A brief comment on presuppositionalism

An old friend of mine wrote me and told me about finding something negative (I'm not linking) about me via a web search for atheism. Hint: it involves Frank Walton.

I was reminded in looking at Frank's site of how pathetic he really is, which led to me remembering when I actually used to waste time arguing with people like him, the Triabloguers and other presuppositionalists. They waste such time by doing something simple: conflating strict reductionist physicalism/materialism with atheism.

When one begins with the fundamental presupposition that God has spoken in the Scriptures in Christ’s Law-word, you are left with the only worldview that can consistently allow for immaterial, universal, and abstract things like laws of science, laws of logic, and abstract concepts.

Funny, I thought there were numerous metaphysical ways to describe universals, properties and relations besides "Jesus"...

As has been pointed out before, the absurd burden of proof which these guys place on themselves requires them to show how every other explanation in metaphysics is logically inconsistent. Quite a tall order, given that brilliant philosophers have spent centuries thinking about these things. Instead, they use a simple straw man wherein atheists must be strict materialists who cannot embrace nominalism or conceptualism or any other theory of universals.

In addition, they hold that internal critiques are all that can be done "across worldviews" because of different presuppositions, but then proceed to contradict that by saying that certain basic beliefs are not justified within other worldviews (i.e., that logic is self-evident and incorrigible, that morality is about causing harm, &c.)

Comment on "Extraordinary Claims Demand Extraordinary Evidence"

We've heard the phrase before that evidence ought to be inversely proportional to the ordinariness of a claim: the more ordinary, the less evidence we require for tentative belief; the less ordinary, the more evidence we require for belief. This seems a wise maxim to hold, no matter the area of espistemology. Many theists, though, toss this maxim out the window when discussing the paucity of evidence they rely upon (Scripture) to justify belief in the most extraordinary of all claims (miracles).

I just left the following comment at an old haunt of mine:

If something occurs that is outside of not only my own personal experience, but the cumulative experience of science, especially since science exists to test boundaries and conditions to see what the laws of nature are and when/if they change, much skepticism should be brought to bear on the claim.

I would say it is a good deal simpler than you are making it here, and perhaps this could be seen more clearly if we remove the context from "miracle" to "violation" of the laws of nature. Suppose that I, scientist X, am working under conditions that no one has worked under before: say, a particle accelerator of potential 20 TeV. If I see something under those conditions that "appears" to violate the laws of physics, the same amount of scrutiny should be brought to bear on my claim as any other claim that a violation has occurred, be it of divine origin or not. And the purpose of the doubt here is to actually find out the truth: the verification principle in the philosophy of science. If the claim is true, and if the violation is natural, then the conditions and test may be repeated and ought to produce the same "violation": at which time, and once fully described, it no longer is a violation, but another law of nature!

On the other hand, suppose that we aren't discovering new laws of nature by creating conditions and tests which are extraordinary, but rather we're in the realm of the mundane. In these conditions, a supposed violation would probably draw just as much scrutiny from you (a believer) as from me (an unbeliever). If I claim that I have a dragon in my shed (to use Sagan as you did in your post), for instance, you would be naturally skeptical and would require more evidence than my "say-so" about it. But if I claim to have a lawn mower in my shed, you won't even blink.

Ditto with religion: the issue is not whether or not a God logically could violate the laws of nature, but whether the evidence we have (the say-so of anonymous persons 2000 years ago) is enough to convince us that violations did happen.

One of my predictions came true!

Okay, so in March 2007 I predicted that the traffic from the blogsite I used to belong to, Debunking Christianity, would overtake the traffic on the blogsite Triblogue. I've been vindicated!

It seems that the statistics of traffic smooth out such that whether you use the information of visits in the last hour, day, week or month, they all converge on the same (relative) answer for traffic prediction.

DC is seeing over 1,000 visits per day, while Tblog is seeing 762. The DC average over the past 11 months (not including July 2008, since that's a partial datum) has been 27,000 visits / month. For some strange reason, March 2008 was a particularly good month for DC, with a huge spike in traffic up to 48,200 visits. No other month comes close, with April running a distant second place at 32,700. When I look at the 3/08 archive, a few of the posts have 100+ comments, so a few of them must be responsible for the huge influx. Perhaps a link from a carnival?

As of right now, based on traffic over the last month, DC will see 32,000 separate visits in the next month, while based on the same period's data, Tblog will see 21,000.

Does it really mean anything? Not in a cosmic sense. However, one of the (few) ways I feel I've made lasting contributions to the world involve my founding of Gator Freethought and its media impact, as well as my extensive work on getting Debunking Christianity's website up and running well. I decided a while back to remove myself from the site out of employment concerns, and asked John to scrub all references of my last name and such from the site.

Despite lacking cosmic potential impact, these two organizations, and their webpages, will be around for a looooooong time, I really hope. Even if they went defunct tomorrow, the ripple effect of all the lives they impacted, conversions or deconversions from religion, doubts or faith affected...it's something, at least. Given the largely-positive impact that DC and GF have on people, I feel really good about that. At least something of a legacy for my life has already been created, although it is more of what I've set in motion than what I'll be recognized for later on.

Santa & God

It's inevitable: comparisons between Santa & God.

I've heard theists make a psychological profile of atheists before: they have bad father figures, they never got over the disillusionment of finding out Santa isn't real...this cartoon plays on that a bit:

If you can't make out the caption very easily, it reads:

Dear Children
One Day You Will Learn Everything About Santa Claus.
On That Day Remember Everything The Adults Have Told You About Jesus.

Much to the theists' chagrin, there are an awful lot of parallels between God and Santa, when one thinks of it. Seasame Street Atheism or no, the very same "childlike faith" we are required to have to sustain belief in God is similar with respect to belief in Santa. The unquestioning submission to authority and tradition are similar between children and adults compared to people and the Church/church doctrine...in ways, dissimilar in others.

God does these magical acts on very rare occassions, of which we have no hard evidence at all, that are supposed to justify our belief in him throughout the thousands of years after these events occurred. Santa just gets his magic thing on once a year, spending only 34 microseconds at each stop. Hopefully, Santa will get a little more green and reduce his reindeer's methane emissions using kangaroo enzymes; then he ought to ask people to shop online this Xmas to help lower CO₂ emissions.

Statistical Note of Interest

This post is solely an observation of facts, using the benchmark of a well-known theistic group blog that I think serves well as a comparison to this group blog. Don't go over-analyzing my motives or what this is supposed to mean, please.

That said...Debunking Christianity is set to overtake Triablogue in site traffic, according to data from sitemeter for both sites:

Triablogue Sitemeter traffic prediction


Debunking Christianity Sitemeter traffic prediction:

In comparing stats, you want to use the largest data set possible to minimize your error and maximize your confidence interval approach: thus, use the data from the entire previous month. Based on that data, the Triablogue gets 1 more visit per hour, 35 more per day, 243 more per week and 1,053 more per month than DC. Of note is that DC has been around since January 2006, while the Triablogue has archives going back to April of '04.

Also note that the stats will change over even the course of the day, so don't fuss at me for poor subtraction if you aren't using the stats from the pics above.

Possibly of more interest is that the readership of the tblog has been pretty stagnant over the past year, and the upward trend of DC's readership may indicate that within 2 months, we will have higher stats across the board:

DC (year)
tblog (year)
As I said, these are anecdotally amusing to me, not indicative of any deeper meaning. Thanks to all the readers of DC for your support and comments: theists and nonbelievers.

The PoE and "God's Glory"

I'll first quote a generic Calvinist so readers can see the variants of theodicy amongst sects of Christians:

Rather, pain and suffering are a means by which his redemptive wisdom, mercy, and justice are manifested to his rational creatures for the benefit of the elect...It doesn't. Rather, it enriches the life of the redeemed...

I'll bullet list some questions, and you can answer Y/N to the numbers that correspond, such that my own "simplistic" misunderstandings can be corrected:

• So evil --> mercy isn't to God's glory then, but to our experience of God's glory?
• So the consequences of the Fall are not God's fault because of compatibilism -- that God co-suffered the consequences in the form of Jesus?

