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Evolution and the Problem of Other Minds

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Journal of Philosophy, Inc.

Evolution and the Problem of Other Minds

Author(s): Elliott Sober
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Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 97, No. 7 (Jul., 2000), pp. 365-386
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________________________________+-
-+l 0

THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

VOLUME XCVII, NO. 7, JULY 2000

,+- 0 +

EVOLUTION AND THE PROBLEM OF OTHER MINDS*

T he following diagram illustrates two inference problems.
First, there is the strictly third-person behavior-to-mind prob-
lem' in which I observe your behavior and infer that you
occupy some mental state. Second, there is the Self-to-Other prob-
lem, in which I notice that I always or usually occupy some mental
state when I behave in a particular way; then, when I observe you
produce the same behavior, I infer that you occupy the same mental
state. This second inference is the subject of the traditional philo-
sophical problem of other minds.
How are these inferences related? Notice that the inputs to
behavior-to-mind inference are a subset of the inputs to Self-to-Other
inference. In the first, I consider the behavior of the other individual;
in the second, I consider that behavior, as well as my own behavior
and mental state. This suggests that, if Self-to-Other inferences can-
not be drawn because the evidence available is too meager, the same
will be true of behavior-to-mind inferences as well.
I see no reason to think that a purely third-person scientific psy-
chology is impossible. Of course, if one is a skeptic about all nonde-
ductive inference, that skepticism will infect the subject matter of
psychology. And if one thinks that scientific inference can never

*My thanks to Colin Allen, Martin Barrett, Marc Bekoff, Tom Bontly, Nancy Cart-
wright, James Crow, Frans De Waal, Ellely Eells, Mehmet Elgin, Berent Encs,Branden
Fitelson, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Daniel Hausman, George Kampis, Richard Lewontin,
Barny Loewer, David Papineau, Daniel Povinelli, Lariy Shapiro, and Alan Sidelle for
useful comments. I also have benefitted from discussing this paper at London School
of Economics and Political Science, at University of Illinois/Chicago, at Caltech, at
E6t6s University, at the University of Vienna, and at Northern Illinois University.
I This terminology is from Larry Shapiro, "Presence of Mind," in Valerie Gray
Hardcastle, ed., Biology Meets Psychology: Constraints, Connections, and Conjectures
(Cambridge: MIT, 1999), pp. 133-50.

0022-362X/00/9707/365- 86 ( 2000 The Journal of Philosophy, Inc.

365
366 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

Self Other

Behavior B B

Self to Behavior
Other to Mind

Mind M M?

Figure 1

discriminate between empirically equivalent hypotheses, one also will

hold that science is incapable of discriminating between such hypoth-
eses when their subject matter is psychological. These are not special
problems about psychology, however. What, then, becomes of the
problem of other minds? If that problem concerns the tenability of
Self-to-Other inference, it appears to be no problem, if science is able
to draw behavior-to-mind inferences.
To see how the Self-to-Other problem can be detached from the
problem of strictly third-person behavior-to-mind inference, we need
to distinguish absolutefrom incrementalversions of the Self-to-Other
problem. The absolute problem concerns whether certain input
information permits me to infer that the other person occupies
mental state M rather than some alternative state A. As I have said, if
information about the behavior of others permits me to infer that
they are in mental state M, then it is hard to see why this inference
should be underminedby adding the premise that I myself am in
mental state M when I produce behavior B. The question remains,
however, of whether first-person information makes a difference. To
whatever degree third-person information provides an indication of
whether the other person has M or A, does the addition of first-
person information modify this assessment? This incremental version
of the Self-to-Other problem is neutral on the question of whether
third-person behavior-to-mind inference is possible. It is this incre-
 EVOLUTION AND THE PROBLEM OF OTHER MINDS 367

mental problem which I think forms the core of the problem of other
minds, and this is the problem which I want to address here.2
I
Although the problem of other minds usually begins with an intro-
spective grasp of one's own mental state, it can be detached from that
setting and formulated more generally as a problem about "extrap-
olation." Thus, we might begin with the assumption that human
beings produce certain behaviors because they occupy particular
mental states and ask whether this licenses the conclusion that mem-
bers of other species that exhibit the behavior do so for the same
reason. None of us knows just by introspection, however, that all
human beings who produce a given behavior do so because they
occupy some particular mental state. In fact, this formulation of the
problem of other minds, in which it is detached from the concept of
introspection, is usually what leads philosophers to conclude that
inferences about other minds from one's own case are weak. The fact
that I own a purple bow tie should not lead me to conclude that you
do, too. This point about bow ties is supposed to carry over to the fact
that I have a mind and occupy various mental states. I know that I
own a purple bow tie, but not by introspection.3
Discussion of the problem of other minds in philosophy seems to have
died down (if not out) around thirty years ago.4 Before then, it was
discussed as an instance of "analogical"or "inductive"reasoning and the
standard objection was that an inference about others based on your
own situation is an extrapolation from too small a sample. This problem
does not disappear merely by thinking of introspective experience as

2 There is a further reason for focusing on the incremental problem; it permits us to

investigate the problem of other minds without formulating it as a problem about

acceptance.The lottery paradox shows how difficult it is to say how much evidence in
favor of a hypothesis is needed for one to believe the hypothesis. On this, see Heniy
Kyburg, Probabilityand theLogic of Rational Belief (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan, 1961).
3 The fact that the problem of other minds can be detached from the idea of
introspection does not entail that introspection has no special epistemic standing. Even
if I can know things about my mind by pathways not open to you, the question remains
of how I should extrapolate this self-knowledge to others. I should mention that I see
no reason to think that the semantics of mentalistic terms entails that this epistemo-
logical problem cannot be posed intelligibly. Even if I fix the meaning of the word
'pain' by applying it to various experiences that I have had to date, it remains to be said
whether the term also applies to others (or to myself at later dates).
4 Perhaps one reason the problem largely lapsed from philosophical discussion is

