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Rational Morality: a science of right and wrong
How do we formulate a coherent moral code in a world without religion? How can we show natural ideas like 'moral relativism' and 'egoism' to be irrational? Moreover, how can we create a genuinely scientific and rational theory of morality which, so far, has evaded academics? Rational Morality sets out to answer these questions by presenting a new form of ethics for the Brian Cox and Richard Dawkins generation. In this passionate, thought-provoking and often radical thesis, Robert Johnson presents both a refreshing theory of morality based on science and a guide to the practical consequences of what a truly rational concept of morality involves.
192 pages, Paperback
First published May 24, 2013
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March 18, 2018
In his book Robert Johnson sets forth his ethical theory based on rationality. Rationality is his first and primary directive for leading a moral life. From there he posits that prejudice is irrational, and therefore it is immoral. Because he takes on Sam Harris’ notion that morality concerns what contributes to a flourishing conscious life, so other animals should be included in this flourishing. He claims that the only viable way of acting morally toward animals is a vegan lifestyle. So, exploiting all life forms that have any consciousness is rationally wrong. I suppose he gives consciousness even to fish because under a vegan diet they are off limits. He also beliefs that emotional appeals to save animal habits and or other like campaigns are ineffective in providing animals with a flourishing conscious life. He also sees any religious based morality as irrational and the acceptance of determinism as rational. He also believes that liberal politics is a rational approach for society to take, and hence deserves our support. Near the end he finally gives moral feelings such as empathy their due, seeing them as necessary for moral action.
The following are some comments on specific pieces of text. Pagination is give in brackets [] based on the Kindle version.
[16] “We can also show that given our rational abilities, we can consciously understand the need not to be users and form effective flourishing for everyone to a much better degree.” This Johnson says is based on how we human beings have evolved. This remains me of Robert Wright’s Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, where he thinks that humans have evolved to form nonzero sum partnerships with others, so that everybody wins. This is unlike zero sum games where if one person wins the other person must loses.
[18] As I wrote in the synopsis he gives special value to Sam Harris’s theory (found in The Moral Landscape). I have two criticisms on Harris’s theory. The main one is that the notion that well being is a basis of morality is not an objective fact. However, if this is going to form morality’s basic objective his scientific approach has great value. This brings me to the second criticism, which is the necessary scientific knowledge is still to be discovered in the future. We do have some valid ideas, which can help, but we have much more to learn.
[27] “. . . we set the foundational principle that morality is about maximizing the wellbeing of sentient individuals and then we devote ourselves to being rational, and only rational, about extending it.” Rationality is all well and good, but the beginnings of morality is in moral feelings, so only being rational is not even possible, as there is a close relationship between feelings and thoughts.
[30] “The facts of morality are entirely dependent on certain fundamental values, as fundamental values determine what wellbeing consists of. In this sense, and in this sense only, moral science is relative.” Again, moral feelings are important in forming these values. Also, science changes as we learn more about our world, and what is today’s psychology and neuroscience may not be tomorrows, so what is today’s morality maybe different from tomorrow’s. This makes morality relative to known science.
[31] “Physics exists because it is useful and morality exist because it is useful.” Two things wrong here. First, physics is useful because it is true. Second, things can be useful and still not exist. Santa Claus can be useful in some circumstances; this is similar to my flawed argument that he exist because it is fun to believe.
[35] “We therefore ought to be rational, and as objective as possible.” This is the goal, but hardly the reality. We act irrationally more often they we would care to admit. While certainly we have the capacity to be rational, we are also influenced by our emotions and feelings. There are even studies that show complex decisions are often made better by going with our gut opinion. This is not to say that deliberation plays no role here.
[39] “No one thinks God doesn’t exist, but truly believes in him anyway; one can claim this, but belief cannot work in an irrational way like this.” This is certainly a contradiction and cannot be rational. However, belief is more than rational; it is also a psychological property, which does not even need a belief to be justified and coherent to have formed. A belief is psychological if that belief leads one to act on it at the very least.
[40] “Science, as noted above, makes the strong case for the assumption being we ought to be rational.” Science also takes interest and curiosity, or it would not occur at all. You can add puzzlement as well. These and others intellectual feelings like moral feelings are necessary for anyone to attempt to form a scientific explanation.
