Natural & Normative

Author(s): Robert B. Pippin

Source: Daedalus, Vol. 138, No. 3, On Being Human (Summer, 2009), pp. 35-43
Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of American Academy of Arts & Sciences
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40543986
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Robert B. Pippin

Natural & normative

1 he flood of recent books in the last ences are trying to explain. I do not in
decade or so by neuroscientists, prima- any way count myself an expert in this
tologists, computer scientists, evolution- emerging literature, but I do want to of-
ary biologists, and economists about fer some initial and very general reasons
issues traditionally considered of inter- to hesitate before jumping on some of
est to the humanities - issues like moral- these particular bandwagons.
ity, politics, the nature of rationality,
what makes a response to an object an X work within a strand of the modern
aesthetic response, and value theory - philosophical tradition that can be said
and the incorporation of such research to have begun with two extremely influ-
methods by some academics tradition- ential essays by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
ally thought of as humanists have pro- In 1749, Rousseau won first prize in a
voked a great deal of discussion, some contest held by the Academy of Dijon in
controversy, and a growing number of answer to the question, "Has the prog-
conferences about the "two cultures." ress of the sciences and arts contributed
The great majority of this discussion to the corruption or to the improvement
has involved a kind of invitation to hu- of human conduct?" Rousseau's answer,
manists to make themselves aware of famously, was "corruption." In 1754, re-
the new discoveries and new possibili- sponding again to an Academy question,
ties opened up by this research, and to he wrote his Discourse on the Origin and
reorient their thinking accordingly. As Basis of Inequality Among Men, another
far as I have been able to discover, rela- blistering attack on modernization, in-
tively little of the discussion has been cluding the presumptions of scientific
concerned with what scientists work- and technical modernization. These
ing in this area might profitably learn two essays represented one of the first
from humanists, or whether becoming attempts to mark out the limits (in prin-
better informed about traditional and ciple ; not limits based on temporary em-
modern humanist approaches might pirical ignorance) of modern scientific
suggest some hesitations and qualifica- understanding in contributing to human
tions about just what the phenomena self-knowledge. The essays insisted on
actually are that our friends in the sci- an unusual sort of necessary indepen-
dence (unusual for not relying on theol-
2009 by Robert B. Pippin ogy or revelation, as in much of the Eu-

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Robert B. ropean counter-Enlightenment, or any (and while philosophers have often been
Pippin
form of traditional metaphysical dual- rightly accused of imperialist ambitions,
on being
human ism), and they privileged the importance treating everything else in the humani-
of moral and normative matters. In the ties as bad versions of philosophy, rather
way he argued for the distinctness of hu- than as possible good versions of what
man beings, Rousseau became a major they are), I don't think the questions are
influence on German philosophy in its confined to philosophy. They turn up
classical period from the end of the eigh- everywhere : how a text ought to be in-
teenth to the first third of the nineteenth terpreted (that is, what it means to get a
century, and many of the arguments, as text right or wrong) ; how a character's
formulated by Kant and Hegel especially, professions of love in a novel ought to
continue to be relevant to these new nat- be assessed (is he lying, a hypocrite, self-
uralizing enterprises. deceived, honest but naive?) ; whether
Of course, those thinkers who later and, if so, how an abstract expression-
objected to the belief that the natural ist painting can be said to mean some-
scientific paradigm is wholly and exclu- thing, and, if so, of what significance or
sively adequate for human self-knowl- importance is such painterly meaning;
edge were nowhere near as radical as what ought we to believe about the sig-
Rousseau. He seemed to be decrying nificance of the crisis of modernism
the ethical insufficiency of modernity in music in the late nineteenth century
itself, claiming that its social organiza- (why does so much contemporary art
tion and division of labor were creating music sound so different from the way
forms of human dependence that weak- music had almost always sounded; what
en and enervate, degrade and immiser- is of value in the new music ? ) ; and tra-
ate ; that we were busily creating a nov- ditional philosophical issues, like under
el way of life that was as unsuited for what conditions is the state's use of co-
human flourishing as life in a zoo is to ercive power justifiable.
the animals therein. Yet there is a more
common, narrower concern that often Defore we reach any question of inter-
derived from Rousseau and that persists disciplinary cooperation with the sci-
as a complex problem. ences, I should note that it has become
Let us say that the basic problem is extremely controversial within the hu-
the status of normative considerations, manities to treat the humanities like
considerations that invoke some sort this, as if all were contributing to the
of "ought" claim. Two such claims have same conversation about various "live"
always been more important than any normative issues. For instance, the idea
other : what ought to be believed and that literary products or paintings could
what ought to be done. For me, these be said to imply, presuppose, or require
claims are at the heart of what we in truth or value claims has in itself very
this country call the humanities (what little purchase on the contemporary
elsewhere are called the Geisteswissen- academic mind. The idea that these are
chaften or les sciences humaines), and they truth claims about normative matters -
contribute to the traditional case that that there simply are truth claims about
the humanities form the indispensable normative matters that ought to be pur-
core of any credible university educa- sued - and that these ought to be dis-
tion. While these considerations seem cussed and assessed as such, rather than
like distinctly philosophical questions only as deeply historically contextual -

