I have been watching Star Trek and its spin offs most of my life–and that is kind of what this question is about. For that reason some might think this should go under Café. But hear me out first.
In the fictional Star Trek, Mr. Spock and his Vulcan brethren are completely logical, it is said. And for years I just assumed that was at least possible–for a race to be purely logical, that is. Then when I started taking classes in college I came across some philosophical terms like noncognitivism. Noncognitivism claims that ethics and morals are nothing more than expressions of our emotions, and thus having no real logical basis to them. When I first heard the term I became a little confused. But I don’t think it was ever really that delved into it too deeply in any of the classes I took.
Now to get a little corny again. Capt. Kirk, Dr. McCoy and Mr. Spock are trying to save Gem, and the 2 evil space aliens come to take either Spock or McCoy away (McCoy having just given Kirk a sedative). Then Dr. McCoy suddenly gives Spock a sedative too. Spock immediately stiffens up and says “Your actions are highly unethical!..” but of course soons succumbs to the sedative.
Well, as you can see the writers seemed to think that a purely logical being could be capable of holding ethical beliefs and opinions. So what is the current consensus in the scientific and philosophical community? Is a purely logical ethical system possible? And if it is, while we’re at it, which one is right? Judeo-Christian? Secular-Humanist? Communist? Neo-Fascist?
The writers never seemed to me to be that sure what they meant.
Logic seems a useful tool for analysing situations, etc, but I don’t see how it can deduce a motivation.
Possibly what people think of when they say ‘act logically’ is let our emotions determine your goals not your actions. Or reduce and recognise your goals. Giving money to a begger because you feel sorry for him is colloquially ‘less logical’ than considering whether the money is better given to him or a homeless shelter, because in the first case what you really meant was to help him, and recognising the underlying emotion/motive makes it easier to carry out. Of course, if your primary goal is to give mone to beggers regardless of the consequences you can only use logic to help decide how to give the most. Did that make any sense?
Well, I don’t believe this is quite accurate, myself. Nevertheless, there is an important lesson to learn by contemplating it: one should give thought to what one believes in.
To answer the direct question, no. An ethical system will always have “holes” that don’t seem to fit the situation very well. Likewise, all ethical systems have contradictions and, more importantly, are based on unprovable assumptions. It may be possible to build an extremely logical ethics system from certain assumptions. TO be honest, though, ALL ethical systems are pretty logical if you accept their assumptions.
Part of it stems the fact that Vulcans tend to be racist, superiority-complex jerks.
Regardless, I believ that mortal beings are not capable of wholly understanding or creating aperfect ethical system. However, because of that, we are not expected to. God, therefore, has granted us all of the basic rules and principles we need. For whatever reasons He has, we are also obligated to try and search for the good in the world, and not rely solely on old principles. mankind should not be static and stilted, but dynamic. Scientific research is a moral duty, in one sense. A more important duty is to never be staisfied with the state of affairs of the world, and to strive to improve them.
The Basic principles I believe include, but are not limited to:
You will have no other Gods before the Lord. (which includes the implicit worship of power, welath, and other such things)
You will not commit murder.
You will not steal.
You will not commit adultery
You will not covet your neighbor’s goods nor spouse.
I suppose a teleologically determined system of ethics (consequentialism) would fit the bill here. That is, a system of ethics based purely on a cost-benift determination of one’s possible actions. Such a system, if employed universally by a society of hyperlogical beings (say… Vulcan), might also generate a type of deontological adherence to rules of behavior determined at a higher, group level (familial, organizational, national, etc.), whereby individuals base ethical decisions on a specific duty theory instead of on direct consequentalism.
We know, for example (using the fictional examination of ethics presented to us by Mr. Roddenberry, et al) that Spock was a utilitarianist (“Sometimes the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.”), but we also know that he was strongly motivated, and sometimes strongly conflicted, by adherence to duty— to Star Fleet, to Vulcan, to his family, etc.
Yes, I’d say so. See the combined formulations of Kant’s Categorical Imperative (universal maxims, treating all others as ends rather than means, the “Kingdom of Ends”), making sure to avoid his seemingly illogical interpretations of same (as in the altruistic lie problem).
Err… I think I’ll let someone else speculate on whether or not Spock agreed with Kant.
More to the point, no creature or device can ever be utterly logical, if only for evolutionary reasons: without motivations and preferences, an organism would remain quiescent until it died.
However, since evolution is the ultimate determining force for ethics and morality, and since it’s inevitable, using emotion to direct one’s actions is therefore logical.
What definition of logic eliminates preference? Logic is at heart a means of symbolic manipulation. It does not dictate what values the symbols possess. Informally, logical analysis might indicate the best means to acheive one’s preferences. It might also present a mechanism for weighing one set of preferences against others to determine whether they must necessarily conflict, but I dont see any reason to declare something like: “preference is illogical”.