that it had become so closely connected with questions about logical behaviorism.
When logical behaviorism went out of fashion, so did the problem of other minds.
Behaviorism was replaced by a version of mentalism that emphasized the idea that
third-person mentalistic hypotheses are to be judged, like other scientific hypoth-
eses, on the basis of their ability to explain and predict. In consequence, the
Self-to-Other problem was replaced by the behavior-to-mind problem.
368 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

furnishing you with thousands of data points. The fact remains that they
all were drawn from the same urn-your own mind. How can sampling
from one urn help you infer the composition of another?
When the problem is formulated in this way, it becomes pretty clear
that what is needed is some basic guidance about inductive inference.
The mental content of Self-to-Otherinference is not what makes it prob-
lematic, but the fact that it involves extrapolation. Some extrapolations
make sense while others do not. It seems sensible to say that thirst makes
other people drink water, based on the fact that this is usually why I
drink. Yet it seems silly to say that other folks walk down State Street at
lunchtime because they crave spicy food, based just on the fact that this
is what sets me strolling. By the same token, it seems sensible to attribute
belly buttons to others, based on my own navel gazing. Yet it seems sillyto
universalizethe fact that I happen to own a purple bow tie. What gives?
The first step toward answering this question started to emerge in
the 1960s, not in philosophy of mind, but in philosophy of science.
There is a general point about confirmation that we need to take to
heart: observations provide evidence for or against a hypothesis only
in the context of a set of background assumptions. If the observations
do not deductively entail that the hypothesis of interest is true, or that
it is false, then there is no saying whether the observations confirm or
disconfirm, until further assumptions are put on the table. This may
sound like the Duhem/Quine thesis, but that way of thinking about
the present point is somewhat misleading, since Pierre Duhem5 and
W. V. Quine6 discussed deductive, not probabilistic, connections of
hypotheses to observations. If we want a person to pin this thesis to,
it should be I. J. Good.7 Good made this point forceftlly in connec-
tion with Carl Hempel's8 formulation of the ravens paradox. Hempel
thought it was clear that black ravens and white shoes both confirm
the generalization that all ravens are black. The question that inter-
ested him was why one should think that black ravens provide stron-
ger confirmation than white shoes. Good responded by showing that
empirical background knowledge can have the consequence that

5 In The Aim and Structureof Physical Theory (Princeton: University Press, 1914/
19r.4).
6 In "Two Dogmas of Empiricism," in From a Logical Point of View (Cambridge:

Harvard, 1953), pp. 20-46

7 In "The Whlite Shoe Is a Red Herring," BritishJournalfor the Philosophyof Science,
xvii (1967): 322, and in "The Wh-ite Shoe Qua Herring Is Pink," BritishJournalfor
the Philosophyof Science,XIX (1968): 156-57.
8 "Studies in the Logic of Confirmation," in Aspects of Scientific Explanation and
OtherEssays (New York: Free Press, 1965), and "The White Shoe: No Red Herring,"
BritishJournal for the Philosophyof Science,xviii (1967): 239-40.
 EVOLUTION AND THE PROBLEM OF OTHER MINDS 369

black ravens actually disconfirm the generalization. Hempel replied

by granting that one could have special information that would
undercut the assumption that black ravens and white shoes both
confirm. He thought that in the absence of such information, how-
ever, it was a matter of logic that black ravens and white shoes are
confirmatory. For this reason, Hempel asked the reader to indulge in
a "methodological fiction." We are to imagine that we know nothing
at all about the world, but are able to ascertain of individual objects
what colors they have and whether they are ravens. We then are
presented with a black raven and a white shoe; logic alone is sup-
posed to tell us that these objects are confirming instances. Good's
response was that a person in the circumstance described would not
be able to say anything about the evidential meaning of the observa-
tions. I think that subsequent work on the concept of evidence, both
in philosophy and in statistics, has made it abundantly clear that
Good was right and Hempel was wrong. Confirmation is not a two-
place relationship between observations and a hypothesis; it is a
three-place relation between observations, a hypothesis, and a back-
ground theory.9 Black ravens confirm the generalization that all
ravens are black, given some background assumptions, but fail to do
so, given others. And if no background assumptions can be brought
to bear, the only thing one can say is: out of nothing, nothing comes.
If we apply this lesson to the problem of other minds, we obtain the
following result: the fact that I usually or alwayshave mental property
Mwhen I perform behavior B is, by itself, no reasonat all to think that
you usually or alwayshave M when you perform B. If that sounds like
skepticism, so be it. The inference from Self to Other can make
sense, however, once additional background assumptions are stated.
A nonskeptical solution to the problem of other minds, therefore,
must identify plausible further assumptions that bridge the inferen-
tial gap between Self and Other.10

9 In fact, there are many important circumstances in which the evidence relation
must be four-placed-a set of observations favors one hypothesis over another,
relative to a set of background assumptions. This is the proper format for likelihood
inference; see Richard M. Royall, Statistical Evidence: A LikelihoodParadigm (Boca
Raton: Chapman and Hall/CRC, 1997), and my "Testability," Proceedingsand Ad-
dressesof the AmericanPhilosophicalAssociation, LXXIII (1999): 47-76; the latter is also
available at the following URL-http://philosophy.wisc.edu/sober.
10 I am not going to discuss in this paper what it means for two individuals to
exhibit "the same behavior," but I shall make two comments. First, there is no
requirement that they exhibit the same muscular movements; on this point, see
Berent Encs, "Units of Behavior," Philosophyof Science,LXII (1995): 523-42. Second,
however behaviors are individuated, it is important that one be able to say that two
individuals share a behavioral trait without already knowing what the proximate
370 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

