PARACHUTES, TICKS, AND MORAL ENVIRONMENTS

Vance G. MorganProvidence College

March 1999

Being a living organism is hard work. Any organism, from the

simplest to the most complex, must navigate a physical

environment of dizzying intricacy in order to survive, an

environment whose elements gain and lose importance depending on

the organism. A crab, for instance, lives in a submarine space of

rocks, open sand, and hidden recesses. A ground squirrel lives in

a space of subterranean holes, branching tunnels, and leaf-lined

bedrooms, knowing nothing of seashores. Human beings occupy a

physical space of comparable complexity, leading to an obvious

question: How do we (organisms) do it?

Crabs and squirrels may not think, but they do survive in

their environment as we do in ours, apparently in ways supported

by physical, biological structures fundamentally similar to ours.

One of the ways to enter the field of cognitive science, the

interdisciplinary investigation of mind that has grown at a

dazzling rate in the last two or three decades, is to view

cognitive science as the attempt, from the distinct perspectives

of neuroscience, artificial intelligence research, linguistics,

anthropology, psychology and philosophy, to provide comprehensive

1

insight into issues of the human mind and cognition. What exactly

is going on in human cognition? What is the evolutionary story

that underlies it? At the various levels of the different

disciplines, cognitive scientists hope to fashion a coherent

vision of what human cognition and the human mind are, how they

operate, and how they emerge from the tangled mess of neurons and

neural connections in the brain.

The opening portion of this article touches on some

interesting features of recent work in cognitive science. My

primary aim, however, is to consider how the physical

architecture that supports survival in the physical environment

might tell us something about how we humans navigate,

successfully or unsuccessfully, the equally important environment

of human morality and society. We share the complex physical

environment with other organisms, but we also live in a moral and

social environment, an intricate web of obligations, duties,

entitlements, prohibitions, appointments, debts, affections,

insults, allies, contracts, enemies, infatuations, compromises,

mutual love, expectations, and ideals. Learning the structure of

2

the moral/social environment, learning to recognize one’s current

position and that of others within it, and learning to travel

through that space without moral or social failure is at least as

important to any human as learning similar skills for navigating

successfully through purely physical space.

The unquestioned beginning assumption of cognitive

scientists is that the story of “how we do it” must be a

naturalistic one. Paul Churchland expresses this assumption

clearly.

Social animals must learn the interactive culture that

structures their collective life. This means that their

nervous systems must learn to represent the many

dimensions of the local social space, a space that

embeds them as surely and as relevantly as does the

local physical space. . . . In confronting these

additional necessities, a social creature must use the

same sorts of neuronal resources and coding strategies

that it uses for its representation of the sheerly

3

physical world. The job may be special, but the tools

are available are the same. The creature must configure

the many millions of synaptic connection strengths

within its brain so as to represent the structure of

the social reality in which it lives. Further, it must

learn to generate sequences of neuronal activation-

patterns that will produced socially acceptable or

socially advantageous behavioral outputs. . . . Social

and moral reality is also the province of the physical

brain. . . . We need to confront this fact, squarely

and forthrightly, if we are ever to understand our own

moral natures.i

It is not my intent in this article to discuss or challenge the

naturalist assumptions underlying cognitive science. Rather, I am

interested in drawing some moral implications from the notion

that moral survival, just as survival in the physical

environment, is of necessity a function of successful neural

connections and representations.

4

The received, traditional description of the survival of an

organism in the physical environment runs along the following

lines: The environment is a “landing pad” for organisms that

somehow drop or “parachute” into a largely fixed, entirely

objective world.ii Successful adaptation and survival is a matter

of the organism’s ability to “represent” the environment to

itself successfully in order to avoid harmful environmental

elements and pursue advantageous ones. In short, this view plays

on the traditional, Western model of a sharp distinction between

subject (organism) and object (environment), survival depending

upon the organism’s accurate and useable internal representation

of the world “out there.”

This “parachute” metaphor is perhaps still the prevailing

picture of the relationship between organism and environment.

