Philosophy of science

“The philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.”

I believe the preceding quotation, often attributed to the great physicist Richard Feynman, captures a common sentiment among scientists. Philosophy of science is thought to be useless to practicing scientists. Why bother with philosophy when you could just do science? What exactly is philosophy of science, and why is it considered, by philosophers, to be a legitimate area of inquiry?

Philosophy of science, proper, deals with normative, epistemological, and metaphysical questions that concern all of the sciences. Here are five such examples:

o   What are the criteria for theory confirmation?

o   What makes a theory scientific?

o   What rational basis is there for making inductive inferences (reasoning from past cases to future ones)?

o   What kinds of metaphysical commitments do our best scientific theories have (e.g. should we believe the Higgs Boson exists?)?

o   Does science tell us about reality or only about appearances from the perspective of human beings? (Would space aliens develop scientific theories that are at odds with our own?)

Over the past few years, there has been a vocal group of scientists (e.g. Neil de Grasse Tyson, Peter Atkins, Lawrence Krauss) who think that reflecting upon on these kinds of questions are (1) irrelevant to their line of work, (2) trivially easy to answer, or pointless to ask, either because (3) there is no answer or that we could never know the correct one. A more general critique to philosophy of science as a whole is that it is alleged to be uninformed by contemporary science (4). In this post, I will address each of these contentions in turn.

(1)               Philosophy of science is irrelevant to practicing scientists

I think it’s true that scientists can go about their work without ever thinking about the philosophical assumptions that they make, but I think it's much less clear whether they should. But I do not know of any philosophers who think scientists need to do philosophy of science to become competent experimenters or to develop novel hypotheses to test. Hence, I think scientists who say that they don’t need to do philosophy of science are attacking a straw man. That isn’t to say that philosophy of science is of no use to scientists. On the contrary, I think it would be a good thing for scientists to be aware of the philosophical import of their views. Being aware of the assumptions one makes is the first step in determining whether or not those assumptions are warranted. 

The physicist Lawrence Krauss advances a pretty weak argument for why scientists philosophy is of little to no use for scientists. His reasoning? Because scientists, who do their jobs just fine, don’t read philosophy journals. The problem with Krauss’s argument is that it doesn’t tell you anything about whether the scientists who do keep up with philosophy of science are better or worse off. It could be philosophy of science is of use to scientists, but that most scientists have been missing out.

(2)             Philosophical questions about science are trivially easy to answer

The first thing to say about this is that these questions are not easy and those who think that they are probably haven’t thought much about them. If it’s so obvious, it should be easy to develop arguments and reasons for why theory A is preferable to theories B, C, and D. Without doing the work—in showing why their own assumptions are rationally defensible—it prevents them from entertaining alternative views that may be more plausible, given a different set of starting assumptions. Moreover, some of their scientist peers probably have the same attitude about their own views (i.e. they’re just obvious), preventing a proper debate about the issues to be had. Philosophers are in the business of revealing hidden assumptions in order to subject them to careful logical and conceptual analysis.

(3)              Philosophical questions about science are meaningless or impossible to answer

How do we answer the questions raised by philosophers of science? What all of these questions have in common is that you won’t solve them by doing science. Perhaps that is why scientists don’t really like to raise these questions. Their area of expertise is in addressing questions that could, in principle, be answered through experimentation and observation. But those are not the only ways to settle a debate. Scientists may not know how to answer normative, metaphysical, or epistemological questions, but it doesn’t follow that no one does. Philosophers have been making progress on these questions by clarifying the concepts and theories that have been advanced in trying to answer these questions. For example, in determining whether a theory is scientific or not, philosophers have put forward a number of views, each one building upon the successes and improving upon the faults of their predecessors. Scientists like to defer to the philosopher Karl Popper, in that science, unlike pseudoscience, is in the business of falsifying hypotheses, not confirming them. To just accept what Popper says at face value is to assume that no progress has been made on the question since the 1960’s. However, there are more recent views that are, in my view, much more plausible and nuanced (c.f. Lakatos 1978, Thagard 1978, Pigliucci and Boudry 2013).

(4)             Philosophers of science have not kept up with the science

Stephen Hawking has alleged that philosophy of science is a dead enterprise because philosophers have not kept up with modern science (Hawking and Mlodinow 2010). It is interesting to note that, in his book, Hawking provides no evidence to support his claim.  

Contrary to Hawking’s claims about philosophers, many have extensively studied the science relevant to the questions they work on. Taking a look at some of the prominent philosophers working on the foundations of physics, David Albert and David Wallace have PhD’s in physics, while others like Tim Maudlin have BA’s in physics and have displayed extensive knowledge of the field in technical papers and books. So while scientists concentrate more of their interests on conducting experiments and carrying out research, it is not as if philosophers of science are unaware of their projects. Philosophers keep themselves up to date with the scientific literature, all while continuing their work on solving the philosophical questions that have been lingering in the background all along.

Ever since science split off into all of its specialized sub-branches (e.g. biology, physics, psychology), new philosophical questions, specific to the subject matter of each particular field, began to surface. In turn, philosophers have become increasingly specialized to deal with such questions. To give three quick examples, philosophers of physics grapple with how to interpret experimental findings (e.g. double slit experiment) relevant to understanding quantum mechanics, philosophers of biology sort through controversies over how to understand the level (e.g. individual vs. group) at which natural selection takes place, and philosophers of psychology work on clarifying and analyzing the concepts used to explain cognition and behavior (e.g. ‘mental representation’). While scientists also grapple with many of these questions from time-to-time, the philosopher works full-time on these issues.