1. How can God be blameless in ordaining the Fall?

2. How can God blame us for the consequences of the Fall?

The greater good defense is only designed to answer the first question, not the second.

An answer to the second question depends on your version of action theory; in this case, compatibilism.

The greater good defense is one plank of a broader theodicy.

It seems

In addition, even if he regards the Christian faith as incoherent, that in no way absolves him from discharging his own burden of proof.

I'm still unsure as to how or when I supposedly did this.

It will hardly do for him to say, "Sure, I'm incoherent—but you're incoherent too!"

Where and when did I say or show incoherence, or commit tu quoque?

Another place on this same Calvinist website asserts:

ii) I do regard natural evil as a manifestation of divine judgment. But this ordinarily goes back to the Fall. It isn’t directly punitive with respect to any particular victim. But it is a general manifestation of divine judgment.

Dave Amstrong is a prolific Catholic apologist, and his writings on the PoE are as extensive as any other topic he's addressed:

Christian Replies to the Argument From Evil (Free Will Defense): Is God Malevolent, Weak, or Non-Existent Because of the Existence of Evil and Suffering?
http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ124.HTM

Alvin Plantinga's Decisive Refutation of the Atheist Use of the Problem of Evil as a Disproof of God's Existence, Goodness, or Omnipotence (+ Discussion)
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/10/alvin-plantingas-decisive-refutation.html
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/davearmstrong/116071794487746081/#116977

Critique of Agnostic Ed Babinski's Post: "The Problem of Evil, Alvin Plantinga and Victor Reppert" (the "Emotional" Argument From Evil) (Dave Armstrong vs. Ed Babinski)
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/10/critique-of-agnostic-ed-babinskis-post.html

Serious Christian Treatments of the Problem of Evil and Breezy Atheist Dismissals of Them Sans Rational Argument (+ Discussion) (Dave Armstrong vs. John W. Loftus)
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/10/serious-christian-treatments-of.html
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/davearmstrong/116042118212142615/#116612

Some Christian Replies to the Problem of Evil as Set Forth by Atheists (+ Discussion) (Dave Armstrong vs. "drunken tune" and John W. Loftus)
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/10/some-christian-replies-to-problem-of.html
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/davearmstrong/116046273013664968/#116725

Dialogue #2 With an Atheist on the Problem of Evil (+ Discussion) (Dave Armstrong vs. "drunken tune")
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/10/dialogue-2-with-atheist-on-problem-of.html
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/davearmstrong/116060670288633022/#116870

Dialogue #3 With an Atheist on the Problem of Evil (Dave Armstrong vs. John W. Loftus)
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/10/dialogue-3-with-atheist-on-problem-of.html

Can God be Blamed for the Nazi Holocaust? Reflections on the "Problem of Evil" and Human Free Will
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/06/can-god-be-blamed-for-nazi-holocaust.html

Dialogue With an Atheist on the "Problem of Good" and the Nature of Meaningfulness in Atheism (+ Part Two) (The Flip Side of the Problem of Evil Argument Against Christianity)
(Dave Armstrong vs. Mike Hardie)
http://web.archive.org/web/20020810223936/ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ518.HTM +
http://web.archive.org/web/20011119015359/http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ519.HTM

Reasons for Suffering and Encouragement and Hope in the Midst of It: A Biblical Compendium
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/03/reasons-for-suffering-encouragement.html

Comfort and Peace From Scripture
http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ188.HTM

Dave's major argument is that Plantinga's free will theodicy "solves" the logical PoE. He has directed most of his posts towards establishing this, and I think he's done as much as anyone can do. I'm not saying (of course) that I think his effort correlates to success in solving this problem, but he has done a great job of attempting to solve it, at least.

Here's my rebuttal, and here are other posts on the topics of PoE.
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Exposing one of the World's Biggest Frauds

Who? Benny Hinn. [HT: Triablogue]

PS: I just bought Marjoe (I paid $16) and you should too. Amazon
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principe nuovo

Steve Hays has responded to my challenge regarding the problem of presuppositionalism and proof-burdens, as well as external evaluation of the veracity of presuppositions themselves, in a post cleverly titled Machiavelli Rises from the Grave. Like Machiavelli, I agree that a new prince, or principe nuovo, has a much tougher job than a prince who is descended from the royal line. The way this ties in is that the TAG is a sort of "new prince", and presuppositionalism (PS) is just the king's kid. While the TAG has to support its premises with argument, we see no such necessity with common, everyday PS.

In PS, one can either have an individually-directed claim, "you cannot account for X", or a generally-directed claim, "atheism cannot account for X", and in neither case is there some sort of burden of proof on the PS to make a real argument. Instead, the PS stands back, folds his arms, and waits for the defender to either have insufficient metaphysical arguments or incoherent ones to critique. End of story.

Steve accused me of trickery in referring to conceptual realism:

i) Does Danny subscribe to Cocchiarella’s solution? Of is this just one of those blocking maneuvers recommended by Witmer to silence the presuppositionalist if you can’t answer him?

To which I replied:

I find both his forms of conceptual realism (intensional/natural) completely consistent with physicalism as an ontology. As I was reading them (sections 6 and 7, respectively), I found he had put into words what I tried to describe long ago on this blog, when you brought up "pure" conceptualism, in which these abstractions don't exist apart from our minds at all. Therefore, your accusation is refuted by the evidence that I resorted to conceptualism in the past as an explanation of abstract explananda within physicalism.

Steve completely misunderstood this:

“Refuted” by what evidence? Yours or Cocchiarella’s? At the time, I was responding to your formulation, not his—since his formulation wasn’t on the table back then.

I'm referring to the accusation that I'm "employing a trick" via Prof. Witmer's advice by "falling back" to conceptual realism. I'm not claiming his worldview is refuted by my position.

The following exchange is from the newest thread, Steve's words in italics, mine blockquoted:

My purpose was to defend my own presupposition that physicalism is not incompatible with logic. Would you concede that conceptual realism is the solution? Do you admit that there is nothing absurd or incoherent in holding to physicalism and to one of Cocchiarella's forumulations for the explanandum of logic?
Presuppositionalism claims that all alternative worldviews are inherently and intrinsically self-defeating. Can you show this for someone who subscribes to physicalism and to conceptual intensional realism?

No, I wouldn’t concede any such thing.

1.He says that “as a socio-biological theory of the human capacity for language and though, conceptualism must presuppose some form of natural realism as the causal ground of that capacity.”

But this is circular reasoning. He first classifies conceptualism as a “socio-biological” theory, then says it must presuppose some form of natural realism. That may be a valid inference, given the classification, but he does nothing to justify his naturalistic classification in the first place.

So are you saying that humans can have language and thought without any natural grounding? Human thought and language do not supervene upon natural processes: chemistry, physics, matter...? Is he supposed to instead presuppose the existence of the immaterial spirit, and deny that thought or language (as we know them) supervene upon the physical? And if he did that, and said, "Conceptualism is a spiritual theory, which presupposes some form of supernaturalism..." is that not the same circular issue?

2.He then says “As universals that can be realized indifferent places at the same time and that might have no instances at all in the world, natural properties and relations are not in the world the way that concrete objects are, nor can they be considered to have an ‘objectual’ nature in any sense as well…the unsaturated mode of being of natural properties and relations…[is] somehow analogous to the mode of being of concepts. Thus, just as predicable concepts do not exist independently of the human capacity for language and concept-formation, so too natural properties and relations[s] do not exist independently of the causal structure of the world.

Several basic problems:

a) He admits the existence of unexemplified universals: “might have no instances at all in the world.”

How is that possible if the world is all there is?

Are you claiming that "unicorn-ness" and "Lochness monsterism" must be instantiated?

b) He then attempts to find a nook for them by claiming that the “unsaturated” mode of being of natural properties an relations is “somehow analogous” to the mode of being of concepts.