Recently, however, a number of researchers in various cognitive

science disciplines have begun to challenge this metaphor. The

very structure of living organisms, including the neural

structure of the human being, indicates that the relationship

between organism and environment is highly interactive and

5

codependent. Organisms and environments develop interactively,

belying the traditional distinction between subject and object.

Evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin, for instance, argues

that the very notion of what an environment is cannot be

separated from what organisms are and what they do.

The organism and the environment are not actually

separately determined. The environment is not a

structure imposed on living beings from the outside but

is in fact a creation of those beings. The environment

is not an autonomous process but a reflection of the

biology of the species. Just as there is no organism

without an environment, so there is no environment

without an organism.iii

This interactive and coevolutionary interpretation, stressing the

interdependence of organism and world, is remarkably compatible

with various features of contemporary continental philosophy,

particularly phenomenology. Indeed, philosopher Andy Clark’s

6

recent book, subtitled “Putting Brain, Body, and World Together

Again,” is provocatively and illuminatingly entitled Being There.iv

When Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty meet cognitive science,

interesting things happen.

Drawing on research in neuroscience, artificial intelligence

modeling, and psychology, Clark argues that it is misleading at

best to view a successful cognitive system as doing much in the

way of “representing” or “modeling” its environment. Not only

would it be a monumental, perhaps impossible, task for an

organism to represent its entire environment, there is no need

for the organism to do so. An organism need be attuned only to

those features of its environment that have special relevance and

importance to it. Non-important features of the environment are

neither represented nor considered by the organism--for all

intents and purposes, these features of the environment do not

exist for the organism. “The idea is that we reduce the

information-processing load by sensitizing the system to

particular aspects of the world--aspects that have special

7

significance because of the environmental niche the system

inhabits.”v This is what Clark calls niche-dependent sensing.

To illustrate, Clark draws our attention to the work of

Jakob von Uexküll and his 1934 paper entitled “A Stroll Through

the Worlds of Animals and Men.”vi Through a fascinating series of

examples, von Uexküll develops the idea that an organism’s world,

including its space and time, is uniquely fashioned by its

umwelt, the set of environmental features to which a given type

of animal is sensitized. For example, the common tick requires

the ingestion of blood in order to lay its eggs. How, in the

midst of the vast physical environment, does this simple blind

and deaf organism accomplish its mission? The tick is sensitive

to the butyric acid found on mammalian skin. This acid, when

detected, causes the tick to loose its hold on a branch and fall

on the animal. Tactile contact extinguishes the olfactory

response and initiates a procedure of scurrying about until heat

is detected. Detection of heat triggers boring and burrowing,

then sucking of blood.

8

The tick hangs motionless on the tip of a branch in a

forest clearing. Her position gives her the chance to

drop on a passing mammal. Out of the whole environment,

no stimulus affects her until a mammal approaches,

whose blood she needs before she can bear her young.

And now something quite wonderful happens. Of all

the influences that emanate from the mammal’s body,

only three become stimuli, and those in a definite

sequence. Out of the vast world which surrounds the

tick, three stimuli shine forth from the dark like

beacons, and serve as guides to lead her unerringly to

her goal. To accomplish this, the tick, besides her

body with its receptors and effectors, has been given

three receptor signs, which she can use as sign

stimuli. And these perceptual cues prescribe the course

of her actions so rigidly that she is only able to

produce corresponding specific effector cues.

The whole rich world around the tick shrinks and

changes into a scanty framework consisting, in essence,

9

of three receptor cues and three effector cues--her

umwelt. But the very poverty of this world guarantees

the unfailing certainty of her actions, and security is

more important than wealth.vii

The tick’s sensitivity to only three features of the environment

creates a “designer world” for it, one that not only is

responsive to the larger environment but also shapes the

environment itself.

Clark’s argument is that all organisms (including humans) do

likewise. This umwelt-fashioning is what makes it possible for an

organism to navigate the vastly complex environment without

experiencing “overload.” Furthermore, this selective sensitivity

to various features of the environment actually impacts and

creates the future environment, as Merleau-Ponty argued decades

ago.