Conclusion

Just like there has been a division of labor among scientists with respect to a range of subject matter, there has been a division of intellectual labor among the kinds of questions that are raised in each field. Before the 20^th century, most scientists, or natural philosophers, reflected upon both kinds of questions. Even within the 20th century, some of the greatest scientists (e.g. Einstein) carefully studied and reflected upon the philosophical issues related to their areas of study. This, rather recent, division of intellectual labor is not necessarily a bad thing, but it has led to a kind of rivalry between scientists and philosophers that is, in my view, mistaken. Science and philosophy go hand in hand in explaining the world and our place in it. Where science leaves off, philosophy takes over. This says nothing about whether one is more important or explanatorily privileged than the other. It is just to say that these are different endeavors, each sharing the same aim: knowledge and understanding.

Works cited

Hawking, S., & Mlodinow, L. (2010). The Grand Design: new answers to the ultimate question of life.

Lakatos, I. (1978). Science and pseudoscience. Philosophical papers, 1, 1-7.

Pigliucci, M., & Boudry, M. (Eds.). (2013). Philosophy of pseudoscience: reconsidering the demarcation problem. University of Chicago Press.

Thagard, P. R. (1978, January). Why astrology is a pseudoscience. In PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association (Vol. 1978, No. 1, pp. 223-234). Philosophy of Science

Metaethical theories: semantics and ontology

We make value judgments about the actions of ourselves and others all of the time. We say things like: “It was morally wrong for Ted to lie to his wife”, “Given the options, she did the right thing”, “What I said was wrong”, and “It’s morally wrong to torture someone”. What do these kinds of value judgments mean? Are they statements of opinion or statements of fact? Why do we make such judgments? And how do we know what is right or wrong? Metaethics is the subbranch of ethics that deals with answering all of these questions. Metaethicists are interested in finding out what is going on when we make moral claims. Given that there are a wide range of questions that could be asked, it is useful to break Metaethics down into four sub-areas or topics:

Moral ontology- Are there moral facts? 

Moral semantics: What do our moral claims mean?

Moral psychology- Do we have an innate sense of morality (i.e. moral instincts)? Where do our moral judgments come from (reason or emotion)? What motivates us to engage in moral behavior?

Moral epistemology- How do we know what is right and wrong?

In this post, I will focus on moral ontology and semantics, following up with subsequent posts on moral psychology and moral epistemology.

Semantics

People often dismiss questions when they hinge upon the meaning of words. But it’s important to carefully spell out how someone understands a concept in order to avoid confusion and talking past one another. If two people are using the same word in different ways, then they are not necessarily disagreeing. They disagree about what the word means, but they may not disagree about the topic that is at issue. Some disagreements can be alleviated by checking a dictionary. But that is only if the discussion hinges upon how a word is ordinarily used in the native language. Philosophical discussions of commonly used words, like ‘knowledge’ and ‘belief’, are meant to give richer and more precise definitions of the concepts than necessary for having everyday conversations. Philosophers try to tease apart different theories of what these terms mean by testing them against possible counter examples and by looking for inconsistencies or variations of meaning in common usage.

What does it mean to say that abortion is wrong? There are a number of competing views, and many different ways of classifying them. Without trying to justify any one classification over another, let’s just say that there are those who say that statements about morality are propositions—statements about the world that are true or false—and those who deny that they are propositions (see chart 1). First, I'll discuss those who deny that moral statements are propositional.

Noncognitvists argue that moral claims are expressions of one’s emotional state (emotivism), prescriptions for how to act (prescriptivism), or an articulation of ones’ desires (desirism). To better understand these variations, here are noncognitivist translations of the sentence “abortion is wrong”:

Emotivism: Abortion, boo! (Giving birth, yay!).
Prescriptivism: No one should have abortions (Pregnant women should keep their babies).
Desirism: I desire that no one has an abortion (I desire that pregnant women deliver their babies).

Noncognitivists think that moral disagreements are misguided. When people argue about morality, they are really just exchanging their own emotions, desires, and prescriptions for good behavior, not making factual claims about value. It would be like two people arguing about whether licorice tastes good. (S1: Licorice, yuck! S2: Licorice, yum!)

Cognitivists argue that moral claims are meant to be factual claims. Nihilists think that moral claims are statements about how the world is, but that all they are all false. They argue that there are no such properties as ‘good’ or ‘evil’ in the world, just link there are, presumably, no such properties as ‘being possessed by demons’, or ‘having the capacity for free energy’. Nihilists are then committed to two claims: one semantic, the other ontological.

Ontology

Subjectivists think that moral statements have truth value (i.e. they are true or false), but that they refer to subjective properties, like funniness. If people are amused and laugh at a joke, then the joke is funny. Whether or not something has an objective property, like ‘squareness’, depends upon whether the object in question has certain features (e.g. four equal sides). If people come to believe that a square is a triangle, and start trying to push it through a triangular shaped hole, that does not make it a triangle. A square is a square because of features that are independent of what anyone thinks about it (c.f. Huemer 2007). On subjectivism, if someone believes that something is morally good, then it is. Mental states of subjects are the truth makers of moral statements. One variation of subjectivism is relativism, where something is good if there are individuals belonging to some culture/historical time period/belief system that think it’s good. Another would be divine command theory, which states that the mental states of a particular subject (i.e. God) determines moral truth.

