Woodhill Publishing The Purpose of Life

    The Purpose of Life
    Summary of the Main Argument
    (from pages 9 to 17)

This summary presents the core of the argument developed in this book and the basis of my claim that it offers a new and more productive way of approaching moral philosophy.

Let us begin by forgetting about ethics. The single-person problem is hard enough; we should understand that before we attempt the multi-person problem. The question that I would like to address first concerns the individual's own objective or values. What do I really, really want? What is worthwhile? What should my life's aim be? Simple introspection is not enough. Different people do not agree and I have held different goals at different times or even struggled with competing goals at the same time.

Yet there is no doubt that human beings do feel desires and aversions; a human without preferences is never found. We are all aware of our values and we know that they are sometimes inconsistent, they can change over time and as a result of persuasion by others. There is certainly confusion and a true answer needs some careful enquiry.

Let us consider how the human brain works as a decision-making device. It obtains information from the external world through the senses, processes it internally and then generates an output signal in order to achieve some desired effect. The purpose, goal, objective, value, call it what you will, is the information which defines what it is trying to do. The value information is inside the brain before the time of decision: it obviously cannot come from the incoming fact information. This is an example of the well-known philosophical dictum that you cannot derive an "ought" from an "is".

Our problem is to discover more about this value information in the brain. Where does it come from and what "ought" it to be. Let us review what we could claim to know, with some certainty, about it:

1. NON-RANDOM SOURCE:
   The value information inside any brain ought not to be completely random or arise from chance events. It must come from somewhere.
   


2. SOMETHING MATTERS:
   The whole point of any decision-making device is to achieve something. The value information in a decision-maker cannot be empty. Nihilism is the opinion that there are no values: that nothing matters at all. It is hard to disprove, but does not seem to be a practical choice for any living organism.
   


3. CONSISTENCY:
   Perhaps we can say that the value information inside any decision-making device might be better not to be self-contradictory. Decision-makers with contradictory objectives do exist of course (my own brain is one of them), but to the extent that their values are not reconciled they will lead to self-cancelling activity.
   
   Of course, we must have conflicting sub-goals: that is why a statement of objective cannot be complete without specifying the trade-off between them. The expression of value inside a decision-maker must be like a mathematical function with many inputs, but a single output. The objective function must rank all possible decision outcomes on a one-dimensional scale: if I prefer A to B and B to C, then I must prefer A to C.
   


4. REAL-WORLD VALUES:
   A decision-maker, to be effective, must place values on differing possible states of external reality, not on its internal state only. It would not be a valid goal to have one's brain taken out, kept in a tank and fed electro-chemical signals which produce a sensation of perfect happiness. Art for art's sake, a possible exception to this, is considered in Chapter 10 - it is not a counterexample.
   


5. EVOLUTION:
   All of the evidence that has accumulated about the universe and the properties of non-living matter is that it works by laws that are entirely neutral in terms of value. The values or objectives of animals and humans originate, like all other non-random aspects of their beings, in evolution by natural selection. It is easy to see how values could evolve out of inert matter in this way: animals will be selected to prefer to eat and reproduce and to dislike the idea of being a predator's dinner.
   

There is a popular fallacy that a further source of values for humans is an emergent property of culture. (Do not be deceived by the word "emergent": it just means things are complex and no one knows what is going on.) These values are supposed to act over and above the values derived from our genetic evolution, largely replacing them. This idea cannot be justified. It may be regarded as one more example of our vanity, in trying to believe that we are different from the beasts in kind, not only in degree. We can understand how value information could be programmed into our brains by natural selection, but how could further values be invented by information which we pass from one brain to another? Of course we culturally transmit our values to each other, but these values originate in the brains, not in the transmission process. More detail on this later.

