It is possible to explain, consistently with our nature as an evolved being, why it is that we are concerned for our kin, for those with whom we can establish reciprocal relationships, and to some extent for members of our own group. Now we have seen that some people help strangers, both in heroic circumstances and in more everyday ways. Does this not break the bounds of our evolved nature? How can evolutionary theory explain a sense of responsibility to make the entire world a better place? How could those who have such a sense avoid leaving fewer descendants, and thus, over time, being eliminated by the normal workings of the evolutionary process?
Here is one possible answer. Human beings lack the strength of the gorilla, the sharp teeth of the lion, the speed of the cheetah. Brain power is our specialty. The brain is a tool for reasoning, and a capacity to reason helps us to survive, to feed ourselves, and to safeguard our children. With it we have developed machines that can lift more than many gorillas, knives that are sharper than any lion’s teeth, and ways of traveling that make a cheetah’s pace tediously slow. But the ability to reason is a peculiar ability. Unlike strong arms, sharp teeth, or flashing legs, it can take us to conclusions that we had no desire to reach. For reason is like an escalator, leading upward and out of sight. Once we step upon it, we do not know where we will end up.1
A story about how Thomas Hobbes became interested in philosophy illustrates the compelling way in which reason can draw us along. Hobbes was browsing in a library when he happened to come across a copy of Euclid’s The Elements of Geometry. The book lay open at the Forty-seventh Theorem. Hobbes read the conclusion and swore that it was impossible. So he read the proof, but this was based on a previously proved theorem. He then had to read that; and it referred him to another theorem, and so on, until eventually the chain of reasoning led back to Euclid’s set of axioms, which Hobbes had to admit were so self-evident that he could not deny them. Thus reasoning alone led Hobbes to accept a conclusion that, at first sight, he had rejected. (The episode so impressed him that in his greatest work, Leviathan, he attempted to apply the same deductive method of reasoning to the task of defending the right of the sovereign to absolute obedience.)2
Reason’s capacity to take us where we did not expect to go could also lead to a curious diversion from what one might expect to be the straight line of evolution. We have evolved a capacity to reason because it helps us to survive and reproduce. But if reason is an escalator, then although the first part of the journey may help us to survive and reproduce, we may go further than we needed to go for this purpose alone. We may even end up somewhere that creates tension with other aspects of our nature. In this respect, there may after all be some validity in Kant’s picture of tension between our capacity to reason, and what it may lead us to see as the right thing to do, and our more basic desires. We can live with contradictions only up to a point. When the rebelling American colonists declared that all men have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they may not have intended to bring about the abolition of slavery, but they laid the foundation for a process that, over almost a century, brought about that result. Slavery might have been abolished without the Declaration of Independence, or despite the Declaration, abolition might have been staved off for another decade or two; but the tension between such universal declarations of rights and the institution of slavery was not difficult to see.
Here is another example, from Gunnar Myrdal’s classic study of the American race question, An American Dilemma. Although this book was published in 1944, long before the civil rights victories of the 1960s, Myrdal described the process of ethical reasoning that was making racist practices difficult to sustain:
The individual … does not act in moral isolation. He is not left alone to manage his rationalizations as he pleases, without interference from outside. His valuations will, instead, be questioned and disputed … The feeling of need for logical consistency within the hierarchy of moral valuations—and the embarrassed and sometimes distressed feeling that the moral order is shaky—is, in its modern intensity, a rather new phenomenon.3
Myrdal goes on to say that the modern intensity of this need for consistency is related to increased mobility and communication, and the spread of education. Traditional and locally held ideas are challenged by the wider society and cannot withstand the appeal of the more universal values. This factor would, Myrdal predicted, lead to wider acceptance of universal values. He was thinking of the universal application of moral principles to all within the human species; but if he were writing today, he might well consider, as a further instance of the tendency he described, the view that the interests of nonhuman animals should also receive equal consideration.4
Curiously, when Karl Marx wrote about the history of class revolutions, he pointed to much the same tendency:
Each new class which displaces the one previously dominant is forced, simply to be able to carry out its aim, to represent its interest as the common interest of all members of society, that is, ideally expressed. It has to give its ideas the form of universality and represent them as the only rational, universally valid ones.… Every new class, therefore, achieves dominance only on a broader basis than that of the previous class ruling.5
Marx thought that reason was here merely providing a cloak for the class interests of those making the revolutions. Given his materialist view of history, he could hardly say anything else. Yet he also pointed out that because capitalism needed to concentrate workers in industrial centers and give them at least a minimum level of education, it contributed to raising the workers’ awareness of their own situation. The same events can be seen in a different way: as the working out of the inherently universalizing nature of reasoning in societies that increasingly consist of educated and self-aware people, gradually freeing themselves from the constraints of parochial and religious beliefs. Since the general level of education and ease of communication are still increasing throughout the world, we have some grounds for hoping that this process will continue, eventually bringing with it a fundamental change in our ethical attitudes.