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ized bits of evidence about what peo- representative activities to the psycho- Natural &
normative
ple believed at a specific time and place, logical or social conditions of their pro-
now sounds like a rather stale human- duction.
ism. It is often immediately assumed I would suggest that this skepticism
that any proponent of such views must about the independent or autonomous
serve a conservative agenda. status of the normative, the state of be-
This is so for a number of complex ing "fraught with ought," as the philos-
reasons. One, there is a great suspicion opher Wilfrid Sellars described it, is
about there being any one way to ad- something like a necessary condition for
dress or engage these normative issues the ever more popular empirical study
(ought claims) at a first-order level, that of why people have come to believe what
is, by simply taking them on, trying to they generally do, or did, at a particular
think about them and making up one's time. That's all one would really think
mind in conversation with texts and there is to study or research if there is no
with others about what one ought to way to resolve first-order questions of
believe or what one, or some character, normative truth. In addition, many peo-
ought or ought not to do or have done. ple have also come to believe that a de-
The idea is that this would be naive, un- fense of any perspective on human ani-
critical, or unreflective, ignorant of the mals other than a strictly naturalist one
collapse of the notion of objective natu- will unfairly and dangerously, and for
ral moral order, a hierarchical chain of many, immorally privilege the human
being and of natural purposes linked in a animal above all others, thus playing
harmonious whole that provides a basis an ideological role in how we farm, eat,
for such normative judgments. Without and experiment on other animal species.
such a secure natural whole and harmo- Others believe that such an enterprise
ny, how could there be any objective ba-must be ideological, where this is under-
sis, any independent truth makers, for stood to mean either uncritically accept-
such a conversation? I'm not saying that ing the views of the modern West, or be-
ing unaware of how contingent, possibly
this is a particularly good objection ; just
that it has been extremely influential. otherwise, such views are.
Another suspicion is that first-order This is all understandable in a more
normative claims have been so various general sense, too. A great deal of hu-
and have changed so often that we have manistic study is devoted to objects not
a better chance of explaining why peoplecreated to be studied : not academic re-
have come to have various views about search projects, but Greek plays written
what ought to be believed or ought to for communal religious festivals, church
be done, rather than we have of assess- music, wall hangings for the rich and
ing the quality of their answers. Paul mighty, commercial story writing, Hol-
Ricoeur once referred to the nineteenth- lywood films, and so on. It is only very
century thinkers who inspired this skep-recently in the long history of the uni-
ticism - Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud - versity that it came to be considered ap-
as the "Masters of Suspicion." Such sus- propriate to devote university resources
picion has had the most lasting impact to the study of not merely Greek and
in the Western academy on the study Latin classics, but vernacular art and lit-
of art, literature, and some philosophy, erature ; to study not just Christian texts
prompting a kind of shadow scientism, and Christian apologists, but the issue
which traces the meaning of various of secular morality. It is perhaps then un-

