Michael Shermer on Moral Philosophy, Second Round

BY MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI

(Originally published in platofootnote.org, https://bit.ly/2IKCQsu)

SKEPTIC MICHAEL SHERMER RECENTLY PUBLISHED a column in Scientific American entitled “Does the philosophy of ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’ have any merit?” I found it a confused piece on moral philosophy, and since I agree with my friend Spider-Man, that with great power comes great responsibility, I was troubled by Michael’s failure toward the broad public of that august magazine. So I wrote a rather snarky response. Shermer has in turn keyboarded a reply to me, which he published on his own Skeptic online. This is my counter-response, and will be the last thing I will say on the topic for a while, as my experience is that going beyond two rounds in these cases quickly leads to diminishing returns. Of course, Michael is free to write a third piece, if he wishes.

To begin with, I’m going to tone down the rhetoric and focus on the substance, first because it is the right thing to do, and second because otherwise we get into an escalation of hyperboles that doesn’t really help thoughtful discourse. In his second article, for instance, Shermer says that I have become “nearly apoplectic” at his suggestion that witch hunting and the Holocaust were the result of utilitarianism. I assure you, it was a slight exaggeration. I’ve been guilty of this even in the recent past (mea culpa), so let’s see if I can manage to do better.

I am not the only professional philosopher that has strongly criticized Michael for his original SciAm article. Another good example is Justin Weinberg, of the University of South Carolina (and editor of the Daily Nous), who, among other things, tweeted: “Disappointing that @sciam is contributing to our era’s ever-frequent disrespect of expertise by publishing this ill-informed & confused @michaelshermer column on moral philosophy.” It is not a simplistic argument from authority to point out that when professionals in a field unequivocally say you got things wrong it is wise to seriously consider that you might, indeed, have done so.