The useful in mind

Joshua Greene is both a philosopher and a neuroscientist, specializing in the brain’s basis of moral reasoning. Originally published in 2013 under the title Moral Tribes and recently translated into French by Markus Haller, Moral tribes constitutes a synthesis of his work accessible to the greatest number.

Despite the amount of research in psychology and neuroscience that he handles, Moral tribes is above all a book of philosophy : Joshua Green is a committed philosopher who puts the results of neuroscience (and cognitive science in general) at the service of an ethical project. In this case, it is above all a question of defending utilitarianism as a solution to the fundamental problem raised by moral disagreements. The main argument of the book does not rely directly on empirical science; it only comes as a reinforcement.

The “tragedy of common sense morality”

But what exactly is the problem that utilitarianism can solve? The first part of the book (the introduction and the first three chapters) explains it. To put it simply, this problem is the existence of fundamental and insoluble moral disagreements. To put it more complexly, for Greene, humanity is composed of very distinct “moral tribes” whose moral values ​​are incommensurable. This vision is based on an evolutionary conception of morality: the fundamental problem that all human societies encounter at the origin is that of the “tragedy of the commons”. Indeed, any enterprise of cooperation between individuals runs up against their selfishness, which continually threatens to put an end to their mutual relations. Fortunately, Greene tells us, this problem has already been solved (at least in part) by evolution: in the course of evolution, we have developed a whole set of moral dispositions (including “empathy, family love, anger, social disgust, friendship, basic decency, gratitude, revenge, love, honor, shame, guilt, loyalty, humility,” p. 89) that motivate us to overcome our selfishness in order to cooperate with other members of our group. Through these dispositions, we somehow naturally integrate the values ​​of the group, which allows us to live in relative harmony within it.

However, if evolution solved the tragedy of the commons by giving rise to morality, it also gave rise to another problem: that of the “tragedy of common-sense morality” (tragedy of common sense moralityoddly translated into French as “the moral tragedy of common sense”). Indeed, the morality created by evolution is tribal : it is only valid within a given group, and each group has its own, incommensurable with that of the others. Thus, if morality tends to bring individuals closer together within the same group, it also tends to accentuate disagreements and gaps between the groups themselves, thus stirring up hatred and conflicts.

It is on the basis of this observation that Greene presents what he considers to be the main goal of moral philosophy: not to achieve some objective moral truth that would be inaccessible to us, but to overcome disagreements between “tribes” by giving birth to a metamoral : “a moral system capable of resolving disagreements between groups whose moral ideals differ, much as ordinary morality can resolve disagreements between people whose individual interests are opposed” (p. 44).

Utilitarianism as a “common currency”

But what should such a “metamorality” be based on? According to Greene, it must be rooted in a set of values ​​that can be shared by all – what he calls a “common currency” for all tribes.

What would such a set look like? For Greene, there is at least one value that all tribes are likely to recognize: happiness. While Greene does not adopt the idea once held by Bentham and Mill that only happiness is valuable and that human beings never do anything but seek to be happy, he does defend the weaker thesis that each of us seeks to some extent to be happy, even if it is not necessarily our only aim in life. In other words, we probably do not think that happiness is the alone true value, but we think all that happiness has intrinsic value.

The metamorality that is supposed to reconcile the different tribes must thus take happiness as its foundation: everyone will agree that an action that contributes to happiness is (to this extent at least) good while an action that increases unhappiness is (to this extent at least) bad. If we add to this a little impartiality (which seems required, if the metamorality is to be able to be adopted by all), we simply obtain the basic principles of utilitarianism: the criterion of a good action is its capacity to improve the happiness of the greatest number. Because it is rooted in the only value capable of achieving unanimity, utilitarianism is thus the “metamorality” that we need to reconcile the different moral tribes and overcome our differences.

Of course, Greene anticipates the resistance that this conclusion may arouse. First, utilitarianism has a bad reputation and its name often gives rise to multiple confusions – which is why he suggests a radical change of label consisting of replacing the term “utilitarianism” with the eminently more reassuring label of “deep pragmatism”. Second, utilitarianism must face a significant number of objections – which is why Greene turns to neuroscience.

