¹Gibbard (1990); all references to this work unless otherwise specified.

²The aptness of such beliefs need not consist in their contents naturally or artificially representing substantive facts they purport to be about. This will be an important point in my criticism of Gibbard.

³Stuart Kauffman (1995, p. 49) proposes just such an incremental reflexive functionality in a process whereby two sorts of molecule each serve as a catalyst in some reaction that produces the other. The result is a greater statistical likelihood that each sort of molecule will be produced in quantity from local components. One can therefore look at each part of the process as being "designed" to further its own functionality by promoting the other part of the process. Kauffman calls this 'catalytic closure' (p. 50). 'Closure' represents the reflexive nature of the overall process, while 'catalytic' describes a particular function.

⁴The term 'parts' here (and elsewhere, 'modules', 'mechanisms', etc.) might seem to refer to physically demarcated areas. This may in many cases turn out to be correct, but the meaning I intend is functional parts making discrete contributions to overall brain activity.

⁵Ultimately, Gibbard decides (23) that, of the three types of apparent facts he examines, naturalistic facts are genuine, substantive facts about nature; normative facts aren't really facts at all, for there is nothing that a putatively normative fact could naturally represent; and facts of meaning (a subset of what I call 'semantic facts') turn out to be genuine, naturalistic facts, for they are accounted for by psychic and social facts that Gibbard says (35) have evolved as parts of nature. After this last brief assertion, he acknowledges that other philosophers differ: "We are a part of nature, some agree, and yet our meanings are not; they then try to explain."

⁶For a useful discussion of semantic transparency, see Van Gulick (especially p. 149).

⁷See Bar-Yosef and Vandermeersch (1993). Fossils of anatomically modern humans have been found in Israel, dating to 100,000 years ago or more. It would take a generation of 500 years for Gibbard's statement to make sense in this context. Using the more standard generation of 20 years, we should rather say that the genetics of humankind has not changed noticeably in 5,000 (and perhaps many more) generations. Now, this analysis presumes that noticeable genetic change will appear in fossils, and it's conceivable that some genetic change would result in significant modifications that are not revealed by the fossil evidence. Perhaps Gibbard is relying instead upon archaeological evidence; 200 generations doesn't span much more time than recorded history. But why presume that human development over the past four millennia has been due to anything other than the gradual discovery of effective ways of thinking with the general-purpose cognitive apparatus that constitutes the neocortex? Indeed, if our success is due to that general-purpose mechanism, why presume that some progressive sequence of genetic improvements (the standard mode of evolutionary improvement) -- beyond the ones that created a general-purpose cognitive apparatus in the first place, some 100,000, 1,000,000, or 2,000,000 years ago -- played any part in our recent development?

⁸In the event anyone is inclined to take exception to this claim, let me simply issue this challenge: take a randomly chosen dozen individuals and ask them why murder is wrong. Surely, if they normally have logical support for their moral views, they will be able to offer such for the evil of murder. But I doubt that more than one or two of them will be able to muster anything more profound than the mere assertion that murder is obviously wrong. Let me know if more than half of them present logical arguments -- it will make my decade!

⁹One might suggest that language evolved along with the normative control systems of our pre-human ancestors, but it is thought that the first hominids to be physiologically capable of speech existed roughly 60,000 to 100,000 years ago -- as Cro-Magnons (and, controversially, perhaps as Neanderthals). See Bar-Yosef and Vandermeersch, p. 99.

¹⁰See Hampden-Turner, pp. 80-4. The limbic system, called the "paleomammalian cortex" by MacLean, surrounds the brainstem (what he calls the "reptilian" brain). "The older brains seem involved in the ancestral lore of the species, i.e., hierarchies of dominance-submission, sexual courtship and display, follow-my-leader rituals, mass migration, ganging-up on the weak and the new, defending territory, hunting, hoarding, bonding, nesting, greeting, flocking and playing." See also MacLean, p. 31. Carlson, p. 331, notes that Papez and MacLean were unaware that "parts of the limbic system (notably, the hippocampal formation and the region of the limbic cortex that surrounds it) are involved in learning and memory rather than emotional behavior. However, the rest of the limbic system does seem to do what Papez and MacLean hypothesized." For technical detail including supporting research, see Gianotti et al., pp. 73-4.

