Science: It Works!
Posted in Science, Thinking Critically on | 1 minute | 48 Comments →…for completely robbing Earth of her natural resources, that is.
Atheists and skeptics—the faithful congregation of the First Church of Scientism—can often be found singing praises to their god, but we rarely hear them tell the whole story. The faithful are quick to chant, “science the best method we have of finding the truth,” but why don’t they also chant, “science is the leading cause of our destruction?” Why might that be? Is there a corollary between the religionist and the proponent of scientism in this regard?
Anyways. I’m back from vacation, hope you’re all well. Any suggestions for new posts?
dale
says...you probably can sit on this one for a while. the flood gate has been opened.
it’s true.
this is an interesting take on the debate. usually, atheists and anti-god scientist point fingers at religion and expect the debate to circle around the one with spiritual faith as having to be the one to explain and justify that which the opponent does not like or believe.
it’s rare that a scientist gets put up on the witness stand. i’m curious as to how this will unfold.
dale
says...what’s been worse for the planet…when the lord split the adam? or when man split the atom?
Peter Hurford
says...Welcome back!
I’ll definitely admit that the progress of science can be dangerous, and needs better safety controls. I don’t know what those safety controls are. Ironically enough, it might be science that we need to save ourselves from science.
Jayman777
says...I think everyone is prone to put their beliefs in a positive light. For example, a Christian might brag about Christianity putting an end to slavery while failing to mention that some Christians tried to support slavery. This isn’t to say that religion or science may not have a net positive effect, just that things are not black and white.
Adam
says...My suggestion of a topic would be to focus on ethics. I think it is more important for Christians to continue to present sound ethics. I think that if atheists are ever to come up with a sound ethical theory they can agree upon it would do more to uproot Christianity than science since many Christians are fine with their creationism and many are fine in accepting evolution.
Stephen R. Diamond
says...Welcome back. You imply an interesting question: Does one prefer the kind of life science has provided, including the risk of extinction, or would you prefer the life that would be likely without science, with dramatically lower existential risk?
Consistent with the celebration of science, I don’t hesitate to opt for the first. I wonder if you would opt for the second.
What about certain extinction? I think I would still opt for the first. I’d prefer that civilization briefly flower, even if it means humanity doesn’t survive. Completely subjective choice, as far as I can tell.
[This is a forced-choice thought experiment related to personal values. I’m not proposing possible realities.]
joseph
says...A thought I had was that if atheists act like science is God then God is definitely not omnibenevolent, but merely reflects the morals of society. I find that theistic Gods do the same, but are promised, or implied, to be a source of moral good beyond the humanly possible.
Ronin
says...I do not think there is anything wrong with science per se. And, I don’t find it “ironic” but I do find it nonsensical to believe science can solve science’s problem(s) when it’s actually a human problem. Perhaps what we need is a friendly AI or some other concoction we can come up with that will help us make our decisions. Yet, to the best of my knowledge, science in itself is amoral and/or devoid of ethics; this [robbing the earth of its natural resources with tools that were/are birthed by science] is an ethical discussion. However, if there is no inherent ethics and/or morality, how can we come to the table and have a discussion about this?
Stephen R. Diamond
says...Yes, this is one of the key reservations people have about amoralism (which I endorse). Stating the point differently, we do have discussions about such matters: doesn’t that demonstrate that an “inherent ethics or morality” (that is, an absolute, objective morality) exists?
I address this question in terms of my habit theory of principle of integrity in “A habit theory of civic morality” (http://tinyurl.com/7t3zrrl)
Stephen R. Diamond
says...But this particular human problem wouldn’t exist were it not for science. We wouldn’t have the means to deplete the world’s natural resources; even the American Natives lacked the fire power to deplete the buffalo.
I think cl’s observation that science is rarely held responsible for the ills in which it play accessory is perceptive. My hypothetical answer is that most people are like me: they value what science has accomplished even if they cause the extinction of our species. People aren’t nearly as concerned with having many future generations as they pretend. It’s something of a matter of political correctness to show concern with future generations. cl’s question–is science really that good a thing–isn’t asked because people don’t want to answer it honestly: we like what science has given us, come what may.
Ronin
says...Does it? So, you endorse “amoralism” and also believe there is an “inherent ethics or morality”? Interesting, I suppose.
Which comes about from lack of applied ethics from humans when it comes to what should or should not be pursued in science.
Have you tested this hypothesis empirically? Or is this based on: because you believe it everyone-else probably does too?
Stephen R. Diamond
says...Ronin,
1. Sorry I wasn’t clear. I mean I reject “an inherent ethics…”, that is, I reject “absolute, objective morality.” I interjected the synonym to connect with my terminology, in case you read the essay I linked to.
2. Yes, you’re right it isn’t just science that creates the problems. Science isn’t a sufficient cause for them, but that doesn’t justify ignoring that it is a sufficient cause.
3. Pure speculation based on introspection.
Stephen R. Diamond
says...Should be, doesn’t justify ignoring that it is a necessary cause.
cl
says...Dale,
LOL!