Automatic and manual, the two settings of moral thinking

Most objections to utilitarianism consist of showing that it has counterintuitive consequences. On the one hand, it allows us (or even enjoins us) to sacrifice some individuals for the good of others, as long as this contributes to the happiness of the greatest number. Now, this is clearly monstrous. On the other hand, utilitarianism demands of us sacrifices that are far too great, such as giving most of our income to humanitarian organizations, since the good that results from doing so exceeds the pleasure we would have derived from it. Monstrous and too demanding: two good reasons to reject utilitarianism.

But how much credit should we give to these intuitions? And first, where do they come from? This is where the appeal to neuroscience (in particular) and cognitive science (in general) becomes relevant: Greene’s work focused precisely on the cognitive processes supporting intuitions and moral reasoning. And the results he obtained seem to allow him to get out of this bad situation.

Take the famous “streetcar problem”. In the first version, a streetcar is hurtling towards 5 people, threatening to kill them. Is it morally acceptable to divert the streetcar onto another track, knowing that it will run over only one person? Most people think so. In the second version, the streetcar is still hurtling towards 5 people, but one person would have to be pushed onto the track so that his body would stop the streetcar in its tracks. Is this morally acceptable? Most people say no. Why is there such a difference between the two cases?

Greene’s work on such cases led him to formulate a number of interesting conclusions. The first is that utilitarian responses (“it is acceptable to sacrifice one person to save many”) and deontological responses (“it is unacceptable to sacrifice one person”) are generated by different cognitive systems: while utilitarian responses are most often the product of conscious, controlled, high-level cognitive systems, deontological responses are often the product of automatic, unconscious, emotional processes. It is on this empirical basis that Greene resurrects a classic distinction in moral philosophy between two levels of moral thought (one thinks, for example, of the work of the philosopher Richard Hare). To do this, he constructs an analogy between our moral thinking and a camera: like a camera, our moral thinking has an automatic mode (product of evolution and source of deontological responses) and a manual mode (which requires the critical use of reason and which is a source of utilitarian responses).

Of course, this proves nothing in itself: after all, our intuitions, like candy, may be better than reason. But this is where Greene advances his second conclusion: these automatic intuitions, which we have developed over the course of evolution, are limited and sensitive to many factors that are morally irrelevant. For example, what leads us to judge that it is morally acceptable to hijack the trolley but not to push the man onto the track? Simply the fact that we exert a force directly on him—a factor that is unlikely to be relevant in an age when there are many opportunities to harm others from a distance. Thus, our intuitions do not constitute a good reason to reject utilitarianism as a solution to the tragedy of common-sense morality: they are simply the product of an automatic mode of thinking that is ill-suited to the problems raised by the contemporary world.

In conclusion

Let’s finally say it: it is most of the time a pleasure to read Moral tribesdespite some questionable translation choices. The book is written to be accessible to as many people as possible and covers a wealth of material, mixing philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, economics, etc. Whoever the reader is, there is no doubt that they will find something to learn.

This does not prevent the major theses of the work from being debatable. More than the solution, and the empirical data that underpin it, it is the statement of the problem that may seem questionable. One might first be tempted to reject as naive the vision that Greene proposes of human societies as composed of homogeneous and impermeable “moral tribes”. One might even find in it a slightly dubious taste of “culture clash” that tends to underestimate the moral variability within each group and the capacity of individuals to claim several “tribal” affiliations. One might then simply think that Greene is not asking the right questions, and that the goal of moral philosophy is above all to find what is Really good or bad, rather than seeking to reconcile everyone: truth is not necessarily popular. But even if the problem raised by Greene is not the “right” problem, and even if his formulation in terms of “tribes” is not necessarily the best, it is still important to ask to what extent moral philosophy can help to build a bridge between radically different moral worldviews, and thus the usefulness it can have today.