Views

Background

As I am still young and at an early stage in my career, I am careful about making strong claims about my particular philosophical positions. My perspectives and views have shifted and evolved several times in the past, and I surely expect them to do so in the future. Frankly, I would be disappointed if they didn’t. Therefore, this page is also under constant revision. However, for those who are interested, below is a brief outline of my current moral intuitions. It must also be noted that I place great emphasis on moral uncertainty and expected moral progress, and thus consider it highly unlikely that current humans have the right answers to the questions of ethics and morality.

My thinking has had especially three strong lines of influence from an early age: art (in the broadest sense, including music, fine art, and literature), Eastern philosophy, and real-life experiences in wild nature. With time, these influences have evolved into a strong belief in science as the effort to objectively explain nature, have complemented and enriched my academic training in Western philosophy, and molded an artistic, rather than traditionally scientific, approach to life and all efforts undertaken.

Metaethics

Metaethics concerns the nature of ethics itself, whether things can be right or wrong independent of whether anyone knows of it. In this regard, I am leaning towards ethical realism and ethical naturalism, with a monist understanding of metaphysics, and in particular an interest in the panpsychic theory of metaphysics. This means I find it plausible that there exist things and values in the universe that are objectively right and wrong, i.e. independent of subjective opinion, and that I consider human morality (and morality in nature at large) to be a biological system of the organism. (Even in the post-biological context, where the pool of variations from which a morality could be derived would greatly exceed that of the current human biological pool, there would still be a set frame). This position entails a rejection of the fact-value distinction, as with the subject-object distinction. However, I do not regard such a moral realism to necessarily be available to subjects such as humans.

I find it logical that morality can be approached as a science and not just as philosophy, and I support the development of a science of morality. This means, I find it logical to treat morality as something that can be studied and understood within the framework of science, and that I consider it a fruitful undertaking to make inquiry into the natural world in order to increase our moral knowledge, in just the same way as it increases our scientific knowledge. This does not mean that we currently possess the appropriate scientific tools, methods, and understanding to do so, but that is not an issue limited to the study of morality. This view further supports the thesis that morality is not an exclusively human trait, but pertains at least across the animal kingdom, possibly across the biosphere, where it manifests in different ways, just as other traits and capacities. I approach issues of sentience, consciousness, and subjectivity in the same way.

Furthermore, my conception of what the natural world may entail is both as constantly evolving and open-ended in the sense that I find it highly plausible that the world is far richer than what humans can currently conceive of and thus scientifically understand, and that the world is ever-changing, but that whatever exists can ultimately be scientifically explained (independent of whether the given humans/posthumans or whichever science-undertaking entities are around at the time, possess the necessary scientific skills and knowledge). Human capacities exist and operate in a time and place-relative context and should be expected to continuously evolve. This further means we/our descendants may never gain a complete understanding of the world. The same goes for our morality and values. These have historically reflected our scientific (ontological) understanding of the world, and as science/ontology has progressed, our ethics have been adjusted accordingly. Henceforth, my position is also sympathetic to object-oriented ontology.

One source which explains at least parts of my metaethics leaning well is this interview with Noam Chomsky.

The works of Timothy Morton is another good source, especially concerning object-oriented ontology.

Sources on panpsychism include works by Philip Goff and David Chalmers.

Normative Ethics

Normative ethics concerns what principles are right or wrong, or which we consider right or wrong. I believe in a plurality of moral values, of which a central is the advancement of a rich, evolving, and holistic definition of wellbeing. I consider all (vegetative and animal) life on Earth to be subjects of wellbeing - from the individual, collective, relational, and systemic level to the planetary - as intrinsically entangled with also abiotic nature. This means I believe normative ethics should be concerned with the wellbeing and flourishing (optimization) of the terrestrial ecosphere and its capacities for good. In addition, we may come to create morally relevant AIs or other fully or partly artificial entities, beings, and systems which should be considered, as should future life and other relevant future entities, and potentially also extraterrestrials. Should the terrestrial civilization expand beyond Earth, then the moral sphere should expand accordingly.

This further means that, regarding the method of ethics, as in subject-based vs object-based moral theories, my perspective is that all human considerations of ethics are admittedly subjective to some extent, but that what should be advanced is objective.

In a definition of wellbeing and flourishing, I would currently include factors (though not all factors apply to all morally relevant entities) such as physical and mental health, meaningful and fruitful relations, intellectual and emotional stimuli, safety, peace, equity, integrity, sustainability, sufficiency, sense of meaning and purpose, and the opportunity to pursue one’s conatus: the innate inclination of any organism to continue to exist, expand and enhance itself. Additionally, I would emphasize that wellbeing and flourishing should altruistically and holistically reflect a common good; wellbeing should not only consider the individual but operate within a framework of a common good. This applies across time and space. Generally, I oppose the excessive individualism and dualism pertaining western thought.