It is the organism itself--according to the proper

nature of its receptors, the thresholds of its nerve

10

centers and the movements of the organs--which chooses

the stimuli in the physical world to which it will be

sensitive. The environment (umwelt) emerges from the

world through the actualization or the being of the

organism--[granted that] an organism can exist only if

it succeeds in finding in the world an adequate

environment.viii

The survival of an organism depends on that organism’s

sensitivity to those features of the environment that are

important to it. If an organism is not sensitive to these

features, it will not survive. If an organism is sensitive to too

many features of its environment, its neural and physical

resources may be overburdened, leading just as certainly to its

demise.

We, however, are not ticks. We are sensitive to countless

more features of our environment than ticks are. Still, the

activity of umwelt-fashioning is apparent in everyday human

activity. For example, I have spent much of the past few months

11

teaching my youngest son to drive an automobile. To a large

extent, this has been a matter of teaching him what environmental

features to be sensitive to in order to construct a successful

driving-umwelt. New drivers are often sensitive to too much, or

to the wrong things--learning to drive requires the fashioning of

the appropriate environmental elements into a designer driving-

world. Furthermore, this umwelt changes constantly according to

any number of environmental factors (different traffic laws,

traffic patterns, road construction, etc.). Additionally, the

larger environment itself changes frequently according to the

continuing human activity of driving (new traffic laws, speed

limit changes, etc.). This is a simple example of how organism

and environment interact with and change each other.

What has any of this to do with morals or ethics? I propose

that the lessons learned from research such as that described

above provide clues to understanding humans as moral creatures as

well as physical creatures. The moral and social environment that

humans must navigate on a day-to-day basis is every bit as

complex as the physical environment. If the naturalistic assump-

12

tions of cognitive science are largely correct, then the neural

structures that support success in the physical environment are

the same structures that will support moral and social success.

In the case of the physical environment, this includes selective

sensitivity to various features of the environment in creative

umwelt-fashioning, at the expense of ignoring non-relevant

features. What might this mean in the moral world?

A number of possibilities arise here. First, it is not

helpful to imagine the moral world or environment as entirely

fixed and objective, a world into which the prospective moral

agent is “parachuted,” where success depends on discovering and

internally representing the already-in-place “lay of the (moral)

land.” Rather, the moral agent and the moral environment coevolve

in a continuous web of interaction. Furthermore, the moral world

of the moral agent will be constructed out of the agent’s

selective sensitivity to any number of features of the moral

environment. In other words, a moral agent will construct a moral

world or umwelt out of those features of the moral environment

she or he chooses as significant.

13

The candidates for moral significance in the creation of a

moral umwelt are too numerous to list exhaustively.

Possibilities, however, include (in no particular order) others,

self, rules, utility, avoidance of pain, pursuit of pleasure,

human life, life in general, the transcendent, autonomy,

character, universality, society, context, rationality, emotion,

will, rights, duties, contracts, family, friends, enemies, and

strangers. Out of these and countless other elements of the moral

world the moral agent constructs a “designer” moral umwelt. One

can recognize any number of traditional moral umwelten, expressed

through traditional moral theories, by selecting one or several

of the above features of the moral environment as foundational

and allowing any number of the others to recede into background

insignificance.

In the physical realm, sensitivity to too little or too much

equally leads to failure. The same is true in the moral realm.

Consider, for instance, a moral agent who is sensitive to too

much. She might attempt to fashion a moral umwelt out of

sensitivity to features of the moral environment that overlap,

14

are mutually exclusive, or are at least contradictory.

Essentially, her umwelt is too large--she is trying to be

sensitive to too much. This is a recipe for moral confusion and

indecision. Any student of moral theory will attest to the fact

that trying to pay equal attention to rules, consequences, self,

others, and society in a given moral instance will lead to

frustration and indecision.

More frequent, perhaps, is the fashioning of a moral umwelt

that is not large or sensitive enough. Consider, for instance,

the person who selects “preservation of human life” as the

central and exclusive feature of his moral umwelt. He will be

overly sensitized to features of the moral world that intersect

with his exclusive moral preoccupation while being blind to

features of the moral world that do not happen to coincide with

issues of human life. He will have a “one issue” umwelt, similar

to “one issue” voters in political elections. This is a recipe

for rigidity, inflexibility, and intolerance.