II
The problem of other minds has been and continues to be important in
psychology (actually,in comparative psychology), except that there it is
formulated in the first-personplural. Suppose that when human beings
perform behavior B, we usually or alwaysdo so because we have mental
property M. When we observe behavior B in another species, should we
take the human case to count as evidence that this species also has
mental property M? For this problem to be nontrivial, we assume that
there is at least one alternativeinternal mechanism, A, which also could
lead organisms to produce the behavior. Is the fact that humans have M
evidence that this other species has M rather than A?
Discussion of this problem in comparative psychology has long
been dominated by the fear of naive anthropomorphism.11 This
attitude was crystalized by C. Lloyd Morgan,12 who suggested that, if
we can explain a nonhuman organism's behavior by attributing to it
a "higher" mental faculty, or by assigning it a "lower"mental faculty,
then we should prefer the latter explanation. Morgan's successors
embraced this "canon" because of its prophylactic qualities-it re-
duces the chance of a certain type of error. It is important to
recognize, however, that there are twotypes of error that might occur
in this situation:

O lacks M O has M

Deny that 0 has M type-2 error

Affirm that 0 has M type-1 error

Morgan's canon does reduce the chance of type-1 error, but that is
not enough to justify the canon. By the same token, a principle that
encouraged anthropomorphism would reduce the chance of type-2
error, but that would not justify this liberal principle, either.

mechanism is (cognitive or otherwise) that leads them to produce the behavior;

otherwise the inference problem here addressed could not get off the ground; see
my "Black Box Inference: When Should an Intervening Variable Be Postulated?"
BritishJournal for the Philosophyof Science,XLIX (1998): 469-98.
'1 See Daniel C. Dennett, "Intentional Systems in Cognitive Psychology: The
'Panglossian Paradigm' Defended," in The Intentional Stance (Cambridge: MIT,
1989), pp. 237-68, and Colin Allen and Marc Bekoff, Speciesof Mind: The Philosophy
and Biology of CognitiveEthology (Cambridge: MIT, 1997).
12
In An Introduction to CoornparativePsychology(London: Walter Scott, 1903).
 EVOLUTION AND THE PROBLEM OF OTHER MINDS 371

Morgan tried to give a deeper defense of his canon; he thought he

could justify it on the basis of Darwin's theory of evolution. Although
Morgan's interesting argument does not work,13 it is noteworthy that
Morgan explicitly rejects what has become a fairly standard view of his
principle-that it is a version of the principle of parsimony. Morgan
thought that the simplest hypothesis about nonhuman organisms is
that they are just like us. Parsimony favors anthropomorphism; the
point of the canon is to counteract this tendency of thought. As we
shall see, Morgan's conception of the relationship of his canon to the
principle of parsimony was prescient.
I now want to leave Morgan's late-nineteenth century ideas about
comparative psychology behind, and fast forward to the cladistic revolu-
tion in evolutionary biology that occurred in the 1970s and after. The
point of interest here is the use of a principle of phylogenetic parsimony
to infer phylogenetic relationships among species, based on data con-
cerning their similarities and differences.'4 Although philosophers of-
ten say that parsimony is an ill-defined concept, its meaning in the
context of the problem of phylogenetic inference is pretty clear. The
hypotheses under consideration specify phylogenetic trees. The most
parsimonious tree is the one that requires the smallest number of
changes in character state in its interior to produce the observed distri-
bution of characteristicsacross species at the tree's tips.
Consider the problem of inferring how sparrows, robins, and croc-
odiles are related to each other. Two hypotheses that might be
considered are depicted in Figure 2. The (SR)C hypothesis says that
sparrows and robins have a common ancestor that is not an ancestor
of crocs; the S(RC) hypothesis says that it is robins and crocs that are
more closely related to each other than either is to sparrows. Now
consider an observation-sparrows and robins have wings, while croc-
odiles do not. Which phylogenetic hypothesis is better supported by
this observation?
If winglessness is the ancestral condition, then the (SR)C hypoth-
esis is more parsimonious. This hypothesis can explain the data about
tip taxa by postulating a single change in character state on the
branch with a slash through it. The S(RC) hypothesis, on the other
hand, must postulate at least two changes in character state to explain
the data. The principle of cladistic parsimony says that the observa-
tions favor (SR)C over S (RC). Notice that the parsimoniousness of a

13
For discussion, see my "Morgan's Canon," in Colin Allen and Denise Dellarosa
Cummins, eds., The Evolution of Mind (New York: Oxford, 1998), pp. 224-42.
14
See, for example, Niles Eldredge and Joel Cracraft, PhylogeneticPatterns and the
EvolutionaryProcess (New York: Columbia, 1980).
372 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

characters w w -w w w -w
taxa Sparrows Robin Crocs Sparrows Robin Crocs

ancestralcharacterstate -w -w
(SR)C S(RC)

Figure 2

hypothesis is assessed not by seeing how many changes it says actually

occurred, but by seeing what the minimum number of changes is that
the hypothesis requires. (SR)C is more parsimonious because it
entails a lower minimum.15
Although cladistic parsimony first attracted the attention of biolo-
gists because it helps one infer genealogical relationships, there is a
second type of problem that parsimony allows one to address. If you
use a set of traits to reconstruct the genealogy that connects several
contemporaneous species (as in Figure 2), you can place a new set of
traits on the tip species in that inferred tree and use parsimony to
infer the character states of their ancestors. This inference is illus-
trated in Figure 3. Given the character states (is and Os) of tip
species, the most parsimonious assignment of character states to
interior nodes is the one shown.'6
Parsimony is now regarded in evolutionary biology as a reasonable
way to infer phylogenetic relationships. Whether it is the absolutely
best method to use, in all circumstances, is rather more controversial.
And the foundational assumptions that need to be in place for