Even if moral realism should prove wrong, I am not convinced by either of the three dominant western schools of ethic, and do in that case adhere to some form of moral pluralism. If one moves beyond the question of which ethical theory might be the right/true one, and rather considers what ethic is pragmatically most promising to obtain actual change right now in the deeply distorted ways humans are currently engaging with the rest of the world, then I think valuable insights can be found in green virtue ethics. In virtue ethics, moral consideration is rooted in character traits - the virtues and vices of the human being. Drawing on existing ways of knowing and practices of being in the world, prevalent in many Indigenous cultures and other robust premodern ethics still in use, key aspects include utilizing traditional ecological knowledge, systematically introduce ecological education and adopting the idea of green citizenship, emphasize practical know-how, and relocalization of production, consumption and other primary human activities. These insights are particularly valuable to the introduction of advanced and intelligent technologies into our societies. Independent of what is true or ultimately right, I do believe the modern human has lost a lot when it comes to basic virtues that are beneficial for the individual and the collective, and which could help us move in a better direction. I find certain doctrines of Eastern philosophy and ethics to be especially helpful in this regard, such as from Taoism and Zen Buddhism, through principles and virtues such as compassion, moderation, humility, selflessness, altruism, naturalness, and frugality, as well as the Japanese concept of Ikigai.

Environmental Ethics

Environmental ethics concerns how humans should morally relate to, as well as the value and moral status of, the natural environment and the rest of Earth’s living beings, entities, and systems. Beyond the underlying normative ethics views outlined above, is my one view of which I am not unsure at all: non-anthropocentrism. As is probably clear by now, this means that my ethical concerns go far beyond concerns for humans only, although humankind is certainly included. I see tremendous value in the natural world, in the billions of other lives and lifeforms with which we happen to share this planet, independent of humans. Of this, I have no doubt.  

My aim is to contribute to further the well-being and optimization of the terrestrial ecosphere and its capacity for good, by embracing and open and curious view to what life, well-being, and flourishing might become. I refer to my approach to environmental ethics as ecological ethics, and my position should be considered as objective ecocentrism. I see the global ecosystem of Earth as what should be considered the primary moral subject in our ethical thinking. All elements that participate in maintaining the harmonious functioning of that ecosystem can have intrinsic and extrinsic value. This means I see intrinsic value holistically in all of nature and the ecosphere, independent of any utility for, and subjective valuing by, humans. Further, and perhaps in contrast to traditional stands in ecocentric ethics, my approach to emerging technologies is indeed cautious, perhaps skeptical, but not opposing: what is important is the context and its content. I aim for a moral reconciliation of the ecosphere and the technosphere.

A central concern is for the history, continuity, and wellbeing of the phenomenon of life on Earth, as individual and relational members and systemic collectives of the total ecosphere, consisting of the biotic and the abiotic. This view is based on a scientific and naturalistic understanding of the world: all of nature, both living and nonliving, is an intricate web of interrelations and interdependencies, resting on the fundamental and preconditional values of diversity and symbiosis. This web is active and projective, and all organisms within it value their own being, wellbeing, and continued existence. This position is accompanied by the original intuition and most natural view of the world there is, and which is largely supported by prima-facie evidence, that all of nature - the whole world - is alive. Remarkably, modern Western science and thought have since the seventeenth century accomplished the astonishing feat of complete reversal of life and death in the natural world, leaving life to be conceived as a quality of humans only, contrasted with the dead nature, thus draining the world, exempt for humans, of all subjectivity and all moral value. We are left with a ‘common sense’ that rejects the very nature of the world of which we humans are the latest product. For example, I strongly suspect that sentience, consciousness, and intelligence – commonly considered of moral significance – permeate much of, if not the entire, natural world.

My position does not reject the distinctiveness of the human species, without which acknowledgement we cannot speak of any moral responsibilities toward the rest of the world, but our distinctiveness does not translate to unconditional moral superiority and thus entitlement. Perhaps is it our very capacity to contemplate a concept of responsibility that sets us apart and burdens us with a responsibility toward, not only humankind, but the richness of the ecosphere - the moral universe - to which we owe our existence, and which continuity determines our common future.

A good explanation of ecocentrism can be found in this statement from the journal Ecological Citizen.

Strong sources of inspiration are the works of Holmes Rolston III, Hans Jonas, and Freya Mathews, and ecocentric philosophy has a historic legacy tracing back to Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Baird Callicott, and Arne Næss, among others.