Our ability to reason, then, can be a factor in leading us away from both arbitrary subjectivism and an uncritical acceptance of the values of our community. The idea that everything is subjective or, more specifically, relative to our community, seems to go into and out of vogue with each generation. Like its predecessors, the postmodernist mode of relativism fails to explain how it is that we can conduct coherent discussions about the values our community should hold, or maintain that our own values are superior to those of communities that accept slavery, the genital mutilation of women, or death sentences for writers who are deemed disrespectful of the prevailing religion. In contrast, the view I have defended accounts for the possibility of this kind of discussion on the basis of two simple premises. The first is the existence of our ability to reason. The second is that, in reasoning about practical matters, we are able to distance ourselves from our own point of view and take on, instead, a wider perspective, ultimately even the point of view of the universe.
Reason makes it possible for us to see ourselves in this way because, by thinking about my place in the world, I am able to see that I am just one being among others, with interests and desires like others. I have a personal perspective on the world, from which my interests are at the front and center of the stage, the interests of my family and friends are close behind, and the interests of strangers are pushed to the back and sides. But reason enables me to see that others have similarly subjective perspectives, and that from “the point of view of the universe” my perspective is no more privileged than theirs. Thus my ability to reason shows me the possibility of detaching myself from my own perspective and shows me what the universe might look like if I had no personal perspective.
Taking the point of view of the universe as the basis of an ethical point of view does not mean that one must act impartially at all times. Some forms of partiality are themselves capable of impartial justification. For example, it is probably best for children generally if parents are regarded as having a much stricter duty to take care of their own children than they have to take care of the children of strangers. In this way society takes advantage of the natural tie of love between parents and children, which in normal circumstances is always to be preferred to the benevolence of a department of child welfare, no matter how well-intentioned the bureaucrats and social workers who make up the department may be. Love for one’s children is a force that can be used for the good of all, but it does sometimes lead people to choose what is, from an impartial viewpoint, a lesser good. If the school your child attends is on fire, and you must choose between breaking open the door of the room in which she alone is trapped, and the door of another room in which twenty children are trapped—you have no time to get both doors open—most parents would probably rescue their own child. The parents of the other children might blame them for doing so, but if they were fair, they would probably recognize that in similar circumstances they would have done the same. If we weigh up the rescue of one’s own child directly from an impartial standpoint, we will judge it to be wrong; but if we consider, first, the desirability of parental love for children, and then second that this act was motivated by that love, we will be more ready to accept it.6
Consistently with the idea of taking the point of view of the universe, the major ethical traditions all accept, in some form or other, a version of the golden rule that encourages equal consideration of interests. “Love your neighbor as yourself,” said Jesus. “What is hateful to you do not do to your neighbor,” said Rabbi Hillel. Confucius summed up his teaching in very similar terms: “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” The Mahabharata, the great Indian epic, says: “Let no man do to another that which would be repugnant to himself.”7 The parallels are striking. Although Jesus and Hillel drew on a common Jewish tradition, Confucius and the Mahabharata appear to have reached the same position independently of each other and of the Judeo-Christian tradition. In each case, moreover, the words are offered as a kind of summary of all the moral law. Although the way in which Jesus and Hillel put the rule might be taken to limit it to members of one’s own group, the parable of the good Samaritan firmly dispels this reading of whom Jesus thought one’s neighbor to be.8 Nor should Hillel, Confucius, or the Mahabharata be interpreted as promoting, at least in these passages, anything less than a universal ethic.
