Bernard Williams gives a brilliant presentation here. He is remarkably articulate and the complex ideas flow. I am sure a great deal of this talk went beyond me. Still. I found at the end a less than convincing consideration of possible alien-human interaction supposing this would take place by the aliens actually physically being near or on earth. I believe most investigators of this subject believe communication would not take this form at all. I too was surprised that Williams did not speak of one possible source of human importance and self-importance, that is the possibility that they are the only form of life capable of understanding to some significant degree the Universe itself. Were this the case the human task might be taken to be the dissemination of Intelligence and Understanding throughout the galaxy, and then throughout the Universe as a whole. Religious people might even argue that this is the special role God has given to Humanity. There are of course many other lines of speculation into what the Future holds for humanity, including those which forecast our extinction. But there is a lot to be said here spanning the gamut from human meaninglessness and nothingness to human great and special significance.
we like to point out these days how small we are in comparison to the universe that surrounds us, and yet we are very large in comparison to the subatomic particles inside of us.
I’d be interested to see his retort to the argument from species overlap, in that it is true that the only question we have to them is how are we to treat them; those born with severe mental disabilities would be a prime example. No doubt he might make use of the ‘they’re human’ point, but it does push against some other points he makes throughout the talk (and it is an interesting talk). I think the most viable place for criticism would be in what being human is supposed to mean (or what it has to mean to be of any use here). Some supporters of Williams style views have seemingly taken to the view that humanity / species is to be understood as a folk concept as opposed to something objectively true of ‘humans’ for example Christopher Grau. The term human then seems to resemble certain views about things like race, both understood as social constructs rather than something true of (and within) ‘humans’. This poses a challenge on its own in that folks like Singer based their views on things true of individuals (such as sentience). I think this poses a possible answer the Williams’ concern of the regress of wondering that if the human prejudice is in fact a prejudice, where might we be able to stop? Perhaps we could stop as characteristics of individuals? It’s at least a possibility. But I think by far, the most damning criticism (if true) would be a form of human error theory; which much like moral error theory, posits that if such things as ‘humans’ were to exist they would need to possess something of an Aristotelian necessary natural essence (see species essentialism); but that since such an essence doesn’t exist (which is thought to be correct by a vast majority of biologists save for those like Devitt who argue for a ‘new species essentialism’) that humans don’t really exist. This is not to say ‘we’ don’t exist, just that we are not ‘human beings’. Someone ‘being human’ being morally important would not just be indefensible, but completely false; it would be akin to saying that your neighbour has moral standing because she is a witch when witches don’t exist. Human error theory is obviously completely unintuitive (but so is much of the rejection of essential natural kinds, especially for things like gender, sex, race, and here, species). But I do find myself coming back to it again and again, especially because it seems to count as good evidence to think that in various morally important respects, those whom we consider as ‘other species’, ‘other animals’ ‘lesser animals’ or ‘not one of us’ are actually well and truly one of us. Looking at the power of dehumanisation it becomes apparent how strong the feeling of someone being ‘one of us’ is (even regardless of one’s views about metaethics). This view is also unavailable (at least through Williams ideas) to those who think that humans (and other things) matter in and of themselves as supposed to them mattering to us and that’s it. For example, folks like Parfit or other moral objectivists who endorse views of sort that affirm creatures like human beings (amongst others) are ends-in-themselves as opposed to just ‘ends-to-us’. As a moral objectivist myself I’m not a fan of Williams’ ‘unenchanted universe’. But it is interesting to point out how Williams’ rejects what we might call the human prejudice in an objectivist picture, though that may be because he can’t see anything as important in and of itself in the objectivist picture and in this way the rejection of the human prejudice isn’t special. His point about the tension between humans are part of nature and humans are also above it in the sense of moral capacities is mistaken if we assume that “human” is just being short changed for “moral agent” and being a moral agent is not an essential human thing; aliens could be moral agents, some ‘non-humans’ could