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Supervenience and 'Should' — Arto Siitonen

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Supervenience and 'Should' — Arto Siitonen Supervenience and ‘Should’ Arto Siitonen, Helsinki, Finland Introduction requiring are human actions. If the idea of supervenience is pursued consistently, these actions are traced back to Concerning any entity or any fact, we may wonder how facts concerning nervous systems of organisms, and sub- does it fit into reality as a whole. We thus raise questions sequently all the way through to the undulations of ele- of the type: What is the place of – in the scheme of reality? mentary particles. As the placeholders for '–' we may put stars, atoms, popu- lations, societies, histories, human beings, languages, However, are the very values and norms thus re- works of art, numbers etc. These are mutually related in a duced? Challenging this, one may appeal to the gap be- variety of ways. In order to account for those multifarious tween 'is' and 'ought', as seen by David Hume. It may be relations, we organize them into a system. The guiding that values and norms are not accountable by superven- principle of such an organization is that things and facts ience. Or, if they are, then they are reducible to facts – are not disconnected but depend on each other. Certain facts organized in a proper way, whatever that may be. entities and occurrences depend for their existence on Examples of such facts can be certain features in works of certain other entities and occurrences. We are dependent art, in human actions, in society. One may also try to base for our existence on our ancestors; we are connected to values and obligations on acts of esteeming and requiring. them through causal lines of heredity. There is also a more Hume did not exclude the possibility of accounting 'ought' conceptual kind of dependence: for instance, to be sen- through 'is'; he just raised the question of how the produc- tient depends on being alive – non-living beings cannot be tion of an 'ought' from an 'is' is achieved, and justified. sentient beings. Stones do not perceive, let alone think. Below, the following thesis will be defended: it is This dependence has been expressed in philosophy questionable whether values and norms sui generis are by saying that the property 'sentient' supervenes on the reductively explainable – and thus, whether they super- property 'alive', or the fact 'a is a sentient being' super- vene on facts. This worry arises due to the 'is/ought'-gap. venes on the fact 'a is a living being'. Supervenience means dependence, determination, and necessary condi- tion; to these relations are added the claims of reducibility 1. Supervenience accounting for facts and explainability. A supervening property or fact can be We construct systems of science with their branching sub- reduced to the property or fact on which it supervenes; and systems; and we claim that such a system adequately by that, it is explained by the latter. Reducibility claim represents reality. Thus, there is "the real order of things" means that the former is to be "nothing but" the latter, or- and the order that we make in order to account for that (cf. ganized in a proper way. An adequate explanation makes title of Molander (1982)). This is the basis for the distinc- understandable why this is so. tion between reality and research of reality. We may extract from the foregoing consideration the The idea of supervenience is concerned with the question: Could – be removed without removing – order and with the ordering of facts. It makes ontological thereby? If not, then the latter is a necessary precondition and epistemological commitments. It classifies facts of the former; thus, for instance, being alive is required for according to certain evolutionary principles in a being sentient. This gives a partial answer to the above comprehensive way. 'Supervenience' is a philosophical question of the "place of –" in the scheme of nature, in concept that is applied to the methods and results of respect to the facts and properties concerned in the exam- science. Francis Crick, although not employing the concept ple. of supervenience, considers the neurobiological account of If supervenience is a thoroughgoing universal factor consciousness as a scientific hypothesis; cf. his work in reality – and in our account of reality –, then it sounds (1994). On his view of the relation between science and reasonable to extend its sphere from nature to culture. philosophy, cf. p. 256 ff of that work. He hopes that Here reductive explanation meets some challenges. Sport "philosophers will learn enough about the brain to suggest clubs, societies, states, etc. may be reducible to psychol- ideas about how it works" (p. 258). ogy – and by this, all the way down to physics. Concerning Building up classificatory schemata and subsuming numbers, they are conceptual entities that may be reduci- various occurrences under them is the first, basic task of ble to logic (cf. the logicist program of Frege and Russell), scientific research. Carl von