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Robert B. derstandable that while we have some in is what happens when such explana-
Pippin
vague sense that an educated person tory considerations are understood to
on being
human should be familiar with some such fa- have replaced or superseded what I have
mous objects, we have not yet settled been calling first-order normative ques-
on anything remotely like a common tions (what ought to be believed and/or
research program for studying them. done), all in favor of so-called sideways
And this sort of uncertainty (accom- on or second-order questions : what ex-
panied often by a vague lack of confi- plains why people do this or that, believe
dence) has recently led to these even this or that?1
more serious qualifications on any pu- "What problem?" you might ask.
tative "independence" of such norma- Well, simply that the two sorts of ques-
tive issues, all in favor of more natural- tions are logically distinct and irreduc-
ist accounts. ibly different. Normative questions,
I mean, are irreducibly "first-person-
f truth claims are at issue - if we al" questions, and these questions are
want to know why a particular picture practically unavoidable and necessari-
of human life appeals to us, or not ; why ly linked to the social practice of giving
a certain character repels us ; why we and demanding reasons for what we
cannot make up our mind about anoth- do, especially when something someone
er; whether a character's sacrifice of does affects, changes, or limits what an-
his self-interest for a greater good was other would otherwise have been able

rational or foolish ; what form of pleas- to do. By irreducibly first-personal, I

ure we take in reading a poem or looking mean that whatever may be our "snap
at a Manet - then, according to an often judgments" or immediate deeply intu-
unexpressed assumption, why shouldn't itive reactions, whenever anyone faces a
we assume that some advanced form of normative question (which is the stance
the evolutionary-biological and neuro- from which normative issues are issues),
logical sciences, or at least the social sci- no third-personal fact - why one as a
ences, will explain that to us? matter of fact has come to prefer this
I am not trying to dispute that there or that, for example - can be relevant
are valuable things that can be learned to what I must decide, unless I count it
when some of the social and natural sci- as a relevant practical reason in the jus-
ences take as their object of study vari- tification of what I decide ought to be
ous representational and imagination- done or believed.
directed human activities. It is a strange Knowing something about evolution-
thing for people to gather in the dark ary psychology might contribute to un-
and watch other people pretend to be derstanding the revenge culture in
people they aren't while doing ghastly which Orestes finds himself in Aeschy-
things to each other (sometimes sing- lus' s Or esteia, or why he at once feels
ing about it all) ; to care so much about compelled to avenge his father's mur-
what happens to little Nell or Hedda der by his mother Clytemnestra and
Gabler ; to travel thousands of miles horrified at the prospect of killing her
to stand in front of a temple in Kyoto. in cold blood. But none of that can be,
And these aesthetic appreciators, thoughwould be, in itself at all helpful to Ores-
human, occupy space and time like any tes or anyone in his position. Knowing
other bit of extended, causally influence-something about the evolutionary ben-
able matter. The problem I am interestedefits of altruistic behavior might give us

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an interesting perspective on some par- wrong when a subject experiences her Natural &
normative
ticular altruistic act, but/or the agent, own deeds as not hers, as the product
first-personally, the question I must de- of psychological forces outside her in-
cide is whether I ought to act altruisti- tentional control.
cally and, if so, why. I cannot simply This is all compatible with the pos-
stand by, waiting to see what my highly sible discovery of neurological dispo-
and complexly evolved neurobiological sitions toward certain attitudes or ac-
system will do. The system doesn't make tions. My point isn't to dispute that,
the decision, I do - and for reasons that but to suggest that no such discovery
I find compelling, or that, at least, out- can of itself count as a reason to do or
weigh countervailing considerations. forebear from doing anything; it cannot
Of course, there are times when I cannot eliminate the agent's perspective when-
provide such reasons ; perhaps I am even ever she has to decide what to believe
surprised that, given what I thought my or do. It is also compatible with the fact
commitments and principles were, I act- that people are often self-deceived, or
ed as I did. However, we cannot leave the even grossly ignorant, of why they do
matter there, especially when confront- what they do, devising reasons or fables
ed by another's demand for a reason, for their actions only afterward, in what
and given that what I did affected what we have come to call rationalization. But
she would otherwise have been able to there is simply no translation or bridge
do. It is in this sense that the first-per- law that will get one, qua agent, from
sonal perspective is strictly unavoidable those
: facts to a claim like, "Well, they
I am not a passenger on a vessel pulled have discovered at MIT that people of-
hither and yon by impulses and desires ;ten act without being able to explain or
I have to steer. Or as Kant put it : every- justify why, so the hell with it : I'm just
thing in nature happens according to going to steal Sam's idea and pass it off
law; human actions happen in accord as my own. " The claim is that I can no
with some conception of law.2 more answer the question, "Why did
Freud's famous remark about psycho-you do that?" with, "No reason; I just
analysis, and the third-personal, explan-did," than I can answer the question,
atory stance it seems to encourage per- "What caused the fire to start?" with,
sons to adopt toward their own motiva-"There was no cause ; it just started."
tions, provides another fine example of Social relations make this much clear-
what I'm trying to suggest. His remark,er. None of us, I would venture to bet,
in effect, confirms the unavoidability when we offer to a friend what we take
of the distinction we have been dis- to be compelling moral reasons concern-
cussing, if one is actually to take up the ing an action that friend is contemplat-
position of, as we say, leading one's life : ing, would be at all happy for our friend
"wo Es war, soll Ich werden" ("what was to respond with an explanation of why
It [or Id] should become I [or Ego]"). such reasons seem to us compelling
Such an "I," or ego, must make an eval- based on an account grounded in biolo-
uation of herself and of the attitudes gy and evolution. Such a response is, in
that she should take up toward herself that context, an evasion, not a response,
and others. Something is going wrong and we would justly feel "treated like an
- haywire - if these determinations are object" by such a claim, rather than as a
the result of the "It," or id. Psychoanal- co-equal subject.
ysis tries to "cure" precisely what goes