The possibility of taking the point of view of the universe overcomes the problem of finding meaning in our lives, despite the ephemeral nature of human existence when measured against all the eons of eternity. Suppose that we become involved in a project to help a small community in a developing country to become free of debt and self-sufficient in food. The project is an outstanding success, and the villagers are healthier, happier, better educated, and more economically secure, and they have fewer children. Now someone might say: “What good have you done? In a thousand years these people will all be dead, and their children and grandchildren as well, and nothing that you have done will make any difference.” That may be true, or it may be false. The changes we make today could snowball and, over a long period of time, lead to much more far-reaching changes. Or they could come to nothing. We simply cannot tell. We should not, however, think of our efforts as wasted unless they endure forever, or even for a very long time. If we regard time as a fourth dimension, then we can think of the universe, throughout all the times at which it contains sentient life, as a four-dimensional entity. We can then make that four-dimensional world a better place by causing there to be less pointless suffering in one particular place, at one particular time, than there would otherwise have been. As long as we do not thereby increase suffering at some other place or time, or cause any other comparable loss of value, we will have had a positive effect on the universe.
I have been arguing against the view that value depends entirely on my own subjective desires. Yet I am not defending the objectivity of ethics in the traditional sense. Ethical truths are not written into the fabric of the universe: to that extent the subjectivist is correct. If there were no beings with desires or preferences of any kind, nothing would be of value and ethics would lack all content. On the other hand, once there are beings with desires, there are values that are not only the subjective values of each individual being. The possibility of being led, by reasoning, to the point of view of the universe provides as much “objectivity” as there can be. When my ability to reason shows me that the suffering of another being is very similar to my own suffering and (in an appropriate case) matters just as much to that other being as my own suffering matters to me, then my reason is showing me something that is undeniably true. I can still choose to ignore it, but then I can no longer deny that my perspective is a narrower and more limited one than it could be. This may not be enough to yield an objectively true ethical position. (One can always ask: what is so good about having a broader and more all-encompassing perspective?) But it is as close to an objective basis for ethics as there is to find.
The perspective on ourselves that we get when we take the point of view of the universe also yields as much objectivity as we need if we are to find a cause that is worthwhile in a way that is independent of our own desires. The most obvious such cause is the reduction of pain and suffering, wherever it is to be found. This may not be the only rationally grounded value, but it is the most immediate, pressing, and universally agreed upon one. We know from our own experience that when pain and suffering are acute, all other values recede into the background. If we take the point of view of the universe, we can recognize the urgency of doing something about the pain and suffering of others, before we even consider promoting (for their own sake rather than as a means to reducing pain and suffering) other possible values like beauty, knowledge, autonomy, or happiness.
Does the possibility of taking the point of view of the universe mean that the person who acts only from a narrow perspective—for the sake of self, family, friends, or nation, in ways that cannot be defended even indirectly from an impartial perspective—is necessarily acting irrationally? Not, I think, in the full sense of the term. In this respect practical reasoning—that is, reasoning about what to do—is different from theoretical reasoning. If Hobbes had accepted Euclid’s axioms and been unable to find any flaw with the chain of reasoning that led from them to Euclid’s Forty-seventh Theorem, but had nevertheless continued to hold that the theorem was “impossible,” we could rightly have said that he had failed to grasp the nature of Euclid’s reasoning process. He would simply have been in error—and if, for example, he had applied this belief to some practical problem of measurement or construction, he would have gotten the wrong answer, and this would have handicapped him in reaching whatever goal he intended the measurement or construction to achieve. If, on the other hand, I act in a way that shows less concern for the suffering of strangers than for the suffering of my family or friends, I do not show that I am incapable of grasping the point of view of the universe; I show only that this perspective does not motivate me as strongly as my more personal perspective. If to be irrational is to make a mistake, there is no mistake here; my pursuit of the more limited perspective will not lead me to a wrong answer that will prevent me from reaching my own limited objectives. We have evolved as beings with particularly strong desires to protect and further the interests of members of our family. To disregard this side of our nature altogether is scarcely possible. The most that the escalator of reason can require is that we keep it in check and remain aware of the existence of the wider perspective. So it is only in an extended sense of the term that those who take the narrower perspective might be said to be acting less rationally than those who are able to act from the point of view of the universe.