[53] “The development of morality as a science, and of a scientific community dedicated to developing facts and ideas related to morality, would be of great benefit to reducing [irrational decisions] . . .” Fine and good, but nitpicking here, you find facts, you do not develop them.
[55] “Rationality is so necessary that it doesn’t make sense to assume it is not a base value.” I wonder if this is equivalent to my valuing clear thinking above all other personal values, which enables me to understand my life with its thoughts and feelings better.
[69] “However, if it can be shown that allowing a rule to disregard murder on grounds of euthanasia would allow for murder of the elderly, or other dependent individuals – or in fact any individuals – against their will, then we need to strongly consider whether it is right to allow euthanasia.” There is a difference between murder and killing. So, murder maybe a bit strong here. There are clear cases of killing (like self-defense) that is not consider to be murder. If euthanasia can be justified I would not call it murder. Plus, slippery slope arguments are unsound as they stand. Proof is needed that further erosion of moral standards in regards to murder would actually occur if euthanasia is allowed, not that it is just a possibility.
[72] “Life is boiled down to two extremes, avoiding suffering and provoking happiness – two moral facts that do not exist independently . . .” But, there is suffering, and it is usually felt as bad; there is happiness, and it is usually felt as good. These feelings are facts, which often figure into our moral decisions. This still does not necessarily make morality a totally objective activity.
[75] Johnson mentions Steven Pinker’s study of how violence has decreased over time. He nitpicks a little over the role of rationality here, but I would like to mention that I think it is due to an increase in human beings’ circle of care in which empathy works. We have learned, especially since the Enlightenment, to expand this circle further and further. So, we have both rationality and moral feelings at work here. I would add that today that it is as wide a circle of care as it has ever been because of global communications.
[79] “The ‘betterness’ [of free range chickens] is very definitely in the heads of humans . . .” This is because it us (human beings) who give meaning* to the world, which does not necessarily mean it is correct or true, and this meaning includes what is deemed right and wrong, and these can also be wrong.
[82] He extends his concern for suffering to even the fishes in the sea. Certainly some sea creatures (e.g. whales, dolphins, octopuses) have the capacity to have feelings, but most fishes are probably not among them. Would he even extend this to insects; would he push us toward Jainism practices of sweeping the ground before them as they walk. Of course, fishing can harm these other conscious capable animals.
[86] “Rational morality is a realistic way to think about morality, built from science and rational consistency, and as such it doesn’t take the view that morality is subjective . . .” But, its human beings that determine these things as correct as they maybe, which adds some subjectivity to the moral scene. After all, as hard as we try we still maybe mistaken at times—we are not perfectly rational beings.
[87] “It’s moral quandaries in which we see our own comfort challenged in the pursuit of fairness and truth that we can experience a small fraction of what it was like to be Darwin discovering an unpleasant fact about why humans exist . . .” Does Johnson realize that fairness and truth are things we have come to value, and that moral values are partly driven by moral feelings.
[88] “Just like selfish acts are rationally thought out, so are kind acts and compassionate acts.” This is not always the case. After one is practice in acts of kindness, one can stoop down and pick up the keys that somebody just dropped without a moments thought. I believe moral behavior elicits more moral behavior the more often it is done (a la virtue ethics).
[90] “Most probably the reason we deem kindness entirely positively and selfishness entirely negative is due to religious rules on it, preaching a kind of martyrdom.” This is not correct, or not entirely so. First, many people who have not had any religious upbringing or shed any that they originally grew up in also value kindness (see it positively), and the reverse for selfish behavior. Second, we have evolved the capacity for kindness, I do not believe its roots are a learned behavior; although, it can certainly be reinforced by learning (like in who to be kind to). And, selfishness is looked down on for evolutionary reasons as well; we evolved a good sense for reciprocal altruism, which allows us when the circumstances are right to look down on shirkers. Besides, martyrdom has not been commonly preach in centuries.
