Brian Garvey

The evolution of morality and its rollback

According to most Evolutionary Psychologists, human moral attitudes are rooted in cognitive modules that evolved in the Stone Age to solve problems of social interaction. A crucial component of their view is that such cognitive modules remain unchanged since the Stone Age, and I question that here. I appeal to evolutionary rollback, the phenomenon where an organ becomes non-functional and eventually atrophies or disappears—e.g. cave-dwelling fish losing their eyes. I argue that even if cognitive modules evolved in the Stone Age to solve problems of social interaction, conditions since then have favoured rollback of those modules. This is because there are institutions that solve those problems—e.g. legal systems. Moreover, evidence suggests that where external resources are available to perform cognitive tasks, humans often use them instead of internal ones. In arguing that Stone Age cognitive modules are unchanged, Evolutionary Psychologists say that evolutionary change is necessarily slow, and that there is high genetic similarity between human populations worldwide. I counter-argue that what is necessarily slow is the building-up of complex mechanisms. Undoing this can be much quicker. Moreover, rollback of cognitive mechanisms need not require any genetic change. Finally, I argue that cross-cultural similarity in some trait need not be rooted in genetic similarity. This is not intended as decisive evidence that rollback has occurred. To finish, I suggest ways we might decide whether moral attitudes are likely to be rooted in unchanged Stone Age modules, given that I have argued that cross-cultural similarity is not enough.

J.L. Austin on Language

Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction Brian Garvey Remembering J.L. Austin Ann Lendrum 1. Recollections of Austin John R. Searle PART I: SPEECH ACT THEORY 2. Austin on Language and Action Marina Sbisa 3. When Words Do Things: Perlocutions and Social Affordances Charles Lassiter 4. Etiolations Joe Friggieri 5. How to Do Things Without Words Tom Grimwood and Paul K. Miller PART II: ORDINARY LANGUAGE AND PHILOSOPHICAL METHOD 6. Austins Method Hanno Birken-Bertsch 7. Getting the Philosopher out of the Armchair: J. L. Austins Response to Logical Positivism in Comparison to that of Arne Naess Siobhan Chapman 8. Verbal Fallacies and Philosophical Intuitions: The Continuing Relevance of Ordinary Language Analysis Eugen Fischer 9. Sense and Sensibilia and the Significance of Linguistic Phenomenology Roberta Locatelli PART III: LANGUAGE, PERCEPTION AND MIND 10. Austin on the Philosophy of Perception Paul Snowdon 11. Austin on Conceptual Polarity and Sensation Deception Metaphors Dale Jacquette 12. The Importance of Intentions in Introspection Kevin Reuter 13. Ordinary Language and the Nature of Emotions and Motives Harry Lesser References Index

Free Will, Compatibilism, and the Human Nature Wars: Should We Be Worried?

There has been much controversy over whether the claims of sociobiology and related schools of thought, including Evolutionary Psychology, if true, imply that we humans are significantly less free than has traditionally been thought. The defenders of these schools themselves often respond to this concern by claiming that it presupposes that they believe in genetic determinism, which they do not. Philosophers, such as Janet Radcliffe-Richards, respond by appealing to compatibilist accounts of free will. The thought is that whether or not our behaviour is caused by evolved mental mechanisms has no bearing on whether or not it is free. The present paper takes issue with this use of compatibilist arguments, and argues that they do not absolve sociobiology’s most prominent successor-theory, Evolutionary Psychology, from the charge of suggesting that we have less free will than we might have otherwise thought. Compatibilist accounts of free will distinguish between situations where we are free and ones where we are not, the latter including not just situations of external coercion, but also situations where there are internal obstacles such as compulsions, addictions or phobias. While not attempting to outline a full account of what it is to be free, this paper outlines one set of conditions which are sufficient for our freedom to be said to be restricted – conditions which obtain in situations of addiction, etc. A central pillar of Evolutionary Psychology is that the mind consists wholly or largely of modules whose operation is mandatory. The present paper argues that this implies internal obstacles to free will that are relevantly similar to the obstacles of addiction, self-deception, etc. Moreover, it is Evolutionary Psychology’s commitment to their version of the modularity thesis, and not any genetic determinism, that leads to this conclusion. Hence, the view that Evolutionary Psychology implies that we are less free than has traditionally been thought is not without foundation.

Nature, Nurture and Why the Pendulum Still Swings

In both popular and technical discussion we often find the pairs of opposed terms ‘innate/acquired,’ ‘due to genes/due to environment,’ ‘nature/nurture,’ and so forth. They appear to be used as if they all captured a genuine distinction, and the same distinction at that. A related family of opposed pairs is held to describe the difference between those who attribute a certain trait to ‘nature’ and those who attribute it to ‘nurture’: ‘nativists’ versus ‘constructivists’ is one such pair. Chomsky and his followers are often described as ‘nativists’ regarding certain features of language. On a cursory examination, many of the claims of Evolutionary Psychology bear the appearance of ‘nativism.’ That is, it looks as though Evolutionary Psychologists are making claims to the effect that many features of the mind which are often thought to be due to ‘nurture’ are in fact due to ‘nature.’ However, two of the genres leading practitioners, John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, vigorously deny that this is their position.