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Robert B. 1 he point I am making is a simple We are equipped with a grammar of so-
Pippin cial norms based on principles for decid-
one : that the autonomy, or possible self-
on being
human rule, at issue in these discussions is not a ing when altruism is permissible, oblig-
metaphysical one, but involves the prac- atory, or forbidden. What experience
tical autonomy of the normative. Yet the does is fill in the particular details from
point still needs emphasis. Consider the the local culture, setting parameters, as
book published by the Harvard biologist opposed to the logical form of the norm
Marc Huser called Moral Minds : How and its general function.
Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Or,
Right and Wrong. Huser made his repu-
tation in animal communication, work- The universal moral grammar is a theory
ing with monkeys in Kenya and with about the universal suite of principles and
birds, and his book is an almost perfect parameters that enable humans to build
example of what often goes wrong with moral systems. It is a toolkit for building
some of this purportedly "interdiscipli- a variety of different moral systems as dis-
nary" work. Huser proposes that people tinct from one in particular.
are born with a "moral grammar" wired And,
into their neural circuits by evolution,
and that this grammar generates instant Underlying the extensive cross-cultural
moral judgments, which, in part because variations we observe in our expressed so-
of the quick decisions that must be made cial norms is a universal moral grammar
in life-or-death situations, are inaccessi- that enables each child to grow a narrow
ble to the conscious mind. Since Huser range of possible moral systems. When we
argues that this moral grammar operates judge an action as morally right or wrong,
in much the same way as the universal we do so instinctively, tapping a system
grammar proposed by the linguist Noamof unconsciously operative and inaccessi-
Chomsky as the innate neural machineryble moral knowledge. Variations between
for language, he has to claim some sort cultures in their expressed moral norms
of common Chomsky-like moral univer- is like variation between cultures in their
sais for all suitably evolved human ani- spoken languages.^
mals. This he does with breathtaking
Huser is willing to concede that from
sweep, even while conceding some local
the point of view of the agent one often
variations of emphasis, or local "para-
does not do what one is powerfully in-
meters." Human behavior is said to be so
clined to do (however quickly comes the
tightly constrained by this hard wiring inclination), and that one can often do
that many rules are in fact the same or what one feels an aversion to. Neverthe-
very similar in every society : do as you less, he remains wedded to a view of our
would be done by; care for children and
possessing a "core" or biological basis
the weak; don't kill; avoid adultery and
for moral response and motivation, nev-
incest; don't cheat, steal, or lie. More-
er conceding that the perspective of an
over, he claims that the now universal
agent is - indeed cannot but be - that
moral grammar probably evolved into
of a practical reasoner, not an animal re-
its final shape at a particular stage of the
sponder. (Animals, of course, act for rea-
human past, during the hunter-gather-
sons - the feeling of fear providing a rea-
er phase in northeast Africa some fifty
son to flee or fight, for example - but not
thousand years ago. Here is a typical reasons such as deliberative considera-
summary of his claim :