As to ethics and logic: they do not conflict. A purely logical system of ethics is not only quite possible, quite a few of them have been proposed. The thing is: most human beings tend to have pretty strong internal ideas about “what is right”, and nonse of the proposed systems of deductive ethics manage to account for all situations in the way that intuitivel “seems” ethical.
What does that mean? Well, it could mean lots of things about conflicting value systems, variable priorities, improperly or incompletely structured ethical systems, etc. But one thing it certainly means is that intuition and logic do not always provide the same result. Raise your hand if you knew that already.
You have my apologies, Jim B. It was wrong of me to reply to a hijacking of your thread, thus making the problem worse.
To return to the OP: The majority of scientists don’t concern themselves with determining ethics on empirical grounds, and (unfortunately) the majority of philosophers are unable to grasp the concepts required to do so. Peter Singer is a notable exception: his dislike of philosophical inconsistency leads him to a fascinating set of moral conclusions. You may wish to take a look at his work. It’s thought-provoking if nothing else.
Not to hijack too terribly, but I interpret Spock’s words to mean, “Dr. McCoy, you are not acting according to your own ethics.” Which is true (“First, do no harm”). Drugging a healthy person into unconsciousness is not ethical by McCoy’s standards, and logic has nothing to do with it.
Also remember, Vulcans are not emotion-less, they are emotion-managed - they have emotions, they just choose to repress them. So, in essence, they aren’t in truth purely logical, they just strive to be, as an end goal, like some people strive to be perfect but realize they can never fully attain perfection (even Seven of Nine acknowledged that was how the Borg were).
But you can still debate the idea of a perfectly logical, emotion-free ethical/value system. Carry on.
So, while it might be possible to formulate such a coldly logical ethical system, it appears that it may be impossible for human beings to follow such a program (or any other set of instructions/guide to decision-making) without the benefit of emotions.
All human decisions are ultimately made because we desire certain outcomes. Any being or device that was able to survive and endure will necessarily have goals (although they may be as simple as the ingrained survival responses of bacteria).
Emotion is necessary. The problem is not that humans are emotional beings; the problem is that humans’ emotions are poorly designed.
Instead of using rationality to determine the condition of the world, evaulating the possible outcomes with emotion, and then applying rationality again to the available options (to discover how the goal can be reached) and to the emotions themselves (to see if competing emotions are in fact compatible), they made decisions based directly on emotion.
Individuals with a particular type of brain damage often become convinced that their friends and loved ones have been replaced with identical duplicates. They acknowledge that these individuals look, sound, and act just as they did before – but they’re utterly convinced they’re strangers. (Some patients have even killed their friends and spouses.) The problem is that the emotional response of “recognition” has been destroyed, and this primal and subconscious reaction is more essential to the workings of these people’s minds than any conscious reaction, logical or otherwise.
Interesting excerpt, toadspittle. I don’t think that it actually supports a causal connection between “lack of emotin” and “inability to form sound decisions”, but it is intersting nontheless. I can certainly hypothesize a scenario in which a lack of emotional response corrsponded to a failure in appropriate risk assessment.
TVAA, setting aside for the moment quesitons of whether emotions were “designed” at all, you seem to be operating under the assumption that rational analysis in all cases will necessarily result in a “better outcome”. (I’m not clear whether you are arguing “better outcome” strictly in evolutionary terms or not.) In any case, I do not think that this is necessarily so. Fundamentally, a utilitarian rational analysis will always be limited by the capacity of a decision making sysem to evaluate potential outcomes. If human beings were able to perform such analysis with absolute certainty, then it would seem to follow that the best possible course would be to always follow such a method.
We cannot, so it does not.
I’m not saying that reason is bad, of course. I rely heavily upon it myself, but that does not mean a purely rational analysis[sup]1[/sup] will always provide the best result.
[sup]1[/sup][sub]based upon values infomred by emotional input[/sub]
When Spock was sedated and said “Your actions are highly unethical!..” it was the logical thing to say. A human wouldve said something like “Goddamit Bones! You Sonofa…” Spock said the most insulting (but logical) thing to say to a doctor.
But ethics are the rules of conduct. The rules are not subject for debate and to follow them regardless of their origin is the logical thing to do. I would surmise that Spock might have done (and did do to Kirk on many occasions) the same thing because logic would have dictated deviating from the rules of ethics to fit the situation. This is the the conflict between Bones ans Spock. Morals would have been important to Bones and breaking from them would form conflict in him, whereas Spock would dismiss morals as an emotional hindrance to doing the right thing. Morals being quite different from ethics, where ethics is a standard that professionals use whereas morals are the standards a particular society uses to maintain order.
That’s hilarious: Spiritus Mundi lecturing us about logic.