How, then, does one learn to fashion a healthy moral umwelt?

Here we can learn much from Aristotle and virtue ethics. One

15

might describe Aristotle’s practical reason and the life of human

flourishing as visions of the moral agent who progressively

learns the art of fashioning moral umwelten. Development of this

art begins with the recognition that there is no absolute moral

umwelt appropriate to all circumstances and contexts. One’s moral

umwelt must be continually sensitive to the moral environment,

including the changes in the moral environment that individual

and collective moral umwelten bring about over time. It may be

that any number or even all of the possible candidates for moral

sensitivity listed above may serve as the basis for an

appropriate moral umwelt in a given instance. Moral growth and

maturity requires first a recognition of the vast array of moral

“tools” available in the constructing of a moral umwelt and,

second, an equally strong recognition that no one combination or

even limited number of combinations of these elements will

suffice for all moral contingencies.

In conclusion, I offer a personal example of the dynamics of

becoming appropriately sensitive to features of the moral

environment. Aristotle would tell us that we do not come into the

16

world sensitive to these features, only with the potential to be

sensitive to any number of elements, for better or worse.

Sensitivity to the features of the moral world is something that

is learned through observation, training and practice. This

places a collective responsibility on moral agents to pass on

techniques of successful umwelt-building to young occupants of

the moral environment. In particular, parents bear much of the

responsibility for providing their children with an array of

umwelt-building tools and strategies.

I was raised in a conservative, fundamentalist religious

tradition, a tradition arising from a collective moral umwelt

that I found to be highly restrictive and unresponsive to the

reality of lived human experience as I became an adult. I have

been anxious to teach my sons of the dangers of narrow moral

umwelten such as the one I was raised in. To that end, I have

made a deliberate practice of tuning in to a specific radio talk

show every weekday afternoon as my son and I travel the fifteen

miles from his high school to our home. The host of this show

actively promotes the conservative, religious, and (in my view)

17

narrowly restrictive perspective on life and morality that I was

raised in. I did this to sensitize my son to the dangers of

having a rigid and inflexible view of the world.

To a certain extent, my experiment worked well in that it

did make my son actively aware of rigid thought patterns in a

number of contexts. The experiment, however, worked too well in

that it also desensitized him to the importance of faith and

religion in the fashioning of a moral umwelt. In his mind,

rigidity and religion became synonymous. This has caused him to

become intolerant and rigid in his rejection of any viewpoint

that might be rooted in faith. It is my continuing task to

introduce him, primarily by example, to a more fine-tuned

approach to this aspect of moral umwelt-building.

Survival and success in the moral environment may, in the

end, be a more complex and difficult matter than physical

survival. The idea that organism and environment mutually shape

each other seems obviously true in the moral realm. Furthermore,

the evolution of moral awareness through this mutual interaction

proceeds far more rapidly in the moral than in the physical

18

environment. The sketch of moral health provided here is

demanding, in that how we construct our moral umwelt impacts not

only the umwelten of others but also the larger moral environment

itself. A person’s moral umwelt reflects much of what that person

is; we become the moral persons we want to be through the

sensitivities to the moral environment that we develop. As Sartre

reminds us, these sensitivities project not only what we are,

but also our vision of what the world should be.

19

ENDNOTES

20

i. Paul Churchland, The Engine of Reason, the Seat of the Soul (Cambridge: MITPress, 1995), 123-24.

ii. This analogy is used frequently and criticized roundly in Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch, The Embodied Mind (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991).

iii. Richard Lewontin, “The Organism as the Subject and Object of Evolution,” Scientia 118: 63-82.

iv. Andy Clark, Being There (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997).

v. Clark, 24.

vi. Jakob von Uexküll, “A Stroll Through the Worlds of Animals and Men,” in Instinctive Behavior, trans. and ed. Claire H. Schiler (New York: International University Press, Inc., 1975), 5-82.

vii. Ibid., 11-13.

viii. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Structure of Behavior, trans. Alden Fisher (Boston: Beacon Press, 1963), 13.