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tions that may be acted on or not, de-
pending on the justificatory force of
the reason.)4 Not to mention that al-
most all great literature, from Sopho-
cles to Shakespeare to Henry James to
John Coetzee, is not just about moral
conflict and tragic dilemmas, but con-
cerns the extreme difficulty of moral
interpretation, about which more in
a minute. Only the hopelessly jejune
assumptions operative here about what
the moral point of view consists in
could allow Huser even to begin to
make his simplistic case about moral
universais and evolutionary fitness.
Indeed, the most obvious interpretive
question that we would have to settle be-
fore Huser' s ideas could be entertained
Natural &
over his household? He is in fact a ty-
normative
rant, and the situation in the novel is so
complicated because each of these pos-
sibilities is a plausible explanation and
potentially true. (To complicate matters
further, the suitor is a fortune hunter;
but it remains very hard to know just
how that fact is relevant to the father's
conduct.) It seems very unlikely that
the father's avowed intention - to pro-
tect his daughter - is true, and it is quite
possible that he has some sense that any
one of the other possibilities might more
correctly describe what he is after. But
it would not be correct to say that he
"knows" he is motivated by something
other than his professed commitments,
and that he is hiding that knowledge
from himself. The situation is far too

concerns what separates morality from
other social proprieties, like etiquette
and prudential reasoning.5 Beyond that
(and Huser does very little to help us
with this general issue, besides occasion-
ally appealing to the greater emotional
weight that attends moral questions),
the very questions of, for example, what
we are doing, what another is up to, or
how to assess our own motives are far
more complicated than ever admitted
in Huser' s book.
unstable, complex, and subject to too
many various interpretations for that
to be the definitive analysis. We - and
more interestingly the father himself -
will not know what view to settle on
until we, and he, come to learn how
he acts in many other situations. Even
then, the matter will remain quite dif-
ficult.
What really takes one's breath away,
though, is Huser' s claim that we are
"hardwired" with moral universais : do

Take Henry James's novel Washington as you would be done by; care for chil-
Square. A father, also a widower, forbids dren and the weak; don't kill; avoid
future contact between his shy and not adultery and incest; don't cheat, steal,
socially successful daughter and a young or lie. This banal list of modern, Chris-
suitor. James leaves the reader to con- tian humanist values was written by a
front a number of interpretive possibili- Harvard professor in a contemporary
ties. Is he protecting his daughter from world still plagued by children sold in-
a fortune hunter? Does he have some to slavery by parents who take them-
important stake in continuing to infan- selves to be entitled to do so ; by the
tilize his daughter? Is he romantically acceptability of burning to death child-
jealous of the suitor because his daugh- less wives ; by guilt-free spousal abuse ;
ter has become a kind of wife-substi- by the morally required murder of sis-
tute? Might he be simply reluctant to ters and daughters who have been raped;
give up his companion, afraid of lone- by "morally" sanctioned ethnic cleans-
liness? Is he a tyrant, unable to accept ing undertaken by those who see them-
any challenge to his authority and rule selves as entitled to do so - one could go