Peter,
Can be dangerous? Don’t you think that’s severely understated? C’mon Peter!
Jayman,
Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty much it.
Adam,
Good points. I hate writing about ethics, big time. However, I think that might be because I’ve never approached the issue from the angle you allude to. That is to say, my ethics post have always focused on dismantling proposed atheist ethics (e.g. desirism). I’ve actually felt an urge to catalog the Bible’s superior ethics for some time now, especially since atheists so often distort the truth (for example the Bible’s stance on “slavery”).
Stephen,
That is an interesting question, although, it wasn’t really what I was getting at. But I can play along…
Actually I wouldn’t, unless of course those were the only options on offer. I’d prefer a science informed by God. In fact, that’s what I think science was meant to be, but sin is in the way. The problem isn’t science. It’s sin and lack of knowledge, and it can’t be fixed in the current epoch.
Completely subjective indeed. You seem to imply that we are “flowering,” but I don’t agree, unless by “flowering” you simply mean more gadgets at hand with a longer life span. I think humanity has actually devolved significantly. But I do see what you mean.
Actually, it wouldn’t exist were it not for the godless science we’ve had for the past century or so. God-fearing scientists weren’t the ones who started this mess. They were content to reflect on the order of the cosmos. The current debacle only obtained once the godless scientists took over (generally speaking).
I think that’s a reasonable hypothesis.
joseph,
I’m not sold on that. If that were the case, we’d expect the Bible to endorse the slave trade, or infanticide, to name a few. But the Bible actually takes a stance opposite that of it’s times, in almost every instance I can think of.
Ronin,
Or, God. I agree that science isn’t inherently immoral. It just needs to be God-driven, as I imagine it will the next time around.
Ronin
says...cl,
Of course God for the theist, but you were alluding to atheism in the OP and the atheist would not say God. Not that I am an atheist, but I was presenting a claim from the atheist’s perspective (or so I think).
Peter Hurford
says...@mostly Cl:
Severely understated? Maybe I’m not taking some of the threat seriously enough, but I think you’re also overstating your case.
I think there are two big questions at play:
1.) To what extent, if any, does science provide a net increase in existential risk?
2.) Is that net increase in existential risk worth it as a cost-benefit analysis including the non-existential benefits of science? (Here, worth it can be interpreted as “would be preferred” by a relevant group of evaluators or single evaluator of your choice. This question may have multiple answers.)
~
The Question of Risk
Ok, so the problem doesn’t operate on the level of “science” because science doesn’t (usually) do things on their own — rather, it’s all about the human use of science. As Tom Mitchell would be fond of telling us, science is a tool.
I think it’s undeniable that general advances in technology have brought along large increases in existential risk, such as nuclear warfare, biological warfare, global warming, terrorism, etc.
Yet, as I alluded to, advances in technology also attempt to cancel this out, such as greater security, communication, monitoring, and understanding. We also have the ability to create technology to directly intervene. Despite making some diseases far more potent, technology has also cured lots of disease.
Technology could also stop existential risks that exist without it, such as asteroid impact or failure of our ecosystem. Even absent technology, Earth still wouldn’t last forever. We’d eventually need to perfect the technology necessary to colonize other worlds.
None of these are perfected yet, of course, but the point is that development might get us there. So the question of net existential risk, I think, is nowhere near as certain or dramatically large as you seem to allude: it seems like {big number} – {big number}, and I have no idea which number is bigger.
~
The Question of Cost-Benefit
I agree with Stephen’s question: even if we conclude that technology is a net existential risk, what do you think we should do about it? Abolish technology? Smash it into bits? Turn back the clock? All this seems pretty much impossible.
But even if it were possible, we would likely be losing a lot too. The standard of living has increased dramatically, due to technology. We, at least here in the developed world, nearly universally live comfy, well educated lives. Technology allows me to do far much more than I could otherwise. Without technology, this very conversation could not take place.
Lastly, I don’t think technology exists as a singular monolithic. Chances are, some technological research/development greatly impacts existential risk far more than other such R/D. (The Singularity Institute would argue one of these R/Ds is AI.) We might be able to curtail some of this while still maintaining the rest of science. And here’s where what I thought was the irony: this is the kind of investigative question best suited to science. Science helps evaluate and monitor the impact of science.
~
An Aside on Ethics
It depends on what you mean by “ethical discussion”. If it’s a question about looking for an absolute answer about what it is we all just simply should do about science, I think you’re going to be out of luck. But I still think we can talk about our preferences and begin to weigh them and create compromise.
I think it would work like nearly many other discussions. For example, when UN meets to discuss an impending problem, they don’t start searching for the absolute moral law about what to do (though they may occasionally appeal to certain inherent rights), but rather start compromising.
Ronin
says...Peter wrote:
I think this is an illusion, because when things “advance” [like security] so does its counter measures [i.e. hacking]. So, I do not think there is a “cancellation” of any sort. There might be a delay for period of time that will probably be part of the casual chain therein.