[96] Here Johnson argues against the “. . . pro-religion argument [that] . . . the idea that science can measure and finds truth in certain areas, but to find truth on a meaningful level we need to look ‘within ourselves’ and find ‘experiential truths’ that science isn’t capable of finding.” I would certainly agree that this argument is incorrect, but I would like to point out that we (as human beings) create the meaning we attach to our world. This does not make any particular meaning correct, but it is where meaning arises from.*
[124] “People never really understood PETA’s arguments . . .” Let alone their questionable moral behavior.
[133] “Yet determinism shows that no matter how free we feel, we are still recipients of a rich history of experiences, going back to that time our parents conceived us.” Not to mention are genetic inheritance and development. But, here I want to say that we feel free because that is what we are doing when we observe free will in ourselves—feeling.
[166] “We literally feel others’ pain, and that induces in us empathy, distress, and the urge to help. Our brains are ethical by design.” (authors italics) I absolutely agree here, but why does he wait so long (almost at the end of the book) to mention its importance.
[176] Note (70): “This, the Francis Crick Memorial Conference 2012, was the latest development in non-human consciousness, in which a declaration was signed by scientists as renown as Stephen Hawking in order to fully attest to the idea that non-human consciousness exists.” It is almost certainly true that other animals have a form of consciousness, especially mammals, but would not it be better to cite actual research that shows this, rather than citing a declaration no matter how eminent the scientists that signed it.
Overall, I felt the book to be pretty good. I do not think he was able to dispel moral subjectivism, however. As I see and will shortly be posting a blog on my ethical views, moral subjectivism still holds sway, but in no way eliminates the need for rational thought when making moral decisions and performing moral actions. For most of the other stuff I am in agreement, except I do not think I would extend conscious life to most fishes, and maybe some birds, and definitely not any insects (which he did not claim). So, I am not that sure over whether to support his veganism; although, I could support vegetarianism, which to be honest I do not currently practice.
I could recommend the book for almost anybody interested in a rational approach to ethics. If you are looking for something like natural law or divine command theories, I do not think you will find much of interest, unless you do not mind having your ethical views challenged.
* See my blog post “What Do You Mean?” @ https://aquestionersjourney.wordpress... for my exploration of meaning.
The following are some comments on specific pieces of text. Pagination is give in brackets [] based on the Kindle version.
[16] “We can also show that given our rational abilities, we can consciously understand the need not to be users and form effective flourishing for everyone to a much better degree.” This Johnson says is based on how we human beings have evolved. This remains me of Robert Wright’s Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, where he thinks that humans have evolved to form nonzero sum partnerships with others, so that everybody wins. This is unlike zero sum games where if one person wins the other person must loses.
[18] As I wrote in the synopsis he gives special value to Sam Harris’s theory (found in The Moral Landscape). I have two criticisms on Harris’s theory. The main one is that the notion that well being is a basis of morality is not an objective fact. However, if this is going to form morality’s basic objective his scientific approach has great value. This brings me to the second criticism, which is the necessary scientific knowledge is still to be discovered in the future. We do have some valid ideas, which can help, but we have much more to learn.
[27] “. . . we set the foundational principle that morality is about maximizing the wellbeing of sentient individuals and then we devote ourselves to being rational, and only rational, about extending it.” Rationality is all well and good, but the beginnings of morality is in moral feelings, so only being rational is not even possible, as there is a close relationship between feelings and thoughts.
[30] “The facts of morality are entirely dependent on certain fundamental values, as fundamental values determine what wellbeing consists of. In this sense, and in this sense only, moral science is relative.” Again, moral feelings are important in forming these values. Also, science changes as we learn more about our world, and what is today’s psychology and neuroscience may not be tomorrows, so what is today’s morality maybe different from tomorrow’s. This makes morality relative to known science.
[31] “Physics exists because it is useful and morality exist because it is useful.” Two things wrong here. First, physics is useful because it is true. Second, things can be useful and still not exist. Santa Claus can be useful in some circumstances; this is similar to my flawed argument that he exist because it is fun to believe.
[35] “We therefore ought to be rational, and as objective as possible.” This is the goal, but hardly the reality. We act irrationally more often they we would care to admit. While certainly we have the capacity to be rational, we are also influenced by our emotions and feelings. There are even studies that show complex decisions are often made better by going with our gut opinion. This is not to say that deliberation plays no role here.