There is an argument that, if values can only be created by evolution, then cultural values might be formed by memetic evolution. This deserves a fuller discussion, which will appear later in the book, but I am satisfied that we can neglect it for this preliminary outline.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM

The values which we hold now come from evolution, but, it must be emphasised, that is no reason to say that the values that we ought to adopt for the future, should do so. This would be the naturalistic fallacy: the idea that from starting points composed only of "is" statements we can derive an "ought" statement. To make any valid deduction about values, at least one of the premises must be a value statement.

A typical illustration of the "is/ought" problem is the reasoning: a man is in the water in danger of drowning, therefore we ought to throw him a lifebelt. This is not correct unless we also use an unstated value premise that we ought to help those whose lives are in danger. But facts can also completely change a moral conclusion: for example if we discover that the lifebelt is a replica moulded from solid lead!

So we cannot do any reasoning about values, unless we have some starting point which includes at least one value statement. We need some axioms. (An axiom is defined as a self-evident premise, which is accepted without proof as a starting point for deduction.) In this we are in good company: even Euclidean geometry needs some axioms to get started.

The problem in moral philosophy has been that our evolution has programmed us to regard some quite complex ideas as self-evident moral truths and it has also programmed us to exchange values culturally within societies, creating conventions specific to each. There is a risk that each one of us could choose different starting points, reaching quite different philosophies, even if the rest of our logic were impeccable.

This is essentially what has happened in the past. For example, the idea that we ought to promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number is riddled with complex questions. Why should I accept this when I hold (for good evolutionary reasons) that the welfare of my child is more important to me than the welfare of a stranger's? I accept it as normal that the stranger will have the opposite view. And what is happiness anyway? Then there was the idea that we could, by our inner sense, recognise what was "good". The very meaning of the word "good" is so context-dependent that this idea is close to meaningless. Various other ideas have been suggested and tried wasting much paper, ink and time.

If we are to produce a result which is better than those of our predecessors we must choose axioms which really do qualify as self-evident, which are precisely defined and which are independent of the particular culture in which we find ourselves. I believe that axioms drawn from the numbered statements above are more basic, simple and more self-evident than in any previous attempt at moral philosophy.

The first four provide us with starting value statements, yet these are basic fundamentals, not just a statement of some preconceived values. Our origin in evolution and the continuing existence of the mechanism of natural selection are facts, not values, but are also important in reaching the conclusion.

The need for a non-random source of value information directs us, at once, to the mechanism of natural selection, because we have discovered no other source of values in the universe. The non-random information, which is contained in every living thing, is the result of many random occurrences combined with the selective action of evolution. It is the selective mechanism, not the random events, that provides us with a non-random source from which our values have come.

Strictly, the rejection of values whose origin is purely in chance events would not prohibit the belief that we should have no values at all. This is eliminated only by our axiomatic choice to reject nihilism.

These two premises, together with our knowledge of the mechanism of natural selection, are enough to establish a master value, which I call the Evolutionary Value Principle (EVP). It states that:

The correct set of values in any evolved being is the one which will give its holder's genes the maximum advantage in terms of natural selection.

The other axioms, the requirement for consistency and the need to address real-world variables, were not needed to establish the EVP, but they must still be satisfied by any proposed solution. The EVP does so. So there it is, after all these thousands of years: you now have the answer!

Do I hear expressions of distaste at this point? Well, I didn't promise that you would like it, only that you would be hard pressed to disprove it. But don't give up yet; it turns out to be not as bad as it seems. (Some may be suspecting social Darwinism after all: but no, it has no resemblance to that.)

ALTERNATIVES

The commonly occurring values, which exist in the typical person of today, are almost, but importantly not quite, the same as the EVP. This is not surprising, because our complex brains have been created by natural selection. The majority of decisions are either advantageous or neutral to the holder's genes, but there are exceptions, which are interesting. We find usually that normal, healthy humans will take decisions against the evolutionary interest of their genes only when they are in a modern situation. Childlessness by choice (while still enjoying sex) and the love of fast motorbikes are not choices which were available during most the past few million years. These modern decisions have the appearance of error, as our historical instincts meet novel situations to which they are not yet adapted, and, if we adopt the EVP, they are indeed errors.