Linné accomplished this in the but presumably not to counting, or to any other actions. As area of botany; cf. especially his work 'Species plantarum' to works of art, one may claim that, e.g., a painting is re- from 1753. He also contributed to the corresponding ducible to the composition of its ingredients, i.e., colour organizing work in zoology. These studies were spots on a canvas, or an orchestral work to the sound complemented by researchers who worked on anatomy, waves that vibrate in the air in a certain way, etc. However, physiology and ecology. A new question was raised in the the question of their aesthetic value is a harder one: would studies on heredity, and it was Charles Darwin who gave not the value that they have, exceed the evaluations given the explanation to this phenomenon by the theory of to them by various persons? Correspondingly, common evolution (cf. his work 'The Origin of Species by Means of morality may be reducible to social and psychological Natural Selection', 1859). Finally, the basic factor of life, facts, but what about the claims that being moral presents the genetic code, was unravelled by Francis Crick and to us – are not these irreducible? James D. Watson in 1953. This discovery revealed the role Let us focus on the issue of values and norms. of nucleic acids in the generation and growth of living Above, properties and facts were considered as superven- beings. It thus identified the physical basis of life. ing entities. Among facts belong actions performed by human beings. Evaluating, esteeming, commanding and 321 Supervenience and 'Should' — Arto Siitonen The classification of living beings, and the account The order of facts that their supervenient analysis of their development and its core factors, contribute to reveals, may be expected to give a wholesale answer to answering the question "What is the place of life in the the question concerning the scheme of reality. In the scheme of nature?" This is achieved by revealing the Introduction above, this question was given two physical preconditions of life. Physical basis is a necessary formulations. Its answer should give a proper classification condition for life; accordingly, if it were removed, there of facts, their systematic order, and their time order. would not be life. However, there could be a lifeless Classes of facts are strata of reality. The specific content physical universe – and there has been, before the of such a stratum is the subject matter of its attached evolution of life. Thus, the inorganic nature can be branch of research, or branches of research. Thus, for accounted for without recourse to the organic one; but instance, a living cell is studied by biochemistry and accounting for the latter requires taking the former into biology. A given stratum can be considered as basis for consideration. For the organization of scientific research, another stratum. The question 'what is the place of life in this means that biology is built on the foundation of reality?' receives its full answer in the context of the whole physics, but physics not on biology. system; the corresponding is true of other strata. An orderly study thus promises to give an all-encompassing A corresponding situation ensues when mental account of the evolution of cosmos, life and culture. In occurrences are added to those of life. Historically respect to what is achieved, one may say that these are speaking, consciousness and self-consciousness have the facts, and all of them (cf. Chalmers 1996, p. 86: "That's developed gradually, as living beings have become all"). sophisticated enough. Social arrangements have then evolved from mutual relations between conscious beings. Languages, i.e. signal and symbol systems of 2. Supervenience accounting for moral communication, have developed on this basis. facts In the light of supervenience, nature is a layered system that has evolved through aeons and will One may wonder how supervenience can account for presumably go on in its development – cultural evolution moral facts. In a broad sense, these may be understood to building itself on the basis of cosmic and biological comprise all facts that are studied in social sciences and evolution. We may trace given facts of culture back to their humanities. Traditionally, the title 'moral sciences' is used origin in forgone human populations, these back to the first as the common name for these. Moral sciences are distin- occurrences of life, and these again to physical facts. We guished from natural sciences. They are concerned with may also make projections concerning future: evolution will mental, social and cultural facts. The objects of their re- presumably continue, but how? search are human action and its results: history, societies, states, languages, works of art etc. As was indicated above, there are occurrences, or facts, or things that supervene on something, and In the light of supervenience, moral facts depend on correspondingly there are occurrences, facts, things, on social, these on mental, and these on physical facts.
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