[39] “No one thinks God doesn’t exist, but truly believes in him anyway; one can claim this, but belief cannot work in an irrational way like this.” This is certainly a contradiction and cannot be rational. However, belief is more than rational; it is also a psychological property, which does not even need a belief to be justified and coherent to have formed. A belief is psychological if that belief leads one to act on it at the very least.
[40] “Science, as noted above, makes the strong case for the assumption being we ought to be rational.” Science also takes interest and curiosity, or it would not occur at all. You can add puzzlement as well. These and others intellectual feelings like moral feelings are necessary for anyone to attempt to form a scientific explanation.
[53] “The development of morality as a science, and of a scientific community dedicated to developing facts and ideas related to morality, would be of great benefit to reducing [irrational decisions] . . .” Fine and good, but nitpicking here, you find facts, you do not develop them.
[55] “Rationality is so necessary that it doesn’t make sense to assume it is not a base value.” I wonder if this is equivalent to my valuing clear thinking above all other personal values, which enables me to understand my life with its thoughts and feelings better.
[69] “However, if it can be shown that allowing a rule to disregard murder on grounds of euthanasia would allow for murder of the elderly, or other dependent individuals – or in fact any individuals – against their will, then we need to strongly consider whether it is right to allow euthanasia.” There is a difference between murder and killing. So, murder maybe a bit strong here. There are clear cases of killing (like self-defense) that is not consider to be murder. If euthanasia can be justified I would not call it murder. Plus, slippery slope arguments are unsound as they stand. Proof is needed that further erosion of moral standards in regards to murder would actually occur if euthanasia is allowed, not that it is just a possibility.
[72] “Life is boiled down to two extremes, avoiding suffering and provoking happiness – two moral facts that do not exist independently . . .” But, there is suffering, and it is usually felt as bad; there is happiness, and it is usually felt as good. These feelings are facts, which often figure into our moral decisions. This still does not necessarily make morality a totally objective activity.
[75] Johnson mentions Steven Pinker’s study of how violence has decreased over time. He nitpicks a little over the role of rationality here, but I would like to mention that I think it is due to an increase in human beings’ circle of care in which empathy works. We have learned, especially since the Enlightenment, to expand this circle further and further. So, we have both rationality and moral feelings at work here. I would add that today that it is as wide a circle of care as it has ever been because of global communications.
[79] “The ‘betterness’ [of free range chickens] is very definitely in the heads of humans . . .” This is because it us (human beings) who give meaning* to the world, which does not necessarily mean it is correct or true, and this meaning includes what is deemed right and wrong, and these can also be wrong.
[82] He extends his concern for suffering to even the fishes in the sea. Certainly some sea creatures (e.g. whales, dolphins, octopuses) have the capacity to have feelings, but most fishes are probably not among them. Would he even extend this to insects; would he push us toward Jainism practices of sweeping the ground before them as they walk. Of course, fishing can harm these other conscious capable animals.
[86] “Rational morality is a realistic way to think about morality, built from science and rational consistency, and as such it doesn’t take the view that morality is subjective . . .” But, its human beings that determine these things as correct as they maybe, which adds some subjectivity to the moral scene. After all, as hard as we try we still maybe mistaken at times—we are not perfectly rational beings.
[87] “It’s moral quandaries in which we see our own comfort challenged in the pursuit of fairness and truth that we can experience a small fraction of what it was like to be Darwin discovering an unpleasant fact about why humans exist . . .” Does Johnson realize that fairness and truth are things we have come to value, and that moral values are partly driven by moral feelings.
[88] “Just like selfish acts are rationally thought out, so are kind acts and compassionate acts.” This is not always the case. After one is practice in acts of kindness, one can stoop down and pick up the keys that somebody just dropped without a moments thought. I believe moral behavior elicits more moral behavior the more often it is done (a la virtue ethics).