15
Cladistic parsimony does not entail that all similarities are evidence of common
ancestry. For example, the two hypotheses depicted in Figure 2 would be equally
parsimonious if wings were ancestral rather than derived. For discussion, see my
Reconstructingthe Past: Parsimony,Evolution, and Inference(Cambridge: MIT, 1988).
16 Figure 3 illustrates a pattern of inference that is important in the study of

human evolution. Why should features that are shared among current hunter-
gatherer societies be thought to provide an indication of the ancestral human
condition? After all, we cannot assume that hunter gatherers are "living fossils."
The reason the inference makes sense is that current hunter gatherers are very
distantly related to each other; this is what makes any similarities they may exhibit
relevant to estimating the character state of the most recent common ancestor
shared by all human lineages.
 EVOLUTION AND THE PROBLEM OF OTHER MINDS 373

Figure 3

parsimony to make sense as an inferential criterion are also a matter

of continuing investigation.
The reason I have explained the basic idea behind cladistic parsi-
mony is that it applies to the problem of other minds, when Self and
Other are genealogically related. Suppose both Self and Other are
known to have behavioral characteristic B, and that Self is known to
have mental characteristic M. The question is whether Other should
be assigned Mas well. As before, I shall assume that Mis sufficient for
B, but not necessary (an alternative internal mechanism, A, also could
produce B). The two hypotheses we need to consider are depicted in
Figure 4. If the root of the tree has the characteristic not-B (and so
has neither-M-nor-A),17 then the (Same) hypothesis is more parsimo-
nious than the (Diff) hypothesis. It is consistent with (Same) that the
postulated similarity linking Self and Other is a homology; it is
possible that the most recent common ancestor of Self and Other had
M, and that M was transmitted unchanged from this ancestor to the
two descendants. The (Same) hypothesis, therefore, requires only a
single change in character state, from neither-M-nor-A to M. In
contrast, the (Diff) hypothesis requires at least two changes in char-
acter state.18
Frans De Waal"9presents this cladistic argument in defense of the
idea that parsimony favors anthropomorphism-we should prefer the

]7 We might have evidence that not-B is the ancestral character state by looking
at a number of further individuals, besides Self and Other, who provide relevant
"out-groups," as in Figure 3.
18 Notice that, if no assumption is made about the character state at the root of
the tree, (SAME) is more parsimonious. But if A is the ancestral character state,
(SAME) and (DIFF) are equally parsimonious.
19 In "Complementary Methods and Convergent Evidence in the Study of Primate
Social Cognition," Behaviour, cxviii (1991): 297-320, and in "Anthropomorphism
and Anthropodenial: Consistency in Our Thinking about Humans and Other
Animals," Philosophical Topics (forthcoming).
374 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

Self Other Self Other

B B B B
M M M A

not-B not-B
(SAME) (DIFF)
Figure 4

hypothesis that other species have the same mental characteristics

that we have when they exhibit the same behavior.20 This parsimony
argument goes against Morgan's canon, just as Morgan foresaw. De
Waal adds the reasonable proviso that the parsimony inference is
strongest when Self and Other are closely related.
There is another proviso that needs to be added to this analysis,
which is illustrated in Figure 5. As before, Self and Other are ob-
served to have behavioral trait B. We know by assumption that Self
has the mental trait M. The question, as before, is what we should
infer about Other: Does it have M or A? The new wrinkle is that there
are additional species depicted in the tree, ones that are known to
lack B. The genealogical relationships that connect these further
species to Self and Other entail that the most parsimonious hypoth-
esis is that B evolved twice. It now makes no difference in parsimony
whether one thinks that Other has M or A. What this shows is that
parsimony favors anthropomorphism about mentalistic properties
only when the behaviors in question are thought to be homologous.
This point has implications about a kind of question that often
arises in connection with sociobiology. Parsimony does not oblige us
to think that "slave-making"in social insects has the same psychoso-
cial causes as slave-making in humans (or that rape in human beings
has the same proximate mechanism as "rape"in ducks). The behaviors
are not homologous, so there is no argument from parsimony for
thinking that the same proximatemechanismsare at work. This is a
point in favor of the parsimony analysis- cladistic parsimony ex-
plains why certain types of implausible inference really are implausi-

20 See also my "Morgan's Canon"; and Shapiro, "Adapted Minds" (unpublished).

 EVOLUTION AND THE PROBLEM OF OTHER MINDS 375

Self Other
B [a not-B - ] B
M neitherM norA ?

Figure 5

ble. Parsimonious anthropomorphism is not the same as naive

anthropomorphism.
Just as extrapolation from Self to Other can be undermined by
behavioral information about other species, extrapolation also can be
undermined by neurophysiological information about Self and Other
themselves. If Self has mental state M by virtue of being in physical
state P1, what are we to make of the discovery that Other has physical
state P2 (where P1 and P2 are mutually exclusive)? If we accept
functionalism's assurance that mental state M is multiply realizable,
this information does not entail that Other cannot be in mental state
M; after all, P2 might just be a second supervenience base for M. On
the other hand, P2 might be a supervenience base for alternative state
A, and not for Mat all. This inference problem is illustrated in Figure
6. For simplicity, let us suppose that P1 and P2 each suffice for B. P1
produces B by way of mental state M; it is not known at the outset
whether P2 produces B by way of mental state M, or by way of
alternative state A. We assume that the ancestor at the root of the tree
did not exhibit the behavior in question, and that this ancestor had
trait PO.
The conclusion we must reach is that the two hypotheses in Figure
6 are equally parsimonious. (Same) says that Self and Other both
have M and that P1 and P2 are two of Ms supervenience bases.
(Same) requires two changes to account for the characteristics at the
tips; either P1 or P2 evolved long ago from an ancestor who had P0,
and then either P1 changed to P2, or P2 changed to P1, in a
subsequent branch of the tree. Of course, not-B changed to B in the
same branch in which PO changed to either P1 or P2, but this does
not count as twochanges, since the first entails the second. The (Diff)
hypothesis also requires two changes if the root of the tree's having
376 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

Self Other Self Other

M M M A
Pi P2 P1 P2

-B, PO -B, PO
(SAME) (DIFF)
Figure 6

POis to be transformed into Self's having P1 and Other's having P2.

