanding of the world around us, but our mastery of it. But, please, don’t take my word for it — try it for yourself.