But this is an argument from analogy minus the argument? How does he unpack the “somehow”? He doesn’t. Just his sheer dictum.

c) Moreover, even if there were an analogy, it’s only as good as the analogue which supplies the point of reference. He claims that predicable concepts don’t exist independently of human concept-formation.

But that, again, is a raw assertion rather than a reasoned argument. Why should I accept the claim which undergirds the analogy?

So he fails on both counts. He (i) gives us an argument from analogy minus the argument. And he also (ii) fails to argue for the underlying analogue.

3. He then says:

“abstract objects…according to conceptual Platonism, ‘exist’ in a realm that transcends space, time and causality, and therefore that ‘preexist’ the evolution of consciousness…In conceptual intensional realism, on the other hand, the dependence is not merely epistemological but ontological as well.”

But if abstract universals are causally dependent on the evolution of consciousness, then this will collapse back into the “ontology of conceptual idealism,” which is what he was trying to avoid—and for good reason.

They are ontologically dependent upon the substance of matter, which is the substance upon which consciousness supervenes.

Why do you think he is avoiding conceptual idealism? He is a Christian, a Catholic priest.

a) If abstract universals like the laws of logic are causally dependent on the evolution of consciousness, then they lose their necessity and universality. They become descriptive rather than prescriptive or proscriptive. They can no longer distinguish logical reasoning from illogical reasoning, for they take human consciousness as their point of reference and point of departure.

b) Likewise, if abstract universals such as mathematical truths are causally dependent on the evolution of consciousness, then the universe did not exemplify any mathematical properties or relations prior to the evolution of consciousness.

In that case, the universe is evolving in relation to human evolution. The existence and structure of physical universe is, to that degree, causally dependent on human evolution.

c) Likewise, if mathematical abstracta are causally dependent on the evolution of human consciousness, then there can be no such thing as an actual infinite in math. You are thereby committed to finitism in math. But that is prey to a number of familiar criticisms.

Continuing with my own thoughts:

One could argue against this necessity in a few different ways, since as Walker points out, these transcendentals are "objective, prescriptive and metaphysically ultimate". I am thinking that Scripture cannot meet this requirement, nor special revelation generally…When Xians argue that the Scriptures provide for us an OPMU for morality, how does this fare through Walker's filter?… I would argue that this consideration presents a substantial challenge to the claim that OPMU morality can be based upon divine revelation via Scripture. It seems that the criteria cannot be met in an attitude-independent fashion, given the errant supposed copies we have of an OPMU moral law.

Morgan simply confuses the order of knowing with the order of being. Moral “transcendentals” can be objective, prescriptive and metaphysically ultimate” even though our mode of epistemic access is not ontological objective or metaphysically ultimate.

And if our mode of epistemic access is neither ontological[ly] objective nor metaphysically ultimate, then from what position can you argue for their truth in these two areas? It seems like I could say that there is some phenomenon, X, that is OPMU. However, if I cannot access it epistemically in any OPMU fashion, then where is the argument that you can establish X as OPMU? Is it not necessary to have a complete and thorough knowledge of X in order to argue X is OPMU?

How do you know X?

How do you know X is OPMU?

What’s a transcendental argument? How do you mount such an argument? Good questions.

Although TAG is an indirect argument inasmuch as you are arguing for the existence of God by arguing from certain undeniable phenomena, the argument(s) for the identity of these phenomena as well as their theistic dependence will take the form of direct argumentation.

James Anderson has also disassembled the Van Tilian version of TAG into several subarguments.

http://www.proginosko.com/docs/IfKnowledgeThenGod.pdf

And these could be developed in more detail.

Interlocuter has responded to some of Anderson's arguments, which are good ones.

Oddly enough, Paul Manata has admitted that the "development" of the TAG from the PS position is not only premature for such an ability (to use it as an indirect argument for God), but he has admitted that it is only an assertion.

He points out that:
i) If X, then God
ii) X
iii) Therefore God

Supporting premise (i) is the problem, of course. Prof. Witmer talked about this a bit on Unchained Radio with Gene Cook.
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More Intellectually Honest and Consistent than Thou

CalvinDude responded (in a piece titled "Holier than Thou") to my post on the pitiful state of the Religious Right and Christian America. [Note that he fails the basic etiquette test on blog commenting by refusing to link to my article -- tsk tsk] I have blockquoted his comments:

The funny thing is…Daniel still has never given me what the basis of his morality is (well aside from “empathy”–but if I don’t empathize with him then why should his morality trump mine?).

That's funny. First, I didn't know I needed to give you, specifically, my "account" of morality. Second, I agree with the ancient Greek philosophers (esp the Stoics) what the virtues are. Therefore, I can apply the yardstick of the virtues to make things simple. Third, I have explicated at length my grounding of morality in the values of survival and minimization of harm -- see here.

The simplest way to break it down is this:
1) Human beings exist
2) They will either co-exist peacefully in societies or compete violently in anarchist states
3) It is better for human beings to co-exist peacefully in societies than compete violently in anarchist states.
4) In order to bring about (3), morality is necessary

I ground morality in survival and peacefulness. I do not like pain and suffering. I do not want to suffer and experience pain. Therefore, (3) is the logical choice. Due to the symmetry of society, we must be moral to others if we want them to be moral to us -- if we want to survive and live as painlessly as possible, we must symmetrically apply that ethos to our neighbors in society. That leads to Confucius rule: "Do unto others"

My presupposition is, then, that I want to avoid pain and violence, and so (3) leads to morality. I developed the "value" of avoiding pain and violence a little in another exchange with Manata.

So Daniel spends lots of time criticizing believers for being hypocrites (he even links to a site that shows a whole twelve of them!) yet he hasn’t established why hypocrisy is wrong in the first place.

This is an easy and obvious one: internal critique of Christian beliefs.

He criticizes people for not obeying the Scriptures while A) he does not obey Scriptures, B) he doesn’t believe Scriptures, and C) he has no reason from his worldview to criticize us for not obeying Scriptures. (By the way, I think if you’re looking for a definition, part A about would be the definition for hypocrisy…).

Again, internal incoherence. Aside from that, I agree with some of the principles and morals of Jesus' teachings. They line up with my own moral intuitions and conclusions.

But the totally ironic part is that Daniel doesn’t even believe what Haggard did was immoral in the first plac; it was only what he said that was immoral. Yes, Daniel thinks he’s immoral for denouncing homosexuality while practicing it, but Haggard was not immoral for actually behaving that way.

Christians believe it immoral to do both. I believe it immoral to advocate discrimination against persons who do some thing X when you yourself do X. Basic rank hypocrisy.

Furthermore, Daniel somehow presumes that if Haggard is immoral then all believers must be immoral too (the fallacy of composition); thus, because one of our “leaders” is a hypocrite (and I note that he wasn’t my leader anyway) then we are hypocrites too.

Where did I say that? My charges were against those with "moral superiority complexes" who do "nothing to alleviate human pain and suffering" instead choosing to "send money to Haggard and Dobson". If you fall into this category, then I call you a hypocrite based upon the teachings of your own Jesus, based on what he called a hypocrite, and what he commanded his followers to do.

How this follows is anyone’s guess.

I can't guess either? But there is a separate argument about whether or not the believer's claim to have an indwelling Spirit of God in them is observationally falsified by virtue of their own claims about the result of such a thing, versus the reality of such a thing. (2 Cor 5:17)

Apparently, Daniel seems to think it makes a might good argument against Christianity, as he’s quite able to get his dander up and rip on Christians who would support Haggard but wouldn’t feed a homeless person. (Again, how he got that conclusion is beyond me: I can look at who runs our local soup kitchens and who actually works in them: 95% Christians.)

It's not a "good argument against Christianity" in general, but a rip on these people who claim to have superior morals and donate their time and money to the cause of discrimination and intolerance, rather than charity. You have combined the two pieces that I was keeping separate, and thus mischaracterized my argument. If someone does work in a soup kitchen, they are not the same rank hypocrite as one who only spends their time and money discriminating and promoting intolerance.