The modern values fail to meet our axioms in a number of ways. Many of them, such as drug-taking, television watching, video games and contraceptive-disabled sex, are not real-world values: they create internal stimuli only. They have an accidental information source, as evolved instincts play themselves out uselessly in a changed environment. And they certainly have inconsistencies.

In matters of fact, it can be logical to admit doubt, if there is not enough evidence. The same cannot be done for value information, if decisions must be taken. If I take a decision without understanding my values, I have still made a choice. A careful observer could reverse-engineer my decision to find what values I was effectively using.

ALTRUISM

Those readers, who have got this far without recoiling in horror, will perhaps be saying "Does this mean that there is nothing but selfishness in the world and that all our hopes for progress are dashed?" Certainly it seems a puzzle. If it is true that the best way to propagate our genes is to be selfish, why do we see so much altruism around us? Why has it survived the relentless force of natural selection? In fact, altruism is here because it has evolved and, for the same reason, it is commended by the EVP for the future. Perhaps things are not so bad after all.

The first type of altruism is kin altruism. Your own children share 50% of your genes and other relatives varying proportions. By promoting their survival and reproduction you will be promoting the copying of your own genes. Thus unselfishness, at the level of the individual, can be explained by selfishness at the level of the gene. This was the idea explained in Dawkins's The Selfish Gene which some silly people misunderstood to mean a genetic justification of selfishness. There is no doubt that pure, selfless altruism towards kin has evolved and is commended by the EVP.

The proportion of genes shared by relatives peters out very quickly. A sibling has 50%, a cousin 12.5% and a person who shares one set of great-grandparents 3.1%. Yet we see altruism extending far beyond that. This is explained by reciprocal altruism.

A much discussed situation is the "prisoner's dilemma", where two people must decide to either "co-operate" or "defect" without knowledge of how the other player will decide. A version of this game might give rewards as follows: if both co-operate they will both receive seven dollars; if both defect they will each gain three dollars; if one co-operates and the other defects, the co-operator will receive nothing while the defector will receive ten dollars.

The dilemma is clear. The total benefit is greatest if both co-operate and if both defect then both are worse off. But if I co-operate and the other player defects, then I am a sucker and lose badly. Even if the other player co-operates, it would still pay me to defect. How can co-operation be established? In a game of a single play, it probably can't. In repeated plays, however, it may be different.

Computer simulations have been run by Robert Axelrod, in which he allowed "individuals", each consisting of a small scrap of computer program, to play against each other. After each round of play, they died and reproduced according to how many points they had won. At first, the aggressive defectors multiplied at the expense of the suckers, but, after a time, their numbers declined as their prey became extinct. The long-term victor was a routine called TIT FOR TAT, which began by co-operating, but punished its opponent for defecting. It was concluded that a strategy which would give selective advantage must be "nice" (always co-operating first), "provocable" (not leaving defection unpunished), "forgiving" (quickly re-establishing co-operation after a defection) and "clear" (having rules of behaviour which its partner can identify).

This model of human interaction is grossly oversimplified, but it has some interest and goes some way to explaining how co-operation could have evolved. In the real world, co-operation may be between two people, but is often a multi-person game. A person may be altruistic to an inexplicable recipient, who cannot reciprocate, so as to consciously or unconsciously establish himself as a good co-operator in the eyes of a third person. This type of altruism I have named "display altruism".

Many people hold that certain principles are simply right without question of personal advantage and are held to be so by all right-thinking people. By this they mean that there is a moral imperative which somehow "exists". They might, for example, say, "I think it is fundamentally wrong to kill another human being". Equipped with our understanding of the nature of human altruism, we can see what is really happening. What this person is really doing, without being conscious of the fact, is taking part in a multi-person co-operation in which a society's members accept and enforce the upheld rule. By doing so, he will gain more by not being killed than he will lose by foregoing the convenience of killing others. There is probably a good measure of display altruism taking place also.

