Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

A reply to Dr Dawkins’ September Playboy interview

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

 

In an interview with Playboy, September just past, Dr Dawkins made some dismissive remarks  on the historicity of Jesus, in the context of having made similarly dismissive talking points about Intelligent Design.  As UD News noted:

PLAYBOY: What is your view of Jesus?

DAWKINS: The evidence he existed is surprisingly shaky. The earliest books in the New Testament to be written were the Epistles, not the Gospels. It’s almost as though Saint Paul and others who wrote the Epistles weren’t that interested in whether Jesus was real. Even if he’s fictional, whoever wrote his lines was ahead of his time in terms of moral philosophy.

PLAYBOY: You’ve read the Bible.

DAWKINS: I haven’t read it all, but my knowledge of the Bible is a lot better than most fundamentalist Christians’.

Since this matter is a part of the wider issues of atheism and its cultural agendas, which are often presented in the name of Science sez, I have now responded in some details, here.

On this wider cultural agenda of atheism issue, Lee Strobel’s video on The Case for Christ may also be of interest:

[vimeo 17960119]

One may wonder why such is relevant to an ID blog. Right from the very beginning, however, Darwin made it very clear that there was a wider socio-cultural, worldviews agenda connected to Darwin’s science. This may easily be discerned from his 1881 letter of reply to a man better known to history as Marx’s [de facto?] son-in-law, Aveling:

. . . though I am a strong advocate for free thought [–> NB: free-thought is an old synonym for skepticism, agnosticism or atheism] on all subjects, yet it appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity & theism produce hardly any effect on the public; & freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds, which follows from the advance of science. It has, therefore, been always my object to avoid writing on religion, & I have confined myself to science. I may, however, have been unduly biassed by the pain which it would give some members of my family [–> NB: especially his wife, Emma], if I aided in any way direct attacks on religion.

The letter just cited makes it utterly clear that a key background motive for Darwin’s theorising on origins science was to put God out of a job, thus indirectly undermining the plausibility of believing in God.  In thinking and acting like this, he probably believed that he was championing enlightenment and science-led progress in their path to victory over backward, irrational but emotionally clung-to beliefs. And so his strategy was to lead in a science that was in his mind showing just how outdated and ill-founded the Judaeo-Christian theism that had dominated the West since Constantine in the 300’s was.

In short, there has always been an anti-Christian socio-cultural agenda closely tied to the rise of Darwinism. And, that has to be faced and is a legitimate part of the wider discussion, though of course — as my reply to Dawkins should make plain — it is tied more closely to principles of historical warrant than to science.

On the design issue Dawkins also raised during the interview, my 101 level response is here on.

A key point in that response is to take note of a basic problem, typified by prof Richard Lewontin (cf five cases in point here, including more details from Lewontin) who openly admitted to a priori evolutionary materialism in his NYRB review of Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World:

. . . It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated . . . [[“Billions and billions of demons,” NYRB, Jan 1997.  Further excerpted and discussed here.]

Seminal ID thinker Prof Johnson”s reply in First Things that November is apt:

For scientific materialists the materialism comes first; the science comes thereafter. [[Emphasis original] We might more accurately term them “materialists employing science.” And if materialism is true, then some materialistic theory of evolution has to be true simply as a matter of logical deduction, regardless of the evidence. That theory will necessarily be at least roughly like neo-Darwinism, in that it will have to involve some combination of random changes and law-like processes capable of producing complicated organisms that (in Dawkins’ words) “give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”
. . . .   The debate about creation and evolution is not deadlocked . . . Biblical literalism is not the issue. The issue is whether materialism and rationality are the same thing. Darwinism is based on an a priori commitment to materialism, not on a philosophically neutral assessment of the evidence. Separate the philosophy from the science, and the proud tower collapses. [[Emphasis added.] [[The Unraveling of Scientific Materialism, First Things, 77 (Nov. 1997), pp. 22 – 25.]

So, while the scientific issues are central to UD’s purpose and are therefore given pride of place in our posts, wider concerns are also legitimately to be addressed, and we will not allow silly talking points about “Creationism in a cheap tuxedo” intimidate us from speaking to such issues.

For that matter, let us observe what that silly red-neck Bible-thumping Fundy — NOT, Plato had to say in solemn warning on the socio-cultural associations of evolutionary Materialism, in The Laws, Bk X, 2350 years ago:

Ath. . . . [[The avant garde philosophers and poets, c. 360 BC] say that fire and water, and earth and air [[i.e the classical “material” elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art, and that as to the bodies which come next in order-earth, and sun, and moon, and stars-they have been created by means of these absolutely inanimate existences. The elements are severally moved by chance and some inherent force according to certain affinities among them-of hot with cold, or of dry with moist, or of soft with hard, and according to all the other accidental admixtures of opposites which have been formed by necessity. After this fashion and in this manner the whole heaven has been created, and all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only. [[In short, evolutionary materialism premised on chance plus necessity acting without intelligent guidance on primordial matter is hardly a new or a primarily “scientific” view! Notice also, the trichotomy of causal factors:  (a) chance/accident, (b) mechanical necessity of nature, (c) art or intelligent design and direction.] . . . .

[[Thus, they hold that t]he Gods exist not by nature, but by art, and by the laws of states, which are different in different places, according to the agreement of those who make them; and that the honourable is one thing by nature and another thing by law, and that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.– [[Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT. (Cf. here for Locke’s views and sources on a very different base for grounding liberty as opposed to license and resulting anarchistic “every man does what is right in his own eyes” chaos leading to tyranny. )] These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might [[ Evolutionary materialism leads to the promotion of amorality], and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [[Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality “naturally” leads to continual contentions and power struggles; cf. dramatisation here],  these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is, to live in real dominion over others [[such amoral factions, if they gain power, “naturally” tend towards ruthless tyranny], and not in legal subjection to them.

 Just in case you think that is an improper, unwarranted projection unto Science from objectors to Darwin, let me cite the well known remarks by prof William Provine at the 1998 Darwin Day keynote speech at the University of Tennessee (this being his native state):

Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent . . . . 
 
The first 4 implications are so obvious to modern naturalistic evolutionists that I will spend little time defending them. Human free will, however, is another matter. Even evolutionists have trouble swallowing that implication. I will argue that humans are locally determined systems that make choices. They have, however, no free will . . . . Without free will, justification for revenge disappears and rehabilitation is the main job of judicial systems and prisons. [[NB: As C. S Lewis warned, in the end, this means: reprogramming through new conditioning determined by the power groups controlling the society and its prisons.] We will all live in a better society when the myth of free will is dispelled . . . .
How can we have meaning in life? When we die we are really dead; nothing of us survives.
Natural selection is a process leading every species almost certainly to extinction . . . Nothing could be more uncaring than the entire process of organic evolution. Life has been on earth for about 3.6 billion years. In less that one billion more years our sun will turn into a red giant. All life on earth will be burnt to a crisp. Other cosmic processes absolutely guarantee the extinction of all life anywhere in the universe. When all life is extinguished, no memory whatsoever will be left that life ever existed. [Evolution: Free Will and Punishment and Meaning in Life, Second Annual Darwin Day Celebration Keynote Address, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, February 12, 1998 (abstract).]
Such remarks find a striking parallel in Dawkins’ words in a 1995 Scientific American article:

Nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This lesson is one of the hardest for humans to learn. We cannot accept that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous: indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.