But hey, I guess it’s easier to yell “hypocrite” than to actually engage in important philosophical discussions on issues. So, Daniel, you’re a hypocrite. I win. :-)

First, you made a strawman of my argument. Second, since when have I not engaged in those issues? The links above show plenty of "engagement". Third, I actually demonstrated the hypocrisy of a Christian who claims superior morals but does not follow the commands of Jesus with regards to serving and helping others; and only instead acts like a modern day Pharisee. How can you demonstrate internal incoherence (hypocrisy) in my own worldview? What virtue am I not following that I claim that I should?
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The "Value of Values", Redux

Paul Manata, in the same vein as CalvinDude and the other T-bloggers, has once again taken the equivocation "materialism = no value, no meaning, no purpose" to the next level. I have commented elsewhere on the Existentialist Dilemma, and on my own view of self-interest-based utilitarian ethics. I want to deal with his comments from this thread here one last time, and I cross-posted this comment there.

Paul's comments are in italics, unless otherwise noted:
I'd consider them all wrong, but I wouldn't say their "irrational" on most definitions. And, a quote would have been nice, or is misrepresenting people part of your "internet hobby" as well?

I can quote you from your debate with Barker if you like, but I'll attempt to paraphrase you, "...Christianity is not just more rational than atheism...to say this would be an insult to my Lord...atheism is not rational at all..."

I can also dig through the archives and quote you on physicalism/materialism if you wish. Are you now admitting that the worldview of physicalism/materialism, and/or the conclusion of atheism, can be rational?

It's a bit presumptuous to assume I've not read any of thsoe guys.

I actually didn't say you didn't, as I was focused on which arguments you choose to engage and spend your time on -- I've never read you quote any of them and tear into them. All you seem to ever do is pass off your value judgment on the implications of atheism/physicalism as being irrational, hopeless, meaningless, etc.

I'm not claiming I've read everything by you, though, but I sure haven't seen much of it at all in the past few months, contrariwise, I sure have seen a lot of quoting of myself, Loftus, etc. So if anything, I'm self-denigrating, not debasing Vitzthum.

I'm also obviously making fun of your "review"/summary of Vitzthum. I never picked out one of his quotes to say that he had misrepresented someone or some argument. I commended your "review" of this passage (and presumably the context and conclusions from the rest of the book) with sardonic wit to demonstrate how you had. I note that you, and many other here always take the "reductionism = no value" route. "If we're 'just atoms', there's no value to anything," (Paul's subjective value judgment). Of course, Vitzhum doesn't say this -- he says that human beings contain and assign value.

You further debase the idea of an unclosed physics as a foundation for our epistemology. But you fail to see that the method of science is what I (and most others I know) have "pledged allegiance" to, and am philosophically/epistemically committed to. The particular interpretations at the time from the best data available is tentative, as I've admitted a million times. I have never said one bad word to a theist who says, "Well the data and evidence point to X, but it could be revised in the future in light of new evidence." The fact is, theists never say this. The "data" is already in, and you either believe it in the framework that one of many theologies present, or you don't. So what bothers you is that while you claim surety [God is X, God did X, people are the products of a miracle 6,000 years ago, etc.], we scoff at it. While you claim the subject is closed, we claim knowledge of our universe, its history, our future, etc., is still very much open and that you are quite silly for thinking otherwise.

What you try to do is set up a false dichotomy to compare the atheist's "faith" in science, or a future physics, to give him surety [which I really don't seek -- I am skeptical of any such "final knowledge"], with your own. Where you fail is that skeptics reject dogma and authority as bases of knowledge, while those are foundational and functionally necessary for you. Those are the important points to make in contrasting epistemic POVs, and the fact that dogma /= science, and arguments/appeals to authority /= science.

Further, Vitzthum here doesn't bother to even give the most rudimentary and basic of explanations of neural processes, he doesn't care. He isn't explaining the fine points in brain states as qualia. He is only summarizing the amorality and indifference of the external universe, which I doubt even you disagree with. Do you think that clouds and coyotes have morals? He is, I would bet, in this chapter, portraying man as a heroic and unique being, rather than focusing on explanations of how we might attach value and significance to ourselves and our morality in light of physicalism and its commitments.

He also doesn't bother to get into type-token-identity distinctions with respect to the ability to reduce our "feelings" to unfeeling atoms in motion, and distinguishing between a component-dependent entity (feeling depends on nerves, brains, etc.), that is irreducible if one is to maintain any coherence, and something which is completely reducible (gold, which can be reduced to the atomic).

Of course, atoms are not rational. Brains can be.

Of course, atoms do not feel. People do.

Of course, atoms do not have "meaning", people assign meanings.

Do atoms rain? Are atoms "soft"? Should we throw out the usage of these terms, and make them meaningless, because we cannot reduce these things beyond certain phenomenal levels?

Now, can people agree on objective values and objective markers by which they can be rational, feeling, and assign value/meaning? Yes. Language, death, and money come to mind immediately. As you well know, if languages, definitions, propositions are not carefully constructed and agreed upon before engaging in arguments, there is no rationality. The same is true with value judgments.

What you always say is, "Why should I care about pain/death/your values? [While implying that you do care about whatever God has said]" The answer is the same as the reason you care about what a fictitious deity says -- your own self-interest. I can ask you -- "Why do you care what God says?" And you were asked this, I believe, in the debate, and said something along the lines of, "God is perfect and the final authority." This is still not answering the question -- why do you care what the final authority or the perfect Being says? Can't you just not care about anything? Well, of course you can.

The question is circular and obvious to everyone but you. If you "care" at all, if someone can convince you by argument at all, it means it is something that you were willing to think about, listen to, and consider. If you don't care, then you don't care, regardless of the power of the argument. And, all it really takes for you, and for me, is that something somehow affects us or others we care about. You only care to follow what you perceive as the final authority because there are consequences -- both good and bad. And that is what differentiates a moral or rational person from an immoral or irrational person -- their willingness to sit down and sort out the things which make sense, and which are "good" in each specific context, and say, "What are the consequences for me, and for others, if I do X?".

Why shouldn't you beat me and steal my car, you ask? You don't care about: 1) causing unnecessary harm, 2) seeing physical well-being as superior over emotional impulses and impetuous choices, 3) what may happen to you as a consequence of your choice, 4) contributing to society -- the effect of the symmetry of crime [prisoner's dilemma as it relates to societal order]. You say it requires, "cause God said so," as if this is something objective (far from it) and/or something which would motivate the man to whom none of the above were sufficient. You say that self-interest isn't enough, that we can't care about how something affects us, but we can still care if God wants it to happen or not? Why? You can't get past this point, that your own motivations must come from self-interest. You don't run to the aisle in repentance because it has no effect -- you only go because you think it does. Would you believe, or obey, if there were no cosmic, eternal consequences either way? If I showed you tomorrow that there is no God, would self-interest evaporate? Would you stop caring about yourself, what happened to you? Would you divorce your wife and be completely unrestrained and act upon your first impulses? That is reckless and self-endangering behavior.

Can we reduce caring any further than self-interest? You either care or you don't. Sadly, those here think that we have to give the "value of values", as ridiculous as the idea is. You either care or you don't. If you have no self-interest, then you have no interest in what is "good" for you, or for others.

You either see values as valuable or you don't, because if you don't, then you don't call them "values". No argument in all the world will convince an irrational or careless person that X is a valuable or moral action, if morality is not something they can or want to know and do.

We cannot reduce these concepts (feeling, meaning/value, caring, rationality) beyond the human being, for the same reason that we cannot reduce "red" beyond the wavelengths between 680-720nm -- because this is how it is defined by, perceived by and known by human beings. Sure, using the word "red" is arbitrary, so is using a "meter" and the Arabic numeral system. But these are all objective standards that we have agreed to use. The level of crime in a society, jail sentences, taking a life not in self-defense, these things are not "subjective experiences".

"Why should I care what you 'decide to call red'?" I see this question in the same light as I see your question, "Why should I behave morally?" If you admit something is moral, or red, then the motivation to do it, or define it as moral, or decide to adopt a color scheme, is what differentiates you as either moral or immoral, rational or irrational, color-concerned and color-informed or not.

