The New Moral Crusaders?Episode 14 of Luke and Alonzo’s oddly named Morality in the Real World is up, and despite its length, I don’t think it said much. Sure, it’s important and commendable to distinguish between the facts of reality vs. the words we use, but they could have accomplished that in a few short sentences. In the positive, the student is starting to surpass–or at least show genuine skepticism towards–the teacher. I find that very encouraging. Though one could argue that it has simply transferred to Yudkowsky, Luke’s infatuation with Alonzo Fyfe seems to be waning. If you haven’t familiarized yourself with the episode, I suggest doing so, else my post might not make as much sense as it could.
False Argument #34: John W. Loftus On Mind/BrainA while back, I asked:
…shouldn’t an atheist limit themselves to belief in brains only?
John W. Loftus took a stab, and here’s what he concluded:
I Get EmailA few days I go I received an email from bossmanham:
I took Luke’s blog off of my Google reader feed a while back because he was getting boring and predictable, but moseyed on over yesterday. I probably shouldn’t have been, but I was a little surprised that he’s focusing so much time on machine ethics. I guess that’s what you get when inventing your own ethics, but I was wondering what your thoughts were since you’ve followed his blog longer than I have?
Where to begin?
Alonzo Fyfe: Atheist Preacher?Enter Alonzo Fyfe:
Ultimately, when we think about “meaning” and “permanence”, I invite you to think of a woman devoting huge amounts of time each day to the care of sick and abused children, providing them comfort and love, seeing that they are well fed and protected.
Then, I want you to imagine pulling back a bit from this image and seeing that woman merely going through the motion of caring for children in a large and empty room. While she insists that the children she comforts, protects, feeds, and teaches are real, they are figments of her imagination.
This illustrates the “meaning” that we find in a life devoted to the service of a God. There are those who look at this and see that it provides no meaning at all. Yet, when one comforts, protects, feeds, and teaches a real child and improves the quality of a real human life, this has real meaning and real purpose.
You cannot get real value from an imaginary God.
Compared to this, the rabbit has a more meaningful and fulfilling life. The bunnies that it raises and protects are real. [-Alonzo Fyfe]
Aside from the obvious bigotry against believers, Alonzo’s “argument” uses the same fallacious reasoning as William Lane Craig’s we addressed yesterday. The only difference is that they’re on opposite sides of the same coin: Craig argues that atheists can’t have real meaning or purpose in life without God. Fyfe argues that theists can’t have real meaning or purpose with God.
A Brief Critique Of William Lane Craig’s Argument From Ultimate MeaningIn his post Meaning and Death, Luke Muehlhauser—along with several other atheists—criticized William Lane Craig’s claim that without God, no ultimate meaning or purpose exists. Well. Let’s get something off the table: I agree with Craig that without God or some other sentient creator, there cannot be an overarching telos for humanity; no transcendent purpose. However, even as a theist who understands where Craig is coming from, I’m with Craig’s critics on this one.
Can Theistic Morality Be Objective?Here and here, I argued that Luke Muehlhauser misled the audience at Colorado State University by declaring as subjective a God-based morality William Lane Craig does not actually endorse [a.k.a., refuting a strawman].
Luke’s response was to attack my character by labeling me a troll in his 7-point rejoinder, which I believe I successfully rebutted. Now, instead of responding to that rebuttal, Luke has declared in some sort of odd, melodramatic exit stage left that he’s “finally given up” on me. I won’t tire you with why I think that’s not a move a person with good desires would make. I’d rather dig a little deeper into one of the counterarguments I made in my aforementioned responses.
The Science Of Morality: Luke Muehlhauser Responds With A Personal Attack!I kid you not, in no less than twenty minutes of posting my critique of his speech, Luke Muehlhauser fired off two admittedly hurried responses here and here, the former of which contains a personal attack. He labeled me a “troll” when all I did was write a critique of his speech on my own blog! Do those sound like acts a person with a desire for careful and rigorous philosophy would perform? To contrast, I took two hours crafting my critique, let it settle for three more, and then proofread it three times. Nonetheless, let’s see if we can refute some or all of Luke’s claims without resorting to the unprofessional insults and distortions he’s growing unusually fond of.
Luke Muehlhauser Misleads Audience At Colorado State UniversityWell. I hopped over to Common Sense Atheism today, where I found the transcript from Luke’s talk at Colorado State University, titled The Science Of Morality: No Gods Required.
First off, I wondered how it came to be that Luke – a newbie atheist who was a self-described irrational Christian just a few years ago – was granted the authority to educate students at a major university. What are his credentials? Should anybody with a popular blog be allowed to educate the populace in our public institutions? Lest any hasty inductors be tempted to cry ad hominem, allow me to clarify.
Response To Morality In The Real World, Episode 9Though no previous objections seem to have been resolved, CSA’s ongoing Morality in the Real World podcast took a turn for the better in Episode 9, where Luke and Alonzo ponder the quantification of desires. For what it’s worth, Alonzo has written on willingness to pay before.
Early in my foray into desirism, I decided that an empirical schema for measuring desires was absolutely necessary in order for the theory to have any practical, real-world import. How else can we check against intuition? If desirism is indeed an empirical, objective theory as its defenders assert, then why not cut all the moralspeak and crunch some numbers? I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I believe my method – while certainly rudimentary and in need of further work – is a far better tool for quantifying desires than the overly simplified analysis Luke and Alonzo used in Episode 9.
Common Sense Atheism: IndexI’ve decided to compose an index of posts I’ve made substantial contributions to at Common Sense Atheism from January 1st, 2010 to the date of this post, 6-11-2010. (NOTE: the index is now current through November 16th, 2010) It is not necessarily meant to be exhaustive, e.g. I omitted threads where I only made a single comment or two. I’ll be updating this list, as well as expanding on key posts where I think certain arguments deserve a closer look, and eventually distilling the best arguments into the homepage.