become agents (if they aren’t already) and some humans aren’t moral agents. We can thus hold onto this ‘humans are part of nature’ view without giving up this idea that humans who are moral agents are relevantly different to the extent that they can have obligations to other agents and non-agents. I also have some serious troubles with his alien thought experiment, though I must admit they are very clever and thought provoking. But for one thing, it’s not clear how benevolent aliens could threaten to wipe us out of existence because it would be better overall. But if we were to be ignorant of why we would deserve such a fate, surely these aliens as benevolent as they are would be happy to explain this to us; if they didn’t it would be clear that we would be perfectly permitted to be on ‘Team Earth’. Perhaps the existence of humans threatens all that is truly good in the universe, though if the ‘why’ part was spelled out for us, it’s not clear that we should remain on Team Earth or stay. Surely we are capable of self sacrifice for much larger schemes than ourselves as individuals. This supposed sacrifice of Earth (if such a thing even could be morally required, which I doubt very much in the first instance, meaning benevolent aliens by definition couldn’t threaten to wipe us out) could seem to be very much the right thing to do, it it weren’t, then it’s not clear how benevolent aliens could threaten us with annihilation and actually be benevolent. To use an analogy, imagine these aliens come down and know of everything you want and how to get them, imagine they tell you to get on their space ship so you can go into space so you can help them destroy the Earth. I think you may rightly oppose this line on the grounds that you either reject that such aliens clearly don’t know what you want, or they need to spell it out before you come to know how it is in your greatest desire to destroy the Earth. Surely Williams doesn’t think that you ought to always save all possible forms of humanity, we may be (or become) quite despicable. We may destroy our planet and try to invade other peaceful worlds filled with other people. See Avatar for inspiration here. This doesn’t derive the total destruction of the ‘human race’ but it does strike me as powerful reasons to drop my ‘Team Human’ banner if all humans were act horribly to others.
Wow, this talk was given on the exact day that I was born.
what a shame to have the response to brother West cut off at the end.
Wow what a lecture
Genius, genius, genius.
Bernard Williams gives a brilliant presentation here. He is remarkably articulate and the complex ideas flow. I am sure a great deal of this talk went beyond me. Still. I found at the end a less than convincing consideration of possible alien-human interaction supposing this would take place by the aliens actually physically being near or on earth. I believe most investigators of this subject believe communication would not take this form at all. I too was surprised that Williams did not speak of one possible source of human importance and self-importance, that is the possibility that they are the only form of life capable of understanding to some significant degree the Universe itself. Were this the case the human task might be taken to be the dissemination of Intelligence and Understanding throughout the galaxy, and then throughout the Universe as a whole. Religious people might even argue that this is the special role God has given to Humanity. There are of course many other lines of speculation into what the Future holds for humanity, including those which forecast our extinction. But there is a lot to be said here spanning the gamut from human meaninglessness and nothingness to human great and special significance.
we like to point out these days how small we are in comparison to the universe that surrounds us, and yet we are very large in comparison to the subatomic particles inside of us.
I’d be interested to see his retort to the argument from species overlap, in that it is true that the only question we have to them is how are we to treat them; those born with severe mental disabilities would be a prime example. No doubt he might make use of the ‘they’re human’ point, but it does push against some other points he makes throughout the talk (and it is an interesting talk).
I think the most viable place for criticism would be in what being human is supposed to mean (or what it has to mean to be of any use here). Some supporters of Williams style views have seemingly taken to the view that humanity / species is to be understood as a folk concept as opposed to something objectively true of ‘humans’ for example Christopher Grau. The term human then seems to resemble certain views about things like race, both understood as social constructs rather than something true of (and within) ‘humans’. This poses a challenge on its own in that folks like Singer based their views on things true of individuals (such as sentience). I think this poses a possible answer the Williams’ concern of the regress of wondering that if the human prejudice is in fact a prejudice, where might we be able to stop? Perhaps we could stop as characteristics of individuals? It’s at least a possibility.