Lastly, there are the objectivists. Moral objectivity is often defined in various ways, but here is a characterization that I find plausible. Moral statements are objective if they are constitutively independent of human attitudes (c.f. Huemer 2007), eternal (their truth value does not change over time), and universal (apply to all rational agents). Objectivists roughly fall under two camps: reductionists and nonreductionists. Reductionists think that moral language, such as ‘good’ or ‘wrongness’ are about objective properties in the world, but that they can be translated or reduced to, for example, properties detectable via the scientific method (e.g. happiness levels of conscious creatures). There are many scientists and science popularizers that are proponents of such a view (Harris 2011, Shermer 2015).

Nonreductionists think that moral properties cannot be reduced to statements that refer to natural properties. One variation of nonreductionism is intuitionism, which states that moral properties are objective, but that they can only be characterized by words like ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘right’, and ‘wrong’. Certain actions are wrong because they are just wrong. While this may sound circular, the same kind of circularity is used to explain why basic logical and mathematical facts are true. Why is 2+2=4? Why is it the case that if B is larger than A and C is larger than B, that C is larger than A? Some claims are just self-evidently true, requiring no further explanation. 

A final distinction is between singularism and pluralism about objective morality. There are those who think there is only one correct set of moral guidelines and duties, and those who think there are alternative sets of moral frameworks, perhaps relative to different kinds of rational agents (e.g. space aliens). 

With such a diverse pool of views on the semantics and ontology of moral statements, where does one even begin? Like any other philosophical issues, these views need to be argued for and only one of them can be correct. While discussions of moral semantics and ontology are only typically found in the seminar halls of a philosophy department, these issues matter. Throughout history, humans have taken morality so seriously that they have gone to war over disagreements about value and how societies should be structured. If someone claims to be a nihilist or a relativist, then it might be irrational to engage in moral arguments with other people. Likewise, if someone is claiming that there are objective right and wrong answers, then they are committing themselves to some version of objectivism. No matter how hard one may try to avoid doing moral philosophy, everyone is committed to some kind of metaethical view, and we should try to reflect upon its sustainability in light of philosophical objections and relative strengths/weaknesses of the competing alternatives. 

Supplementary material

Chart 1.

Chart 2. 

Further reading

SEP on Moral antirealism
SEP on Moral realism
IEP on metaethics

Works cited

Harris, S. (2011). The moral landscape: How science can determine human values. Simon and Schuster.

Huemer, M. (2007). Ethical intuitionism. Springer.

Shermer, M. (2015). The moral arc: How science and reason lead humanity toward truth, justice, and freedom. Macmillan.

Part IV: Threats to free will from social psychology

Why do some people perform acts of evil? A standard answer is that there exists a subset of people that are just evil by nature. Having an evil nature could be the result of bad genes or a series of bad life experiences and decisions that led to the person having a morally defective character. There are just some bad apples out there that are rotten to the core. Many social psychologists argue that this picture of human psychology is wrong. Instead of thinking of people in terms of good and bad apples, psychologist Philip Zimbardo (2004) argues that people should be thought of as cucumbers. While cucumbers may have different qualities (e.g. genes, shape, size, color), they are all capable of being turned into sour pickles. But cucumbers will not just become pickles on their own. They need to be stored in vinegar for some time. To understand why some people perform acts of evil, we have to look at all of their exposures to vinegar. To extend Zimbardo’s metaphor in the other direction, in order to understand why some people perform acts of good, we have to look at all of their exposures to sugar. If the cucumber metaphor is right, we might not have free will. (At least not as much as we think we do.) In this post, I will argue that while I think cucumbers are a much better metaphor than apples, it would be a mistake to think that the metaphor captures everything about human behavior or that it poses a significant threat to free will.

Both psychologists and philosophers make a distinction between internal and external causes of behavior (see chart below). Examples of internal causes would be character traits, psychological states (e.g. addiction, strong desires), genetics, the brain (e.g. reflexes, automatic processes), and free will. Examples of external causes would be environmental factors (e.g. lead), third party sources (e.g. bribery, coercion and brainwashing), socioeconomic conditions, and 

situational factors. 

Social psychologists believe that role of situational factors are often underestimated in our explanations of human behavior. Some go as far as suggesting that situational factors are the sole drivers of our behavior, and others who argue that our moral character are weak drivers of behavior, easily overpowered by factors beyond our control (Doris 2002). There are even those who suggest that moral character traits (e.g. benevolence, malevolence) may not exist (Harman 1999). I will now give a brief summary of the social psychology literature on situational factors (c.f. Doris 2002, Zimbardo, 2004; 2007, and SEP for thorough reviews). 

It has been found that psychologically normal people are significantly less likely to engage in helping behaviors if they are in a hurry, surrounded by others (look up "the bystander effect"), or subjected to loud noises (e.g. a lawnmower). People are significantly more likely to engage in harming behaviors if they are a position of authority (look up "The Stanford prison experiment"), given orders by a person of authority (look up "The Milgram experiment"), or if their identity is concealed in some way (e.g. wearing a mask, cyberbullying). On the flipside, people are more likely to engage in helping behaviors if they themselves had been helped or rewarded beforehand (e.g. finding a coin in a phone booth).