These culturally transmitted values are better understood as being multi-person, partly unconscious, reciprocal co-operations whose duration may be longer than the lifetime of any of the individual participants. The alternative description of cultural values as an emergent property of cultural development does not entirely contradict this, but lacks any explanatory value. Here is the origin of the idea that values could come out of thin air during the development of culture. The more civilised a society is, the more it has invested in building up this co-operation software, complete with its anti-defection mechanisms. That increases the gain to all its members through multi-person, reciprocal altruism.

Evolution, in forming these instincts, had only to create an instinct to produce the right actions; there would be no selection pressure to create conscious understanding, unless that were the best way to achieve the result. A brain that believed in a moral imperative would do what was required and would be positively selected. Even the punishment of defectors is unconsciously achieved - think how quickly the imperative "thou shalt not kill" is forgotten, if an enemy is shooting at you to try to kill you and you have a gun to hand!

We can now understand why the Evolutionary Value Principle is not a simple recipe for selfishness. In fact, it supports all of the altruism that we see around us. A "better" culture of values is more likely to appear, if we understand that we are building together a reciprocal co-operation than if we waste our time on impractical utopias. But this philosophy does not exclude all competition either: only the naive could have expected that.

So what are the practical applications of these ideas? Unlike most philosophical theories, the Evolutionary Value Principle actually has some. Firstly, reproduction is not just the main thing: it is almost the only thing. Childlessness by choice is a disaster akin to suicide or murdering our own children. The only reason we view these choices with more horror than life-long birth control is that the new choice has not been around long enough for our instincts to have adapted.

It is important also to be a good reciprocator, to earn a good name for integrity, to uphold the norms of a civilised culture, to pursue learning and to create wealth. But all of these good things are servants to the first recommendation.

The EVP also provides us with an algorithm by which we can solve every problem of values in politics, bioethics, animal rights, warfare, art, sport and attitudes to death, without grabbing value statements out of the air, as is so popularly done nowadays. The detail of some of these will be explored in the later chapters. The result comes surprisingly close to traditional common sense.

In Chapter 4, after a fuller discussion, the reader is offered three possibilities:

1. Accept the principle and use it as a guide to all your values.
   


2. Disagree with the principle, because you disagree with the starting premises or the reasoning.
   


3. You can find no fault in it, but do not think you should take it seriously.
   

If you choose 1 then enjoy the rest of the book. If you choose 2, please write in and tell me what you have found. If you choose 3, then your thinking is simply not good enough. Go back and think again, or follow the argument in more detail later in the book, It is too important not to pick one of the first two!

Some may find it depressing to discover that we have evolved over millions of years, to our present levels of complexity and sophistication, only to find that we have no purpose other than to evolve some more. We must be intolerant of such objections, because beliefs should be based on evidence and reasoning: not on what makes people feel comfortable. Yet there is some reason for elation. It is something of a privilege, to be the first evolved beings on Earth, perhaps in the Universe, to consciously understand what our existence is all about and to be greatly strengthened by doing so.

If this philosophy has succeeded, where all the others have failed, it is because of its starting points. No statement of value can be made without beginning with a value premise, but this deduction is built on the simplest and most self-evident axioms of value information that seem possible. Also, an understanding of the multi-person problem can only be attained by building a complex structure on the foundation of the simpler, single-person problem. The failure of traditional philosophy is due its attempt to start at too high a level. It has tackled ethics before individual purpose, and has used starting assumptions which assume too much. They have been like someone trying to build a skyscraper, but starting at the tenth floor.

So do I believe this view of human purpose? I first understood it twenty years ago, when I was aged about 40 and had the standard two children. I now have nine. I recommend to them that they study this question well. They can afford the time to do so, because they owe their lives to it!