But I think by far, the most damning criticism (if true) would be a form of human error theory; which much like moral error theory, posits that if such things as ‘humans’ were to exist they would need to possess something of an Aristotelian necessary natural essence (see species essentialism); but that since such an essence doesn’t exist (which is thought to be correct by a vast majority of biologists save for those like Devitt who argue for a ‘new species essentialism’) that humans don’t really exist. This is not to say ‘we’ don’t exist, just that we are not ‘human beings’. Someone ‘being human’ being morally important would not just be indefensible, but completely false; it would be akin to saying that your neighbour has moral standing because she is a witch when witches don’t exist. Human error theory is obviously completely unintuitive (but so is much of the rejection of essential natural kinds, especially for things like gender, sex, race, and here, species). But I do find myself coming back to it again and again, especially because it seems to count as good evidence to think that in various morally important respects, those whom we consider as ‘other species’, ‘other animals’ ‘lesser animals’ or ‘not one of us’ are actually well and truly one of us. Looking at the power of dehumanisation it becomes apparent how strong the feeling of someone being ‘one of us’ is (even regardless of one’s views about metaethics).
This view is also unavailable (at least through Williams ideas) to those who think that humans (and other things) matter in and of themselves as supposed to them mattering to us and that’s it. For example, folks like Parfit or other moral objectivists who endorse views of sort that affirm creatures like human beings (amongst others) are ends-in-themselves as opposed to just ‘ends-to-us’. As a moral objectivist myself I’m not a fan of Williams’ ‘unenchanted universe’. But it is interesting to point out how Williams’ rejects what we might call the human prejudice in an objectivist picture, though that may be because he can’t see anything as important in and of itself in the objectivist picture and in this way the rejection of the human prejudice isn’t special.
His point about the tension between humans are part of nature and humans are also above it in the sense of moral capacities is mistaken if we assume that “human” is just being short changed for “moral agent” and being a moral agent is not an essential human thing; aliens could be moral agents, some ‘non-humans’ could become agents (if they aren’t already) and some humans aren’t moral agents. We can thus hold onto this ‘humans are part of nature’ view without giving up this idea that humans who are moral agents are relevantly different to the extent that they can have obligations to other agents and non-agents.
I also have some serious troubles with his alien thought experiment, though I must admit they are very clever and thought provoking. But for one thing, it’s not clear how benevolent aliens could threaten to wipe us out of existence because it would be better overall. But if we were to be ignorant of why we would deserve such a fate, surely these aliens as benevolent as they are would be happy to explain this to us; if they didn’t it would be clear that we would be perfectly permitted to be on ‘Team Earth’. Perhaps the existence of humans threatens all that is truly good in the universe, though if the ‘why’ part was spelled out for us, it’s not clear that we should remain on Team Earth or stay. Surely we are capable of self sacrifice for much larger schemes than ourselves as individuals. This supposed sacrifice of Earth (if such a thing even could be morally required, which I doubt very much in the first instance, meaning benevolent aliens by definition couldn’t threaten to wipe us out) could seem to be very much the right thing to do, it it weren’t, then it’s not clear how benevolent aliens could threaten us with annihilation and actually be benevolent. To use an analogy, imagine these aliens come down and know of everything you want and how to get them, imagine they tell you to get on their space ship so you can go into space so you can help them destroy the Earth. I think you may rightly oppose this line on the grounds that you either reject that such aliens clearly don’t know what you want, or they need to spell it out before you come to know how it is in your greatest desire to destroy the Earth. Surely Williams doesn’t think that you ought to always save all possible forms of humanity, we may be (or become) quite despicable. We may destroy our planet and try to invade other peaceful worlds filled with other people. See Avatar for inspiration here. This doesn’t derive the total destruction of the ‘human race’ but it does strike me as powerful reasons to drop my ‘Team Human’ banner if all humans were act horribly to others.