We humans have purpose on the brain. We find it difficult to look at anything without wondering what it is “for,” what the motive for it or the purpose behind it might be. The desire to see purpose everywhere is natural in an animal that lives surrounded by machines, works of art, tools and other designed artifacts – an animal whose waking thoughts are dominated by its own goals and aims . . . .

Somewhere between windscreen wipers and tin openers on the one hand, and rocks and the universe on the other, lie living creatures. Living bodies and their organs are objects that, unlike rocks, seem to have purpose written all over them . . . . The true process that has endowed wings, eyes, beaks, nesting instincts and everything else about life with the strong illusion of purposeful design is now well understood.

It is Darwinian natural selection . . . . The true utility function of life, that which is being maximized in the natural world, is DNA survival. But DNA is not floating free; it is locked up in living bodies, and it has to make the most of the levers of power at its disposal. Genetic sequences that find themselves in cheetah bodies maximize their survival by causing those bodies to kill gazelles. Sequences that find themselves in gazelle bodies increase their chance of survival by promoting opposite ends. But the same utility function-the survival of DNA-explains the “purpose” of both the cheetah [–> i.e. predator]  and the gazelle [–> i.e. prey] . . . .

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are being slowly devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst and disease. It must be so. If there is ever a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored.

In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but pitiless indifference . . . . DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music. [[ “God’s Utility Function,” Sci. Am. Aug 1995, pp. 80 – 85.]

[[NB: This article raises the issue of the problem of evil, here emphasising the problem of natural evil; probably the strongest argument in the atheists’ arsenal, but one that only works by implicitly assuming that good and evil, thus moral obligation, are real; while ducking the implication that the only valid worldview in a world in which OUGHT is real, is one that has a foundational IS that adequately grounds ought. And materialism — scientific atheism today, has no such is. So, the objecting atheist actually has no grounds to stand on to make the argument; his argument, in the end is self-defeating, and so the proper response is to insist that such an atheist face that issue before proceeding further. (Cf here for a preliminary discussion of the problem of evil from a Christian perspective.)]

So, it is entirely appropriate for us to respond to that wider view of science, society, worldviews and cultural agendas. It therefore seems to me that there are some serious issues that we need to ponder as we reflect on where our civilisation is heading at this time. END

_____________

F/N, Nov 6th: Given the onward attempted objections to the list of minimal facts and the failure to substantially respond to my onward rebuttals at 34 below, it is worth adding as a footnote from the linked post in my personal blog, the following summary of the criteria of authenticity, and a table that addresses how well ten skeptical theories from C1 – 21 can handle a key cluster of credible facts.

First, the criteria of high quality facts — while in many cases from antiquity, high quality sources do not meet such facts, the following are strong indicators of a credible claim:

  1. Multiple sources – If two or more sources attest to the same fact, it is more likely authentic
  2. Enemy attestation – If the writers enemies corroborate a given fact, it is more likely authentic
  3. Principle of embarrassment – If the text embarrasses the writer, it is more likely authentic
  4. Eyewitness testimony – First hand accounts are to be preferred
  5. Early testimony – an early account is more likely accurate than a later one

Second, the table that compares alternative explanations of four key credible facts that meet such criteria:

“Theory”
Match to four major credible facts regarding Jesus of Nazareth & his Passion
Overall score/20
Died by crucifixion
(under Pontius Pilate) at
Jerusalem
c 30 AD
Was buried, tomb was found empty
Appeared to multiple disciples,
many of whom proclaimed
& suffered for their
faith
Appeared to key
objectors who then became church leaders: James & Paul
Bodily Resurrection
5
5
5
5
20
Visions/
hallucinations
5
2
2
1
10
Swoon/recovery
1
3
2
2
8
Wrong tomb
5
1
1
1
8
Stolen body/fraud
5
2
1
1
9
Quran 4:155 -6: “They did not slay him, neither crucified him.” 1 1 1 1 4
 “Jesus never existed” 1 1 1 1 4
 “Christianity as we know it was cooked up by Constantine and  others at Nicea, who censored/ distorted the original record” 1 1 1 1 4
“What we have today is ‘Paulianity,’ not the original teachings of Jesus and his disciples” 2 1 1 2 6
Christianity — including the resurrection —  is a gradually emerging legend based on a real figure
5
1
1
1
8
Complete legend/pagan copycat (Greek, Persian, Egyptian, etc)
1
1
1
1
4

(I have given my scores above, based on reasoning that should be fairly obvious. As an exercise you may want to come up with your own scores on a 5 – 1 scale: 5 = v. good/ 4 = good/ 3 = fair/ 2 = poor/ 1 = v. poor, with explanations. Try out blends of the common skeptical theories to see how they would fare.)

Laying a priori anti-supernaturalism aside as a patent case of worldview level question-begging closed mindedness, the above table shows that there are two serious candidates today, the resurrection as historically understood, or some version of a collective vision/hallucination that led to a sincere (but plainly mistaken) movement.

The latter of course runs into  the problem that such collective visions are not psychologically plausible as the cultural expectations of a resurrection would have been of a general one in the context of the obvious military triumph of Israel. Nor, does it explain the apparently missing body. Moreover, we know separately, that the culturally accepted alternative would have been individual prophetic visions of the exalted that on being shared would comfort the grieving that the departed rested with God. So, an ahead of time individual breakthrough resurrection — even, one that may be accompanied by some straws in the wind of what is to come in fulness at the end — is not part of the mental furniture of expectations in C1 Judaism.  Where, hallucinations and culturally induced visions are going to be rooted in such pre-existing mental “furniture.”

So, it is in order to call for a serious rethinking on the part of Dr Dawkins and co.