Darwinian functions and Freudian motivations

Badcock, and Nesse and Lloyd, have argued that there are important points of agreement between Freuds theory of the mind and a theory of mind suggested by adaptive reasoning. Buller, on the other hand, draws attention to the need to avoid confusing an adaptive rationale with an unconscious motivation. The present paper attempts to indicate what role adaptive reasoning might have to play in justifying psychoanalytic claims. First, it is argued that psychoanalytic claims cannot be justified by the clinical experience of psychoanalysts alone. It is urged that, to avoid interpretative proliferation, it is necessary to base interpretation on some theory which is external to psychoanalysis. Next, Bullers reservations about using adaptive reasoning to justify claims about a personal unconscious, are summarized. Then an argument for the existence of a personal unconscious, is offered, based on experimental evidence from Gur and Sackeim. Then it is argued that adaptive reasoning, though it cannot itself provide evidence for the existence of any psychological mechanism, can valuably guide the search for such evidence. It is argued that such an approach has borne fruit, both in biology generally and specifically in psychology. Finally, it is argued that psychoanalysis is important enough to justify such a research project.

Simon Browne and the Paradox of ?Being in Denial?

It is often taken to be intuitively obvious that if one is in a given conscious state, then one knows that one is in that state. This alleged obvious truth lies at the heart of two very different philosophical doctrines ? the Cartesian doctrine that one has incorrigible knowledge about one?s own conscious states (which still has its defenders today), and the view that one can explain all conscious states in terms of higher-order awareness of mental states. The present paper begins with a description of the real-life case of Simon Browne, a man who believed he had no conscious states whatsoever, although all external evidence overwhelmingly suggests that he had. This case ? as well as other cases of what can be called ?being in denial? ? gives reason to reject both the alleged intuitively obvious truth and the two philosophical doctrines which attempt to exploit it. Having abandoned these doctrines, it remains to give an account of Browne?s condition, which picks out both why it is possible and why it is so unusual. This is done by arguing that Browne?s belief is contrary to evidence which he absolutely ought to accept, and that this is necessarily, not just contingently, unusual. In addition, it is shown how Browne?s philosophical beliefs about the mind?body relation contributed to his odd belief.

Darwinism and Environmentalism

What implications does Darwinism have for our attitude towards the environment? At first sight, it might look as though Darwinism is not friendly towards environmental concerns. Darwinism is often thought to paint a picture of ruthless competition between, as well as within, species. Moreover, Darwinism may be thought to encourage a view of the environment as something to be exploited for self-interested gain. The present paper proposes a more positive view. It will be argued that mutual benefit is just as central to evolution as is competition. This will be argued for partly drawing on the work of Lynn Margulis, who makes a case that many of the major transitions in evolution came about through the setting-up of symbiotic relationships, and that what we often think of as an ‘organism’ is in fact a collection of symbionts. Moreover, a proper understanding of evolution reveals the intimate connection between an organism and its environment. The organism is partially constituted by its environment, so that in radically altering the environment an organism is potentially damaging itself. Recent work in evolutionary developmental biology has revealed previously unsuspected deep structural similarities, as well as co-operation, across a wide spectrum of living things. Thus, it will be argued, there is an environment which has shaped, and been shaped by, terrestrial life as a whole. It will be concluded that, firstly, a view that sees our duties towards the environment as deriving from our duties towards other humans would lead to a strongly conservationist programme of action; and secondly, a view of the natural world as in a strong sense ‘ours’, where this means belonging to life as a whole, makes good sense in the light of evolutionary theory.

Absence of Evidence, Evidence of Absence, and the Atheist’s Teapot

Abstract Atheists often admit that there is no positive evidence for atheism. Many argue that there is nonetheless a prima facie argument, which I will refer to as the ‘teapot argument’. They liken agnosticism to remaining neutral on the existence of a teapot in outer space. The present paper argues that this analogy fails, for the person who denies such a teapot can agree with the person who a_rms it regarding every other feature of the world, which is not the case with the atheist vis-a-vis the theist. The atheist is committed to there being an alternative explanation of why the universe exists and is the way it is. Moreover, the analogy relies on assumptions about the prior plausibility of atheism. Hence, the teapot argument fails.

Adolf Grünbaum on religious delusions

Grunbaum claims it is possible that all belief in God is a delusion, meaning a false belief which is engendered by irrational psychological motives. I dispute this on the grounds that in many cases belief in God is engendered by purely cultural factors, and this is incompatible with its being engendered by psychological ones. Grunbaum also claims that saying a culturally engendered belief cannot be a delusion makes social consensus the sole arbiter of reality. I dispute this on the grounds that we can say that socially engendered beliefs fail to be delusions because they fail to meet the psychological criterion, rather than because they are true.