Wilson's Incoherent Naturalism

The famed entomologist E.O. Wilson passed away last December 26 at the age of 92.

Wilson, whose specialty was ants, was a seminal figure in the development of what's called Sociobiology, the theory that our behavior is fundamentally determined by our genes which have evolved to induce behaviors that make it more likely that our genes will be propagated into the next generation.

E.O. Wilson

Richard Weikart critiqued Wilson's views on human nature, morality and religion in his book The Death of Humanity: And the Case for Life some of which is excerpted here. On Wilson's view of free will Weikert writes:

Wilson claims that ultimately every phenomenon in the cosmos can be reduced to physical laws, so the human mind is simply physical brain activity, and humans have no free will.

[He] argues that all animal behavior, including that of humans, is controlled by material processes in the brain that evolved through natural selection.

If Wilson is correct about material processes producing all our thoughts then he's also correct that we have no free will, and if he's correct that we have no free will then he's also correct when he states that morality is just an illusion.

As he states in an article co-authored with philosopher Michael Ruse in 1985, “Ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to co-operate.”

Weikert also describes Wilson's view of the meaning or purpose of human life:

In [his book] Sociobiology he stated that “in evolutionary time the individual organism counts for almost nothing.” The only significance of an individual organism is to reproduce: “the organism is only DNA’s way of making more DNA.”

In The Meaning of Human Existence (2014) Wilson explains that there is no ultimate meaning or purpose in life. Rather, he asserts, the only meaning we have is that we are the product of mindless evolutionary processes. He states,

We were created not by a supernatural intelligence but by chance and necessity as one species out of millions of species in Earth’s biosphere. Hope and wish for otherwise as we will, there is no evidence of an external grace shining down upon us, no demonstrable destiny or purpose assigned us, no second life vouchsafed us for the end of the present one.

We are, it seems, completely alone. And that in my opinion is a very good thing. It means we are completely free.

Wilson argues that all organic processes — and here he clearly includes human behavior — are ultimately reducible to the laws of physics and chemistry. For Wilson evolution has clearly replaced religion as the source of answers about the purpose and destiny of life.

He asserted, “The great questions — ‘Who are we?’ ‘Where did we come from?’ and ‘Why are we here?’ — can be answered only, if ever, in the light of scientifically based evolutionary thought.”

And here is where the great scientist runs completely off the rails. What does it mean to say that we have no free will but then insist that we are completely free? Weikert states that "Wilson explains that this freedom gives us options that 'empower us to address with more confidence the greatest goal of all time, the unity of the human race.' ”

But if morality is an illusion why should we care about the unity of the human race? On what is this expression of Wilson's moral sensibility based? Why, if the whole raison d'etre of human existence is to promote the survival of one's DNA, should anyone care about anything other than one's own welfare?

And if our death is the end of our existence, if our lives have no real meaning, why should people care about the unity of the human race after they're dead?

Wilson evidently wants to believe at one and the same time that we have no free will, but also that we're completely free; that life has no meaning - that we are nothing more than the result of mindless material processes - but also that the "great questions" are nevertheless somehow important; and that morality is an illusion but also that we should care about our fellow man and strive for the unity of humanity (whatever that means).

If Weikert's excerpts from Wilson's writings are a fair representation of Wilson's thought then it seems obvious that like so many others who embrace naturalistic materialism, Wilson could not avoid philosophical incoherence. He evidently found it impossible to maintain philosophical consistency in his worldview, which causes one to wonder why he persisted in it.