Comments
PS: In response to your repeated "how dare you judge me" talking point, let me cite Jesus' very wise counsel on right vs wrong judging:
Matt 7: 1 “Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.
At first this looks like you are right. But dig in a bit more, to see that Jesus is speaking of hypocritically usurping God's prerogative of Judgement. So, harking back subtly to Moses' counsel not to hold a grudge but to reason frankly with your neighbour in the wrong AS AN EXPRESSION OF NEIGHBOUR LOVE, he speaks of dealing with planks and sawdust in eyes. He does not condemn all judgement, but hypocritical probably self serving censoriousness. This is a struggle, and it reveals that to be human is to struggle with hypocrisy, on the path of virtue. (As in, we are finite, fallible, morally fallen/struggling and too often ill willed.) But by no means does this actually teach the abandonment of critical awareness and moral suasion -- i.e. in effect enabling do as I please waywardness and wicked folly by silence, just the opposite. Please, think again.kairosfocus
November 25, 2012
November
11
Nov
25
25
2012
04:24 AM
4
04
24
AM
PDT
BD: Let me cite three voices that have a little more weight than you (being foundational to our civilisation), Moses, Jesus and Paul of Tarsus, on the subject of the moral content of love and thus also the Golden Rule:
MOSHE: Lev 19: 15 “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. 16 You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am the LORD. 17 “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD. JESUS: Matt 7: 34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” PAUL: Rom 13: 8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. 1 Cor 13: 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;2 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Contrary to your confident manner declaration, it has been long been understood as well founded, that love of neighbour which refuses to harm or wrong that neighbour but instead to do him or her good, cannot be separated from morality, being driven by the acceptance of the sacred value of that neighbour, who is made equally in God's image. That is the context in which Locke's citation of "the judicious [Anglican canon Richard] Hooker" when he set out to ground principles of liberty and justice in the community, becomes so apt, as we may see form his 2nd essay on civil govt Ch 2 sect 5, and I extend the cite from Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity:
. . . if I cannot but wish to receive good, even as much at every man's hands, as any man can wish unto his own soul, how should I look to have any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the like desire which is undoubtedly in other men . . . my desire, therefore, to be loved of my equals in Nature, as much as possible may be, imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to themward fully the like affection. From which relation of equality between ourselves and them that are as ourselves, what several rules and canons natural reason hath drawn for direction of life no man is ignorant . . . [[Hooker then continues, citing Aristotle in The Nicomachean Ethics, Bk 8:] as namely, That because we would take no harm, we must therefore do none; That since we would not be in any thing extremely dealt with, we must ourselves avoid all extremity in our dealings; That from all violence and wrong we are utterly to abstain, with such-like . . . ] [[Eccl. Polity,preface, Bk I, "ch." 8, p.80]
Please, please, please, think again. KFkairosfocus
November 25, 2012
November
11
Nov
25
25
2012
04:00 AM
4
04
00
AM
PDT
KF:
Which immediately leads tot he moral content of the principle of neighbour love, as you know or should know. But refuse to acknowledge.
No. You have it wrong. Morality can have love as part of its content (as in it is your duty to love your neighbor), but the converse is false: Love has no moral content---morality includes judgment and condemnation, which are totally antithetical to love.Bruce David
November 24, 2012
November
11
Nov
24
24
2012
11:28 PM
11
11
28
PM
PDT
F/N: Poster child status (with additional links that would not fit the 7 or so budget above).kairosfocus
November 23, 2012
November
11
Nov
23
23
2012
01:53 AM
1
01
53
AM
PDT
BD: Perhaps, unlike you, I have lived in a society where, for instance, I have had to deal up close and personal, with the implications of murder. The very same subject where, above, you sought to irresponsibly obfuscate and which I had to correct. (To which you have never made a responsible reply.) That is the clue that gives me a sense of what is going so destructively wrong. First of all, those of us who are clever, glib and educated have a different level of duty of care to the truth, the right and more, than those who are not. And, in particular, we have a duty to avoid the error of the rhetor, whereby we use clever tactics to manipulate the unwary into thinking the worse the better case, as Jefferson famously observed on. As an example, Rousseau -- a famous predecessor of some of your focus on the emotive as a pivot of operation and substitute for sound moral and social etc analysis rooted in first facts and first principles of right reason -- bears some intellectual responsibility for the ease with which his remarks could be used to undermine legitimate authority and restraint, and lend support to the sort of radical, nihilist factions that eventually led a reign of terror in France. As Solomon pointed out 3,000 years ago, words are powerful for life and death and we who wield such weapons must do so with due prudence and restraint. Let us pause to consider Burke's strictures on the man, duly balancing for the aristocratic tendencies in that writer, and an observation in his letter to a member of the French National Assembly in 1791:
I had good opportunities of knowing [Rousseau's] proceedings [during his brief exile in the British Isles c 1766] almost from day to day and he left no doubt in my mind that he entertained no principle either to influence his heart or to guide his understanding, but vanity . . . . A moral taste . . . infinitely abates the evils of vice. Rousseau, a writer of great force and vivacity, is totally destitute of taste in any sense of the word. Your masters [i.e., the leaders of the Revolution], who are his scholars, conceive that all refinement has an aristocratic character. The last age had exhausted all its powers in giving a grace and nobleness to our mutual appetites, and in raising them into a higher class and order than seemed justly to belong to them. Through Rousseau, your masters are resolved to destroy these aristocratic prejudices.
Please, do not forget, men like Robespierre saw themselves as inspired by Rousseau, and as carrying forth that general will of the people that in the end even forces men to be free. Do not ever forget the motto of the Revolution, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity -- themes that come from that same philosopher and do not ever forget how it ended in terror and tyranny as the ruthless rose to power amidst bloody chaos and then plunged all of Europe and far beyond into war. Please, please, please, pause long enough to listen to the ghosts of history, lest you commit again the blunders that promote that which led to their unjust slaughter. (And, as a side comment, that is exactly what I see going on in the current Arab Spring uprisings and the irresponsible fostering of such. All of this, as the vultures gather, again.) That leads me to now turn to what with all due respect I must highlight as your superficially appealing, emotively manipulative, ill-judged and irresponsible, even self-refuting (but tellingly triumphalistic and self-congratulatory), remarks just above:
I have taken myself out of the poisonous and lethal paradigm of judgment, censure, and condemnation, and its offspring of violence and destruction. I have shifted from being part of the problem to being part of the solution.
How ironic, and fatally self-refuting, is the fact that these very words positively drip with the censure, condemnation, self-congratulation and judgementalism that they purport to expose and dismiss. They also lack the basic responsibility that recognises that whether we are in a small community in a rural area, or a great city or a nation or the world, we have to deal with the hard fact of the bully grown up, not to mention the predatory wolf-pack grown up. In the school yard or the neighbourhood, the bully does no respect appeals to reason or respect, only sufficient force to bring him up short. Hopefully, he will then amend his ways. And, in the community, the city or nation or the world, we have to deal with aggressive criminals and ideologies or simply pirates of one sort or another. That is why we have police forces who need to be at least as well armed and to be better trained and disciplined than those they have to deal with, it is why we need courts and laws, and it is a major part of why we need governments. It is why we need armed forces, and it is why we need peaceful elections and systems for no-confidence motions, impeachment and trial that can remove failed government within the period of elections. Yes, all of these can be abused (hence checks and balances in a world of the finite, fallible, fallen and morally struggling who are too often ill-willed), but without them, and without the check they provide, we would live in a bloody chaos. So, there you sit at your keyboard, deriding and dismissing that which you depend on for your own enjoyment of the civil peace of justice. Think about what you are doing, please. In short, I point out that your view as just cited, fails the Categorical Imperative test. While being oh so cleverly self-congratulatory on its MORAL superiority -- yes, that is there too -- it is patently unsustainable as a general principle for the community. Please, think again. Next, you have pointed me to several places where you respond to my key case, regarding how it is undeniably wrong that someone were to abduct, torture, rape and kill an innocent child, that is, it OUGHT not to be done, as an example of the facts of morality and the linked point that we are morally governed creatures who cannot escape the issue of OUGHT. Allow me to clip no 18 as one of the cases from above, and again mark up on points, to again -- there was adequate answer above, but there seems to be a problem on your part in attending to corrective reply, hence (with all due respect) the tendency to repeat the same inaccurate or failed points over and over -- illustrate the problem:
The whole idea of morality for religious people, Christian or otherwise, a --> Starts by trying to poison the well, dismissing morality as a notion of "religious people," who in all too commonly encountered attitudes, are seen as essentially irrational. In effect, you have dragged a red herring of despised religiosity across to a strawman religious figure, soaked in ad hominems whhich you intend to set alight, creating a poisonous choking and polarising cloud that confuses the issue and frustrates serious discussion. [I won't even bother to highlight that religion is a vast topic and that there are many, many religions that come from such diverse worldviews that one cannot seriously and honestly make such a broad-brush lumping together. I will only hint for now on the point that the undeniable reality of error reflective of how we are finite, fallible, morally struggling and too often ill-willed, brings to bear a duty of care to the truth ad the right that can be ducked or can be failed; but this does not imply that all is chaos and confusion and truth does not stand out clearly enough if we are willing to seek it seriously. That undeniable reality of error is in fact the first undeniable and self evident truth that can help us clear up many confusions, as the next linked discussion on grounding worldviews will show.] is that
the only valid worldview in a world in which OUGHT is real, is one that has a foundational IS that adequately grounds ought.
b --> You have simply rhetorically ducked and brushed away the matter of the quite serious discussion on the grounding of worldviews [and note how with KN the issue came back to an implicit foundation, as the raft and spaceship metaphors inadvertently showed], and the question of the reality of ought as is captured in the key example or the like. c --> The crucial issue you are studiously brushing aside is that we find ourselves morally governed, and that we cannot escape this -- your own case as just discussed gives abundant illustration as to how you yourself cannot escape. For religious people, that “Is”, obviously, is God. God’s existence grounds morality because God tells us what is good behavior and what is sin. d --> Strawman. The starting issue is, that we find ourselves morally obligated, as can be ascertained as abundantly obvious fact, e.g. consider how we quarrel, i.e. habitually by trying to show one another in the wrong, and/or excusing oneself. We just don't find ourselves -- apart form a few monsters -- saying shut up you sheep and slide down my throat nicely. e --> This presents us with the reality of being morally governed, which your own rhetoric above shows,quite plainly. So OUGHT is real. That means that when we go about worldview shopping, we need to kick some tires and see that in particular, we must have an IS in the foundation of whatever view we take up [and remember how the raft under continual partial repair sits on the foundation of not only the water but the principle and forces of floatation], that can properly ground OUGHT. And, that is a matter of philosophical discussion, prior to any particular species of religious commitment per particular doctrines, traditions and texts. f --> What you are doing in short, is to try to duck addressing a philosophical issue that is inconvenient -- the Hume Guillotine issue on the IS-OUGHT gap that leads to Anscombe's point that unless an IS that grounds OUGHT is in the foundation or root of our worldview, forever after it will be an ungrounded injection. g --> And, when I have suggested that a serious candidate to be that IS (the only one in the end that has had any reasonable prospect of success -- which you seem to wish to brush aside) is the inherently good, loving and wise architect of our world, the creator God, I am here only at the God of the Philosophers [on the table since at least "that Bible-thumping fundy": NOT -- Plato]. But, an ad hominem soaked strawman ignited through clever suggestions is so much more convenient to dismiss . . . But does He? The problem with this ethical position is that God clearly has not communicated to us this distinction at all. h --> Thus speaks the ever-wise BD, ex cathedra even. Sorry, if we want a more credible and thoughtful source on the subject, let's first turn to Locke in the intro to the essay on human understanding, Section 5:
Men have reason to be well satisfied with what God hath thought fit for them, since he hath given them (as St. Peter says [NB: i.e. 2 Pet 1:2 - 4]) pana pros zoen kaieusebeian, whatsoever is necessary for the conveniences of life and information of virtue; and has put within the reach of their discovery, the comfortable provision for this life, and the way that leads to a better. How short soever their knowledge may come of an universal or perfect comprehension of whatsoever is, it yet secures their great concernments [Prov 1: 1 - 7], that they have light enough to lead them to the knowledge of their Maker, and the sight of their own duties [cf Rom 1 - 2 & 13, Ac 17, Jn 3:19 - 21, Eph 4:17 - 24, Isaiah 5:18 & 20 - 21, Jer. 2:13, Titus 2:11 - 14 etc, etc]. Men may find matter sufficient to busy their heads, and employ their hands with variety, delight, and satisfaction, if they will not boldly quarrel with their own constitution, and throw away the blessings their hands are filled with, because they are not big enough to grasp everything . . . It will be no excuse to an idle and untoward servant [Matt 24:42 - 51], who would not attend his business by candle light, to plead that he had not broad sunshine. The Candle that is set up in us [Prov 20:27] shines bright enough for all our purposes . . . If we will disbelieve everything, because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do muchwhat as wisely as he who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no wings to fly. [Text references added to document the sources of Locke's allusions and citations.]
i --> Here we see a noted philosopher, whose legacy is grounding modern democracy and liberty in the self-governing community and nation state showing how to properly use the resources of a religious tradition in a philosophical discussion. j --> And, when we turn to his pivotal argument that anchors the civil peace of justice and grounds the legitimate and lawful state in the community as the guardian of justice, here we find him citing "the judicious [Anglican Canon Richard] Hooker" in his famous 2nd essay on civil government, Ch 2 sect 5 -- and I will continue the cite, as it shows Hooker using a famous pagan philosopher, Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics, to underscore his point about how we do in fact have a very widespread consensus on core morality:
. . . if I cannot but wish to receive good, even as much at every man's hands, as any man can wish unto his own soul, how should I look to have any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the like desire which is undoubtedly in other men . . . my desire, therefore, to be loved of my equals in Nature, as much as possible may be, imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to themward fully the like affection. From which relation of equality between ourselves and them that are as ourselves, what several rules and canons natural reason hath drawn for direction of life no man is ignorant . . . [[Hooker then continues, citing Aristotle in The Nicomachean Ethics, Bk 8:] as namely, That because we would take no harm, we must therefore do none; That since we would not be in any thing extremely dealt with, we must ourselves avoid all extremity in our dealings; That from all violence and wrong we are utterly to abstain, with such-like . . . ] [[Eccl. Polity,preface, Bk I, "ch." 8, p.80]
j --> Unless and until you can overturn such principles as widely understood, and as particularly evident in our quarrels, then your dismissal of the case collapses. The widespread existence of statements of the Golden and/or Silver Rule [that pivot on recognising the equal moral value of the other so the principle of mutual respect appears], is a first strong evidence that you have widely missed the mark here. k --> That we may often err or stumble does not imply that we do not have adequate means to hand to persistently seek, know and do the right. And since you evidently have a particular distaste for Christian expressions of morality, let me cite an often overlooked bit of that "obscure epistle": NOT, by Paul, that is so foundational to Christian theology and moral thought (which are inseparable, whatever the judges in the recent Owen and Eunice Johns case in the UK may wish to imagine or cleverly assert, the better to rob those they object to of their freedom of conscience . . . ):