It would be nice to be able to reach a stronger conclusion than this about the basis of ethics. As things stand, the clash between self-interest and generalized benevolence has been softened, but it has not been dissolved.
Toward an Ethical Life
In a society in which the narrow pursuit of material self-interest is the norm, the shift to an ethical stance is more radical than many people realize. In comparison with the needs of people starving in Somalia, the desire to sample the wines of the leading French vineyards pales into insignificance. Judged against the suffering of immobilized rabbits having shampoos dripped into their eyes, a better shampoo becomes an unworthy goal. The preservation of old-growth forests should override our desire to use disposable paper towels. An ethical approach to life does not forbid having fun or enjoying food and wine, but it changes our sense of priorities. The effort and expense put into buying fashionable clothes, the endless search for more and more refined gastronomic pleasures, the astonishing additional expense that marks out the prestige car market from the market in cars for people who just want a reliable means of getting from A to B—all these become disproportionate to people who can shift perspective long enough to take themselves, at least for a time, out of the spotlight. If a higher ethical consciousness spreads, it will utterly change the society in which we live.
We cannot expect that this higher ethical consciousness will become universal. There will always be people who don’t care for anyone or anything, not even for themselves. There will be others, more numerous and more calculating, who earn a living by taking advantage of others, especially the poor and the powerless. We cannot afford to wait for some coming glorious day when everyone will live in loving peace and harmony with everyone else. Human nature is not like that at present, and there is no sign of its changing sufficiently in the foreseeable future. Since reasoning alone proved incapable of fully resolving the clash between self-interest and ethics, it is unlikely that rational argument will persuade every rational person to act ethically. Even if reason had been able to take us further, we would still have had to face the reality of a world in which many people are very far from acting on the basis of reasoning of any kind, even crudely self-interested reasoning. So for a long time to come, the world is going to remain a tough place in which to live.
Nevertheless, we are part of this world and there is a desperate need to do something now about the conditions in which people live and die, and to avoid both social and ecological disaster. There is no time to focus our thoughts on the possibility of a distant Utopian future. Too many humans and nonhuman animals are suffering now, the forests are going too quickly, population growth is still out of control, and if we do not bring greenhouse gas emissions down rapidly, the lives and homes of 46 million people are at risk in the Nile and Bengal delta regions alone. Nor can we wait for governments to bring about the change that is needed. It is not in the interests of politicians to challenge the fundamental assumptions of the society they have been elected to lead. If 10 percent of the population were to take a consciously ethical outlook on life and act accordingly, the resulting change would be more significant than any change of government. The division between an ethical and a selfish approach to life is far more fundamental than the difference between the policies of the political right and the political left.
We have to take the first step. We must reinstate the idea of living an ethical life as a realistic and viable alternative to the present dominance of materialist self-interest. If a critical mass of people with new priorities were to emerge, and if these people were seen to do well, in every sense of the term—if their cooperation with each other brings reciprocal benefits, if they find joy and fulfillment in their lives—then the ethical attitude will spread, and the conflict between ethics and self-interest will have been shown to be overcome, not by abstract reasoning alone, but by adopting the ethical life as a practical way of living and showing that it works, psychologically, socially, and ecologically.
Anyone can become part of the critical mass that offers us a chance of improving the world before it is too late. You can rethink your goals and question what you are doing with your life. If your present way of living does not stand up against an impartial standard of value, then you can change it. That might mean quitting your job, selling your house, and going to work for a voluntary organization in India. More often, the commitment to a more ethical way of living will be the first step of a gradual but far-reaching evolution in your lifestyle and in your thinking about your place in the world. You will take up new causes and find your goals shifting. If you get involved in your work, money and status will become less important. From your new perspective, the world will look different. One thing is certain: you will find plenty of worthwhile things to do. You will not be bored or lack fulfillment in your life. Most important of all, you will know that you have not lived and died for nothing, because you will have become part of the great tradition of those who have responded to the amount of pain and suffering in the universe by trying to make the world a better place.