What you (and CalvinDude, and everyone else who argues this way) cannot get around or past is that you decide that you will value what [you think] God said, and you base God's sayings on yet another value judgment of yours: that the Christian Bible/faith is the most reliable place to find out what God is/does/says. See, the "value of your values" is still intrinsic to Paul Manata. You can't get around the fact that while you demand for me to justify self-interest, it is irreducible, and you yourself are a slave to it as well. Your own ethics are just as "human based", at the foundation, as mine. That doesn't mean they are necessarily subjective, though. After all, even though the perception of red may be subjective, and the conventions we use to explain and define "red" are arbitrary, does that make redness any less objective? No. Same with morality, value, and rationality.

Of course, Vitzthum already admitted this, that these things don't reduce further than the human being, in his quote (which you mangled the context of):
Human thought and feeling is the most complex, versatile, adaptive, sensitive, perceptive, creative, purposeful, and voluntaristic product of terrestrial evolution and perhaps cosmic evolution as a whole... It creates all the value and meaning that humans find inside or outside of themselves. The material order outside of human self-enclosure and self-definition is empty of human value and meaning, consisting as it does of an aimless interplay of natural process dictated by invariable physical laws. (from Richard C. Vitzthum's Materialism: An Affirmative History And Definition, Prometheus Books, 1995, pp. 230-232)
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Technorati tags: Philosophy, Atheism, Physicalism

Oderint dum Metuant

I don't typically do politics. However, after reading Steve Hays' post expressing his wish that Israel had bombed the UN HQ rather than the outpost, quote,

It's a pity that Israel accidentally bombed the UN bunker yesterday...a pity Israel didn't bomb the UN headquarters instead!

I had some further thoughts, particularly in light of Steve's response to my comments on the original piece above.

I think some of the major questions to ask are:
1) Does the UN actually bring about peace, and/or serve any other grand purposes?
2) Does violence beget violence?

Regarding (1), I would point to the futility of the UN troops in Somalia and Kosovo in actually getting some of the things done that needed to be done. However, I would also point out that it is not the sole responsibility of the US (although we provide a hell of a disproportionate amount of UN resources) to maintain global peace and monitor/decide global political issues. And due to this fact, if we (US) can't do it alone, then by default, it will fall to a global coalition to do so. I do not know the statistics on this, but I would be willing to wager that UN troops get attacked much less, on average, than a unilateral military force occupying a foreign country.

Regarding (2), I made a comment about the movie Munich, and how it awakened me to the futility of retribution as a means to peace:

I'm not a leftie in the sense that you mean it, but I suppose I see this cycle of violence as cruel in its unending circularity. Watching Munich was a beautiful narrative for convincing me of that.

How many people think this doesn't just motivate the crazies further, and encourage their efforts to acquire serious weapons, as well as make those with access to such weapons more likely to sympathize with them and give them over?

Steve responded with the following points (italicized) and my responses are appended:

1.We don’t have the luxury of choosing our battles. Our enemies don’t give us a range of preferred options.
While it is certainly true that "enemies" don't give us such a luxury, it is also true that our response to said enemies is certainly a range of options. The problem with responding to suicide bombers and other such terrorists is that they are a relatively small faction, living amongst a civilian population, whose ideology is furthered when we kill them (and produce so-called martyrs).

2.No, we can’t kill every jihadi on the planet. But that’s not the point.
The police can’t apprehend every criminal or preempt every crime. Should we therefore disband the police force?
The huge difference here is that police respond with tactical precision -- they kill the criminals. If there were some way to ensure the same for the jihadis, my point would be rather moot, and we could, theoretically, wipe them out over and over again.

This was never about winning once and for all. It’s about risk management. Cutting your enemies down to size. Keeping the threat-level on a scale that permits some semblance of normality.
But as we occupy foreign lands, and as Israel bombs civilians (Qana), the thread only increases. No risk is being "managed" here, fuel is only being added to the fires.

3.As I said in my piece on just-war criteria, the way to end the cycle of violence is through the application of overwhelming force rather than proportional force.
If we had used proportional force in Japan, Japan would still be a warrior culture.
Japan was a clear enemy, coalesced around a national identity. Terrorists are not, and coalesce around religious ideologies which cannot be altered. So long as the religious message exists, these terrorists will follow it. We simply cannot apply such force to terrorists, because in so doing, we invariably destroy a large number of civilians, and we turn every moderate family member of a "martyr" into willing holy war combatants in so doing. For every one we kill, we make 4 more.

4. Not all Muslims nurse a death-wish. They may support the suicide-bomber, throw him a stag party before he leaves to do his homicidal thing, but they don’t strap themselves into the explosive vest.
I didn't say that. What I said is that this violence is circular and unending, not that the current or present supply of willing participants in said violence is unending.

It’s better to make your enemies love you than fear you—but if you can’t make them love you, then I’ll settle for fear.
And that's the idea here--that if we make them fear, they'll not attack? No. They do not fear DEATH. How can you make someone who does not fear death fear your "overwhelming force"?

Steve then closes out the post with a rejoinder to my mention of Munich, and specifically how it made me seriously consider whether the vicious cycle of violence can ever be ended in itself (via more violence). He mentions this article on Townhall, where our writer remarks:

Though the film attempts to portray the Israeli response as morally useless -- with "cycle of violence" and "it accomplishes nothing since they just substitute a new terrorist for the one last killed" arguments -- the film is nevertheless a tremendous compliment to the Israelis.

The writer here does not address the root argument -- whether or not violence begets violence. He simply justifies Israel's response, and uses the conscience of the Israeli fighters as evidence that they are "better people" than the Muslim terrorists. I would ask Steve how this addresses the real root issue?

The reason that Osama is still alive is that our very own CIA taught him survivalist training in Afghanistan, when the occupying force of the time were the Soviets. The reason that we are occupying Iraq is because we were stupid enough to arm Saddam years ago against the Iranians, and provide him with the ways and means to produce chemical and biological weapons. We sow our own harvest, when we leave seeds of violence in foreign fields, and we then reap the whirlwind of our foreign policies.

I support the right to exist of both Israel and Palestine. I also strongly oppose the policies of both. So long as each side undermines the possibility of peace by responding to violence with violence, the cycle of poverty and martyrdom will continue there.

If their hate will not dissipate even when we all sit down to talk about our basic rights to life, and our mutual commitment to ensure basic human rights and needs are protected, then perhaps at least the hate the breeds violence will. One thing is for certain -- tyranny and fear never produced a cowering populace for long: the USA, the French Revolution, and numerous civil wars are historical testimony to that fact. And the fear breeds a certain desperation which naturally dispenses violence out of survival instinct. If fear were just an emotion in a vacuum, then we would prefer it over hate. But when hate and fear combine into desperation, then violence is inevitable, and it will never end until neither side fears for their own life.

Steve's motto appears to be, "oderint dum metuant": let them hate so long as they fear (originally from Caligula). Unfortunately, fear only fuels desperate violence.
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Technorati tags: Politics

The Myth of the Hero

In talking about the existential dilemma the other day, I found myself willing to go read The Myth of Sisyphus, by Camus, when it was suggested by a friend that I see what I can take away from it.

When the images of earth cling too tightly to memory, when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens that melancholy rises in man's heart: this is the rock's victory, this is the rock itself. The boundless grief is too heavy to bear. These are our nights of Gethsemane. But crushing truths perish from being acknowledged. Thus, Oedipus at the outset obeys fate without knowing it. But from the moment he knows, his tragedy begins.

Do we, at the moment of admitting that deterministic physical laws control our universe, willingly embrace tragedy? That is one of the crux issues of the modern existential dilemma.

Yet at the same time, blind and desperate, he realizes that the only bond linking him to the world is the cool hand of a girl. Then a tremendous remark rings out: "Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well." Sophocles' Oedipus, like Dostoevsky's Kirilov, thus gives the recipe for the absurd victory. Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism.