Rom 2:6 God “will give to each person according to what he has done.” 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger . . . . 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, 15 since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) . . . . 13:8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. 11 And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. 12 The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. 14 Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature. [NIV '84]
The evidence for this assertion is that every sect of every religion has its own version of what sin is. k --> Strawman being set up . . . In Catholicism, use of contraception is a sin, whereas in most protestant sects it is not. In some Christian belief, homosexual acts constitute sinning, while in others they do not. (This is true even within certain sects, witness the controversy in the Episcopal church surrounding the sexual orientation of Bishop Gene Robinson.) l --> The Catholics have a case in moral philosophy, not scripture as such on that. They may be wrong, but that does not mean that this means anything more than that we may err. To put this next to a case of blatant apostasy that would push aside strictures in the text that directly address a specific perversion of the Creation order for family and sexuality, shows a failure of seriousness. To many Christians, abortion is murder, to others it is not a sin at all. m --> Again, a confusion between opinion and what is right [mere disagreement does not disprove the existence of that which is objectively right, an error of subjectivism and radical relativism], but here on a subject where the implications are beginning to be evident all around us: abortion having fallen in many powerful but increasingly perverted and corrupted institutions, the erosion of the value of human life is proceeding apace as there has been injected the destructive notion that there is life unworthy or life, "Lebensunwertes Leben." So, we see infanticide, euthanasia and looming through the mists, the whole-scale elimination of those deemed not fit to live by the powerful. n --> The unborn child is indisputably human, indeed half the time such a child is not even of the same sex as his mother. So, we have no moral right to deem the unborn child "Lebensunwertes Leben." Nor the infant, nor the diseased or disabled, nor the elderly, nor Jews nor those of my own race, etc etc. (I hope you have enough sense to be ashamed.) These are just three of many, many examples of Christian ethical beliefs that contradict one another. o --> A confusion of the existence of error and disagreement for the non-existence of that which is correct. The very undeniable reality of error itself is the grounds on which such collapses. For, it is undeniable on pain of necessarily providing a counter-example and refuting itself, that error exists. So, truth, and indeed truth knowable even to undeniable certainty exists. hence, radical relativism that reduces truth to mere opinion collapses. p --> And, by focussing on points of disagreement on moral truth, you have sought to divert attention from cases that there is no reasonable dispute on. For instance, the very focal case that you have been challenged with ever so often in this thread and have repeatedly ducked: we ought not to abduct, torture, rape and murder an innocent child. q --> As has repeatedly been seen, the most you can say is, "that's unloving," emotively exploiting the MORAL content of neighbour love, while refusing to acknowledge that moral content and how it governs even you. I have not even addressed the differences in ethical imperatives between Christian faiths and the other religious traditions. r --> The same error of refusing to examine consensus and highlighting cases of disagreement on the rhetorical pretence that different opinion disestablishes truth. If God really did have a set of ethical guidelines that He wants us all to follow, wouldn’t He have made it clear to all human beings what those guidelines are? s --> You have had abundant opportunity to see that there is indeed a consensus on key cases, and that there is a wider pattern of core morality that is in common and shows that we are morally governed by the force of ought, but you wish to rhetorically brush it aside. Please, consider the consequences of such folly as highlighted by Plato in the Laws, Bk X, 2350 years ago -- and notice, this is obviously a pagan speaking and testifying to the moral government of humanity and what happens when it was ignored:
Ath. . . . [[The avant garde philosophers and poets, c. 360 BC] say that fire and water, and earth and air [[i.e the classical "material" elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art, and that as to the bodies which come next in order-earth, and sun, and moon, and stars-they have been created by means of these absolutely inanimate existences. The elements are severally moved by chance and some inherent force according to certain affinities among them-of hot with cold, or of dry with moist, or of soft with hard, and according to all the other accidental admixtures of opposites which have been formed by necessity. After this fashion and in this manner the whole heaven has been created, and all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only. [[In short, evolutionary materialism premised on chance plus necessity acting without intelligent guidance on primordial matter is hardly a new or a primarily "scientific" view! Notice also, the trichotomy of causal factors: (a) chance/accident, (b) mechanical necessity of nature, (c) art or intelligent design and direction.] . . . . [[Thus, they hold that t]he Gods exist not by nature, but by art, and by the laws of states, which are different in different places, according to the agreement of those who make them; and that the honourable is one thing by nature and another thing by law, and that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.- [[Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT. (Cf. here for Locke's views and sources on a very different base for grounding liberty as opposed to license and resulting anarchistic "every man does what is right in his own eyes" chaos leading to tyranny. )] These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might [[ Evolutionary materialism leads to the promotion of amorality], and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [[Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality "naturally" leads to continual contentions and power struggles; cf. dramatisation here], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is, to live in real dominion over others [[such amoral factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless tyranny], and not in legal subjection to them . . .
Can you imagine anything more cruel than setting up rules of behavior along with punishment of an eternity in Hell for violating them, and then not making it crystal clear and unambiguous to all human beings exactly what those rules are? t --> Strawman, soaked in ad hominems and ignited through snide dismissals. God is just, and there is quirte evident warrant for the core principles of morality as already was outlined and as can be accessed in materials that are not hard to find. That those who willfully choose to disregard the evident truth and the right and willfully do that which is oppressive, exploitive ans destructive should face eternal accountability for same, is just. u --> As for the doctrine of a place of eternal separation from God, kindly observe the primary example and illustration that our Lord gave: Gehenna, the ill-managed city dump south of Jerusalem which was doubtless almost always afire from spontaneous combustion and/or fires set to get rid of particularly offensive rubbish. It is quite evident that God is just to provide a place where those who reject him can set up their own world. That it deteriorates into the chaos of an ill-managed dump -- as so easily tends to happen here on earth when men forget God and his justice -- is their fault, not his. Do you doubt that an omnipotent and omniscient God could not have done so if He had wished to? v --> With all due respect, I must correct. For, having shut your eyes firmly to lock out the blatantly obvious, you now complain against him who gave you eyelids to use for a better purpose. If you will not heed Paul above, then at least heed Locke in his warning on the candle that is set up in us that shines brightly enough for all our purposes:
Men have reason to be well satisfied with what God hath thought fit for them, since he hath given them (as St. Peter says [NB: i.e. 2 Pet 1:2 - 4]) pana pros zoen kaieusebeian, whatsoever is necessary for the conveniences of life and information of virtue; and has put within the reach of their discovery, the comfortable provision for this life, and the way that leads to a better. How short soever their knowledge may come of an universal or perfect comprehension of whatsoever is, it yet secures their great concernments [Prov 1: 1 - 7], that they have light enough to lead them to the knowledge of their Maker, and the sight of their own duties [cf Rom 1 - 2 & 13, Ac 17, Jn 3:19 - 21, Eph 4:17 - 24, Isaiah 5:18 & 20 - 21, Jer. 2:13, Titus 2:11 - 14 etc, etc]. Men may find matter sufficient to busy their heads, and employ their hands with variety, delight, and satisfaction, if they will not boldly quarrel with their own constitution, and throw away the blessings their hands are filled with, because they are not big enough to grasp everything . . . It will be no excuse to an idle and untoward servant [Matt 24:42 - 51], who would not attend his business by candle light, to plead that he had not broad sunshine. The Candle that is set up in us [Prov 20:27] shines bright enough for all our purposes . . . If we will disbelieve everything, because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do muchwhat as wisely as he who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no wings to fly. [Text references added to document the sources of Locke's allusions and citations.]
