REVIEWSrnBiological Moralityrnby David GordonrnConsilience: The Unity of Knowledgernby Edward O. WilsonrnNew York: Alfred A. Knopf;rn332 pp., $26.00rnEdward Wilson views the humanitiesrntoday with alarm. In the hardrnsciences, the pursuit of objective knowledgernremains the order of the day. Notrnso in literary studies, where decofistructionrndissolves hard facts into arbitraryrnperspectives.rnEach author’s meaning is uniquernto himself, goes the underlyingrnpremise; nothing of his true intendonrnor anything else connected tornobjective reality can be reliably assignedrnto it. His text is thereforernopen to fresh analysis and commentaryrnissuing from the equallyrnsolipsistic world in the head of thernreviewer.rnMr. Wilson, a world-renowned biologist,rnwill have none of this: In the sciences,rnwe have just the sort of knowledgernour literary nihilists declare impossible.rnWhen, through painstaking study, Wilsonrndiscovered that ants communicaternby releasing chemicals called pheromones,rnhe was not adding a new fantasyrnto the world’s stock of stories; to the contrary,rnhe had found out a hitherto unknownrnaspect of the natural world.rnMoreover, Mr. Wilson maintains, thernfacts that scientists have discovered, andrnthe theories they have devised to accountrnfor them, fit together to form a coherentrnworld oudook. He designates this unifiedrnview with the recondite word “consilience,”rnwhich he has taken from arn19th-century British philosopher, WilliamrnWhewell.rnMr. Wilson is, of course, free to adoptrnthe terminology he wishes, but one wondersrnwhy he employs a term Whewell intendedrnfor an enhrely different use. Asrna glance at his own quotation fromrnWhewell suffices to show, by “consilience”rnthe philosopher meant severalrn”inductions”—generalizations from empiricalrndata—supporting a common theory:rnMr. Wilson, by contrast, means thatrnthe theories of the various sciences comportrnwell with one another.rnIn what way? Physics is the most basicrnscience: Its laws govern all matter. Consistentrnwith it, scientists have devised anrnaccount of the origin of our universernfrom the Big Bang. And, of course, sciencerndoes not stop here. Biological lifernand, later, consciousness arose from nonlivingrnmatter, in the way Darwinian biologyrnhas elucidated. Here, it is safe to say,rnMr. Wilson’s heart is to be found. Thernevolutionary story lies at the center of thernconsilient outlook that Wilson wieldsrnagainst the deconstructionists. By resortrnto the wonders of evolution, especiallyrnas this concerns the human brain, therntangled problems of philosophy may bernsolved and objective knowledge vindicated.rnMr. Wilson’s defense of sciencernagainst “social constructionist” detractorsrncommands our admiration. But his attemptrnto dissolve the world-riddlernthrough evolution succeeds no betterrnthan that of his great predecessor ErnstrnHaeckel. Though widely read in philosophyrn(especially the works of sympatheticrntheorists such as the Churchlands andrnDaniel Dennett), Wilson has littie understandingrnof how philosophical argumentrnproceeds. He writes, for example:rnThe canonical definition of objectivernscientific knowledge avidlyrnsought by the logical positivists isrnnot a philosophical problem norrncan it be attained, as they hoped,rnby logical and semantic analysis. Itrnis an empirical question that canrnbe answered only by a continuingrnprobe of the physical basis of thernthought process itselfrnHow can he say such things? Thernconclusions of brain science are themselves,rnobviously, statements. What doesrnit mean to say that they are true? What isrnfurther resort to the anatomy or physiologyrnof the brain supposed to tell us? Mr.rnWilson has confused a problem of therntheory of knowledge—what is truth? —rnwith another issue, to which the workingsrnof the brain may indeed be relevantrn—what is consciousness?rnEthics, as Mr. Wilson sees matters,rnmay also be disposed of quickly:rnJohn Rawls. .. offered the veryrnplausible premise that justice berndefined as fairness, which is to bernaccepted as an intiinsic good.. ..rnBut in making such an assumption,rnRawls ventured no thoughtrnon where the human brain comesrnfrom or how it works…. I find itrnhard to believe that had Kant,rnMoore, and Rawls known modernrnbiology and experimental psychologyrnthey would have reasoned asrnthey did.rnOnce more our author rides his hobbyrnhorse. How can an elementary moralrntruth, e.g., “It is wrong to torture babiesrnfor fun,” be set aside (or for that matterrnconfirmed) by an account of what goesrnon in the brain? Is the immorality ofrnmass murder a conjecture dependent onrnthe results of neurology for confirmation?rnMr. Wilson speaks slightingly of moralrnintuitions and what he is pleased to callrn”secular transcendentalism.” But the biologicalrnaccount of morality that he proposesrnto substitute for the unscientific vaporingsrnof Kant and similar amateurs isrnpalpably inadequate. He has a very plausiblernaccount of how rules that maximizedrnthe inclusive fitness of our ancestorsrnduring the Pleistocene might haverndeveloped, but what has this to do withrnthe moral principles that we should nowrnadopt? Evolutionary stories of the sortrnour author favors are powerless to accountrnfor the Golden Rule: Inclusive fitnessrncan, at least prima facie, explain onlyrnaltruistic actions among small groups.rnMr. Wilson may respond that this objectionrnassumes the truth of the transcendentalrnview he rejects, but the point isrnnot so easily evaded. He himself eloquentlyrnadvocates efforts to preserve arnwide variety of species from destruction.rnHow can he account for his own conservationistrnprinciple on the evolutionaryrntheory he espouses? Whatever its merits,rnMr. Wilson’s biophilia has little to dornwith the inclusive fitness he thinks centralrnto ethics. If he dissents, what is his argument?rnLike ethics, religion must also be sub-rnAPRIL 1999/27rnrnrn