Zimbardo and others suggest that situational factors can explain the occurrence of events such as the Holocaust, 9/11, and the Rwandan genocide. The idea is that many of the perpetrators of such atrocities were mostly psychologically normal people like you or I. The reason why they engaged in such acts is because of various situational factors that you or I were not subjected to. If we had been subjected to the same situational factors, then we would have participated in such atrocities. 

If the social psychologists are largely right about these matters, then both free will and moral responsibility are posed with a genuine threat. If it's situational factors that are determining most of our behavior, and we are not responsible for being subjected to such factors, then we cannot be responsible for most of our behavior. 

In a previous post, I discussed how brain scan studies were misinterpreted to provide grounds for casting doubt upon the existence of free will. I think that the situationist challenge to free will makes the very same mistake as the neuroscientific one. In order for the challenge to be devastating, you would have to assume that the findings in these psychological studies generalize to all of human behavior and to all humans. I see no reason to think that they generalize in this way. The findings are consistent with other, I think, more likely possibilities. For instance, it may be that we a majority of people are moral sheep, but that some of us are not really affected by situational factors. Another possibility is that situational factors really do affect us all in the ways social psychologists say they do, but that we are not subjected to them on a regular basis. The idea is that our conscious will regularly drives our behavior but that in certain situations, our agency diminishes. I think that social psychologists have identified a possible threat to free will, but that there is, at the moment, insufficient evidence to say that it is a genuine threat. 

Works cited

Doris, J. M. (2002). Lack of character: Personality and moral behavior. Cambridge University Press.

Harman, G. (1999, January). Moral philosophy meets social psychology: Virtue ethics and the fundamental attribution error. In Proceedings of the Aristotelian society (pp. 315-331). Aristotelian Society.

Zimbardo, P. G. (2004). A situationist perspective on the psychology of evil: Understanding how good people are transformed into perpetrators. The social psychology of good and evil.

Zimbardo, P. G. (2007). Lucifer Effect. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

*This post is part of a series on free will. 

Where did everything come from?

If the universe had a beginning, it was either created ex nihilo (i.e. out of nothing) or it was created out of something. But a creation out of something just pushes the origins question a step back further, for we now need to know where that something came from. Hence, to say that the universe came from something does not give a satisfactory answer the origins question. Either that something was created or it has always existed. On the assumption that the universe was created, there are two possibilities: either the universe was created by a supernatural being (e.g. God), or it was created by natural forces. 

There are then exactly three possibilities when it comes to the creation of the world. It was either created by natural forces out of nothing, created by supernatural forces out of nothing (e.g. God), or it has just always existed and there was no such creation event. In this post, I will make two contentions. First, I will argue that while all of these possibilities are deeply counterintuitive, the eternal universe hypothesis is the most satisfying option. Second,  I will argue that creation ex nihilo by God is not any more plausible that a naturalistic creation ex nihilo. 

Why creation out of something inevitably leads to an eternal universe

In his book "A universe from nothing', theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss claims to show how the universe came from nothing, but he doesn't really manage to show this (Krauss 2012). He cheats by stipulating that 'nothing' refers to the quantum vacuum state that is found in "empty" space. Such states are teemed with energy in the form of virtual particles that pop in and out of existence. In this universe, empty space turns out contain something. However, the question that philosophers and theologians have asked for millenia has been 'why is there anything at all?' Thus, Krauss employs the old bait and switch by answering a different question altogether. 

Before our universe existed, it is assumed that there was something (i.e. quantum vacuum states) that already existed. From the brewing of quantum energy comes the big bang, the evolution of matter (i.e. fermions and bosons), and eventually complex life. But what created the quantum energy? Or the laws of nature that govern the behavior and interactions of such energy? To say that energy had a beginning would be to push the question back one step further, as we now need a creation story for energy. Why would Krauss go through the trouble of explaining how the universe was created out of something when he still has to explain the origins of that something? One way out of this problem would be to say that quantum energy has just always existed, and that there never was a state of absolute nothing. If the quantum energy has always been there, then we now have an eternal universe model. If the energy was not always there, then physicists have some more explaining to do. 

Naturalistic creation ex nihilo

Naturalistic ex nihilo means that the universe came into existence out of nothing without any cause. Here I use "nothing" in its strongest sense; the absence of anything. To illustrate ex nihilo creation with a culinary metaphor, there were no ingredients in the recipe for creating the universe. That is to say, there wasn't any matter or energy (0r even protomatter and protoenergy) that came together to create the universe. As theist philosopher William Lane Craig sometimes mockingly describes this view, "The universe just pops into existence." This view does seem to be rather implausible. But if a eternal universe model is rejected, one must accept this radical conclusion, regardless of one's views about God. The Universe either popped into existence without a cause or popped into existence with the help of God. Religious believers seem to think that claims of creation ex nihilo can be rendered plausible with the addition of an all powerful timeless agent that exists outside the universe. I will now show why this is not the case.

