Sorites problem or problem of the Heap

It was then that it became apparent to me that these dilemmas – and indeed, many others – are manifestations of a more general problem that affects certain kinds of decision-making. They are all instances of the so-called ‘Sorites’ problem, or ‘the problem of the heap’. The problem is this: if you have a heap of pebbles, and you start removing pebbles one at a time, exactly at what point does the heap cease to be a heap? The heap I want to employ to illustrate this problem is the heap of hair that used to adorn my head, before time weeded my cranium.

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Photographic evidence shows that in 1980 I had a full head of hair, while in 1990 I was bald. It follows from this that some time in the 1980s I became bald. However, it seems impossible – or daft – to state when it was I crossed the boundary – to say, for example, that I became bald at 8:30 p.m. on 27th August 1987. And yet there must have been a moment between the two dates when I became bald, otherwise I would not have arrived at the state of being bald by the time 1990 came. The fundamental problem is that of mapping a dichotomous distinction – not-bald versus bald – on to what is essentially a continuous process of hair loss.

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When we try to apply ethical principles to the slippery material of everyday life, we are all of us in the uncomfortable position of having to dichotomise over a continuum.

Is Morality an Evolutionary Trait ?

Cooperate and be damned?
Author: Mukul Sharma |

Where does morality come from? For the majority of people who are believers, it comes from God because God is the ultimate good and, therefore, He must have created us with the ability to know right from wrong — as opposed to animals who we assume don’t have this judgemental acumen.

But then along came Darwin and the moral naturalists who felt that such a discerning sensibility was an evolutionary handme-down established by such social creatures as bees, pack-hunting wild dogs and monkeys who cooperate towards a common goal for the betterment of their group or community.

Or, as David Brooks puts in a recent New York Times op-ed, “By the time humans came around, evolution had forged a pretty firm foundation for a moral sense… we have natural receptors that help us recognise fairness and cruelty.”

He then quotes a study where six-month-old babies were shown photographs of a figure struggling up a hill along with another figure helping him and a third hindering. Apparently, even these early infants demonstrated their preference for the helper over the hinderer.

It’s a short detour from there to altruism, sacrifice and the search for value within the environment of cooperation. Yet, there’s a problem: cooperation doesn’t axiomatically culminate in goodness or value.

The unbelievable degree of teamwork achieved by George Clooney’s gang of casino robbers in Ocean’s Eleven is something that would put whole generations of termites to shame, but does that mean what they did was right?

The Nazis collaborated like a fine-tuned orchestra in running their concentration camps for a ‘final solution’, but is genocide right?

Is there a shred of morality here? Cooperation might have evolutionary value, but is not necessarily principled on ethics because it’s ultimately limited in scope. Survival of the fittest may be transformed into survival of the ‘goodest’, but only in a very restrictive sense where the greater good is conveniently left out.

On the other hand, take a man who says he will not kill any animal for food even if that animal happens to be an accidental germ. Such a person is actually bucking every evolutionary attribute in him that predicates the kind of meal his species intakes. Others may think he’s completely nuts, but no one in his right mind believes he’s a bad person or in any way evil. So much for evolution explaining our morality