Let us say that our consciousness is but a subjective experience of physical realities over which we have no real control. But let us say that we do have some capacity to turn our conscious minds towards values, purposes, and goals. Can we be virtuous? Is that enough? The nobility of Oedipus' soul was enough for him. And that is my view of the heroic -- one who encumbers the burden of virtue for virtue's sake alone: to say, "this is my life, and I can use it to cultivate goodness or evil in myself and others, and with all the absurdity and futility of life, I will still cultivate goodness." Not just "despite" the absurdity of the world, but because of it.

There is but one world, however. Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd discovery. It happens as well that the feeling of the absurd springs from happiness. "I conclude that all is well," says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred.

Some might argue that happiness is a mental state to which some peoples' chemistry will not allow access. I don't deny this possibility. For those of us who can access this state of mind (and being), though, ought we not? Is it not all that we can do? What if the other finds his rock too heavy to roll? What can I do for him? Nothing, save rolling my own.

It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile sufferings. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.

And this is what renders the human a potential hero -- in the way that she may settle with her own fate, in how she deals with it.

All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols.

Sisyphus chooses to see the same beauty and scope of being in his newfound purpose -- in rolling the rock for eternity, that he found when he was allowed to return from the underworld and experience life again. I am reminded of how the beauty of the universe I saw as a theist at first was crushed when I no longer believed. Now that beauty is returned to me, because it is contained within me. That beauty is no longer some inaccessible external Entity from which it cannot be extricated or internalized. That beauty is now the self, the human, and the potential hero (and the potential madman).

In the universe suddenly restored to silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. there is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his effort will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable.

What I did as a theist was define "the highest destiny" to be that which had been given to me by God. What I did not do is recognize that no gift is greater than something earned and learned. It is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, to say that I can exist happily and freely, and yet have been put inside of an inescapable and unyielding cosmic plan, in which I was yet a cog, and towards which we traversed I knew not. The highest absurdity.

For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that silent pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which becomes his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.

I hope I never lose the eagerness to see, and I hope that the night has an end. I hope I have the courage to continue with that eagerness even should daybreak never give me the merest glimpse. Should the universe in which I live be blind and careless until I die, it is still within my power to see, and to live. I do not have to close my eyes and lay down before my rock has been rolled as far as I can take it.

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again.

My own burden at the moment is in maintaining rationalism -- a commitment to reason, and optimism -- a commitment not to only see things as better, but to be better and in so doing, this purpose makes "all well".

But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

The stone is something. It is not nothing. Rolling the stone is doing something. Finding purpose in the struggle. Something that is not only not added to when we add "plus God" to the equation, but is in fact completely negated of all purpose.

The theists have argued with me that a finite purpose, or a temporal life, is the same thing as nothing. But what they do is equivocate something with nothing. They are confused.

If this life is but a mere shadow, and the rest of eternity a bright light, then finding purpose in this present darkness is futile and absurd. Christians (and other theists) admit as much -- they call themselves "pilgrims" and "aliens" in the world in which they live, and call their "home" and their "citizenship" heaven. What they do is ignore the rock at their feet, and the power they have to move it upward, and stare towards the top of the summit. But the summit is obscured with clouds -- the zenith cannot be seen from the foot of the mountain. It is in the struggle that one can see further, though perhaps never to the top, because it is not a given that the mountain upon which we labor has a finite end.
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Technorati tags: Philosophy, Sisyphus

Faking Moral Philosophy

I am grateful to Steve Hays for making me carefully think about my ethical framework. We have had a positive and (at least for me) enlightening discussion about the age-old question, "if not God, why/how be moral?" Not being a moral philosopher (or any sort of one), I have been faking my way through (wink-wink). It has occupied the following threads (newest first):
1) Christian Altruism
2) Who Goes Down with the Ship?
3) Regarding Steve's Post to Danny on the Value of Values
4) The Value of Values
(there are some other threads regarding epistemology, but I'll write on those later)

I have tried to argue along utilitarian lines, specifically survival consequentialism, using as referents both social contracts and egoism, to justify my values and explain how my behavior is not irrational. Steve has referred a lot to "evolutionary ethics", but I fail to see how the method by which human beings are generated immediately necessitates a certain ethos. Read below, or on this thread, for the current discussion.

I have numbered the points to facilitate commentary. Steve's words are italicized.

1) Your argument was predicated on noble values/virtues. What you did was to posit noble values/virtues as second-order values, then argue since these second-order values could not exist absent the first-order value of survival, that the second-order values validated the first-order value.

But one problem with this line of argument is that you failed to validate the operating premise: are there second-order values?
I did misunderstand what you were asking before.

Do we agree that as humans we have many basic needs and desires? This seems self-evident. I would argue that because we cannot fulfill all of our needs and desires simultaneously, or equally, that we must arrange our needs and desires into priorities, or order them, according to our values. It seems an unavoidable part of being human to have "first-order, second-order, etc., etc.," values.

In the same way that the Christian says that her own first-order value is serving God, and then in serving the needs of the state (eg a conscientious objector), I am simply saying that if you want to flip virtue/character/goodness around from being a first principle to being an extension of survival (which seems quite unassailable in its logic, when one lives within a society), thus survival becomes an inextricable part of virtue/character/goodness -- you do what is good in order to survive. You don't rape, pillage, and steal because you recognize that you are less likely to be successful, and to pass on your genes, if you live in such a chaotic society, or if you are ostracized from it, or punished within it.

I'm not very articulate here, but I hope this makes sense of my position.

2) What is your secular argument for the existence of these higher virtues?
Are you asking me how I define them? In the same way Marcus Aurelius did, and many others before and after him.

Are you asking me why they exist? They exist as a part of the spectrum of human behavior. Humans can act in many ways, and acting virtuously is one way humans are capable of acting.

Are you asking me why I should act virtuously?
Because we are in a prisoner's dilemma situation -- we all must work together in a societal structure, or we may as well have a "free-for-all" morally and otherwise. Assuming we will work together (which history has shown works 95% of the time), then exercising virtuous character contributes to the stability of society, and society, just like virtues, becomes a means to an end -- success in health, wealth, and reproduction.

3) SH: Okay, but to play along with your parallel, a Christian apologist would need to establish the value of Sabbath-keeping for the end to justify the means.
If we do not care to survive, then ethics are futile. Why do we care what is "good" for us, if we don't care if we live or die? If we don't use our own life, and if we don't value our own life, and the lives of others, in determining what we ought to do generally, then I would argue that ethics are absurd. We have to start with some primary value around which we frame our ethics. Yours is "what [you think] God said/does/wants".

4) No, the survival of the present generation doesn’t depend on the existence of a future generation. But the survival of the species does depend on reproduction.
Yes, but consider that overpopulation leads to starvation. Consider that there are "premium times" to harvest, and the same applies to having babies -- certain environmental and societal conditions that are more conducive to raising children, and thus we are considering our survival as a species in choosing when and how to have children -- so that they will be most healthy and likely to survive.

5) Yet the force of that argument assumes an obligation to reproduce in order to have agents that exemplify these second-order values.
It is indeed necessary to reproduce, but not necessary to reproduce at all times, since giving birth does not always guarantee the collective survival of the species, and at times may endanger it (overpopulation). Thus, we can choose when and how, in order that the second generation is able to exemplify those values as well (maximally so).

6) But in what sense do we have an obligation to nonentities? Given the existence of moral agents, said moral agents enjoy mutual obligations, including the exemplification of second-order values.
Right.

7) But absent their existence, nonexistent agents have no obligations, and we, as existing agents, have no obligation to nonexistent agents.
One of our obligations is to ensure the survival of our collective species, another to the survival of our society (which is a means to the first), and that the virtues and values we hold dear don't die with us (which we hold, again, virtue to be a means to survival, and survival as our primary value).

8) Your second-order values are not free-floating obligations which compel the existence of property-bearers. Rather, they only kick in given the existence of a suitable property-bearer.
I don't disagree. I am not sure what the real issue here is, to be honest, Steve. Of course it is somewhat tautological, but not all tautologies are invalid. Consider "it is good that humans survive, and ethical behavior is a means to further that survival" and "goodness is itself defined by virtues, when we discover, through learning, what the virtues are, and we extol them, we ought to do what is good; then survival is necessary to extol the virtues and practice them, and pass them on to the next generation".