I also happen to believe that to, subjectively, intrinsically value the natural world is central to the wellbeing, flourishing, and potential (and intrinsic value) of humans, but that is another matter. However, to briefly comment on the state of humans: I believe this centuries-old effort of humankind, particularly in the West, to disconnect from, and exalt ourselves above, the rest of the world, is the underlying source of almost all of our current issues - from physical and mental health, to bad character traits, to relationships, to loss of meaning - to the more obvious spheres of politics, economics, cultures, ideologies, and ontologies. This wildly successful effort has generated the illusion that the world is ours and that it is optional to care for that which all life and everything we know depend on. I believe we have crafted ourselves a state of existential loneliness by rejecting our wildness and thus rejecting our place in the world. I see this loneliness as hurting us in all possible ways, manifested in the lost supergeneration - the global generation of the past ~300 years - and laying the foundation for a number of global catastrophic and existential risks to our own species, and to life on Earth as such.

As much Western environmental philosophy has drawn substantially on ideas and conceptions in Eastern philosophy, I often find more resonance for my moral intuitions concerning the nonhuman world in aspects of Chinese and Japanese philosophy, as well as in various Indigenous philosophies, than in traditional Western philosophy. As hopefully illustrated above, I am sympathetic to more animistic, open-ended, and non-dualist conceptions of nature (the world). One Western line of thinking more compatible in this regard, is panpsychism. From an environmental ethics perspective, panpsychism is, in part, motivated by the search for a theory of reality which unites nature and human culture and thus allows the flourishing of “both” (as one). As with green virtue ethics, I find panpsychism to offer promising practical guidance by revitalizing ancient, Indigenous, and intuitive principles embedded in the human actual experience in the physical world. As my past environmental philosophy professor, Arne Johan Vetlesen, argues: “If a specific culture’s view of nature accompanies or directly or indirectly legitimates what in the real world amounts to a series of practices outright destructive to that nature then that culture and that theory cannot be right, cannot be true.”

Good sources for further reading on panpsychism from an environmental philosophy perspectiv, are Freya Mathews’ For Love of Matter (2003) and Reinhabiting Reality (2005). The above quote is from Vetlesen’s The Denial of Nature (2015).

Applied Ethics

Applied ethics is concerned with applying ethical views to practical situations in life and the world. I have a macroscale and long-term perspective on the scope of our moral concern: the potential of the future in time, space, and optimization of good is enormous - possibly astronomically large. Currently, life on Earth is living in a peculiar time: the human species has gained the capacity to both enable global catastrophic and existential risks to ourselves and to life as such, and to launch the story of life on Earth into its next chapter, where the potential for positive value vastly exceeds that of the current state. The latter involves spreading terrestrial life in outer space. I believe we should focus on enabling such a long-term future and its potential for good.

My motivation can be understood through a perspective that sees our particular generation of a particular species at this cosmic point in time and place, as one of many chapters in the book that is the story of life that originated on Earth. It is possible that most chapters are still to be written. My concern is with how we, in this cosmic here and now, can contribute to the shaping of this narrative, directing it toward future trajectories which we believe to be the most promising ones, based on our absolute best knowledge, understanding, and reasoning. That is all we can do. That entails a moral imperative - a responsibility - that goes far beyond safeguarding our own species as it currently manifests, and from the perspective of our particular interests and values. It entails acknowledging that we might not be the peak of intrinsic value in the universe, but that we have instrumental value in a greater narrative. We should be concerned with opening doors to futures that vastly outperform our present in potential for good.

Therefore, I am currently focused on applying ethics to (1) how we can mitigate global catastrophic and existential risks, of which I am primarily working on the risks of the socio-ecological crisis and artificial intelligence, and (2) on how we can make terrestrial life multiplanetary.

A good source for my view on how we should approach the project of AI, is the concluding words of this chapter by Steve Torrance, toward a moral reconciliation of the ecosphere and the technosphere.

In addition, I believe that the human capacity for morality may play a central role in which long-term trajectory will come to be realized (or which risks will be realized), just as it has played a central role in our historic past. This is of particular importance for all the other lifeforms that are affected by human activity (and subject to human morality). Therefore, I am also interested in human moral enhancement as a possible mean to overcome risks and enable a positive, long-term future.

My objective can therefore be summed up as: to further the wellbeing and optimization of the terrestrial ecosphere and its capacities for good, on Earth and beyond.

Again, I want to emphasize that these are my current moral intuitions and are likely to evolve and change as I continue to learn about this extraordinary, peculiar, and endlessly fascinating world we happen to live in.

Andrea