Of course, (Diff) also will require changes from neither-M-nor-A at
the root to M and A at the tips, but these do not count as changes
additional to the ones that occur among P0, P1, and P2. Thus, the
discovery of relevant neurophysiological differences can provide a
context in which anthropomorphism is not sanctioned by parsimony
considerations.
As a final exercise in understanding how the machinery of phylo-
genetic parsimony applies to the problem of extrapolating from Self
to Other, let us consider the current controversy in cognitive ethol-
ogy concerning whether chimps have a theory of mind.2' It is as-
sumed at the outset that chimps have what Daniel C. Dennett (op. cit.)
terms first-order intentionality; they are able to formulate beliefs and
desires about the extra-mental objects in their environment. The
question under investigation is whether they, in addition, have
second-order intentionality. Do they have the ability to formulate
beliefs and desires about the mental states of Self and Other? Adult
human beings have both first- and second-order intentionality. Do
chimps have both, or do they have first-order intentionality only?
Figure 7 provides a cladistic representation of this question. I
assume that the ancestral condition is the absence of both types of
intentionality, and that second-order intentionality can evolve in a
lineage only if first-order intentionality is already in place. The point
to notice is that parsimony considerations do not discriminate be-
tween the two hypotheses. The (SAME) hypothesis and the (DIFF)

21
See the essays collected in Peter Carruthers and Peter K. Smith, eds., Theoriesof
Theoriesof Mind (New York: Cambridge, 1995), and C. M. Heyes, "Theory of Mind
in Nonhuman Primates," Behavioral and Brain Sciences,XXI (1998): 101-48.
 EVOLUTION AND THE PROBLEM OF OTHER MINDS 377

species humans chimps humans chimps

intentionality
first-order yes yes yes yes
second-orderintentionality yes yes yes no

(SAME) (DIFF)
Figure7

hypothesis both require two changes in the tree's interior-first- and

second-order intentionality each must evolve at least once. The prin-
ciple of parsimony in this instance tells us to be agnostic, and so
disagrees with Morgan's canon, which tells us to prefer (DIFF).
Why does the problem formulated in Figure 7 lead to a different
conclusion from the problem represented in Figure 4 in terms of the
two states M and A? In Figure 4, we find that parsimony consider-
ations favor extrapolation; in Figure 7, we find that extrapolating is
no more and no less parsimonious than not extrapolating. Notice
that Figure 4 mentions the behavior B, which internal mechanisms M
and A are each able to produce. Figure 7, however, makes no
mention of the behaviors that first- and second-order intentionality
underwrite. This is the key to understanding why the analyses come
out differently.
The point behind Figure 4 is this: if two species exhibit a homol-
ogous behavior, each of them must also possess an internal mecha-
nism (M or A) for producing the behavior. It is more parsimonious
to attribute the same mechanism to both Self and Other than to
attribute different mechanisms to each. This pattern of argument can
be applied to the problem depicted in Figure 7 by making explicit the
behavioral consequences that first- and second-order intentionality
are supposed to have. Suppose that first-order intentionality allows
the organisms that have it to exhibit a range of behaviors Bi. When
a species that has first-order intentionality evolves second-order in-
tentionality, this presumably augments the behaviors that organisms
in the species are able to produce; the repertoire expands to
378 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

B1&B2.22 If human beings exhibit B1 because they have first-order

intentionality, we parsimoniously explain the fact that chimps also
exhibit B1 (if they do) by saying that chimps have first-order inten-
tionality. But there is no additionalgain in parsimony to be had from
attributing second-order intentionality to them as well, unless we also
observe them producing the behaviors in B2.23
Cognitive ethologists are trying to find behaviors that chimps will
produce if they have second-order intentionality but will not produce
if they possess first-order intentionality only.24 Identifying behaviors
of this sort would permit an empirical test to be run concerning
whether chimps have a theory of mind. It certainly is desirable that
such behaviors should be found. Even if chimps exhibit B2, however,
the question arises of why we should explain this by attributing
second-order intentionality to them, rather than some alternative
mechanism A. Of course, A will not be the trait of purely first-order
intentionality, but presumably there are more than two options to be
considered here. It is at this point that the principle of parsimony
makes its entrance; if chimps exhibit behavior B2, this is better
explained by the hypothesis that they have second-order intentional-
ity than by the hypothesis that they have alternative mechanism A.
III
Why should we trust the parsimony arguments just described? Is
parsimony an inferential end in itself or is there some deeper justi-
fication for taking parsimony seriously? In the present circumstance

22
Some of the most interesting experiments on whether chimps have a theory of
mind have been carried out by Daniel Povinelli; he looks for a B2 and finds that it
is absent. I discuss his "knower/guesser" experiment in "Black Box Inference."
More recently, Povinelli and Steve Gambrone have argued that "a novel psycholog-
ical system for generating and sustaining higher-order representations, including
the representation of other minds, may have evolved in the human lineage without
radically altering our basic behavior patterns [italics mine]"-see their "Inferring
Other Minds: Failure of the Argument by Analogy," Philosophical Topics (forthcom-
ing). The words I have italicized in this quotation are important; the authors do not
deny that there are behavioral differences between present day human beings and
chimps that reflect the fact that the former have a theory of mind while the latter
do not. Their suggestion is that the initial appearanceof second-ordering intention-
ality may have had little or no immediate effect on behavior, but may have been a
building blockthat allowed more substantial behavioral divergence to occur later.
23 Suppose there is a behavior that human beings sometimes produce by using

first-order intentionality only and sometimes by using second-order intentionality.

