Bleak Conclusions
| April 21, 2009 | Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design |
In an earlier post I lamented the apparent extinction of what I called “Nietzsche atheists,” by which I meant atheists with the courage and honesty to accept the bleak conclusions logically compelled by their premises. Some of our atheist friends seemed to not know what bleak conclusions I was referring to. Here is a comment that sums it up nicely. This post is adapted from kairosfocus’ comment to that earlier post. He refers to Hawthorne on ethics and evolutionary materialist atheism and writes:
Make two assumptions:
(1) That atheistic naturalism is true.
(2) One can’t infer an “ought” from an “is.” Richard Dawkins and many other atheists should grant both of these assumptions.
Given our second assumption, there is nothing in the natural world from which we can infer an “ought.” And given our first assumption, there is nothing that exists over and above the natural world; the natural world is all that there is. It follows logically that, for any action you care to pick, there’s nothing in the natural world from which we can infer that one ought to refrain from performing that action.
Add a further uncontroversial assumption: an action is permissible if and only if it’s not the case that one ought to refrain from performing that action. This is just the standard inferential scheme for formal deontic logic. We’ve conformed to standard principles and inference rules of logic and we’ve started out with assumptions that atheists have conceded. And yet we reach the absurd conclusion: therefore, for any action you care to pick, it’s permissible to perform that action. If you’d like, you can take this as the meat behind the slogan “if atheism is true, all things are permitted.” For example if atheism is true, every action Hitler performed was permissible. Many atheists don’t like this consequence of their worldview. But they cannot escape it and insist that they are being logical at the same time.
In #541 stephenB wrote:
Stephen, you are not even very good at putting words in other people’s mouths, much less reading what is right there in front of you. I have written many things on this subject, both here and elsewhere, and posted links to the things with which I agree, and yet you continue to assert that I believe exactly the opposite of those things.
Why do you do this? Do you claim to know what is in my heart? Do you know me better than I know myself? Have you dived all the way to the bottom of my spirit and found what I am there?
Or have you only found what you wanted and expected to find there, because to find me there (rather than the simulacrum of me that you have created in your own mind) would be intolerable, because it would shake the foundations of your absolutely rigid worldview?
Just curious…
So, tribune7, you deny that ends never justify means. Ergo, you believe that there are ends that do, indeed, justify whatever means one believes are necessary to achieve them, right?
Glad you finally made that clear to all of us.
stephenB and tribune7 have finally revealed their true colors here, for all to see. I am glad that this thread was still open, and that this was therefore possible.
I am also happy that this thread made it possible for me to defend myself and my beliefs against the distortions, mischaracterizations, and outright lies promulgated by them. Which of us stated outright exactly what we believed, and which of us claimed that this was not the case and that we actually believed something completely different from what we plainly and simply stated?
Biology class starts in 20 minutes, and I have to walk to get there. Therefore, this is goodbye, for now…
Allen, maybe YOU just like putting words in others mouths.
You–“Ends never justify means.”
Me–”It depends on the ends, and depends on the means.”
You–Ergo, you believe that there are ends that do, indeed, justify whatever means one believes are necessary to achieve them, right?
No. What I believe is that you should never say never without thinking.
You have a letter to send (the end). You choose to use the U.S. mail (the means). Does the end justify the means?
Allen:
I have not followed this thread (and don’t want to read all the 500+ posts!), so I am not taking any position about the discussions here. I just wanted to thank you for citing one of my favourite principles of all times:
“The map is not the territory.”
Someone here has sure revealed their true colors, Allen. What’s the Tao say about self-righteousness? Dishonesty? Hypocrisy?
Barry writes [520]
But people must we willing to give up their assumptions or presuppositions that are incorrect or ineffective. Maybe not give them up for all time and maybe not give up everything about them, but I see no reason to cling to any particular assumption, presupposition or worldview.
You see assumptions driving conclusions. That may be how it works for you, but it’s not how it works for me and many others besides.
If we have two competing assumptions, as you have identified, how do we decide which one is preferable? One assumption hypothesizes that “the moral code is arbitrary” (to use your words). The other proposes that a particular moral code “it in fact exists and is objectively true.”