Divine creation ex nihilo

Before the universe, there was God; an immaterial, timeless agent that is omniscient, omnipotent and, perhaps, omnibenevolent. Additionally, God is a mind, but quite different than the minds familiar to modern science. Not only is the mind of God immaterial--lacking a physical substrate, such as a brain--God also has the capacity for telekinesis. That is to say, God can alter or even create matter and energy by mere thought. In creating the universe, there were certain thoughts in the mind of God that triggered the big bang. One could accurately describe this as magic. The creation event resulted in somethingness (e.g. a primordial cosmic stew of particles) that presumably evolved over time into the present state of the universe. What are we to make of this creation story? 

It may be argued that this account is incomplete. Perhaps God did had some basic "ingredients" to cook up the universe. What kinds of ingredients would they be? There seem to be only two options: physical or nonphysical. If there were physical ingredients (e.g. protomatter and energy) then there existed something before God's telekinetic creation of the universe. But this would mean that he God didn't create the universe ex nihilo. If the ingredients of creation were purely nonphysical (e.g. thoughts), then there are certain thoughts which have the power to create universes, presumably the kinds of thoughts only a God could have. This means that the universe was created by God by thinking it into existence out of nothing. The conclusion is inescapable. Since God is immaterial and nonspatial, there would be no other means for such a creation to take place. Thoughts were the only tools at God's disposal for creating the universe.

The accounts compared

Naturalistic creation ex nihilo amounts to the universe popping into existence out of nothing without a cause. Divine creation ex nihilo amounts to God thinking the universe into existence out of nothing. In order for the latter to be possible, one must accept that minds can just exist on their own (without brains), and further, that certain minds can have the capacity for telekinesis. Lastly, the eternal universe model would entail that there is an infinite number of past events.

Evidence for the big bang is taken to be strong support for a beginning to the universe. While there is a consensus among cosmologists that a big bang occurred (roughly 14 billion years ago), few are in agreement that it was the beginning of everything. There are some physicists that think that the big bang sparked the existence of our own observable universe, but that another universe may have existed before it. For instance, physicists have proposed cyclical universe model where universes, 0ver long stretches of time, decay and collapse into a big bang singularity, giving rise to a new universe. An alternative view would be Andre Lindei's eternal inflation model which involves an infinite number of parallel worlds created from an ever-flowing stream of energy. 

It may be argued that both the cyclical and eternal inflation theories are highly speculative and not supported by rigorous mathematical models. However, as cosmologist Sean Carroll points out, there are eternal universe theories that are supported by rigorous models (e.g. Aguirre and Gratton 2003). That doesn't mean that those models are true, but only, that eternal universe models do not violate known laws of physics. Since cosmology is still a fairly premature science, we expect there to be conclusive answers to these questions, nor should we give much weight to the available evidence.

Comparably, I find the eternal universe account to be the least crazy. First, it is consistent with cosmological evidence, such as the big bang. Second, an infinite number of past events does not appeal to anything unfamiliar or mysterious. It involves just a succession of physical states, extending backwards in time infinitely.

On the other hand, the creation ex nihilo hypotheses involve either a supreme nonphysical agent with psychic powers or a universe just popping into existence without any cause. I think there are good reasons to be skeptical of the God creation story, mainly due to my skepticism about the existence of God, and that the naturalistic creation story is deeply unattractive because there could be no explanation for why the universe popped into existence. The origins of our universe would be just a brute fact. Since it is stipulated that there was no cause, what other kind of story could be told about the origins of the universe? 

An eternal universe entails that something has always existed in one form or another. The existence of matter, as well as the present state of our universe might just be a temporary and rare phenomenon that has fluctuated in and out of existence an infinite number of times. As crazy as that may sound, look at what the only other alternatives are. 

Works cited

Aguirre, A., & Gratton, S. (2003). Inflation without a beginning: a null boundary proposal. Physical Review D, 67(8), 083515.

Krauss, L. M. (2012). A universe from nothing: Why there is something rather than nothing. Simon and Schuster.

Part III: Threats to free will from neuroscience

Compatibilists think that we are morally responsible for our actions even if we inhabit a deterministic universe. They argue that moral responsibility does not require magic powers (i.e. the unconditional ability to do otherwise), but instead, requires that an agent possesses certain psychological capacities C (e.g. rational deliberation, self-control, mental time travel) and that those capacities are not constrained by any excessive internal (e.g. strong addictive desires) or external forces (e.g. being held at gunpoint). If we are to understand ‘free will’ as a placeholder for whatever gives us moral responsibility, compatibilists would argue that the unconstrained exercise of our psychological capacities is an exercise of free will.

On this view, free will is not just an all-or-nothing feature, it also comes in degrees. Worms don’t have free will, children have some, and psychologically normal adult humans have quite a bit of free will, at least some of the time. Very young children (1-2 years old) don't have free will because their psychological capacities aren't sufficiently developed. Psychopathic adults don't have as much free will as normal adults because their psychological capacities are impaired. The extent to which normal adult humans have free will—in this compatibilist sense—is a matter of controversy. There are many scientists who think that recent findings undermine our belief in free will. That is to say, they believe that the real causes of our actions are something other than what we think they are (e.g. unconscious processes, environmental factors, brain chemistry). Before reviewing those findings, it might be useful to consider a range of hypotheses one could formulate regarding the extent to which we have free will:

1) Streams of freedom: C regularly causes our behavior.
2) Flickers of freedom: C rarely causes our behavior.
3) Zero freedom: C never causes our behavior.