Here’s an alternative possibility: God is not interested in morality—morality is a human invention and a human preoccupation. Rather, God is interested in the expansion of love in the Universe. If we want to act in concert with God’s will, we will not be asking “What is the right thing to do?” Instead, we will be asking “What is the loving thing to do?” w --> Having gone around the circle of your rhetoric a couple of times, triumphantly you announce your pre-determined conclusion that does not even see how it undermines itself. Please, please, please, think again and do better. We are each of us made in the “image and likeness” of God. If one wishes to access our God-like nature, one of the ways to do so is to live in the question, “What would Love do now?” and act accordingly. x --> Which immediately leads tot he moral content of the principle of neighbour love, as you know or should know. But refuse to acknowledge.
I trust that this example is sufficient to call you to rethink. You are making yourself into a poster-child of what goes wrong when we let radical subjectivism and relativism in the door. Please, please, please, think again. KFkairosfocus
November 23, 2012
November
11
Nov
23
23
2012
01:16 AM
1
01
16
AM
PDT
KF:
BD: Please, face the serious implications of what you have been saying, before it has an unspeakable price tag. KF
I very much have considered the implications of what I have been saying. They are that I have taken myself out of the poisonous and lethal paradigm of judgment, censure, and condemnation, and its offspring of violence and destruction. I have shifted from being part of the problem to being part of the solution.Bruce David
November 22, 2012
November
11
Nov
22
22
2012
09:30 PM
9
09
30
PM
PDT
BD: Please, face the serious implications of what you have been saying, before it has an unspeakable price tag. KFkairosfocus
November 22, 2012
November
11
Nov
22
22
2012
11:32 AM
11
11
32
AM
PDT
Alan Fox: re 243 Thank you Alan. I appreciate the kind words.Bruce David
November 22, 2012
November
11
Nov
22
22
2012
09:13 AM
9
09
13
AM
PDT
@ Bruce David While not in a habit of reading threads populated by commenters such as BA7, KF and StephenB, I happened to drop in and was drawn to read many of your comments. My daughter has so far failed to persuade me of the health benefits of yoga and vegetarianism and the spiritual benefits of Buddhism but if I were ever to be eased out of my congenital atheism, I think I would find Buddhism a more interesting path to explore than the dogma espoused by Stephen. Though my scepticism causes me to wonder if it could ever be attainable, your community based on love and compromise sounds eminently more appealing than one where StephenB had a controlling interest.Alan Fox
November 22, 2012
November
11
Nov
22
22
2012
01:48 AM
1
01
48
AM
PDT
KF: re 241: See 18, 36, 47, 53, 74, 121, 240, 232, and 226.Bruce David
November 21, 2012
November
11
Nov
21
21
2012
09:01 PM
9
09
01
PM
PDT
BD: When you can look at a case of abduction, torture, rape and murder of a child, and are unable to acknowledge that this ought not to be done (or at most try to escape by playing on connotations of "this is unloving"), there is little more that can be said, other than, reductio ad absurdum. KFkairosfocus
November 21, 2012
November
11
Nov
21
21
2012
06:32 AM
6
06
32
AM
PDT
KF:
Has it not dawned on you that to highlight that there are some obvious and undeniable facts of morality such as it is wrong and ought not to be done, to abduct, torture, rape and kill a child, and which therefore leave us in a world where we cannot get away from the reality of oughtness?
Well, you just keep repeating yourself. Your entire argument, your answer to all my points is just this one assertion, that it is an "obvious and undeniable fact" that it is wrong to "abduct, torture, rape and kill a child". And I keep pointing out that 1) this assertion has no warrant other than your claim that it is true and the fact that many other (but certainly not all) people agree with you, and 2) this assertion can only be true within the paradigm of morality. You do know how paradigms work, don't you? Until they are brought to awareness and questioned, they operate as the largely unconscious ground of assumptions upon which all conscious thinking is based. They are what is taken as so obviously true that to question them never even occurs to one. This is what the obvious wrongness of certain acts is to you---part of your paradigmatic structure. You cannot apprehend the possibility of a point of view in which "wrongness" is simply discarded for another paradigm entirely. The only reason you are certain that it is an “obvious and undeniable fact” that it is wrong to “abduct, torture, rape and kill a child" is that you are certain that morality is "real". Give up the idea that morality is "real" and the rightness or wrongness of anything simply disappears along with morality itself.
And, I must repeat, as Mung pointed out, you are using terms that imply the significance of oughtness, but then want to erect a barrier against the implication, because it does not suit where you wish to go.
I answered that in 237. You keep denying the validity of my arguments without ever actually addressing them, without ever actually demonstrating where they fail. All your refutations amount to nothing more than "Well, you're just wrong, Bruce. Take my word for it."Bruce David
November 19, 2012
November
11
Nov
19
19
2012
04:43 PM
4
04
43
PM
PDT
KN: Pardon, but this is inadvertently revealing of what I was highlighting:
I think that foundationalism — of the sort that tries to derive a systematic world-view from a few self-evident truths — arises from the mistaken attempt to do metaphysics the way we do mathematics (esp. geometry). This attempt to ‘mathematize’ metaphysics, from Descartes to Russell, is the source of a great many serious errors — among which is an inability to solve the Dilemma of the Criterion.
First, on fairly obvious grounds, I do not think that one can deduce a worldview from a cluster of self-evident truths. I do not know where such could properly have been inferred from what I have said. If you look, you will see that I consistently speak of comparative difficulties analysis of worldviews across factual adequacy, coherence and explanatory balance. However, some few self evident truths are foundational to all coherent reasoning -- first principles of right reason, I particularly have in mind -- and others cut a wide swath across (in the main naively accepted) worldviews that do not accept some basic and pivotal things. Such as, error exists means that truth, warranted truth and so also knowledge even to undeniable certainty exist, although of course this is not equal to being able to put everything we may please into that category. What I do believe is that we face a broad challenge of warrant. So, we move from A to what warrants A, B; thence C, D . . . Where, warrant is not to be equated to deductive proof or inductive generalisation. That is, I here highlight among other things, the role of credible perceptions and memories, testimony, inner reflection and abductive reasoning in warrant to various degrees, etc. Where in particular, I hold that the warrant on scientific knowledge claims is weak form and provisional. Thus, we now see the issue of infinite regress vs circularity vs an ultimate ground that is accepted as plausible, in part certain, in part provisional. There is an ultimate turtle, as turtles in a circle go nowhere, and an infinite regress of turtles -- turtles all the way down -- is hopeless. In that context, I have pointed to the raft under perpetual repair metaphor, or the spaceship metaphor, and say to such, they rest on a deeper foundational issue in eith4er case, as already pointed out. And as to the idea that no criterion for universally distinguishing truth from falsity can be established, and that those who try typically end up in circles, I note that the principle of comparative difficulties across live option views, escapes from vicious circularity. And yes, we are compelled to hold to worldviews that are provisional in part, and with high probability partly erroneous. To err is human, so we need to be open-minded and critically aware, even, humble. But the very fact that error exists and that this is undeniable, also means that truth and knowledge even to certainty exist. "We know in part . . ." "The just shall live by faith . . . " We both may have good grounds for confidence in certain cases, and may be in error in other cases. But, on matters of importance, we are compelled to decide and act even in the face of possible error; on pain of gross irresponsibility and worse error. Welcome to the real world. KFkairosfocus
November 19, 2012
November
11
Nov
19
19
2012
05:21 AM
5
05
21
AM
PDT
