Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

of morality could be formulated by examining how people actually behave and then discerning ‘rules’ based on these actions (a ‘descriptive’ rather than a ‘normative’ ethics). Up to a point, anthropology and the social sciences adopt this method. But I’d suggest this is not really getting to the core of the issue. People might be observed believing a certain action is wrong, but it could still be asked why they think it is wrong. That’s the key question. This approach falls foul of what is termed the ‘naturalistic fallacy’. This is derived from Hume, where — he seems to argue — just because things are the way they are does not mean they ought to be this way — you can’t get an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’. (The quote from Hume was given above.) So the naturalistic fallacy is basing values and ethics on observation and concluding that, because people behave in certain ways, then this is a sound basis for morality, and indeed, that no other basis need be sought. It is a particular feature of ‘behaviourism’ in psychology. But we also see it cropping up elsewhere — particularly in economics — where, for instance, people are regarded as pure pleasure-seeking creatures. This notion, in turn, (and usually without any explanation) is used as a moral justification for economics to try to satisfy the endless desires of humanity.

Back in Chapter 14 I introduced a list — sensation, perception, impulse, image, symbol — which tries to capture the way that people actually respond and process their experience (rather than the way we might like humans to respond). From the list it is clear that choosing, valuing and agency occur early on — almost as sensation — as soon as a situation is perceived

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