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Robert B. on and on. Again, Huser concedes discussion about the putative absence of
Pippin recursion in the Pirah language studied
variations and local parameters, but
on being
human he thinks the essential picture of our in Brazil by Dan Everett makes clear.7
moral nature, governed by these moral Huser seems to have arbitrarily insulat-
universais, has now come into focus. ed his theory.
And there is no need to appeal only to
JLLauser deals most directly with the contemporary evidence. Well over fif-
problem of very wide variations in deep teen hundred years ago, the Greek his-
moral intuitions when he discusses the torian Herodotus reported with amaze-
ment about cultures where it was con-
evidence that philosopher Jesse Prinz
has brought against Huser' s claims of sidered morally abhorrent to bury or
moral universais. It becomes increasing- burn one's dead relatives rather than
ly unclear what Huser would count as eat them, and the many others where
any sort of empirical disconfirmation of nothing could be imagined more abhor-
his basic claim : rent than eating one's dead relatives.
If we are to talk about interdisciplinary
Prinz, for example, trots out many exam-
collaboration on, say, moral universais
ples of close relatives having sex, of indi-
in any meaningful way, perhaps the first,
viduals killing each other with glee, and
most reasonable suggestion would be
of peaceful societies lacking dominance
that Huser spend a quiet Sunday with
hierarchies. These are indeed interesting
Herodotus and Henry James. This is not
cases, but they are either irrelevant or in-
what people usually have in mind when
sufficiently explained with respect to the
they encourage cooperation between
nativist position. They may be irrelevant
contemporary science and the humani-
in the same way that it is irrelevant to cite
ties. As noted at the outset, they usually
Mother Theresa and Mahatma Ghandi as
mean something like "applying" "the
counterexamples to the Hobbesian char-
exciting new discoveries" to that area
acterization that we are all brutish, nasty
of the academy that "does not seem to
and short [sic].6
ever make any progress." I want to say
Prinz, though, cited not one or two that this attitude reveals a profound
individuals, but whole societies existing confusion about the humanities from
over many generations. What else could the outset, and reveals especially a lack
possibly count as counterexamples to of appreciation for the permanently
Hauser's theory if such evidence can't? unsettled and irreducibly normative
nature of much of the humanities.
At least Chomsky's theory is open to
possible disconfirmation, as the recent

ENDNOTES

1 Here I use "explains" to mean a nomological, ultimately causal explanation, as i

the natural sciences. In the specific example I will discuss later, Marc Hauser's
Minds : How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong (New York : H
Collins, 2006), the author is very clear about the "shift" for which he wants to a
"This account [his] shifts the burden of evidence from a philosophy of morality
ence of morality" ; ibid., 2. The book that undoubtedly has had the greatest infl
recent years is Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (Oxford: Oxford University P
See also Frans de Waal, Good-Natured : The Origin of Right and Wrong in Humans an

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 Animals (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1996), and his recent Tanner lec- Natural &
normative ;
tures, Primates and Philosophers : How Morality Evolved (Princeton : Princeton University
Press, 2006) ; and S. R. Quartz and T. J. Sejnowski, Liars, Lovers, and Heroes: What the
New Brain Science Reveals About How We Become Who We Are (New York : William Morrow,
2002). Especially revealing about the simplicity with which many such researchers treat
the notion of "morality" is Laurence Tancredi's Hardwired Behavior : What Neuroscience
Reveals about Morality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
2 I am not entirely sure of Hauser 's final position on this issue. The extreme ambition of
the book's title ("Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong") and many of the things he
says are to some degree undermined by his concession that he means something very re-
stricted by the word "sense." At some points he opens the door to the concession that
whatever "science" might teach us about our immediate moral reactions to events and
persons, those reactions are quite preliminary and may not contribute very much to an
explanation of our all-things-considered or final moral judgments. Cf., "Taking account
of our intuitions does not mean blind acceptance. It is not only possible but likely that
some of the intuitions we have evolved are no longer applicable to current societal prob-
lems" ; Huser, Moral Minds, xx. This leaves open quite a lot that, in other respects, his
book appears to want to fill with an evolutionary and biological account of our moral
lives.

3 Ibid., 190, 300, 410.

4 Cf. the commentary by Christine Kosgaard, in de Waal, Primates and Philosophers, 98 - 119,
esp. 112 and 117 : "Even if apes are sometimes courteous, responsible, and brave, it is not
because they think they should be."
5 This is a point made by Richard Rorty in his review of Hauser 's book ; "Born to be Good,"
The New York Times, August 27, 2006. Rorty also points to the weakness of Hauser's analo-
gy with Chomsky's program in linguistics. He notes that moral codes are not assimilated
with the astonishing rapidity of language acquisition, and that the grammaticality of a sen-
tence is rarely a matter of doubt or controversy, "whereas moral dilemmas pull us in op-
posite directions and leave us uncertain."
6 I use "sic" here because I don't think Hobbes's point was that most of us are little people.
We are not brutish, nasty, and short, life is.
7 John Colapinto, "The Interpreter," The New Yorker, April 16, 2007.

Dcedalus Summer 2009 43

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