What inference should we draw if we observe chimps producing this behavior?
Again, there is no difference in parsimony between (SAME) and (DIFF).
24 In fact, a behavioral test need not take this extreme form. It would suffice to

find behaviors that are probableif subjects have a theory of mind but improbableif they
have first-order intentionality only. The behavior need not be impossiblein the
absence of a theory of mind.
 EVOLUTION AND THE PROBLEM OF OTHER MINDS 379

at least, there is no need to regard parsimony as something that we

seek for its own sake.25 My suggestion is that parsimony matters in
problems of phylogenetic inference only to the extent that it reflects
likelihood.26Here, I am using the term 'likelihood' in the technical
sense introduced by R. A. Fisher. The likelihood of a hypothesis is the
probability it confers on the observations, not the probability that the
observations confer on the hypothesis. The likelihood of H, relative
to the data, is Pr(Data I H), not Pr(H I Data).
To see how the likelihood concept can be brought to bear on
cladistic parsimony, consider Figure 2. It can be shown, given some
minimal assumptions about the evolutionary process, that the data
depicted in that figure are made more probable by the (RS)C hy-
pothesis than they are by the R(SC) hypothesis. These assumptions
are as follows:
characterstates of ancestorsand descendantsare positively
Heritability:
correlated;thatis, Pr(Descendanthas a wing IAncestorhas a wing) >
Pr(Descendanthas a wing IAncestorlacksa wing).
Chance:all probabilitiesare strictlybetween 0 and 1.
lineages evolve independently of each other, once they
Screening-off:
branchoff from their most recent common ancestor.
What we have here, in its essentials, is a proof that Hans Reichen-
bach27 gave in connection with his "principle of the common cause."
I think that most biologists would agree that these three assump-
tions hold pretty generally. The first of them does not say that
descendants probably end up resembling their ancestors. The claim
is not that stasis is more probable than change-that Pr(Descendant
has a wing IAncestor has a wing) > Pr(Descendant lacks a wing I
Ancestor has a wing). Rather, the claim is that, if a descendant has a
wing, that this result would have been more probable if its ancestor
had had a wing than it would have been if its ancestor had lacked a
wing.28 The last assumption, it should be noted, is not exceptionless;

25 The same point can be made in

connection with the use of a parsimony
criterion in problems of model selection, including curve-fitting problems; see
Malcolm Forster and my "How to Tell When Simpler, More Unified, or Less Ad Hoc
Theories Will Provide More Accurate Predictions," BritishJournalfor thePhilosophyof
Science,XLV (1994): 1-36.
26 J
defend this suggestion in my Reconstructingthe Past.
27
In The Direction of Time (Berkeley: California UP, 1956). For discussion, see
chapter 3 of my Reconstructingthe Past.
28 The concept of heritability used here is closer to narrow sense heritability than

to broadsenseheritability; see D. S. Falconer and Trudy F. C. Mackay, An Introduction

to Quantitative Genetics(London: Longmans, 1996, 4th ed.). It neither implies nor is
implied by the idea of genetic determination. A trait can be heritable and still be
380 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

after all, there are ecological circumstances in which a lineage's

evolving a trait influences the probability that other contemporane-
ous lineages will do the same. But even here, the assumption of
independence is often true; and when it is false, it usually can be
weakened without materially affecting the qualitative conclusions I
want to draw.
Not only does likelihood provide a framework for understanding
the role of parsimony considerations in phylogenetic inference; it
also has implications about the Self and Other problem depicted in
Figure 4. If traits M and A obey the assumptions listed, the following
inequality is a consequence:
(P) Pr(Self has M I Other has M) > Pr(Self has 1 I Other has A).

This proposition says that Self and Other are correlated (noninde-
pendent) with respect to the traits M and A. It also says that there is
a likelihood justification for anthropomorphism.29 The observation
that Self has M is rendered more probable by the hypothesis that
Other has M than by the hypothesis that Other has A. Such differ-
ences in likelihood are generally taken to indicate a difference in
support-the observation favors the first hypothesis over the sec-
ond.30
The likelihood concept also throws light on De Waal's proviso-
that parsimonious anthropomorphism is on firmer ground for our
near relatives than it is for those individuals to whom we are related
more distantly. We may translate this into the claim that the two

influenced by the environment. And a trait can be genetically determined and still
not be heritable; the traits male (XY) and female (XX) provide examples.
29 Hybrids aside, two species have a unique species that is their most recent
common ancestor. Sexually reproducing individuals are not like this, however.
Full-sibs have two parents as their most recent common ancestors. And first cousins
usually overlap only partially in the set of ancestors they have two generations back;
each has four grandparents, but (usually) only two of them are shared. How, then,
does the Reichenbachian picture of common causes apply to human genealogies?
The simplest way to connect them is to think of the common causes as sets of
individuals, not as singletons. Thus, two full-sibs have the same parental pair as a
common cause. And two first cousins can be thought of as tracing back to a set of
six individuals; this is the set of all their grandparents, including the ones they do
not share. Standard Mendelian genetics assures us that the state of this set screens
off one cousin's genotype from the other's. Of course, this set is not limited to the
two cousins' commnon ancestors. It can be shown that the common ancestors do
screen off, however, since the ancestors in the set who are not shared influence one
cousin's genotype but not the other's; see my and Martin Barrett's "Conjunctive
Forks and Temporally Asymmetric Inference," AustralasianJournal of Philosophy,LXX
(1992): 1-23.
30 See Royall; and my "Testability."
 EVOLUTION AND THE PROBLEM OF OTHER MINDS 381

X Y Z

a b

Figure 8

probabilities compared in proposition (P) are more different when

Self and Other are closely related and become more similar as the
relationship becomes more distant. This thesis is illustrated by Figure
8, in which Xand Yare more closely related to each other than either
is to Z. The lower-case letters in the tree's interior are path coeffi-
cients, which entail that the correlation of X and Y (ray) and the
correlation of X and Z (r7zz)have the values rxag= ab and rxz = acd.
Notice that rxaz> rxz if and only if b > cd. This inequality need not be
true, but it does follow from an assumption that often figures in
evolutionary discussions. This is the assumption of uniforinrates-that
a given evolutionary event has the same probability of occurring in
different contemporaneous branches of a tree. In the present exam-
ple, uniform rates means that a = b and d = ac, which suffices to
insure that X and Y are more strongly correlated than are X and Z.
Thus, De Waal's proviso31 is not true unconditionally; but when it is
true, it need not be added as an independent constraint on parsi-
mony arguments (which have no machinery for taking account of
recency of divergence). The proviso flows from a likelihood analysis.