BD: Sorry to have to say this, but there you go again. Has it not dawned on you that to highlight that there are some obvious and undeniable facts of morality such as it is wrong and ought not to be done, to abduct, torture, rape and kill a child, and which therefore leave us in a world where we cannot get away from the reality of oughtness? Remember, in the same time that we are having this exchange, I am a friend of a man who murdered and mutilated the body of a benefactor; leading to his being widely viewed to this day as a menace and danger to the community who should still be locked away. I believe in forgiveness, reconciliation and transformation of life. I also believe that the first person we each need to address in this matter is the one looking back out on us from the mirror on a morning. Which should be fairly obvious. I also notice KN's remark on authoritarianism. He is right that I should have made sure to deal with that side-track. William G Perry et al were patently in error. And, I don't know how many times I have pointed out a premise on which I live: no authority is better than his or her facts, reasoning and underlying premises. Indeed, that is a part of the context in which I have highlighted that given the FACT of OUGHT, we need to have a worldview foundational IS that grounds it. So, I would suggest that psychological associations of the issue of ought with a polarised view of authorites etc are off the mark. And, I must repeat, as Mung pointed out, you are using terms that imply the significance of oughtness, but then want to erect a barrier against the implication, because it does not suit where you wish to go. It would be quite funny, if it were not serious and sad. Please, think again. KFkairosfocus
November 19, 2012
November
11
Nov
19
19
2012
04:56 AM
4
04
56
AM
PDT
Mung:
And judgment, condemnation and censure are bad, Bad, BAD! You ought not do those things.
You are using an old tactic of trying to force fit preference into morality. Well, it doesn't fit. I prefer French cuisine to Mexican. Does that mean that Mexican cooking is morally wrong? I prefer not to live in pain. Does that make pain morally wrong? Of course not. I prefer love, joy, peace, and making a contribution to hostility and separation. Does this make the former morally right and the latter morally wrong? No, it does not. I am offering an alternative to judgment, condemnation, and censure. My claim is that IF you wish to be a force for transformation of the planet, IF you wish to live from your God-given essential self, and IF you wish to live a life that is joyful and immensely satisfying, give up those three and live instead from Love. But if you do it because you judge judgment, condemnation, and censure as morally wrong, you will have put yourself right back into what you were trying to escape, and you will have gained nothing. I have said this before. See 36. P.s. The words "bad", "good", "wrong", "right", and "ought" in English all have multiple connotations, some including moral sentiment and some not. It is very easy to use them in a non-moral sense and then erroneously claim that they have made a moral statement.Bruce David
November 18, 2012
November
11
Nov
18
18
2012
11:11 AM
11
11
11
AM
PDT
I balk at “oughts” because they carry judgment, condemnation, and censure with them, and those three in operation entirely mask love, as well as impose the paradigm of separation.
And judgment, condemnation and censure are bad, Bad, BAD! You ought not do those things.Mung
November 18, 2012
November
11
Nov
18
18
2012
09:21 AM
9
09
21
AM
PDT
Kantian Naturalist:
To be honest, I don’t see the difference between that and my casual allusion to authoritarianism, but I’m not going to raise a stink over it.
I must say, KN, that I appreciate your relaxed attitude here, in a thread whose commenters tend to be passionate and strongly assertive. (I don't exempt myself from that charge, by the way.) However, to me, there is a very clear distinction. The judgment, condemnation, and censure that morality carries with it does not emanate from any authority. Rather, it is integral to the very idea of morality, of right and wrong. So it comes from within each person who subscribes to that paradigm. And it doesn't matter whether a person is a moral absolutist or a moral relativist. Look at how the new atheists condemn the actions of religious believers, for example.
On the other hand, while I accept that love (insofar as that’s the point of Buber’s I-You relation) is necessary for ethics, I don’t think that it’s sufficient, because I don’t think that justice is the same as love or ‘reducible’ to love. I think it’s a really different category, and it’s interesting (though of course quite troubling) that love and justice can sometimes conflict.
In my view, the point of view I have been presenting here is not really ethics at all, except in the most general sense that ethics deals with the question, "How do we determine what is appropriate action in any given circumstance?" It would not qualify as ethics under any definition that includes a notion of "the good" or "morality" (or indeed "justice"). Justice, to me, is pretty much always simply revenge---an evening of the score by making the sinner or perpetrator suffer in recompense for the suffering he or she has caused.Bruce David
November 17, 2012
November
11
Nov
17
17
2012
09:44 PM
9
09
44
PM
PDT
I balk at “oughts” because they carry judgment, condemnation, and censure with them, and those three in operation entirely mask love, as well as impose the paradigm of separation.
To be honest, I don't see the difference between that and my casual allusion to authoritarianism, but I'm not going to raise a stink over it. On the other point, I can agree to a certain degree, though I don't know what you'll make of this line of reasoning. Aristotle (among many others) points out that a sensitive awareness to the particularity of a given situation or person can't be covered by general rules or principles. Bedsides which, one needs to be alive to the particularity at hand in order to discern wisely which rules or principles are relevant to it. And I myself have no reservations about calling that sensitivity or attunement "love," though personally I prefer Martin Buber's distinction between "the I-You relation" and "the I-It relation". On the other hand, while I accept that love (insofar as that's the point of Buber's I-You relation) is necessary for ethics, I don't think that it's sufficient, because I don't think that justice is the same as love or 'reducible' to love. I think it's a really different category, and it's interesting (though of course quite troubling) that love and justice can sometimes conflict.Kantian Naturalist
November 17, 2012
November
11
Nov
17
17
2012
08:27 PM
8
08
27
PM
PDT
Kantian Naturalist: re 231
It seems to me that you balk at “oughts” or norms because you associate them with authoritarianism.
No, I disagree. I balk at "oughts" because they carry judgment, condemnation, and censure with them, and those three in operation entirely mask love, as well as impose the paradigm of separation. As for the rest of your comment, I agree that there are norms of behavior, cultural mores governing how we relate to each other. However, what I am attempting to present, acting always from Love, transcends cultural mores. It may well be that in a particular circumstance with a particular person, one could ask oneself the question "What would Love do now?" and get an answer whose realization violates commonly accepted standards of behavior, yet is exactly the thing that was wanted and needed in that particular moment of Now.Bruce David
November 17, 2012
November
11
Nov
17
17
2012
06:07 PM
6
06
07
PM
PDT
KF:
As in most people understand that “unloving” actions are wrong, and that precisely because inescapably, we find ourselves bound by ought.
It is not inescapable. That is my whole point (or half of it anyway). Morality is just another paradigm. It looks inescapable to you for the same reason that Darwinism is "obviously" true to Richard Dawkins---because you and he are unable or unwilling to step outside of your respective paradigms. You keep saying that OUGHT is "a binding force" (speaking of "going in circles"), but you have no warrant for that assertion other than your conviction that it is true and the fact that a lot of people would agree with you. I and many, many others (There really are millions of us.) are living proof, however, that it is possible to step outside of the paradigm of right and wrong and embrace another possibility entirely for how to decide what action is appropriate in any given circumstances.Bruce David
November 17, 2012
November
11
Nov
17
17
2012
05:50 PM
5
05
50
PM
PDT
Bruce David, I haven't wanted to interfere with your discussion with StephenB and Kairosfocus, but I thought I'd propose -- not a resolution -- but a slightly different approach. It seems to me that you balk at "oughts" or norms because you associate them with authoritarianism. But there are other options on the table; normativity, even moral normativity, needn't be authoritarian. Here's an example: moral norms can be more like linguistic norms, which are codified in rules for special occasions, but there's no Church of Grammar, with priests and scriptures. Those are just the norms of our language which are mastered by any competent language-user. I think of moral norms as being basically like that, only with regards to how we treat each other rather than about language. Likewise with epistemic norms -- the norms of correct thinking -- Aristotle wrote them down but he didn't invent them, and there aren't Logic Cops arresting people who beg the question. So this might be a way of thinking about moral oughts or norms in a way that isn't authoritarian, and gives no comfort to authoritarians.Kantian Naturalist
November 17, 2012
November
11
Nov
17
17
2012
02:49 PM
2
02
49
PM
PDT