It is absurd to assume that either survival or virtues or society (the two latter as means to the former) are not already forgone conclusions. We exist. Our species exists. Our species is capable of both virtuous and unvirtuous behavior. We have learned what these mean, within the context of how they promote the welfare of the species, and seen them both played out in history many times over in civilizations.

The question is not whether property-bearers exist, for they already do, but how these property-bearers should act, what they should value. If they do not value their own survival, then ethics is itself undermined -- how can we determine the goodness or rightness of an action if we do not care whether it brings about life or death?

I am not sure what the categorical difference here is, or why you think it invalid to use our survival as a primary value, and ethics as a means to further it. Do we disagree that ethical behavior in society leads to the most healthy and successful society, which in turn gives rise to the most healthy and successful progeny?

9) SH: And what’s your secular justification for social contractualism?
Humans either go it alone or form societies. If they go it alone, they are much less likely to survive, or to live healthy, than if they form societies. Social contracts are one valid way to establish societies in which everyone agrees (a sort of prisoner's dilemma) to hold to ethical precepts to ensure the success of the society, and by proxy, the individual.

10) SM: That doesn’t harmonize self-interest over altruism.
It does. Consider two things:
i) you are more likely to be on the receiving end and receive benefits from living in a society that agrees to put the "many" above the "few" at any given time, by virtue of statistics. Thus, it certainly is in your self-interest to pledge in to such a society, and pledging to it is necessary to maintain its function, that if you should need to sacrifice yourself for the good of the many, you will.
ii) We have to look at self-interest from the perspective of every individual in the society. If you are X, and the question is how many X's must die, then you certainly view as "self-interest" what appears to Y as "altruism". Obviously, we consider it "unselfish" to sacrifice our lives for many other lives, should such a dilemma arise, but from the perspective of the utilitarian, it is acting in the interest of our own society/species/kin, which retains selfish motive -- we want to further their survival because they are us: our children, cousins, whatever. Even other animals show kin altruism (which makes it significantly less altruistic).

What is interesting is how humans show "clan altruism" and, historically, are very selfish when it comes to "non-clan" humans. This is esp true of the Hebraic peoples, but no more so than any other race or tribe.

11) The trolley care [sic] problem doesn’t pose a choice between my survival and the survival of the many.
In the formulations I have seen, it wouldn't alter the problem's significance to put you aboard the trolley, and the switch aboard the trolley as well.

12) The question I’m posing for secular ethics is different. Let’s say I’m an atheist. Let’s say I’m put in a position where I must choose between either saving my own life, or sacrificing my life to spare many others from destruction.
How should a secularist choose?
I just went through that a bit above with kin altruism, but this could also be formulated within the context of viewing your action's morality by its consequences: consider that if you do NOT do X, you are, effectively, killing many people, while if you DO X, you are killing only one. Part of our morality is to minimize the loss of life, so the ethical choice here is clear.

Consider a social contract as well -- that while a priori the society cannot take a life (unnecessarily -- considering the trolley problem and other sorts of dilemmas), an inbuilt clause and understanding is that the success and stability of the survival promotes the greater good -- as it promotes the survival of the many -- and thus if one can choose to take their own life in order to contribute to this society's stability, they ought to do so. Obviously, this ethical onus would be followed only by those persons acting responsibly for the greater good. There is no guarantee that our inbuilt survival instinct could be overcome by all persons at all times, but the ethical choice remains clear.

13) There is only one of me, and while I’m expendable in the great scheme of things, I’m not expendable to myself.
Am I, as an atheist, under some obligation to forfeit my life for the common good?
With arguably more "obligation" than you're under as a Christian -- if I command an ant to obey me and it doesn't, does it render me any harm? In the same way, if your God is not obeyed by humans, is it weakened or lessened by it? No. Conversely, if we do not choose to put the greater good (maximum survival) above our own, when the time calls for it, we are clearly and obviously hurting/harming others. Now, whether or not that matters to you is another question.

As with Christianity, ethics are a choice you make, whether to be selfish and thus cause harm (or death) to many, which is immoral, or to act unselfishly and thus alleviate harm and promote survival to many, which is moral.

14) Why can’t I just be a selfish SOB? It’s not as if a godless universe is going to reward me for my altruism.
You can be selfish. You will get no reward for not being so. However, your fellow kin, society, and the species in general will. That is what makes it an "ought" situation.

Ah, but you see, this is where the atheist's ethics are so much different than the Christian's -- we choose to do the right thing only because it is the right thing, not expecting a cosmic reward or fearing a cosmic punishment. If you choose not to cause the death of many by allowing your own life to be extinguished, and the atheist knows that this is all they have (no afterlife), how much greater a sacrifice is this than dying for only three measly days (and knowing this beforehand), before being raised to life eternal? Who couldn't take that kind of "fall" for others

15) SH: No, you don’t have to reinvent utilitarianism. But your challenge is twofold:
i) How do you derive utilitarian ethics from evolutionary ethics?
This is a point that needs clarification. Why is it that the process by which humans arose determines how they ought to act? Why is it that "evolutionary ethics" even relevant, if someone starts with survival as a primary value, without saying "evolution dictates that we must survive"? Imagine, if you must, that this person is a theist, but not a Christian, and says, "God dictates that we must survive" if you can't get past something undermining the primacy of survival.

16) ii) How do you derive egalitarianism from utilitarianism?
It is not a derived function, it is taken as an a priori commitment -- to the survival of our species, irrespective of race, IQ, gender, ethnicity, religion, age, etc. Since we are using human life as a primary value, there is no way to logically or rationally devalue some lives and add value to others. [and no, embryos, zygotes and fetuses are not elevated in value to the status of human beings -- they are potential human beings, but let's lay aside the issue of abortion as to not chase after red herrings]

17) SH: At this stage of the argument, I don’t see that we need to get specific. Is there any case in which, from a secular standpoint, I should put altruism ahead of self-interest? Collective survival above (my) personal survival?
In the outline above, self-interest demands that you agree to utilitarianism, because more often than not, your own life is furthered by the collective good, and thus statistically speaking, you agree to the potential need for self-sacrifice, as in the trolley car dilemma, ironically out of self-interest. Consider that statistically speaking, it is much more likely for you to be a part of the "many" the the "one/few" when it comes to dilemmas in which there is no way to avoid casualties. You sign in to the agreement/contract out of self-interest, and agree that just as you will more likely receive benefit from it the majority of the time, there is a potentiality for altruism.

18) Is there ever such an obligation in secular ethics? If so, why?
Hopefully I've made it clear by now.

19) On a side note, readers should observe, in the recent exchanges with Danny, that it’s quite possible for a believer and an unbeliever to have a civil exchange of views.
And I hope to see it continue. Both ways.
_**END QUOTE**_

I am certainly (and obviously) no moral philosopher, but I am trying to defend what I see to be a very basic observation: that humans can either choose to behave in such ways as to foster survival and a higher standard/quality of life, or choose to act otherwise. Morality seems to simply be the question of how best to do this former thing. Christians believe it is to follow the commands of God, while as an atheist, I see humans as quite capable of developing secular humanistic ethics that are far superior and more rational (consistent) than the theists' ethical framework.
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Technorati tags: Philosophy, Ethics

Feeling Rand-y Today

...No, not that kind of randy. I'm talking about Ayn Rand. No, I'm not an Objectivist. After having an interesting conversation with my colleagues over "The Guiltless Man" yesterday, mostly concerning the inability of religion to control such a person, I was thinking about it again this morning.

Thinking is a beautiful thing. From Ayn Rand's address to the 1974 West Point class:

You have no choice about the necessity to integrate your observations, your experiences, your knowledge into abstract ideas, i.e., into principles. Your only choice is whether these principles are true or false, whether they represent your conscious, rational conviction--or a grab-bag of notions snatched at random, whose sources, validity, context and consequences you do not know, notions which, more often than not, you would drop like a hot potato if you knew.