[90] “Most probably the reason we deem kindness entirely positively and selfishness entirely negative is due to religious rules on it, preaching a kind of martyrdom.” This is not correct, or not entirely so. First, many people who have not had any religious upbringing or shed any that they originally grew up in also value kindness (see it positively), and the reverse for selfish behavior. Second, we have evolved the capacity for kindness, I do not believe its roots are a learned behavior; although, it can certainly be reinforced by learning (like in who to be kind to). And, selfishness is looked down on for evolutionary reasons as well; we evolved a good sense for reciprocal altruism, which allows us when the circumstances are right to look down on shirkers. Besides, martyrdom has not been commonly preach in centuries.
[96] Here Johnson argues against the “. . . pro-religion argument [that] . . . the idea that science can measure and finds truth in certain areas, but to find truth on a meaningful level we need to look ‘within ourselves’ and find ‘experiential truths’ that science isn’t capable of finding.” I would certainly agree that this argument is incorrect, but I would like to point out that we (as human beings) create the meaning we attach to our world. This does not make any particular meaning correct, but it is where meaning arises from.*
[124] “People never really understood PETA’s arguments . . .” Let alone their questionable moral behavior.
[133] “Yet determinism shows that no matter how free we feel, we are still recipients of a rich history of experiences, going back to that time our parents conceived us.” Not to mention are genetic inheritance and development. But, here I want to say that we feel free because that is what we are doing when we observe free will in ourselves—feeling.
[166] “We literally feel others’ pain, and that induces in us empathy, distress, and the urge to help. Our brains are ethical by design.” (authors italics) I absolutely agree here, but why does he wait so long (almost at the end of the book) to mention its importance.
[176] Note (70): “This, the Francis Crick Memorial Conference 2012, was the latest development in non-human consciousness, in which a declaration was signed by scientists as renown as Stephen Hawking in order to fully attest to the idea that non-human consciousness exists.” It is almost certainly true that other animals have a form of consciousness, especially mammals, but would not it be better to cite actual research that shows this, rather than citing a declaration no matter how eminent the scientists that signed it.
Overall, I felt the book to be pretty good. I do not think he was able to dispel moral subjectivism, however. As I see and will shortly be posting a blog on my ethical views, moral subjectivism still holds sway, but in no way eliminates the need for rational thought when making moral decisions and performing moral actions. For most of the other stuff I am in agreement, except I do not think I would extend conscious life to most fishes, and maybe some birds, and definitely not any insects (which he did not claim). So, I am not that sure over whether to support his veganism; although, I could support vegetarianism, which to be honest I do not currently practice.
I could recommend the book for almost anybody interested in a rational approach to ethics. If you are looking for something like natural law or divine command theories, I do not think you will find much of interest, unless you do not mind having your ethical views challenged.
* See my blog post “What Do You Mean?” @ https://aquestionersjourney.wordpress... for my exploration of meaning.
August 21, 2013
'It takes a special kind of monstrous irrationality to oppose the point I am making here.'
This sentence is obviously taken out of context, but in my opinion it nicely sums up the tone in which this book is written. In most part of the book it's almost hostile.
I had high hopes for this book. As I have lots of friends who are rationalists and atheists but not vegan, I was really looking forward to something that will finally portray veganism as a rational ethical choice that it is, not as a hippie fashion. And Robert Johnson kind of does it... but in a way that made me (a rational, abolitionist vegan) cringe. I don't think that any non-vegan or non-abolitionist will be convinced. As the author writes himself, it takes a lot of honesty and courage to change opinions in the light of new evidence, so it would really help if he would present his arguments in a non-douchebagy way ;) Also, at least a hint to some scientific biological/behavioral studies of non-human animals or some other 'evidence' to back up the theory would be great (just mentioning a significant book or two would be fine, as the author did for religion later on).
I would still recommend this book to others. I think it makes some valid points, although the political analysis (the bit about capitalism, anarchism, left- and right-wing politics) was rather shallow and the whole book doesn't offer much terms of answers. It tells us what we should do and why (mostly 'what', to be honest), but not exactly 'how'.