(emphasis is mine)
When you toss “inherent ethics and morality” and then start talking about inherent rights, I have to ask, “According to who? And, how do we even come to have inherent rights?” Because a certain group of people said so?
cl
says...Peter,
You said “can be” dangerous but the very science we’re talking about has confirmed that science as currently practiced *IS* very dangerous to our continued survival.
I’d agree with Tom that science is a tool.
TheistDude
says...I have a suggestion. Gay Marriage. What’s your take? Or have you written on this already?
Stephen R. Diamond
says...This seems the key point. Could you elaborate on the history? It doesn’t seem obvious to me that atheist scientists take a different approach or exercise different actual scruples about the development and application of technology. Of course it’s true that the subject problems didn’t clearly exist until this century, but how is this a function of the differing conduct of scientists?
Scientists generally seem to think they operate the same way regardless of their religion. If this were otherwise, you might here atheistic scientists demanding that religious scientists be disregarded based only on their religious affiliation. But I’ve never heard of such a thing. Do you think atheists should be barred from science, given that you think the convictions of materialist scientists cause our greatest problems?
There’s one instance I can think of where scientists struggled with the consequences of their acts: re the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb for use in WWII. This wasn’t a question of saving natural resources, but it was a question of saving or losing numerous human lives. The key scientist, Albert Einstein, decided to throw in with the project, but he was troubled by it. (I’d classify Einstein as pantheist; others call him a deist. Would you call him godless? How would you expect him to treat the consequences of science?) Robert Oppenheimer, who had some sympathies with Hinduism, administered the project and felt severe guilt about it the rest of his life.
I can’t say how I would have acted with much credibility, but I’d like to think I’d refuse. (I have no “morals,” but I do have political convictions.) I think many Christians supported the development of the bomb and even its use on Japanese cities. Do you think you would have; or do you now retrospectively?
I’d be happy to think that religion affects the way scientists do science. But I haven’t seen any evidence (aside from the brute correlation between atheistic opinion and ecological stress).
Stephen R. Diamond
says...Suggested topic: Lay out your complete assessment of the “Christian Right,” with particular emphasis on: the “free market,” economic inequality, supportable candidates, the Presidential election. (I emphasize these because, to my knowledge, you haven’t discussed them. I think I know your views on the schools and gays–and as far as gay marriage goes, I don’t think anyone can fault a Christian for opposing it.)
Stephen R. Diamond
says...Peter,
But the fact is the U.N. is mostly pretty ineffectual. Which is to say, there’s no guarantee that for any given dispute, some compromise is possible which everyone can accept. Even the EU is showing it can’t run that way.
Stephen R. Diamond
says...Ronin,
This is the same unclarity that bedeviled my post that you objected to, but here I can say Peter was not unclear. His point is to concede that the U.N. appeals to “inherent rights” (whose existence Peter rejects), but to say that despite this blemish, inherent rights play a minor role in U.N. deliberations.
I don’t know that the U.N.’s deliberation would in fact be possible, however, without the belief in “inherent rights.” And I don’t know that it would be a bad thing. U.N. moralism has been responsible for bloody wars–from Korea to Serbia and beyond. As I see it, the moralism was a cover for imperialism.
Peter Hurford
says...As Stephen mentioned, I meant that they manage to have conversations about what should be done without invoking ethics most of the time, pointing to an example of how such broad conversations about technology could be made, although they do occasionally talk about inherent rights as if they are a thing.
Of course, we don’t actually have inherent rights, and I don’t like speaking of rights because they tend to overly confuse and muddle the issue.
~
I believe I agreed with that. Though it might also (1) have a net benefit to us by reducing other dangers or (2) be on-the-whole beneficial because of non-existential benefits received. What do you think?
Also, I find it plausible that the reduction in the too-dangerous parts of science would not derail science on-the-whole, and perhaps could proceed in a significantly safer direction based on information we uncover via some sort of meta-science (science of how science is progressing). To what extent, if any, do you also find this plausible?
Or, more specifically, what are you getting at in this essay?
~
I would too.
~
Indeed, I agree. Suffice to say, it isn’t impossible either. Just hard. And it helps when people share goals and know they share goals.
~
I think it would be. They don’t invoke rights on every issue. And even when they do, it’s usually in the context of a value shared by the supermajority of delegates participating, even if it sounds like something delivered “on high”.
You don’t really hear anyone (except maybe China) say “Crap, I hate human rights and really with North Korea could get away with what they do, but I suppose we have to sanction them because the rights from on high say so.”