OK, given your predilection to the second hypothesis, then it’s time for you to put up or shut up. What exactly is the test that detects the existence of the moral code? What is the test to establish that this one moral code is true and not false?
I propose that you create a new thread where you identify the test and run through it several times in different scenarios.
I hope others will echo this call for seeing the test in action. Bring it out. No weasel words, no evasion, no tu quoque.
Show the test and use it. If you don’t or if you refuse, perhaps you can simply take the time to reflect on a word such as “hypocrisy.”
Allen, in answer to question about the “objective nature”of the Tao, and in particular reference to my lack of belief in “objective truths,” wrote,
I like this answer. However, speaking for myself, I would say more.
I have made clear at other times (although I don’t expect people to necessarily remember this) that my basic position is that we can not really know the nature of the metaphysical, or if there is even anything beyond the physical. I lean towards believing, in my heart, that there is more to the world than just the physical, and I like the philosophy of the Tao and other Buddhist teachings the best, but I don’t believe they are “true” because my belief that we can’t know is paramount.
So for me, talking about the Tao is a way of talking about the unknowable, not a way of talking about the known – the nice thing about this being that it is in keeping with the whole idea of the Tao anyway.
Here’s another quote from the Tao Te Ching:
All attempts to be specific become part of this world, and thus provisional. The Tao may or may not be “objectively real”, but as soon as we approach it cognitively our understandings become inextricably entangled with our culture, our basic human nature as well as the particularities of our personality, conflicts with other understandings, and so on. In this sense, anything we think is a objective truth can’t be.
The quote above expresses the basic Taoist/Buddhist idea that out of the one true One comes the restless multiplicity of the world – the Tao is the “mother of ten thousand things. We are part of the multiplicity of the world, and our intellectual capacities – our words and logic – bind us o that world and blind us the Oneness.
If one really wants to try to find the Truth – if it is there to find – one has to abandon the attempt to nail it down with words and logic. Words and logic bind the ego to the illusion of multiplicity. The Eastern search for truth involves quieting the mind, freeing ourselves from our attachment to our verbal models of the world, and surrendering the ego.
So, no I don’t believe the things that CS Lewis, or anyone, mentions are objective truths. They are human truths, filtered through the human condition, and subject to all the complexity of both our human nature and the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
How do atheists and materialists derive any “ought,” for all that exists is the “is” by their scheme? I would really like to know the answer to this question. If the answer I get is “from cultural evolution” that’s just another way of saying “from a bunch of individuals put together”–as if the fact of their being together magically produces the “ought” as an emergent quality of a group of more than one person. I don’t see how that would work, for any judgment of morality is only discerned by the individuals. If the individuals didn’t already know, before hand, what is right or wrong, putting them in a group won’t suddenly create it, anymore than the rules of a new sport would be magically discerned once you get enough people together. It wouldn’t matter how many folks were together, if you didn’t already know the rules individually, you couldn’t start playing just by virtue of being around others.
And if I’m told that “empathy” accounts for morality through evolution, this is also a non-starter. For empathy wouldn’t be a duty for anyone to exercise–there would be no initial “I ought to empathize with this other person.” And secondly, if the one empathizing didn’t bring their knowledge of morality to their empathic imaginings, then that person’s imagining themselves in another’s shoes wouldn’t mean anything. The person who is empathic has to already know, themselves, whether or not something is moral or immoral “before” they move into another’s shoes–for if they didn’t, the mere movement into another’s shoes wouldn’t bring it about, for there would be no way to discern or analyze the moral cogency of any one else’s situation.
And if I’m told it’s Reciprocal Altruism, that’s a non-starter too. For the act of reciprocity doesn’t bring about altruism. Altruism has to be known prior to any intention that says that the altruistic act “should” be reciprocated. And of course, the final blow, altruism means by definition a selfless act, and reciprocity means by definition a self-interested act. Saying reciprocal altruism is like saying selfless selfishness.
So, the question remains, how do atheists and materialists discern an ought from an is?