¹¹Locke (1975) demonstrated remarkable insight when he noted that the will is determined by the mind as it is buffeted about by various uneasinesses (249, 261-3), whose influence is determined by their relative insistency in impinging upon the mind. Our power to "suspend prosecution of this or that desire," and examine the benefits of alternatives to our most clamorous desires, is the source of our liberty. In modern terms, the uneasiness we experience when contemplating the pursuit of actions we see as destructive or counter-productive, or when contemplating the avoidance of actions we see as good and important, is the force that may propel us to adopt the right course of action. The neuropsychology of this process probably involves developing connections between the neocortex and the limbic system such that we become uneasy whenever we sense a discrepancy between our actions or our plans and the goals we accept as important. If we are emotionally committed to being the sort of person who steadfastly pursues important goals, we may just have the motivational resources to overcome more primitive, short-term, parochial motivations.

¹²See Carlson, pp. 327-31. One interesting effect observed in cases of orbitofrontal damage is that pain no longer bothers the subject -- it loses its motivational force.

¹³See Trivers, pp. 368-82, and de Waal (1996, pp. 80-9), who discusses prescriptive rules, reciprocity, moral aggression, and revenge among primates.

¹⁴See Pratto, pp. 116-20. A well known example of unconscious evaluation is the "mere exposure" effect, in which repeated exposure to an image below the threshold of consciousness makes that image more appealing when we experience it consciously. A more practical application, p. 134, is that automatic evaluation allows us to direct our attention to negatively evaluated stimuli: "automatic vigilance". Gibbard acknowledges the similar view of William Lyons (130, note 2) that "evaluations are not epistemologically cognitive -- not matters of knowledge, perception, or acquaintance". See also Gianotti et al., pp. 74-7 for a discussion of how sensory experience acquires emotional meaning via a "subcortical route", and of "the 'schematic level' of emotional processing."

¹⁵See Martin, pp. 29-30.

¹⁶Griffiths, pp. 185-95, makes a good case for psychoevolutionary theory, and examines how it might answer a number of difficulties from competing theories. His discussion of "affect-programmes" triggered by modular systems is echoed by Gianotti et al., p. 77: "Subcortical structures, such as the hypothalamus and the amygdala, probably house innate neuromotor programmes (corresponding to a small number of basic emotions), which generate specific sets of expressive, behavioral, and autonomic emotional reactions in response to appropriate stimuli."

¹⁷Gainotti et al., p. 79, notes that patients with right-brain damage "seemed to ignore the obvious consequences of their disabilities, treating them with cheerful acceptance, sometimes even jokingly." This casts doubt on the notion that amusement is a right-brain phenomenon.

¹⁸See de Waal (1996), p. 82.

¹⁹Ibid, p. 83.

²⁰Ibid, p. 89.

²¹See also Brehm and Kassin, pp. 648-54; 661. "Because behavior can be changed, behavioral self-blame is an unstable, internal attribution that opens the door to future control. By modifying their behavior, people might be able to reduce current stresses or avoid future ones. In contrast, enduring personal characteristics are hard to change, and characterological self-blame is a stable, internal attribution that does not hold out the promise of re-establishing control." "According to this analysis, behavioral self-blame should be associated with good adjustment and characterological self-blame with poor adjustment." Though the terms aren't used here, it seems clear that the emotions accompanying these two modes of self-blame are guilt and shame.

²²See Gainotti et al., pp. 77-87.

²³I can't defend this claim in detail here, but I want to present it nonetheless: a simple functionalist perspective resolves a long-standing debate in psychology about whether emotion causes related cognitive states and behaviors, or cognitive states cause emotions and behaviors, or behavior causes cognitive and emotional states. Associations develop among the behavioral, emotional, and cognitive components of brain activity, functionally produced by bi-directional neurological connections. Any given complex of emotions, then, activates behavioral and cognitive areas of the brain that have been associated with those emotions, and the associations best matching current perceptual circumstances determine current behaviors and cognitive states; the same is true of behaviors activating associated emotions and cognitive states and of cognitive states activating associated behaviors and emotions.