Peter Hurford
says...The thing about discussions without appealing to ethics is that there are still objective answers to some very relevant questions, such as “How can we change science to reduce the suffering of human and nonhuman animals?”. I don’t presume you would care about such a thing, but if you do, a hypothetical imperative can be constructed. Get enough people to care about this goal, and a robust discussion could unfold.
cl
says...TheistDude,
No, I haven’t written much at all on gay marriage. It’s such a touchy issue. On the one hand, I’m committed to the idea that God judges homosexuality as sin. Then again, God also judges many other things as sin. Why don’t “Christians” rally against other types of sinners getting married? We’re all sinners! I think “Christians” who vocally oppose gay marriage get suckered into expressing bigotry. At the same time, I do believe marriage is for a man and a woman. I just don’t bother expressing my opinion that the state should cater to my religious views. Honestly, I think the whole thing is another finely-crafted front on the culture war. The best solution would be to provide a sort of domestic partnership that covered the same rights as a marriage. That way, neither gays or Christians would have to whine and everybody would be happy.
In the final analysis, agendists really bother me, gay or Christian.
cl
says...Stephen,
Don’t get me wrong, there are atheist scientists who are concerned, but the founders of science were almost exclusively Biblical theists who saw science not so much as a way to get more trinkets but as the ultimate manifestation of God’s orderliness and majesty. Atheists don’t have that anchor, and in many cases—such as yourself—atheists are amoral people. Therefore, it only makes sense that these types would see the world as theirs for the taking without even questioning the long-term effects of their actions.
That’s quite commonplace. Perhaps the most prominent example is that big chicken, PZ Myers.
Of course not. I just wish the unscrupulous would get some scruples.
Einstein was not an atheist, so, no, and I believe he should have refused just as I would have. Further, any “Christian” who supported the atomic bomb drank Satan’s Kool-aid.
I appreciate your feedback, but… YUCK. I absolutely hate politics, especially when they marry with religion. How do you think it would behoove us if I pursue this?
cl
says...Peter,
Pardon my English and friendly jesting here, but what a load of unconstitutional nonsense! So, you wouldn’t seek legal action if some maniac broke into your home and murdered your family? This is where the inconsistencies really start to show, Peter. On the one hand, you want to sell us this hardcore materialist determinism, but on the other hand, you know damn well that you actually believe we have the inherent rights you deny (although you might call them “legal” rights or something else). Follow your atheism all the way through, be consistent, and admit ala Strawson that there is no such thing as moral responsibility and therefore it becomes absurd to seek something as silly as “justice.” That psychopath didn’t do anything wrong, he’s just acting at the whim of matter as decreed by physics at the singularity. So why on Earth are you going to seek retribution? You’d think it silly to sue a rock for falling on your car, yet, per your materialism, there is literally no difference between the rock and the psychopath. Both are sacks of matter devoid of free-will behaving according to the laws of physics.
I think this is pure speculation devoid of the empirical evidence you exalt as the highest measure of truth elsewhere. I think you’ve got significant work to do before we can even have a discussion. What “other dangers?” What “existential benefits?” Etc.
That double-standards annoy me. Atheists want to sing the praises of science on the one hand—in particular, whenever they wish to lambast their religious counterparts—but they are all-too-reluctant to tell the whole story. Simple as pie.
Ronin
says...cl wrote:
;)
Karl Grant
says...This kind of double-standard atheists have on science has always bothered me. They will go on-and-on about the wonders science has provided us like air travel, but counter with the existence of long-range bombers with nuclear payloads they either get pissed and start attacking you personally, try and change the subject, etc….
This reminds me of a conversation I had not too long ago on Dr. Reppert’s blog with Papalinton. He was going on and on about transhumanism, how science would allow us to surpass the limitations of our frail human bodies, never fear disease again, live forever etc… But the real fun part was when he started linking to articles to support his views and half of them had titles like The USA’s Transhuman Navy in 2020. Yes, military applications and weapons development, sounds like paradise doesn’t it?
cl
says...Hi Karl, nice to make your acquaintance. I suspect you already know this, but arguing with Papalinton is a worthless waste of time (unless one values endless arguments that go nowhere). He’s impervious to reason, he’s only there to insult and attack, and I’ve never once seen him concede a point or show any indication of pursuing truth. He argues with the maturity level of a college freshmen new atheist taking bong rips in his parents’ garage. Simply put, his attitude is that he’s enlightened, and he’s there to save us stupid Christians from the error of our ways. My honest conviction is that only prayer can pierce a wall that thick, and I feel a bit guilty about spending so much time arguing with atheists and so little time praying that God would bring us to common ground. Then again, it may already be too late for Paps. Who knows.
I honestly hope that my whole family dies before the science-robot-worshippers see their dreams realized. Eternal life is not worth having without uprooting sin and evil first. I also find it ironic that transhumanist, Luke Muehlhauser types end up endorsing the very same ends as Christianity: eternal, disease-free, good life. Whereas Christians are wise enough to realize the disastrous effects of sinful humans bringing this about, atheists plunge headlong into the riskiest venture this planet has ever known. It scares me.
At any rate, thanks for stopping by, hope to hear more from you.