Of course, it is not truly necessary for persons to integrate all of this into a coherent, rational philosophy. Some people appear to have taken pieces of rational worldviews and mishmashed them in with superstition and folklore, and others (postmodernists) abandon rationalism altogether.

But the principles you accept (consciously or subconsciously) may clash with or contradict one another; they, too, have to be integrated. What integrates them? Philosophy. A philosophic system is an integrated view of existence. As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation--or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind's wings should have grown.

Most people do not develop a philosophy in the vein of Descartes -- carefully and from the bottom up. Most people adopt from others what feels right and true, and modern Sophists are able to persuade masses of persons into adopting incomprehensible premises as their foundational "truths".

You might say, as many people do, that it is not easy always to act on abstract principles. No, it is not easy. But how much harder is it, to have to act on them without knowing what they are?

Rand seems willing to grant to people something which I cannot -- that they act while thinking, or think before acting. I find no strong evidence that humans behave as rational animals even a fraction of the time.

Your subconscious is like a computer...Who programs it? Your conscious mind...one way or the other, your computer gives you print-outs, daily and hourly, in the form of emotions--which are lightning-like estimates of the things around you, calculated according to your values. If you programmed your computer by conscious thinking, you know the nature of your values and emotions. If you didn't, you don't.

John Loftus has written an interesting article on "control beliefs" as it relates to the interpretation of religion and religious evidence by believers versus unbelievers; or what we could call our presuppositions, in which he challenges the notion that we have the ability to free ourselves of biases and see past our weaknesses in order to objectively "program" our conscious minds. The major point he makes is that the fewer presuppositions, or "control beliefs," that we hold, the less likely we are to be wrong about any given one of them.

Many people, particularly today, claim that man cannot live by logic alone, that there's the emotional element of his nature to consider, and that they rely on the guidance of their emotions...The joke is on him--and on them: man's values and emotions are determined by his fundamental view of life. The ultimate programmer of his subconscious is philosophy--the science which, according to the emotionalists, is impotent to affect or penetrate the murky mysteries of their feelings...You have probably heard the computer operators' eloquent term "gigo"--which means: "Garbage in, garbage out." The same formula applies to the relationship between a man's thinking and his emotions.

Here we have to get into what Rand means by "his fundamental view of life" -- is this not particularly circular? If I value faith, do I become a believer (thus subscribing to some theistic worldview), or if I am a believer, do I value faith? Where do we begin? How many people even try to figure out what their assumptions are, much the less challenge and question them?

A man who is run by emotions is like a man who is run by a computer whose print-outs he cannot read. He does not know whether its programming is true or false, right or wrong, whether it's set to lead him to success or destruction, whether it serves his goals or those of some evil, unknowable power. He is blind on two fronts: blind to the world around him and to his own inner world, unable to grasp reality or his own motives, and he is in chronic terror of both. Emotions are not tools of cognition. The men who are not interested in philosophy need it most urgently: they are most helplessly in its power.

But what Rand ignores is that philosophy can be used as a tool to prop up what men want to believe. Nietzsche showed us that. It is a choice as to how far one develops a philosophy -- it can go so far as to render us nearly nihilistic. If we seriously probe the premises of every position, say for instance in meta-ethics, we will find ourselves much more epistemically skeptical than some people can handle. Therefore, most persons only develop (or adopt from others) enough philosophy to convince themselves that they are rational and "committed to the truth". But how many of us are? How many of us are willing to follow evidence and reason, should it lead us to no hopeful conclusion? What if reason does cannibalize itself, as Nietzsche and others implied?

The men who are not interested in philosophy absorb its principles from the cultural atmosphere around them--from schools, colleges, books, magazines, newspapers, movies, television, etc. Who sets the tone of a culture? A small handful of men: the philosophers. Others follow their lead, either by conviction or by default. For some two hundred years, under the influence of Immanuel Kant, the dominant trend of philosophy has been directed to a single goal: the destruction of man's mind, of his confidence in the power of reason. Today, we are seeing the climax of that trend.

And today, we might say that we are in the "post-postmodern" movement -- many philosophers have strongly argued against the premises of postmodernism (pomo), and have had the time to carefully deconstruct existentialism, Heidegger (probably on of the figures in philosophy with whom Rand identified this sort of negative trend), and some of the previously nebulous arguments of pomo's that science is but "another mythic narrative", aka the Counter-Enlightenment. I would say that the tides have turned, in large part thanks to a commitment to Rationalism, to flesh out the claims of nihilism and pomo over the past decades. Basically, if we cannot sustain rationalism, then pomo itself is self-refuted -- how can a coherent proposition be made: there is no rationalism? It is self-refuting and self-defeating, just like, "there are no truths." (if that description of reality is itself true, then the statement itself must be false, if the statement is false, then it tells us nothing of truth)

When men abandon reason, they find not only that their emotions cannot guide them, but that they can experience no emotions save one: terror. The spread of drug addiction among young people brought up on today's intellectual fashions, demonstrates the unbearable inner state of men who are deprived of their means of cognition and who seek escape from reality--from the terror of their impotence to deal with existence. Observe these young people's dread of independence and their frantic desire to "belong," to attach themselves to some group, clique or gang. Most of them have never heard of philosophy, but they sense that they need some fundamental answers to questions they dare not ask--and they hope that the tribe will tell them how to live. They are ready to be taken over by any witch doctor, guru, or dictator. One of the most dangerous things a man can do is to surrender his moral autonomy to others: like the astronaut in my story, he does not know whether they are human, even though they walk on two feet.

Rand almost seems comically naive. Every generation has viewed their youth as on a destructive path, whether towards immorality or irrationality or both. I would say that in today's culture, one of the few unique things we have today is access to so much knowledge and information that some persons are paralyzed by it [one of the other things that sets apart our current era from others is the explosion of scientific understanding of our universe]. Knowing what to believe, and who to believe, adrift in a sea of arguments and voices can be overwhelming. But that does not mean that we must not believe, else we be wrong, only that we must focus our energies on narrow slices of the big philosophy pie. Few persons that I know go to original sources in philosophy, preferring summaries and reviews of topics and questions in philosophy. There is just too much to read and absorb, and too few days to do it.

Now you may ask: If philosophy can be that evil, why should one study it? Particularly, why should one study the philosophical theories which are blatantly false, make no sense, and bear no relation to real life?

My answer is: In self-protection--and in defense of truth, justice, freedom, and any value you ever held or may ever hold.

And it is for those reasons that I continue to study the Bible, theology, and think about God. I do not claim, as Paul wrote in Phil. 3, "to have apprehended...". I have not arrived at some "self-enlightenment". I somewhat doubt that such a final state can exist, for that would mean it would be nearly impossible to self-doubt or critically analyze the experience. My view of personal enlightenment is more a process and progress in which we analyze and skeptically critique everything. But unlike the pomo, I find no reason to abandon rationalism, as I know nowhere else to be, no other way to live, and no other way to think. I choose to value reason, and build my worldview upon it, and I have seen the efficacy of this played out as personal success and happiness, not despair and hopelessness. In that sense, you might say I pragmatically cling to rationalism.

Some ask me what motive I have in arguing with theists. I do not believe, they do, I think they are wrong, but I think there is no real consequence for their wrongness (in the sense that their faith won't "hurt" them or me). Why do I continue, then, to spend so much time reading, debating, and trying to understand philosophies to which I do not subscribe, and hold to be irrational? Primarily, because their faith affects me. The politics and policies of our current administration have been clearly infused with religion and its lobbying power and money. Secondarily, I do so in defense of my mind, my values, my desire for truth. I skeptically analyze arguments for and against God, and I continue to consider them for their validity and strengths.

There are many things over which I find myself disagreeing with Ayn Rand, but on this, we agree -- philosophy is more than necessary, it is inevitable: the only choice you have is whether you will swallow someone else's premises like a jagged little pill, or whether you will question them, and yourself, and everything.
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Technorati tags: Philosophy, Ayn Rand, Reason, Logic