31I hope it is clear that this claim does not underwrite racist, nationalist, or
species-istconclusions. The argument does not provide a reason for denying that
individualsoutside one's own "group"have minds. For one thing, it is a mistaketo
think of one's self as belonging to just one group; each organism belongs to
multiple, nested groups. For another, the argument presented here does not
concern acceptance or rejection. And, finally, it is important to remember that
Self-to-Otherinference is not the only pathwayby which we form beliefs about the
internal statesof others. There is, in addition, the possibilityof strictlythird-person
behavior-to-mindinference. Much of our confidence concerning the mental states
of others presumablyrests on this second sort of inference. The point I am making
about the incremental Self-to-Other problem is that the increment provided by
knowledge of Self falls off as genealogical relatednessbecomes more distant.
382 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

IV

Genealogical relatedness suffices to justify a likelihood inference

from Self to Other, if the Reichenbachian assumptions that I de-
scribed hold true. But is genealogical relatedness necessary for this
extrapolation to make sense? Proposition (P) says that Self and Other
are correlated with respect to trait M. What could induce this corre-
lation? Reichenbach argued that whenever there is a correlation of
two events, either the one causes the other, or the other causes the
one, or the two trace back to a common cause. Considerations from
quantum mechanics suggest that this is not always the case,32 and
doubts about Reichenbach's principle can arise from a purely classi-
cal point of view as well.33 If we are not prepared to suppose that
mentalistic correlations between Self and Other are brute facts, how-
ever, and if Self's having Mdoes not causally influence whether Other
has M (or vice versa), then Reichenbach's conclusion seems reason-
able, if not apodictic; if Self and Other are correlated, this should be
understood as arising from a common cause.
Genealogical relatedness is one type of common-cause structure. It
can induce the correlation described in (P) by having ancestors
transmit genes to their descendants, but there are alternatives that we
need to recognize. To begin with, parents exert nongenetic influ-
ences on their offspring through teaching and learning. For exam-
ple, children have a higher probability of speaking Korean if their
parents speak Korean than if their parents do not, but this is not
because there is a gene for speaking Korean. And there are nonge-
netic connections between parents and offspring that do not involve
learning, as when a mother transmits immunity to her children
through her breast milk.
Correlations between Self and Other also can be induced by com-
mon causes when Self and Other are not genealogically related. If
students resemble their teachers, then students of the same teacher
will resemble each other. Here, learning does the work that genetic
transmission is also able to do. Similarly, Self and Other can be
correlated when they are influenced by a common environmental
cause that requires no learning. For example, if influenza is spread-
ing through one community, but not through another, then the fact

32 See Bas van Fraassen, "The Charybdis of Realism: Epistemological Implications

of Bell's Inequality," Synthese,LII (1982): 25-38.

33 See van Fraassen, "Rational Belief and the Common Cause Principle," in

Robert McLaughlin, ed., What? Where?When? VVhy? Essays in Honor of WesleySalmon

(Boston: Reidel, 1982), pp. 193-209; Nancy Cartwright, Nature's Capacitiesand Their
Measurement(New York: Oxford, 1989); and my Reconstructingthe Past, chapter 3.
 EVOLUTION AND THE PROBLEM OF OTHER MINDS 383

M
Pi

P2
A
Figure 9

that I have the flu can be evidence that Other does, too, if the two of
us live in the same community.
I list these alternatives, not because they apply with equal plausi-
bility to the problem of other minds, but to give an indication of the
range of alternatives which needs to be considered. Genealogical
relatedness is only an example; the fundamental question is whether
there are common causes impinging on Self and Other that induce
the correlation described in (P). If there are, then there will be a
likelihood justification for extrapolating from Self to Other.34
V
What, exactly, does cladistic parsimony and its likelihood analysis tell
us about the problem of other minds? When I cry out, wince, and
remove my body from an object inflicting tissue damage, this is
(usually) because I am experiencing pain. When other organisms
(human or not) produce the same set of behaviors, is this evidence
that they feel pain? This hypothesis about Other is more parsimoni-
ous (if the behaviors are homologous and there are no known
relevant neurophysiological differences), and it is more likely (if
Reichenbachian assumptions about common causes apply). Does
that completely solve the problem of other minds, or does there
remain a residue of puzzlement?
One thing that is missing from this analysis is an answer to the
question-how much evidence does the introspected state of Self
provide about the conjectured state of Other? I have noted that the
likelihoods in proposition (P) become more different as Self and

34 Although I have described M and A as possible causes of the behavior B, this is

not essential for the parsimony or likelihood arguments I have presented. Suppose
that Mand A are epiphenomenalconsequencesof the physical states P1 and P2, and are
related to the behavior B as shown in Figure 9. If P1 suffices for M and B while P2
suffices for B and A, parsimony and likelihood are relevant to deciding whether M/I
or A should be attributed to Other, given that Self has M.
384 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