I do not take these three hypotheses to be exhaustive, by any means, but only useful in illustrating the debate among philosophers and scientists. I suspect most of the population would endorse something pretty close to 1. Free will skeptics hold that 3 is true and will often cite brain imaging studies for support (e.g. Libet 1983, Soon et al. 2008). These studies are taken to show that unconscious processes—processes for which we are not, and cannot be aware of—drives our behavior. If unconscious processes are the sole causes of our behavior, then our conscious processes don’t cause our actions, even if we may think that they do. I will now briefly summarize the basic methodology of such experiments.

Subjects are hooked up to electrodes are asked to make a simple decision without thinking about their reasons for doing so. For example, deciding between flexing their left or right wrist. The subjects are also told to carefully monitor a fast moving clock to determine when exactly they came to their random decision. Afterwards, the experiments compare the time to which the subjects reported their intention to act, to the electrical activity in their brain.

Across a number of experiments, EEG data show increased brain activity in the motor cortex 300ms before the subjects report their intentions. The brain activity that precedes the conscious decision is taken to demonstrate that the subjects’ decision making is carried out by unconscious or random brain processes, rather than by the subjects themselves. Scientists then make the following inference. These findings generalize to all of our decisions. Thus, these experiments demonstrate that we don’t ever actually have free will.

I believe that the scientists and philosophers who cite these kinds of studies in support of free will skepticism make a hasty generalization. The conclusions of the experimenters may be good explanations for what’s going on in these specific experiments, but how much application do they have in the real world? After all, there is at least some reason to think that a subset of our decisions and actions aren’t based on random or unknown processes for which we are unaware. Surely they sometimes involve conscious reasoning, carefully weighing the pros and cons of a tough decision. For example, whether or not we should have kids, which career to pursue, and which conclusions we ought to draw from neuroscientific studies. Free will skeptics would of course deny these claims, but the burden of proof is on them to demonstrate that their generalizations hold true. 

One might argue that our decision making processes still interact with brain processes for which we are unaware. Surely unconscious processes are going to interact with our conscious ones, but it doesn’t follow that our conscious processes never cause us to do anything. If an unconscious process can cause behavior, why couldn’t a conscious one as well? Many of the claims regarding causation involve implicit assumptions about the nature of causality. Thus, scientists and philosophers are not only making claims about the details of the experiments, they are also making claims about metaphysics. There is much more to say about causation and its relation to mental phenomena, but it would be more suited for a post of its own.

In conclusion, compatibilist free will would be threatened only if the findings in these experiments really did generalize to all of our actions. If our conscious thoughts never gave rise to action, then we would not have free will. At this point, such a conclusion is unwarranted, to say the least. In the next post, I will discuss another possible threat to compatibilist free will. Namely, findings in the field of social psychology that are taken to show that our behavior is determined by situational factors that we are unaware of.

Works cited

Libet, B., Gleason, C. A., Wright, E. W., & Pearl, D. K. (1983). Time of conscious intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral activity (readiness-potential). Brain, 106(3), 623-642.

Soon, C. S., Brass, M., Heinze, H. J., & Haynes, J. D. (2008). Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain. Nature neuroscience, 11(5), 543-545.


*This post is part of a series on free will. 

Transgenderism and Science

Liberals tend to think of themselves as belonging to the “party of science”. To justify use of this title, liberals will point out how conservatives tend to reject mainstream climatology (e.g. humans are warming the planet) and well-established biology (e.g. evolution). But conservative critics allege that liberals reject mainstream science too. Specifically, the science behind the safety of GMOs, vaccines, nuclear power, and most recently, transgenderism—the idea that gender and biological sex can come apart. I agree that anti-scientific views are held by both parties (perhaps even equally so), but I think it is a mistake to lump transgenderism into the anti-science bin. While I think transgenderism raises some scientific questions, I don’t think liberals, or transgender individuals, tend to believe things that are contradicted by well-established science.

At a recent event at Ferris State University, conservative pundit Ben Shapiro responded to a student who asked a question about transgender rights. A video of this exchange* was uploaded to youtube shortly after. Here are some of the central claims Shapiro makes in his response to the student:

(1) Transgender individuals are making claims that are in conflict with well-established science and deny basic biological facts (1:15).

(2) Sex and gender are coextensive. They cannot come apart (0:15).

(3) The high transgender suicide rate is to be explained by the condition itself, rather than by discrimination, rejection, and stigmatization (starts around 3:20).

In this post, I will argue that the first claim is false, that the second is not well-established by the science, and that justification for the third claims rests upon a misrepresentation of the evidence and faulty reasoning.

(1)

Early on in the exchange, Shapiro expresses his knee-jerk reaction to transgender individuals: “You are not the sex to which you claim to be” (0:59).

If taken literally, he is attacking a straw man, as that is not the claim transgender people are making. Transgender people are claiming that their gender does not align with their sex—not that their sex isn’t what the doctors determined at their birth. If you were to ask them about their chromosomes or sex organs, they would not say something false.

Transgender individuals insist there is an important distinction between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’. Sex is to be understood as the possession of all or almost all of a number of biological properties (e.g. genetics, sexual organs, hormone production) associated with being either male or female, whereas gender is the possession of all or almost all of a number of psychological properties and behavioral dispositions (e.g. identity, expression, masculinity vs. femininity) that are typically associated with one’s sex. Put more simply, sex is what’s between the legs, gender is what’s between the ears. The distinction is made not only by transgender people, but can be found in any psychology or sociology textbook.