Karl Grant
says...Cl,
Your description of Paps is right on the money. I have gotten to the point where I just ignore him most of the time. As for Luke Muehlhauser, that is not too surprising. As the political philosopher John Gray (who is agnostic, by the way) points out:
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/mar/15/society
I especially like how in the next paragraph he undercuts the myth as science as an engine of progress and enlightenment:
Peter Hurford
says...Apologies upfront, but you’ve asked too many questions full of complex error for this to be concise.
An Anti-Realist Ethic
We’ve discussed this a lot of this before on Atheism & Moral Naïveté, but we can go over this again.
Of course I would seek legal action, and I don’t need an inherent right in order to do so. In fact, it would be clearly in my best interest to use the existing legal institutions to get restitution, and clearly in the best interest of many others to stop a maniac who is likely going on to murder future people. By setting up a legal system to stop maniacs, most nearly everyone wins. That’s why society works.
~
I suspect this is the potential confusion. What is an inherent right, exactly?
What I mean to reject are the rights that we just plain simply have, that are woven into the fabric of the universe, and people are just plain mistaken when they go against them, as if they had added 1 + 1 and responded 3.
Now these kind of universal, human-independent, woven-into-the-universe kind of rights don’t exist. Rights instead come from the societies which give them the power. If we had no societies, we wouldn’t have much rights to speak of. Thus a distinction between “inherent” right and “legal” right comes from the ontology of the right, and is very important. Thus I can easily deny one and accept the other.
~
While I know you wouldn’t make this mistake, I would just like to point out that such a sad conclusion that there is no justice on atheism would not be a kind of conclusion that would make atheism false.
That being said, this is a slide for two. If you insist that we need these universal, human-independent, woven-into-the-universe kind of rights, you have to show where they come from. In short, you have to demonstrate some sort of categorical imperative to which all people are bound. I don’t think we can get one from anywhere, as I’ve been mentioning on my blog in my morality series.
Most notably, in On Oughts and Is, Part III, I show that even Divine Command Theory cannot get us this kind of universal oughtness that we seek. So perhaps you should just follow your theism all the way through, be consistent, and admit that there is no such thing as moral responsibility and therefore it becomes absurd to seek something as silly as “justice.”
After all, if we just accept Jesus, our sins are forgiven, right? (This question is not serious, and intended to be the intellectual equivalent of your determinism “people are just rocks” scare argument.)
All this being said, we can avoid the slide altogether by just appealing to what we already have. We have a wide variety of pressures to promote cooperation amongst people in a society, and one of these pressures is an idea of “responsibility”. “Justice” is a name given to the institutional system that picks up the enforcement slack once “responsibility” fails. This is an actual ideal that makes societies function better, not some bland yet useful fiction.
I personally don’t really like talking about “justice”, “rights”, and “responsibility” much mainly when doing specific philosophy because of these myriad of confusions we get into. Suffice to say, we all have our values, and enough of us have gathered together into a society to enforce our values onto other people. This sounds like something we wouldn’t prefer, but it’s not, because our values involve robust democracy and freedoms.
~
This depends on what this word “wrong” refers to. Perhaps you could define it?
I think we can clearly say things like “The psychopath caused other people to suffer, and though he is acting at the whim of matter as decreed by physics at the singularity like the rest of us, we can still reform her actions through the use of pressures. While psycopaths are unresponsive to social and moral forces, we can resort to institutional forces like imprisonment in order to save ourselves from such suffering.”
~
Because it’s in my best interest to do so. Determinism doesn’t undermine free will, because our actions are merely determined partly by our character. It would be absurd for that to not be the case, let alone some odd undetermined stuff that would mean we just act at random.
~
We can secure our cars from rocks by securing the rocks or moving the rocks elsewhere. Likewise, we can do the same thing to our psycopaths. So this equivalence doesn’t do anything to suggest we shouldn’t be creating systems of justice to protect ourselves.
That being said, I’m still very confused, because there’s an extremely large and extremely clear difference: the psycopath is sentient. It makes no sense to apply pressures to a rock, because the rock has no system of values to be affected. The psycopath does.
~
The Risks of Science, Continued
That’s not quite the point I was making — I was suggesting that your case was the one that was lacking, because it didn’t take into account this greater picture.
~
Two examples of other danger: only greater technology can save us from an asteroid impact and only greater technology can save us from the impending expansion of the Sun.
Two examples of non-existential benefits: greatly decreased spread of disease, greatly increased spread of literacy.
How’s that?
~
It’s totally a fair point. I’m willing to recognize that science does harm. I don’t think science is quite something worth singing praises to, though it is something that I enjoy a lot and find very important. It’s the way I come to personally understand the universe. It’s a tool of wonder. And it’s much better at figuring out things of the world with greater certainty than methos of knowledge that’s come before.
Does it get things wrong? Sure. Does it harm people? Sure. But should we get rid of it, and go back to the Stone Age? I, for one, would rather die.
cl
says...Peter,
As for the science part of this discussion, I lost interest. You conceded the main point and that’s good enough for me. All I ask is that, maybe instead of just using science to score points for your own metaphysical preferences, that you would prioritize offsetting the real dangers posed by this bull in a tea shop. You write essay after essay purportedly using science to bolster your atheism, but I’ve never seen even a single sentence dedicated to making sure science doesn’t kill us all. That worries me. It suggests you’re more interested in winning debates than making sure this beast doesn’t eat us all.