Other become more closely related, but this comparative remark

does not entail any quantitative benchmarks. It is left open whether
the observation stronglyfavors one hypothesis over the other, or does
so only weakly.
Another detail that I have not addressed is how probable it is that
Other has M. If I have M when I produce behavior B, and Other
exhibits B, is the probability greater than 1/2 that Other has M as well?
The previous discussion helps answer that question, in that principle
(P) is equivalent to the claim that Self's having M raises the proba-
bility that Other has M. Whatever the prior probability is that Other
has M, the posterior probability is greater. Whether additional infor-
mation can be provided that allows the value of that posterior prob-
ability to be estimated is a separate question.
A genealogical perspective on the problem of other minds helps
clarify how that problem differs from the behavior-to-mind problem
discussed at the outset. At first glance, it might appear that it does not
matter to the problem of other minds whether the other individual
considered is a human being, a dog, an extraterrestrial,or a computer.
In all these cases, the question can be posed as to whether knowledge of
one's own case permits extrapolation to another system that is behaving
similarly. We have seen that these different formulations receive differ-
ent answers. I share ancestors with other human beings, and I share
other, more remote, ancestors with the nonhuman organisms found on
earth. If there are creatures on other planets that evolved independently
of life on earth, however, then I share no common ancestors with them.
In this case, extrapolation from Self to Other does not have the genea-
logical justification I have described. I would go further and speculate
that it has nojustificationat all. This does not mean that we should never
attribute mental states to such creatures. What it does mean is that we
must approach such questions as instances of the purely third-person
behavior-to-mindinference problem. Similar remarks also may apply to
computers. When they behave similarly to us (perhaps by passing an
appropriate Turing test or by playing a competent game of chess), we
may ask what causes them to do so. We have no ancestors in common
with them; rather, we have constructed them so that they produce
certain behaviors. Does this fact about the design of computers provide
a reason to think that the proximate mechanisms behind those behav-
iors resemble those found in human beings? Arguably not. For extra-
terrestrialsand (arguably)for computers, extrapolation from one's own
case will not be justified. Indeed, this point applies to organisms with
whom we do share ancestors, if the behaviors we have in common with
them are not homologies (Figure 5). And even when Self and Other do
exhibit a behavioral homology, if Self and Other are known to deploy
 EVOLUTION AND THE PROBLEM OF OTHER MINDS 385

different neural machinery for exhibiting that behavior, the extrapola-

tion of M from Self to Other is undermined (Figure 6).
A probabilistic representation of the problem of other minds shows
that the usual objection to extrapolating from Self to Other is in fact
irrelevant,or, more charitably,that it rests on a factual assumption about
the world that we have no reason to believe. The question is not whether
introspected information about one's own mind provides lots of data or
only a little. Rather, the issue is how strong the correlation is between
Self and Other. Consider two urns that are filled with balls;each ball has
a color, but the frequencies of different colors in the urns are unknown.
The urns may be similar or identical in their compositions, or they may
be very different. If I sample one ball from the first urn and find that it
is green, does this provide substantial evidence concerning the second
urn's composition? If I sample a thousand balls from the first urn, does
this allow me to say any more about the second? Everythingdepends on
how the two urns are related. If they are independent, then samples drawn
from the first, whether they are small or large, provide no information
about the second. But if they are not independent, then even a small
sample from the first may be informative with respect to the second.
There is nothing wrong with askingwhether knowledge of Self supports
a conclusion about Other. But the skeptical assertionthat it does not
involves a factual claim about the world. A claim of independence is no
more a priori than a claim of correlation. If the relevant mental states of
Self and Other arejoint effects of a common cause (with the properties
that Reichenbach described), then the skeptical assertion is false.
The argument I have presented is intended to show how certain
propositionsare justified; I have not addressed the question of whether
people are justified in believing this or that proposition. My own
mental state can be an indicator of the mental states of others,
whether or not I know that this is true, or understand why it is true.
But what is required for people to be justified in extrapolating from
Self to Other? Must they know the fine points of phylogenetic parsi-
mony or of likelihood analysis? Or does it suffice that a given extrap-
olation is sanctioned by parsimony or likelihood considerations? This
is the epistemological thicket in which internalist and externalist
views of justification are in contention.35 I shall not try to evaluate
these different approaches to the concept of justification, nor to say
in any detail how they are related to the ideas I have developed in this

35 For discussion, see Laurence Bonjour, "Externalism/Internalism," inJonathan

Dancy and Ernest Sosa, eds., A Companion to Epistemology(Cambridge: Blackwell,

1992).
 386 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

paper, but I do want to explore one line of questioning that arises

from an internalist point of view.
Is it possible for me to figure out that proposition (P) is true, if I do
not already know whether Other has M or A? Surely, I can. I can tell
whether M is heritable by looking at still other individuals who are
known to have either Mor A and see how they are related genealogically.
But is it possible to determine that (P) is true without knowing anything
about which individuals (other than one's self) have M and which have
A? Without this information, how can I tell whether the traits are
heritable?36 Well, knowledge in some strong philosophical sense is
probably unnecessary, but perhapsjudgments about heritabilityrequire
one to have reasonable opinions, however tentative, about which indi-
viduals have which traits. Even so, the solution to the problem of other
minds that I have suggested would not be undermined. The incremen-
tal version of the problem, recall, asks whether knowledge of my own
case should make a difference in the characteristicsI attribute to others.
It is not required that I conceive of myself as beginning with no knowl-
edge at all concerning the internal states of others.
We learned from Good that there is no saying whether a black raven
confirms the generalization that all ravens are black unless one is pre-
pared to make substantivebackground assumptions. The mere observa-
tion that the object before you is a black raven is not enough. The same
point, applied to the problem of other minds, is that the mere observa-
tion that Self and Other share B and that Self has M is not enough.
Further assumptions are needed to say whether these observations con-
firm the hypothesis that Other has M. Recognizing this point in the
ravens paradox does not lead inevitablyto skepticism, and it should not
have that effect in the case of Self-to-Otherinference. The problem of
other minds should not be shackled with the "methodological fiction"
that Hempel imposed on the ravens paradox. When the fetters are
broken, the problem of other minds turns into the problem of searching
out common causes.
ELLIOTT SOBER
University of Wisconsin/Madison
London School of Economics and Political Science

36
To be sure, it is possible to tell whether the behavior B is heritable (since B is
observable), but the heritability of B is neither necessary nor sufficient for the
heritability of M and A. I thank Branden Fitelson and Richard Lewontin for helping
me clarify this point.

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