I also didn't like the idea of the author formulating hypothetical arguments against his point and then defending himself. Some of these arguments seemed really artificial to me, almost as they were made up to be easily disprovable. And while disproving them, the author sometimes unnecessarily repeats himself. It's pretty annoying to read. Also, I don't believe anyone who's committed to a theory can formulate reasonable arguments against it, so why don't just leave it for other people to formulate, and THEN respond (in a separate essay).
To sum up - I agree with (some of) the points the author is making but I didn't enjoy reading it, and sometimes it was even frustrating. But maybe it's just my personal taste, and other people will find the author's style more acceptable.
This sentence is obviously taken out of context, but in my opinion it nicely sums up the tone in which this book is written. In most part of the book it's almost hostile.
I had high hopes for this book. As I have lots of friends who are rationalists and atheists but not vegan, I was really looking forward to something that will finally portray veganism as a rational ethical choice that it is, not as a hippie fashion. And Robert Johnson kind of does it... but in a way that made me (a rational, abolitionist vegan) cringe. I don't think that any non-vegan or non-abolitionist will be convinced. As the author writes himself, it takes a lot of honesty and courage to change opinions in the light of new evidence, so it would really help if he would present his arguments in a non-douchebagy way ;) Also, at least a hint to some scientific biological/behavioral studies of non-human animals or some other 'evidence' to back up the theory would be great (just mentioning a significant book or two would be fine, as the author did for religion later on).
I would still recommend this book to others. I think it makes some valid points, although the political analysis (the bit about capitalism, anarchism, left- and right-wing politics) was rather shallow and the whole book doesn't offer much terms of answers. It tells us what we should do and why (mostly 'what', to be honest), but not exactly 'how'.
I also didn't like the idea of the author formulating hypothetical arguments against his point and then defending himself. Some of these arguments seemed really artificial to me, almost as they were made up to be easily disprovable. And while disproving them, the author sometimes unnecessarily repeats himself. It's pretty annoying to read. Also, I don't believe anyone who's committed to a theory can formulate reasonable arguments against it, so why don't just leave it for other people to formulate, and THEN respond (in a separate essay).
To sum up - I agree with (some of) the points the author is making but I didn't enjoy reading it, and sometimes it was even frustrating. But maybe it's just my personal taste, and other people will find the author's style more acceptable.
October 20, 2013
What I liked about my friend's Rob Johnson's book is that he does not provide ready-made answers but takes reader through the process of discovery by testing-out traditional approaches to morality. In a very clear and concise way he shows how and why we can and should do better. The author starts with fundamental basics of "right and wrong", like is-ought problem, moral realism and moral relativism, but keeps discussion real, so that you are able to relate to these concepts. He then seamlessly sets out his theory and defends it thoroughly.
I would compare the theory of rational morality to a discovery in physics which explains world in a more precise, universal, and elegant way than existing theories have done. Like with every new scientific theory it is now the time to put rational morality to the test to see if experimental results agree with its predictions. The author begins this process in the latter part of his book by applying the theory to some timely ethical problems hoping to "[...] provoke great debate as well as form the foundation for the incorporation of current evidence and reason into moral science."
The book is dense in the weight of the issues discussed, their breadth, and novelty of the findings. At the same time the author avoided the trap of writing about everything and presenting it as an ultimate theory of all that is. Rational Morality is the book I will be coming back to, I have no doubt about it. And I look forward to next books by Rob Johnson.
I would compare the theory of rational morality to a discovery in physics which explains world in a more precise, universal, and elegant way than existing theories have done. Like with every new scientific theory it is now the time to put rational morality to the test to see if experimental results agree with its predictions. The author begins this process in the latter part of his book by applying the theory to some timely ethical problems hoping to "[...] provoke great debate as well as form the foundation for the incorporation of current evidence and reason into moral science."
The book is dense in the weight of the issues discussed, their breadth, and novelty of the findings. At the same time the author avoided the trap of writing about everything and presenting it as an ultimate theory of all that is. Rational Morality is the book I will be coming back to, I have no doubt about it. And I look forward to next books by Rob Johnson.
August 2, 2016
Moral science still appears to be a concept in its infancy. Mr. Johnson makes a worthwhile attempt to advance an approach as the future standard. The base ("we ought to be rational") is certainly solid, and almost redundant. The rest is a house of cards.