Transgender individuals are alleging that there can be a mismatch between one’s sex and gender profiles. That is to say, it’s possible that a man** can be born in a female body and vice versa. The American Psychological Association takes a similar stance, defining transgender as “an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth.”

(2)

I take it that Shapiro will either reject that there is a distinction between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ or that the distinction doesn’t validate the beliefs of transgender individuals. I say this because, later in the video, Shapiro claims that, “Gender is not disconnected from sex.” (0:15) What exactly does he mean by this?

One interpretation is that he is claiming that ‘gender’ and ‘sex’ are coextensive. That is to say, anything that is a biological male or female must have the corresponding gender profile by necessity. If the two classes of properties always go together, the distinction between sex and gender effectively falls apart. But if Shapiro is saying that sex and gender are coextensive, then he is making a scientific claim, one that is by no means well-established science or a basic biological fact. His claim would then be asserting that a scientific hypothesis about the relation between sex and gender is true, without any evidence.

It is true that the coextension hypothesis is in direct conflict with what transgender people are saying. Transgender people believe that sex/gender mismatching is possible and that their life experiences attest to that fact. (In the scientific literature, the possibility of mismatching is treated as a hypothesis, known as “the brainsex theory of transsexualism”). At best, liberals and transgender individuals would be denying that the coextension hypothesis is true. But that does not amount to denying basic biological facts, as it would in the cases of identifying as a different age or species (Shapiro’s analogies to age and species start around 2:15).

If Shapiro is making a more semantic claim, that ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ are synonymous, then he’s just wrong. This would be true even if we assume that sex and gender are co-extensive. ‘Sex’ and ‘gender’ would still apply to different aspects of the same referent. The property of having a heart is coextensive with the property of having a kidney. But having a heart does not mean the same thing as having a kidney.

One might still argue that the coextension thesis is more plausible because it is supported by “common sense” intuitions about sex and explains why many use ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ interchangeably. I think that most people’s life experiences are consistent with the coextension thesis, only because most people identify with the gender associated with their sex. If mismatching can happen, but very infrequently (0.3% of people), one would not expect many people to have encountered evidence contrary to it. Hence, the life experiences of most people cannot count as strong evidence in favor of the coextension thesis, as it is consistent with the possibility that mismatching occurs in rare circumstances.

I see no reason to think, from the armchair, that the coextension thesis is plausible. (Perhaps those who make certain theological assumptions might disagree.) To the contrary, I think there is evidence that provides some support for the mismatching hypothesis. Namely, the testimony of transgender people.

Imagine a world where the vast majority of people have observed time and time again that ravens are black. The common sense view would be that ravens are just black by nature and that they can’t come in any other color. But say that there was a very small group of people claiming to have seen a white raven. How should the vast majority of people respond to such claims? One response would be skepticism. Most people have only seen black ravens. Therefore, it is unlikely that white ravens exist and very likely that the individuals claiming otherwise are mistaken. Another response would be to accept that white ravens might exist, but not to take a stand on whether or not they do. I think the latter attitude is more justified than the former.

Similarly, I think accepting the possibility that mismatching is possible is reasonable given the testimony of transgender people. We have no good reason to think that they are lying about their subjective experiences. Additionally, the average person does not know enough about genetics or biology to determine whether or not mismatching is possible. The specific biological bases of gender (if there in fact are any) are still hotly contested, even among scientists who specialize in the fields relevant to these questions (e.g. endocrinology, developmental psychology, neurobiology).

Shapiro also draws attention to the fact that transgender individuals are at much higher risk for depression and anxiety disorders than the general population. Perhaps one way to improve their well-being would be to give them the benefit of a scientific doubt and accept them for how they express themselves and for how they identify. However, Shapiro takes issue with this suggestion, not only because he thinks trans people are fundamentally mistaken about the science, but because he thinks referring to them by their professed gender identity won’t do them any good (Starts around 4:04).

(3)

Shapiro argues that it makes very little difference to the well-being of trans individuals whether or not we recognize or respect their gender identities. To support this contention, he notes that transgender individuals commit attempt suicide at much higher rates than cisgender individuals (40% vs. 4%), and that a recent study found that “it makes no difference, virtually no difference statistically speaking, as to whether people recognize you as a transgender person or not, which suggests there’s a very high comorbidity between transgenderism, whatever that mental state may be, and suicidality, that has nothing to do with how society treats you” (3:44). If it makes no difference whether or not we recognize someone as transgender, then Shapiro reasons that their suicide rate must be due to the psychological condition itself.

The UCLA study does not say what he says it does. The study found that there were two closely related kinds of risk factors that lead to suicidality among transgender people: “rejection, discrimination, victimization, and violence related to anti-transgender bias and serious mental health conditions” (Haas et al., 2014). Furthermore, the authors conclude that, “Based on prior research and the findings of this report, we find that mental health factors and experiences of harassment, discrimination, violence and rejection may interact to produce a marked vulnerability to suicidal behavior in transgender and gender non-conforming individuals.” I think there is an obvious connection between the negative societal effects and mental health issues: the former causes the latter. But claims of causation require lots of evidence. So, I will leave that up to the relevant experts to determine.

Shapiro follows up on this point by bringing up the low suicide rates among blacks (starts around 4:25). While Shapiro talks exclusively about bullying, I take it that he would maintain that even if you were to factor in any of the other negative societal effects (e.g. discrimination), you would still fail to account for the high transgender suicide attempt rate. He reasons that if things like bullying and discrimination increase the risk of suicide, blacks should be more suicidal than whites since they are bullied and discriminated against more often. But they’re not more likely to commit suicide. Therefore, the way society treats you has nothing to do with suicidality. This isn’t a very good argument.

First, blacks are not a very good comparison group to transgender individuals. Blacks do not face rejection from their families for coming out as black, they are not regularly accused of having a mental illness (or being delusional), and they are not denied health care or work because of their identity. A much better comparison group would be homosexuals, whom have been subjected to similar negative societal effects, albeit to a lesser degree now. Here, we see that the data undermines Shapiro’s argument.

The suicide attempt rates among homosexuals are now between ten and twenty percent, lower than the rates among trans people (Haas et al., 2014; King et al., 2008). However, the rates used to be much higher. For instance, in the 1970’s, a time when homosexuality was significantly frowned upon, a large-scale survey of over five thousand homosexuals found that 40% had attempted suicide (Jay, 1979).*** Since the 1970’s, homosexuals have become much more accepted into society and they are also now less likely to attempt suicide. Two questions arise. Why did the suicide rate of homosexuals decline over the past forty years? And why is the suicide rate still much higher than heterosexuals today?

Societal effects (esp. rejection and disapproval by close family and friends) probably play a significant role in explaining the suicide trends among these groups. A recent study in Canada found that transgender people who had supportive parents were 57% less likely to attempt suicide (Bauer et al., 2015). Those who experienced low levels of hatred and abuse were 66% less likely. Similar suicide risk factors have been also been found among homosexuals (Haas et al., 2010; Van Bergen et al., 2013). Furthermore, a recent study published in JAMA looked at suicide attempts among homosexual teenagers from 2004-2015 (Raifman et al. 2017). The study found that their rate of suicide attempts dropped by 14% in the states where gay marriage was legalized. In states where gay marriage was illegal, the suicide rates remained constant throughout this 11 year period. Again, these findings intuitively support a causal hypothesis regarding suicidal tendencies and social acceptance. Finally, to speak to Shapiro’s specific claims about bullying, a recent meta-analysis concluded that bullying, in general, is a significant risk factor for suicidal ideation and attempts (Van Geel et al., 2014).

Issues surrounding gender and sexual orientation will always arouse conflict between those on the right and left. We hold many opposing beliefs about morality, the existence of God, and how society should be structured, and those beliefs affect how we will respond to scientific claims. We will tend to either ignore findings that contradict our beliefs, or we will deny that they are true. In order to resolve our disagreements about science, we have to be honest about our own beliefs and motives, and be just as honest when we try to represent the views of those we disagree with. Building up straw men, misrepresenting scientific studies, and engaging in tasteless ridicule is not going to narrow the political divide.

References

Bauer, G. R., Scheim, A. I., Pyne, J., Travers, R., & Hammond, R. (2015). Intervenable factors associated with suicide risk in transgender persons: a respondent driven sampling study in Ontario, Canada. BMC Public Health, 15(1), 525.

Haas, A. P., Eliason, M., Mays, V. M., Mathy, R. M., Cochran, S. D., D'Augelli, A. R., ... & Russell, S. T. (2010). Suicide and suicide risk in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender populations: review and recommendations. Journal of homosexuality, 58(1), 10-51.

Haas, A. P., Rodgers, P. L., & Herman, J. L. (2014). Suicide attempts among transgender and gender non-conforming adults. work, 50, 59.

Jay K, Young A (1979). The Gay Report: Lesbians and Gay Men Speak Out About Sexual Experiences and Lifestyles. New York, NY: Summit Books.

King et al. 2008 King, M., Semlyen, J., Tai, S. S., Killaspy, H., Osborn, D., Popelyuk, D., & Nazareth, I. (2008). A systematic review of mental disorder, suicide, and deliberate self harm in lesbian, gay and bisexual people. BMC psychiatry, 8(1), 70.

Raifman, J., Moscoe, E., Austin, S. B., & McConnell, M. (2017). Difference-in-differences analysis of the association between state same-sex marriage policies and adolescent suicide attempts. JAMA pediatrics, 171(4), 350-356.

Van Bergen, D. D., Bos, H. M., van Lisdonk, J., Keuzenkamp, S., & Sandfort, T. G. (2013). Victimization and suicidality among Dutch lesbian, gay, and bisexual youths. American journal of public health, 103(1), 70-72.

Van Geel, M., Vedder, P., & Tanilon, J. (2014). Relationship between peer victimization, cyberbullying, and suicide in children and adolescents: a meta-analysis. JAMA pediatrics, 168(5), 435-442.

* Timestamps are for the video featured on the article linked to near the beginning of the article: http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/10/ben-shapiro-uses-age-to-counter-transgenderism-argument-why-arent-you-60-video/

** By ‘man’, I mean an individual with all or almost all of the psychological properties and behavioral dispositions typically associated with being a male. While this may be contrary to ordinary linguistic practice, this is an accurate way of describing what transgender people are claiming.  

***Same suicide attempt rate as transgender persons today