At any rate…
Maniac? How is that person a maniac? They’re no different than you or anybody else. The laws of physics simply acted a different way on their brain. They had no choice in the matter, remember? The situation is literally no different than a rock tumbling down a hill.
I understand. You mean to reject the very foundation of our Constitution.
Quit pretending you know. There’s no possible way you could know that. Be honest. I’m honest. The most I can say is that I believe all humans were endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. There’s no way to answer the question until we know for sure whether God exists or not. We might never know, but for you to pretend you know and exalt your assertion to the level of truth, well… that’s not intellectually honest.
Not without completely betraying the Strawson-esque philosophy you espouse elsewhere. On your view, there are no “rights,” nor is there even a possibility of such things. There is only matter moved by the laws of physics.
No you don’t, you offer naive criticism that doesn’t advance the discussion a single iota. For example:
1. We still can’t answer the “Why” question. False. We can answer the “why” question. Why shouldn’t we murder? Because God created us for life, to murder is contra the plans of the Creator, and when we act contra God we introduce suffering and misery into the world. Your reply, “so what, what if I want to go to Hell,” is totally juvenile and irrational. Nobody wants to heap upon themselves the most horrible type of suffering possible. It would be like me saying, “What if Peter wants the maniac to rob his house and murder the family he loves?” We both know that’s logically impossible.
2. There are too many mutually exclusive gods. If biblical theism is true, there is but one Creator, and therefore only one God worth obeying, as all other gods are lesser gods who lack the authority to prescribe morality for a race of beings they had no hand in creating.
3. Gods do not exist. That’s a card straight from the Muehlhauser / Fyfe playbook. Assert that which you cannot possibly know as truth and use it as a premise in your argument. I didn’t respect it when they pulled it, and I don’t respect it here. You’re completely eschewing your stated penchant for empirically grounded, truth-apt claims. You confuse your belief as fact, then proceed to argue your belief as fact. Big no-no in any respectable, rational circle.
Character? What is this thing, “character?” Is it made of matter? If not, your claim that only matter exists is false. Your actions are determined by the atomic state of affairs that preceded them, nothing more, nothing less. What you call “character” is an abstract concept with no causal power. It’s a linguistic concept useful for labeling and categorization. Physics causes the murderer to murder, not the linguistic convention of “character.”
Uh, you’ve got it backwards. On theism, there *IS* moral responsibility because we were created by God for good works and it is our duty to uphold them, and we will have to give account for our failures to do so. On theism, there *IS* justice because God is good and will bring everybody accountable for their actions. It’s only on your belief system that there is no ultimate moral responsibility or justice, only matter, moved by the indifferent laws of physics. On atheism, if you want to murder and you can get away with, you can. You’ll never be held accountable, and you’ll never be brought to justice. So instead of launching a pedestrian attack on my beliefs while clearly misunderstanding them, why don’t you DEMONSTRATE that justice and moral responsibility have a place in yours?
Stephen R. Diamond
says...Karl,
Two points, Karl. First, I’m at the least inconsistent with the generalization that the secular narrative claims there’s an inherent trend toward progress morally and politically. Second and to me intriguing, my sense of plausibility would hold that a few that moral progress exists is more consistent with idealism than materialism. I might be dismissible, but there’s a significant book out by a theist historian arguing that moral progress has occurred, and offering this as an argument favoring idealism.
Weirder still, perhaps, I think he’s right. Not in his estimate of the strength of the evidence for “moral progress” but that the existence of “moral progress” seems to me the strongest argument on offer for idealism (which, as you know but others may not, subsumes personal theism).
That is while I disbelieve in moral progress (and almost must as an amoralist) I find it hard to reject the idea of moral advance out of hand, and the examples Gray provides seem a bit forced. The Nazis instituted a system of slave labor camps, but this practice surely didn’t comport with international opinion, as slavery did for millennia. And pretty much nobody outside the U.S. supports the torture this country recently perpetrated.
So, I think in arguing against the existence of moral progress, I would have to concede torture and slavery. (Although that isn’t progress isn’t linear. Slavery peaked after the agricultural revolution.) But it’s just because slavery and torture are paradigms that progress seems to exist: perhaps they are chosen as paradigms for just that reason. Morals about the propriety of mass killing of civilians in warfare, for example, have almost as surely declined. Of course, in each these cases, I am making the judgment using conventional standards.
Stephen R. Diamond
says...cl,
Well, we agree on rejecting the atomic bomb and compatibilism. Let me see what I think about the other issues:
Contrary to Peter, I think hell is a fine basis for morality. The big problem in meta-ethics is lining up the hypothetically obligatory with the objectively obligatory. Hell does it perfectly. In a materialist world that behaves the way leading cognitive science claims, there probably is no one rational thing to do, and if there is, it certainly doesn’t define what is objectively moral. But hell-avoidance is certainly rational and the demands line up with the common moral platitudes. It’s the only way I see to preserve objective morality as internally coherent: envision a hell awful enough that no one can deny avoiding it overrides all other considerations.