It has been a long time since a book has made me think in this manner, and that is its greatest asset - and I hope that was its true intent.
Johnson does his best to outline moral theories and whether they still have any place in modern society. He attempts to point out weaknesses in concepts like "Welfarism" and "Moral realism" with mixed results. Johnson would have been well-served to hire an editor and a proof-reader, as some passages are needlessly verbose, some repeat themselves overmuch, and I'm peevish when it comes to seeing misspellings in published works (he quotes "Thomas Pain" rather than "Thomas Paine" toward the end, as an example).
The biggest flaw is his tendency to interject philosophy (which is a big part of his background according to his bio) and personal truths (which he spends a lot of time fighting against) into what he initially claims he wants to be purely scientific. Chapter 6 is the biggest offender, where he advocates for veganism under a banner of "anti-speciesism" (a lifestyle that he has personally adopted) which he claims as an a priori moral truth. Perhaps the argument that industrial meat processing as immoral bears significant weight. For example, most Americans (who have no problem with it when it pertains to cattle, chickens, and pigs) think it is inhumane to use dogs and cats for delicacies in the Orient. Why wouldn't this also extend to livestock, particularly en masse? Still, it ignores humans as (currently) hunter-gatherer omnivores via evolution and the inevitable boom in animal populations worldwide (he dismisses conservationism, by the way). Maybe veganism will, in one sense or another, be the next naturally-occuring dietary phase in human evolution and in 1,000 years, people will think it was cruel/silly to consume animals when we have this gloriously-infinite supply of tofu or this replicator which can produce barbeque chicken out of molecules instead of actual chickens. For now, though, arguing that certain methods of harvesting animals as immoral is certainly rational. Charging that humanity's current omnivorous nature is immoral is not.
Brilliant and baffling by turns, Rational Morality is a work where you definitely want to bring your critical thinking skills along with you, and perhaps smarter people that me will be able to help strengthen the ground rules for a fascinating concept.
It has been a long time since a book has made me think in this manner, and that is its greatest asset - and I hope that was its true intent.
Johnson does his best to outline moral theories and whether they still have any place in modern society. He attempts to point out weaknesses in concepts like "Welfarism" and "Moral realism" with mixed results. Johnson would have been well-served to hire an editor and a proof-reader, as some passages are needlessly verbose, some repeat themselves overmuch, and I'm peevish when it comes to seeing misspellings in published works (he quotes "Thomas Pain" rather than "Thomas Paine" toward the end, as an example).
The biggest flaw is his tendency to interject philosophy (which is a big part of his background according to his bio) and personal truths (which he spends a lot of time fighting against) into what he initially claims he wants to be purely scientific. Chapter 6 is the biggest offender, where he advocates for veganism under a banner of "anti-speciesism" (a lifestyle that he has personally adopted) which he claims as an a priori moral truth. Perhaps the argument that industrial meat processing as immoral bears significant weight. For example, most Americans (who have no problem with it when it pertains to cattle, chickens, and pigs) think it is inhumane to use dogs and cats for delicacies in the Orient. Why wouldn't this also extend to livestock, particularly en masse? Still, it ignores humans as (currently) hunter-gatherer omnivores via evolution and the inevitable boom in animal populations worldwide (he dismisses conservationism, by the way). Maybe veganism will, in one sense or another, be the next naturally-occuring dietary phase in human evolution and in 1,000 years, people will think it was cruel/silly to consume animals when we have this gloriously-infinite supply of tofu or this replicator which can produce barbeque chicken out of molecules instead of actual chickens. For now, though, arguing that certain methods of harvesting animals as immoral is certainly rational. Charging that humanity's current omnivorous nature is immoral is not.
Brilliant and baffling by turns, Rational Morality is a work where you definitely want to bring your critical thinking skills along with you, and perhaps smarter people that me will be able to help strengthen the ground rules for a fascinating concept.
September 15, 2014
A thought provoking book advocating the theory of a science based rational mortality. If ever I decide to go the vegan route it will be because of the path this book has sent me on in my exploratory journey of morality. A very well written book for the advocacy of rationalism.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews