Chapter 11     Summing Up The Case So Far

How do we know things? Or, worse yet, do we ever know anything? What is an individual who is sincerely straining after truth to conclude at the end of a careful analysis of the problem of epistemology? The pattern is there; records of centuries of fruitless seeking for a model of knowing are there; the conclusion is clear: Rationalism and Empiricism are both hopeless projects. Whatever else human minds may successfully cognize and manipulate – in purely symbolic forms such as philosophical arguments or in more tangible forms such as computer programs – the mind will never rigorously, exhaustively define itself.

A human mind is much larger and more complex than any of the systems it can devise, including systems of ideas that it uses to try to explain itself. From within itself, it can make systems of symbols for labelling, organizing, and expressing its memories and thoughts: the symbol systems cannot make or contain it.

                                 

   

             IBM supercomputer Blue Gene/P (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

But the model of the mind called Bayesianism is workable enough to allow us to get on with building the further philosophical structures we will need in order to arrive at a modern moral code for all. The Bayesian model of knowing contains some difficult parts, but it does not stumble and crash in the way that Rationalism and Empiricism do.

Bayesianism can justify itself, not as being infallibly true, but as being a smart gamble, very highly like to be true. It will do what we need it to do.  It will serve as a base upon which we may begin to construct a universal moral code. But it does require of us that we gamble on rational gambling as being the best way of getting on with life.

Bayesianism does not pretend its explanation of anything, including right and wrong, is logically unassailable, only that a Bayesianism-based moral code is most likely the best of the candidates available to us. And I stress again: we must have a moral code. We have to see, interpret, plan, and act in order to get on with life. It is a moral code that enables us to prioritize the options before us, choose, and get on with life. What matters here? What can I do about it?   

Alternative models of thinking and knowing, so far, are all variations of either Empiricism or Rationalism. Marxism. Postmodernism. Religious thinkers also claim knowledge can be gained by other means, from holy texts or revelation, but as we saw in our early chapters, religious thinking in the past has led people into some painful times. Given its history, we’d be wise not to trust it ever again.  

And let’s be even clearer. We get on with living every day in our situation now. Thus, we must already be using some way of thinking and acting. Attending to sense data and responding to them effectively. Some code. A mind that can’t organize, prioritize, and respond to the sensory details being fed into it moment by moment is going to go catatonic. Anyone reading these words and making sense of them already has some program in place for simply handling daily life.

It is also true that many people do not want to look at how they do the thinking they actually do in order to handle their lives. But this book is for the person who does want to understand herself and the world around her and do better.

The case argued in the book so far, then, makes these claims:

1. Our role in this world is in deep trouble. Overpopulation, global warming, and nuclear arms proliferation all threaten our survival. We must act.

2. All the moral codes and the morés produced by these codes that humans have used in the past have proven inadequate for dealing with the world as it is now.

3.  We must build a new code of behavior that can work, ideally, for all of us. We must enable group action. We can’t just let our situation drift and hope for the best. That is tantamount to relying on old moral codes that overwhelming evidence is telling us are bankrupt.

4. In order to do the reasoning that we need to do to build this new code, we need to begin with a new way of understanding how it is that we think, form conclusions, and act on them. Bayesianism looks to be the best of the candidates for a new epistemology on which to build the new moral code we need.

5. At this point in our project of building a new moral code, we can begin to study the data of our own history, in order to propose a theory/model of how our history works. Look for patterns. We then need to test that theory against more data. The theory I will now propose is called cultural evolution.

Thus, from here on, I am going to trust my Bayesian way of thinking and use it to build a theory that specifies how humans got to their present ways of life and how we could do better. Live with more health and joy and less pain and misery.

Please notice again that this theory will not claim to be logically airtight. There is no such theory. But it is the best gamble, the most likely looking of the options we have before us. By the book’s end, I will make the case that the moral code I offer as the bottom line of my argument is as rigorous as it logically can be – the best of all the competitors – which is all any honest writer can aim to do. 

Here we pause for a short rest. 

   

                                Labrador Retriever  (credit: Wikipedia) 

Oyama Morning

The restful sleep of boyish innocence

Awakens, stretches, smiles through dreamy eyes,

Looks over sunlit window ledge and spies

His Labrador, Black Queen, fixed, pointing, tense,

Below the dewy grass and picket fence,

Stock still, as now the air her black nose tries,

Then delicate with stealth, she steps ... Surprise!

A pheasant cock splits dawn light rays' suspense

And arcing, flapping, squalling, climbs the skies,

Squawks window-by, a boyish reach away;

Flinch-startle back, now pause, now hear him bray;

Lean out and see the green-red-golden glide

Fade into drifting dust of breaking day,

The flowing tail and wings in squawking pride,

Through fresh, rose-saffron Canada, immense.

   

     

        Pheasant in flight  (credit: Archibald Thorburn, via Wikimedia Commons) 

So. We’ve had a rest. Looked back over how far we’ve come. Let’s take up our task again and press on toward the summit of our mountain, Moral Realism. The next step in the logic is to study the data of our own history, propose a model of human social change, and test it against more data. Then, we can use that model, if it looks sound, to reason our way to a universal moral code.