I haven't tried to "side-step" anything. I just flat-out disagree with several of your basic methodological commitments. In particular, I think that foundationalism -- of the sort that tries to derive a systematic world-view from a few self-evident truths -- arises from the mistaken attempt to do metaphysics the way we do mathematics (esp. geometry). This attempt to 'mathematize' metaphysics, from Descartes to Russell, is the source of a great many serious errors -- among which is an inability to solve the Dilemma of the Criterion. In any event: certainly a naturalist and a Christian will disagree over the question how we became persons, but that doesn't show that naturalists are not rationally entitled to employ the concept. Think of it this way: a Christian will likely hold that some aspect of a person, some aspect of his or her personhood, survives the death of the body. And a naturalist will deny this. And perhaps the naturalist is making a metaphysical error. But she is not making a conceptual error: there's nothing about the concept of personhood which entails that persons survive biological death. Put otherwise, it is not a logical truth that personhood survives death. The point here is that, while a naturalist will reject some of the metaphysical views about persons that a Christian holds, that does not prevent the naturalist from thinking that there are persons, and that personhood plays a central role in our ethics (as it does in our epistemology, as well). To be fully consistent, it is true that naturalism needs some account of how personhood emerged, or how it is that a particular kind of odd African ape developed the capacities for inference and understanding to supplement its hominoid inheritance of perception, action, imagination, and empathy.Kantian Naturalist
November 17, 2012
November
11
Nov
17
17
2012
02:41 PM
2
02
41
PM
PDT
BD: You are going in circles, imagining that you are getting closer to civilisation because you see more and more tracks. Sadly, as in the cartoon, they are your own tracks. You previously refused content to "loving" but hope to smuggle in that moral content by general connotation. As in most people understand that "unloving" actions are wrong, and that precisely because inescapably, we find ourselves bound by ought. So either you are exploiting emotive responses or else you are implying what you deny explicitly, the reality of ought. In short, your case collapses. That you have come back to this repeatedly, while trying to deny and dismiss the relevance and reality of OUGHT as a binding force, shows the futility of your position. Please, please, think again -- if not for your own sake, at least understanding how untenable your claims are in a context where onlookers present and future will see your errors laid out in all too painfully blatant details for themselves. KFkairosfocus
November 17, 2012
November
11
Nov
17
17
2012
02:27 PM
2
02
27
PM
PDT
KN: I contrasted our situation with that of [European] Perch in a pond to highlight the fundamental differences at work. That is the CI is NOT separate from underlying worldview considerations that are value-laden. And you know full well that there are people who routinely -- and in some cases successfully -- try to prey on their fellows, like those fat Perch in the pond otherwise full of the stunted. These, we rightly view as monstrous [as opposed to the fat Perch . . . lunch, or at least a trophy], which raises a wide, deep range of foundational issues. That is why I raised the contrast, and it is interesting to see how you have tried to side-step it. KFkairosfocus
November 17, 2012
November
11
Nov
17
17
2012
02:19 PM
2
02
19
PM
PDT
Kairosfocus, are you seriously suggesting that in order to reconcile Kantian ethics and naturalism, I would have to explain why fish don't obey the categorical imperative and we do? I don't even see the relevance -- what have fish got to do with it? Put otherwise, I don't see why someone who believes that our capacity to consider our actions from the universal point of view -- our capacity for universalizability -- is a 'natural' capacity, and like all natural capacities arose through evolution, would have to believe that the same capacity exists in any other species. Perch lack compassion and reason, but they also can't fly.Kantian Naturalist
November 17, 2012
November
11
Nov
17
17
2012
09:43 AM
9
09
43
AM
PDT
KF:
BD: Sadly, the evidence above underscores the bankruptcy of your claims. You have a view that can look at a real case of abduction, torture and rape then murder of a child and it has not got the resources to say that such ought not to be done. After that, all else is mere commentary, though it was illuminating to see how you tried to spin murder into an incoherent, confused issue. Please, think again. KF
Perhaps if I say it a little differently you can see what I am trying to convey here. I have already said that "abduction, torture and rape then murder of a child" is an unloving thing to do, and I have strongly advocated living a life in which what you do emanates from Love. What is the obvious consequence of those two statements? A person who does what I advocate will not torture, rape, and murder children. I avoid the use of "ought" because when used in the moral sense (there are other meanings), it carries with it condemnation, judgment, and censure, and it is condemnation, judgment, and censure that are responsible for a great deal of the serious mischief that plagues our poor planet. We judge and condemn fundamentalist Muslims as evil, and they judge and condemn us. So we kill each other over it, and end up killing a lot of innocent bystanders in the process. Catholics judged protestants and vice versa during the Reformation and in Northern Ireland with the same result. Israelis and Palestinians judge and condemn each other, and on and on. In most cases, each side is convinced that their ideas of morality (on which they base their judgment and condemnation) are the true and correct version. Can't you see this? Can't you? It is judgment and condemnation that is the problem. People who engage in acts that we find abhorrent in most cases actually believe that they are doing the right thing, according to "absolute morality" as they understand it. Our judging them has zero chance of changing their minds or their behavior. It will only serve to harden their positions. Those who don't, who know that they are acting in violation of their own moral standards but don't care, will not be swayed in the least by our censure either, which in fact will only cause them to harden their already existing rationalization of their behavior (and people always rationalize their behavior in such cases). Only Love, God's Love, unconditional and absolute, can break these logjams. Only Love carries the possibility of putting another in touch with his or her own Essential Nature. If we wish to save this planet from holocaust, we must abandon judgement and condemnation and start living our lives from this Love, which is our birthright and the essence of Who We Really Are---His "image and likeness". It is one of God's gifts that living in this way is also immensely joyful and satisfying. In order to do this (abandon judgment), one must understand that there is no such thing as absolute morality. Fortunately, this is in fact the case, as I have shown a number of times in this thread (in 18, 36, 47, 53, 74, and 121).Bruce David
November 17, 2012
November
11
Nov
17
17
2012
09:18 AM
9
09
18
AM
PDT
KN: Please start from why one should so value the other as to refuse to treat that other as a means to one's end. Contrast, say Perch fish in a pond where most are stunted but some grow fat on their fellows, contrasting what happens if some people would treat their fellows much the same. Then, perhaps the implicit worldview level foundation issues behind such judgements will begin to stand clear. KFkairosfocus
November 17, 2012
November
11
Nov
17
17
2012
04:20 AM
4
04
20
AM
PDT
BD: Sadly, the evidence above underscores the bankruptcy of your claims. You have a view that can look at a real case of abduction, torture and rape then murder of a child and it has not got the resources to say that such ought not to be done. After that, all else is mere commentary, though it was illuminating to see how you tried to spin murder into an incoherent, confused issue. Please, think again. KFkairosfocus
November 17, 2012
November
11
Nov
17
17
2012
04:16 AM
4
04
16
AM
PDT
In re: 219, whereas one of the things I appreciate about the categorical imperative is that it contains the seeds of the idea as to how the objectivity of moral principles does not depend on any metaphysics, theistic or otherwise.Kantian Naturalist
November 16, 2012
November
11
Nov
16
16
2012
02:13 PM
2
02
13
PM
PDT
Mung:
It’s time, past time, to try something else. It’s time to try building a world based on Love. Whatever that means.
It means what I have repeated several times in this thread: In every moment of Now, live out of/in/from the question, "What would Love do now?" When you do this you become part of the solution. When you live in judgment, condemnation, and censure, on the other hand, you are part of the problem.
What’s the message of love you and your group are in Iran declaring to the Jihadists?
If we in the West interacted with those in the Islamic world who are so angry with us in a way that respected them, that saw them as valid human beings with valid concerns, if we asked them "What is it that hurts you so much that you feel you must attack us to heal it?" We might get a very different result from what we now have. In general, any time you deal with another person from love instead of condemnation, you open space for something positive to happen, for healing to happen, for rifts to close.Bruce David
November 16, 2012
November
11
Nov
16
16
2012
01:47 PM
1
01
47
PM
PDT
1 2 3 9

Leave a Reply