Joel Kupperman points out in that western philosophy mainly centres on rules and procedures based on principles whilst eastern philosophy mainly centres on modifying the person in order to make us better people (1). He argues the focus of eastern philosophy is in many ways the more appropriate because not all normally decent people are always good people. To support his position he cites the examples of the Milligram Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment. He then goes on to suggest western philosophy should pay greater attention to modifying people in order to make us better individuals as well as continuing to focus on principles. His position is to some degree analogous with that of Aristotle; good or virtuous people naturally do the right thing. In this posting I want to question, even if his suggestion is accepted, whether any successful attempt at self modification can ignore ethical principles.
At the outset I must make it clear that to some degree I agree with Kupperman. It certainly seems clear to me philosophy ought to be concerned with helping us make ourselves into better persons. Furthermore it also seems that a great deal academic ethical philosophy focuses on metaethics and the principles needed to make decisions rather than the persons who make these decisions. What sort of person we are sometimes seems to be irrelevant to the way we decide. Indeed even many virtue ethicists focus more on the nature of virtues rather than the application of actual virtues. A constant theme of Kupperman’s paper is that more emphasis should be placed on self modification and less on ethical principles or metaethics. However can someone’s self modification be totally unconnected to ethical principles? I will suggest there are at least some grounds for thinking it cannot.
Kupperman argues the main reason why the Milligram Experiment is so disturbing is that we assume the participants in it were reasonably decent people in their normal lives. Briefly the Milligram experiment took place in 1961. It involved an experimenter, a teacher who was really the participant in the experiment and a learner. The learner, who was really an actor, was supposed to be learning a series of paired words. The teacher would read the first word of each pair and read four possible answers. The learner would press a button to indicate his response. If the answer was incorrect the teacher would administer what he thought to be an electric shock to the learner. The voltage was increased for each wrong answer. The shock was not real and the learner merely responded as if he had been shocked. Milligram’s Experiment showed participants were prepared to deliver large shocks in obedience to the experimenter. For a more detailed account of this experiment see The Milgram Experiment . Let it be accepted that the participants in the Milligram Experiment were indeed normally decent people. It is clear the Milligram Experiment placed these people outside their normal comfort zone. Normally people don’t make reflective decisions but rather make decisions based on habit and inclination. However in the unfamiliar context of the Milligram Experiment normal habits and inclinations appears to give the participants little basis to help them form their decisions. It might be assumed that in unfamiliar situations such as the Milligram Experiment people will think about, reflect, on their decisions. However even if this assumption is correct any reflection by the participants in the experiment did not help them to make good decisions. It might be suggested the reason for this is that these participants lacked some general ethical principles which might have formed a basis for better reflective decision making. It might then be argued, provided the above suggestion is accepted, that people need ethical principles to make good decisions in unfamiliar circumstances. It follows that anyone who attempts to modify himself in order to make himself a better person needs some ethical principles in order to remain a good person in unfamiliar circumstances. Accepting the above leads to the conclusion; any form of self modification, in order to make oneself a better person, should be partly connected to ethical principles.
Accepting the above conclusion means accepting my suggestion that the participants in the Milligram Experiment who were normally decent people behaved as they did because they lacked the ethical principles needed to make good reflective decisions in unfamiliar circumstances. Is there any evidence to support my suggestion? One place to look for evidence is to consider why some people behave well in unfamiliar and difficult circumstances. Some of this evidence appears to undermine my suggestion. For instance it appears helpers of Jewish victims of the Third Reich, who I take it to be were acting in unfamiliar circumstances, did not always help these victims because they possessed some ethical principles but rather because they felt a natural empathy for the human being standing before them. In the light of the above it is interesting to speculate as to whether the participants in the Milligram Experiment would have delivered the same shocks if they had had visual contact with the learner. The above also seems to indicate my suggestion is unsound. In the light of the above it seems reasonable to presume that anyone who attempts to modify himself in order to make himself a better person should cultivate his natural empathy rather than accept some ethical principles. He should act as Kupperman suggests. However recent research casts doubt on this presumption. Let it be accepted that women in general have a greater disposition for empathy than men. It would appear to follow if the above assumption is accepted that in any replication of the Milligram Experiment it might be assumed women would behave better than men. However when Jerry Burger of Santa Clara University replicated the Milligram Experiment this assumed gender difference did not materialise, see Replicating Milgram .
It would appear at the present time the evidence for or against my suggestion that, the participants in the Milligram Experiment might have lacked some general ethical principles which would have enabled them to make better decisions, is not clear. This is an unsatisfactory state of affairs. Perhaps some x-philosopher can devise an experiment in order to test the above suggestion. If such an experiment could be devised we might then be in a better position to say whether any successful attempt at self modification should ignore ethical principles as Kupperman appears to suggest.
- Kupperman, 2010, Why philosophy needs to be comparative, , Philosophy 85, no 332
.