²⁴This is why I see Gibbard's norm-expressive use of 'rational' as a usurpation. It is the phenomenal success brought to our epistemic, logical, and theoretical pursuits by the faculty of reason that has earned the approval enjoyed by the term 'rational'. To claim that this approval is the primary component of meaning when we use the term is to deny the basis of our approval.

²⁵See Brehm and Kassin, pp. 46-93. They discuss self-schemas, self-concepts, self-evaluation, social comparison, facial feedback, and other pertinent subjects in their chapter "The Social Self". This discussion includes Stanley Schachter's two-factor (physiological arousal vs. cognitive interpretation) theory of emotion -- one mentioned by Gibbard (145, note 15), which corresponds well with the account I have been developing here (particularly with respect to the linking of emotions to concepts and the social communication of emotional interpretations).

²⁶Using the "visual cliff" made famous by Joseph Campos and his colleagues, Sorce et al. (1985) demonstrated that mothers can induce fear or caution in infants by adopting a grimace of fear; the theory is that certain basic survival emotions such as fear are hard-wired to the motor mechanisms that produce the applicable expressions. Infants naturally copy the expressions of their mothers, thus experiencing the appropriate emotion for the situation.

²⁷See Over and Manktelow, pp. 232-40.

²⁸See especially Railton (1992, pp. 963-964): the most sensible thing one might say here is that there are two separate meanings of 'rational' -- a factual/explanatory one and an evaluative one. "If the wedding of explanatory and justificatory functions within one term is an error, it is an error of common sense, and so divorce would involve a non-trivial revision of our ordinary discourse." But "ordinary discourse" need not be protected or accommodated if we have a compelling explanation of why it is systematically flawed.

Parenthetically, it seems odd to me that a single element of expression we might impose on a term is supposed to consign that term irrevocably to the "norm" side of the purported fact/norm dichotomy -- yet a single element of description fails to co-opt the term for factual purposes. Would evaluation of a factual term influence its meaning, or would it be otherwise relevant? I daresay it wouldn't. But would factual (Galilean) explanation of an evaluative term elucidate its meaning or be otherwise relevant? I think so.

²⁹Again, I'm concerned with functional mechanisms, regardless of whether they turn out to reside compactly, say, within the left or right hemisphere. To avoid unwieldiness, I will often speak of the left and right hemispheres when I want to refer to the functions for which prevailing theory says they are specialized.

³⁰Gibbard's proposed normative-Galilean language, or something like it, might provide a resolution to this problem -- simply by making what had been an implicit element of endorsement explicit. I should note, though, that to adopt this proposal is to deconstruct norm-expressivism. No longer could one claim that the chief point of calling something 'rational' or 'beautiful' or 'successful' (or any other positively weighted term) is to endorse it, for the endorsement now is expressed separately by its own term, 'it makes sense to'. At any rate, we have little hope for philosophical development unless we eliminate the endemic equivocation that results from semantic dualism.

³¹See pp. 48-50: "'Rational' is in some ways the wrong way for my purposes. I treat calling something 'rational' as a flat recommendation." "Perhaps the word 'rational' rarely has this meaning, but when it does, then what it is rational to do settles what to do. Likewise, what it is rational to believe settles what to believe, and what it is rational to feel about something settles how to feel about it."

³²Gibbard relegates his discussion of inclusive fitness to two footnotes (28 note 4; 62 note 7), focusing in the text on personal reproductive success as an individual's telos (29). This has the effect of emphasizing the goals and interests of individuals over the telos of Life as a whole.

³³See Binswanger, p. 520.

³⁴Paired virtual particles (say, an electron and a positron) are thought to appear occasionally out of nothingness, and observed radiation from black holes has been interpreted as evidence of this: when virtual particles appear near the event horizon of a black hole, one particle may be captured while the other escapes, giving the appearance that the black hole is radiating energy.

³⁵See Binswanger, pp. 512, 520.

980802