I’m going to skip this because I’m not sure of the intent of Peter’s argument.
Well, that’s essentially the only reason to reject afterlife based morality: there’s no afterlife or at least none like religious folk believe in, but Peter doesn’t need the “No Gods exist” position. The agnostic no-sufficient-reason-to-believe view would suffice.
I’m puzzled, however, as to why you demand that Peter know that God doesn’t exist to use it as a premise? Why isn’t it sufficient that he have a reasonable belief that God doesn’t exist? I don’t think Peter can be faulted for pointing out that hell-based morality has no purchase unless hell can be proven. That Peter hasn’t disproven it to your satisfaction is another matter. He should discuss morality without re-addressing all the argumentation he relies on, as that would be tedious.
Stephen R. Diamond
says...“that a few that moral progress exists”
Few should be view
Karl Grant
says...Stephen,
Not entirely sure about that. We killed more civilians than enemy soldiers in World War II (Dresden, the Tokyo Fire Bombings, Hiroshima, etc…) We also killed more civilians than soldiers in Vietnam and recently we allowed a group of soldiers that shot children in cold blood in Iraq to get away scot-free without any legal repercussions.
joseph
says...Sorry CL, long time no comment.
A brief one, as I have enjoyed a couple of rather nice tasmanian lagers (Cascade) with my dinner, but I find:
A) instances in the O.T. where God commits infanticide.
B) instances in the O.T. where God is said to provide laws that codify slavery.
C) possible (still not sure on this one) instances of human sacrifice (Jepthah’s daughter).
D) the sanction of Genocide in the O.T.
The arguments I’ve read by apologists seem to say something along the lines of “God was working with the ancient Israeites, who were not ready for a more advanced system of morality” and “the moral code was generally better than that of their contempories”. It worries me that most of the critical accounts of the morals of the contemporaries of the ancient Israelites I have read, were written by the Ancient Israelites.
Peter Hurford
says...The situation is different than a rock tumbling down a hill, because here you have an actual sentient person capable of responding to various pressures, capable of experiencing emotions, and capable of forming relationships with other people. This is different than a rock.
A person is a maniac to the extent that their brain is unfortunately presently unable to experience these emotions and form these relationships. In these unique cases, you need different interventions. You just keep repeating this “rock = person” claim for the third time now, and I haven’t seen any attempt by you to acknowledge this clear difference.
And just as an added throw in, the existence of maniacs / psychopaths seems odd from a theistic perspective. Why is this change in behavior (the presence of unsympathetic criminalistic tendancies?) well-correlated with a change in the physical brain (abnormalities in and around the amygdala)? And why would God create people neurologically incapable of forming relationships?
~
Character is a linguistic term given to describe specific arrangements of neurons in the brain, kind of like how “sandwich” is a linguistic term given to describe specific arrangements of bread and various ingredients. The fact that our actions are determined by atomic states of affairs preceding them is not incompatible with these actions also being determined by our character, because that’s what our character refers to. All of our deliberative and reflective processes, upbringings, proclivities, feelings of responsibility and emotions, etc., are parts of these atomic processes. We’re not bypassed in the chain of decision making by atomic events, but rather a part of them.
Contrast this with the alternative theory that our choices are uncaused. Well then, why do we act the way we do? Certainly not because we desired to, because then our desires would be causing our actions. Uncaused theories make it sound like I would be jumping out windows or murdering people despite my very sincere and earnest desires not to.
~
This is correct. Just because it’s in the Constitution doesn’t make it accurate.
~
I feel rather convinced that God does not exist. But that aside, I don’t think God has endowed us with inalienable rights, given that rights quite frequently have been alienated. At best, God has endowed us with rights that, if alienated, result in punishment for the alienator.
~
People don’t have inherent rights to things, but that doesn’t preclude the existence of institutions that can enforce these kinds of protections, or the possibility that people would willingly abide by these institutions in order to secure their own safety and the safety of those they care about. Indeed, people may even be motivated to abide by these institutions because of a wider care for more than themselves and their family. Until you can disprove the possibility of these institutions and motivations, I’m not “Strawson-esque”.
Responsibility makes sense as a concept, because we hold ourselves personally accountable to our own standards of permissible action, and because other people hold ourselves to their standards. As long as these standards exist and as long as we personally care about these standards, we have responsibility. And even if we don’t particularly care about these standards, other people who do care about them can still find us acting against them, and decide to respond accordingly.
Justice can be said to exist to the extent that these institutions are effective at enforcing the standards we personally care about. Our institutions here in the US are moderately effective today, so there is some justice. I would concede that an all-good God would be a maximally effective institution and thus capable of providing perfect justice.
