Morality as a Stimulus-Response Process

[Certain] reactions, brought upon by evolution, instruct the user to avoid things that drain utility and come into more frequent contact with those that provide it. With the reaction to the inputs, the system can then make conclusions which are tested with more data, what we have termed experience.

--Email from a friend, 30 Oct. 2005

I agree with the above quote. One can picture this phenomenon easily in simple organisms: for example, one might picture unicellular creatures that avoid adverse stimuli and seek attractive stimuli. I should note that these actions do not automatically indicate the presence of "pain" and "pleasure" sensations as we know them, for that would require a nervous system and a degree of self-awareness. The responses of plants and unicellular animals can best be considered as reflexes whereof the organism is unaware. However, the sensations of pain and pleasure in more complex animals are only different forms of the same process, the principal distinction being that the organisms in question are cognizant of adverse sensations and thence can consciously choose means to escape them, instead of relying on instantaneous reflex. (I should add that some behaviors of complex animals can still be considered reflex. For instance, upon touching a hot surface, we reflexively take our hand away even before our body produces the sensation of pain. Especially in the case of birds and mammals, "aversive" and "attractive" stimuli become very complex, as they may involve intricate social relationships and intellectually derived forms of pleasure--but these things still count as stimuli.

Morality is not "on a higher plane of existence" than observation of the physical world; rather, science and morality are two distinct mental operations that the stimulus-response units that we call human beings undertake (along with any other organisms that are moral agents). Both science and morality require observation of the world and application of deductive logic. The difference is that science is descriptive and morality is prescriptive. Morality does not transcend nature; indeed, it has no meaning without some physical reality for it to consider. Rather, it merely processes the material world (what "is") and decides what to do about it (what "ought" to be done).

To put the concept crudely and in a light favorable to the utilitarian, observation of the world (which, in advanced forms, is thought of as science) is the stimulus, and it leads to a response in the form of a desire for action on the basis of that observation.

Example. Consider a mouse that becomes stuck in a sticky mousetrap. In noting the situation, the mouse sends a stimulus to its brain, which then produces a response in the form of an urge to escape (which can lead the mouse to struggle, whine, and even chew off its own limbs). The mouse's impulse to free itself--however basic or uncalculated it may be--constitutes its morality at that point in time.

I contend that all sentient organisms possess this "aversion to suffering" form of morality and, hence, that all sentient organisms hold legitimate moral positions. Many philosophers, though, would probably object to my characterization of ethics in this way, claiming that morality encompasses only those prescriptive thoughts made by rational, self-aware creatures. For more on this, see section "Do Implicit Preferences Matter?"

Human morality, I assert, is just a more intricate and empathetic form of the mouse's impulse to escape. We, too, observe the world and feel an impulse to act somehow in response. Granted, most of us care about other people (whereas the mouse at that moment is only concerned with its own situation), but this simply means that the pain of others is, to some extent, internalized so as to evoke a response within us as if we ourselves were in pain. Human morality, then, consists of those responses that we have to adverse and attractive stimuli in ourselves and in others.

I said that this description of ethics favors the utilitarian because what I just expounded is the utilitarian basis for morality, that is, following the natural impulses to reduce adverse stimuli and promote attractive stimuli to the greatest extent possible. Ethicists who hold an alternate moral perspective might remonstrate at my characterization of human morality.