~
But you only kicked the can down the road. Why should we not act contra God? Why should we refrain from introducing suffering and misery into the world? Sure you care about the first two things and I care about the second (and sometimes even see the two as mutually exclusive), but this doesn’t make them into universal properties where all people gain reason to care about these properties.
~
Indeed, no one would want to go to Hell. Thus the chain ends at their personal desire to avoid this kind of suffering, and this suffering is what coercively enjoins them to go along with acting in accordance to the person capable of putting them in Hell, assuming they aren’t intrinsically motivated by the two things you mentioned earlier. No matter where you stop at, however, you are stopping at a desire.
This is what I intended to draw out: you need to stop at a desire. And these desires are theoretically contingent, even if the pain-avoidance desire appears universal in humans. And I’m pretty sure you don’t even believe in this Hell anyway, so you would have to allow that people might prefer annihilation to Heaven alongside God. If they were not convinced that God was all-good, for example, but instead evil, it would indeed rationally follow from this to prefer annihilation, even if the underlying belief was irrationally formed.
~
So the accuracy of your moral system is tied to the accuracy of biblical theism, and the accuracy of your specific interpretations about what God has commanded us to do via the Bible. Thus your moral system is in as much contention as biblical theism is. Thus every argument I’ve ever given that biblical theism or theism in general, is false is an argument against your system of morality.
Stephen R. Diamond
says...Karl,
I think you misread the quoted sentence; I’m agreeing with you that morals about mass killings have gotten worse (whereas those pertaining to slavery and torture have “improved.”
Stephen R. Diamond
says...1. I don’t think this account of character is accurate. Take the same neuronal patterns and place them (along with their organism) in a radically different environment, and you’ll see different behavior. Character must refer to a complex combination of internal and external configurations. Thus determination by character seems inconsistent with internal origination.
2. Even if character were an abstraction based solely on brain properties, it wouldn’t be accurate to say that character also determines conduct. Rather, determination by character is determination by “blind” physical processes–which sustains cl’s point.
Peter Hurford
says...Right. I should have made that clear. But what about that is inconsistent with internal origination? I’d think of it more of an input-output machine, like a computer.
~
Character would be a name given to a certain kind of blind physical process that also includes your deliberation. It’s another one of those folksy reductive concepts like “desire” or “belief”. And near as I can tell, cl’s point is determinism = fatalism, and this reductive concept doesn’t sustain that kind of point at all.
Stephen R. Diamond
says...So how does the determination of conduct by “character” avert fatalism when character itself is determined?
Stephen R. Diamond
says...I’m the one who wasn’t clear. You could call the internal arrangement of neurons “character,” but what it wouldn’t be character. You mentioned that character is a term like desire. That’s a good comparison, in that desire is thought of as internal, but the stronger (imo) philosophical arguments conclude that ordinary beliefs encompass aspects of the outside world. I don’t think the forgoing is a great argument against origination; its only about the reference of psychological terms like character. To make your point, you could probably define suitable states are are truly internal.
Peter Hurford
says...We can reflect and decide how we decide on things from now on, if we decide to in the first place. It’s odd to suggest that we should be able to decide how to decide independent of all of this, because that would be deciding with no basis by which to decide. We would actually be incapable of making such a choice.
I take fatalism to mean that “regardless of what choice is made, the outcome will be the same”, with the corollary that we should feel depressed as a result (as if we had a choice not to). But since this fatalism operates on the choice-level, and I have control over our choices most of the time, I have the ability to personally shape outcomes and thus fatalism is false.
Perhaps we could take fatalism to mean “the outcome will be the same because it is pre-determined”, but given that my decision procedures are a part of this pre-determination, I don’t have any problem with that. I think the mistake is that people think that if their decisions are pre-determined they are somehow also bypassed, which is false.
The point is that we can choose, based on our decision-making process. And if we want a different decision-making process, we can choose to make the changes needed to have a different one. All throughout we may be encumbered by unwanted external influences and akrasia, but we still have the power to affect the outcome of things.
Thus the fatalism of which I speak is false.
Stephen R. Diamond
says...Peter,
You seem to think that belief in free will represents a rejection of fatalism, but that doesn’t explain why people feel so strongly about having “free will.” Fatalism, essentially superstitious thought, is too weak to elicit ardency in denying it.
I think everyone has an intuitive sense that he can choose without causal constraint. (My free-will series [http://tinyurl.com/6m7lrng] analyzes this intuitive sense psychologically.) You, Peter, do recognize this intuitive sense in yourself, don’t you? Belief in free will is belief that this universal intuition is veridical. So, I think introducing fatalism is changing the subject.
Concretely, I think cl would deny that determinism implies fatalism as you define it. He might maintain that denying free will necessarily produces a fatalistic attitude, but in so concluding he would be relying on introspective evidence favoring this “libertarian” intuition, not on a supposedly analytic relationship between free will and the efficacy of agency.
Stephen R. Diamond
says...Note to cl:
Comments are appearing black against a dark blue background. Seems like some kind of glitch.