My graduate seminar has started looking at sections of Robert Merrihew Adams' book, Finite and Infinite Goods: A Framework for Ethics; and this afternoon (over coffee, of course) I was reading a passage from Chapter 2 of that book which speaks to several recurring themes on this blog. So I thought I'd quote the passage here and ask what people think.
First, a bit of context. The passage occurs at the conclusion of a section in which Adams defends the work of the metaethical naturalist, Richard Boyd, against a particular line of attack. Boyd seeks to develop a naturalistic account of moral realism (the view, roughly, that there are objective moral truths, that in calling X good or bad, right or wrong, one can be saying something that is true of X). Although Adams ultimately rejects naturalistic moral realism in favor of supernaturalism, he is unimpressed by those who challenge it on the grounds that ethical propositions are inadequately subject to empirical testing to qualify as objectively true or false.
In the lead-up to the passage, Adams spends some time defending the pursuit of "reflexive equilibrium," that is, the task of developing our theoretic understanding of things through a kind of dialectic between our strongest and most confident pretheoretical beliefs and the the theories we build from them--a dialectic that gravitates towards a state of optimal mutual support. "No cognitive enterprise," Adams insists, "can get off the ground without initial reliance on many confident, pretheoretical beliefs; and a large proportion of those beliefs remain more deeply entrenched than the theoretical superstructure erected on them." As an example, he notes our strong, pretheoretical belief that when you drop a rock, it falls towards the earth. And he notes that "a development of physical theory that would advise us to give that up completely would almost certainly discredit itself rather than the pretheoretical belief."
But, Adams points out, we have evaluative and normative beliefs that we hold to with just as much pretheoretical confidence as that stones fall when you drop them. He uses the example of the wickedness of torturing children. Adams then notes the universal and justified respect that modern people have for science and its methods--a respect that has led many theorists to attempt to extend its empirical methods beyond the sphere of science. "But it is important," he continues, "to distinguish between the successes of modern physical sciences, which are great and uncontroversial, and the successes of modern empiricist, science-inspired epistemology, which are arguably much less impresive, and certainly much more controversial." The passage I want to share here continues from this point, as follows:
If a pretheoretical ethical belief held confidently by all of us were irreconcilable with well-established principles of physics, that would be a sever problem for ethical theory; and if there were too many such cases, it could certainly call into question the acceptability of the method of reflective equilibrium in ethics. But if initial reliance on confident pretheoretical ethical beliefs fails to conform with an epistemology of exclusive reliance on inference to best explanation, or with some other empiricist epistemology, that is a much less serious problem. Nor do we need an elaborate theory to justify going with pretheoretical belief rather than empiricist epistemology, if such a choice is forced upon us...
Adams then turns from epistemology to metaphysics, making a similar point with relation to physicalism:
(Physicalism) is not a theory in physics, nor more generally a result established by modern physical science. It is rather a metapysical theory. inspired by enthusiasm for science. It holds, roughly, that all the facts there are can in principle be described in the vocabulary, and explained by the laws, of modern physics, in some ideal development thereof. It is obvious that such a theory is issuing large promissory notes to be paid by future developments, and hence is highly speculative. It is attended by much-debated and, I believe, grave and unresolved difficulties. Given the strength of our confidence in many pretheoretical evaluative and normative beliefs, and the pervasiveness of their role in our thinking, I believe that physicalism has much more need to be found compatible with them than they have to be found compatible with it. This is not an argument against physicalism; that's business for another occasion. It is rather an argument for not allowing physicalist worries to undermine ethical beliefs.
Thoughts?
Seems pretty much right to me.
ReplyDeleteAm I correct in remembering that his main criticism is that this line of thought would also undercut our justification for our moral norms? That was pretty much the argument we had in the comment section a few weeks ago...
"No cognitive enterprise," Adams insists, "can get off the ground without initial reliance on many confident, pretheoretical beliefs; and a large proportion of those beliefs remain more deeply entrenched than the theoretical superstructure erected on them."
ReplyDeleteAs usual, this hardly means that these beliefs are somehow immune from analysis and reconsideration. We may have pretheoretical beliefs in the perfection of our parents, of which we are eventually disabused. It does not even mean that everything we have build upon such a belief is automatically false, just that this part of the foundation is no longer there. Other founding beliefs may remain sound, and sounder replacement beliefs may be substituted that may or may not shore up what had been built.
I'd agree that science doesn't have much to say about your question here, other than to verify that all people do really feel pain, most feel empathy, and other measurable inputs to our subjective preferences.
With regard to physicalism.. it is a theory, and as such is tentative, awaiting the advent of counter-evidence, like thoughts that don't rely on brains or other physical devices, or miracles with no physical causes. So far, it seems to be doing pretty well, but we do have to keep looking.
With regard to morality, our pretheoretical beliefs are exactly the issue. We feel that X is wrong... thus it is wrong. There are no further reasons required, really. It is all very enlightened, even scientific, to move to utilitarian justifications for ethics, but they tend to fall flat when the greatest good demands the suffering of a few. It doesn't work, and it shouldn't work, because the measure of our morals is our feelings.
That these feelings are not answerable to empirical testing doesn't matter to me. Nor do I worry that these morals and feelings are not objectively true or false. I have feelings X, and if humanity generally agrees with me, then fine. Others may be tempted to call such feelings "objective", perhaps out of some kind of physics envy. But if the residents of Afghanistan think it is fine sport to kill each other, and I disagree, then we can hardly call either side objectively true or false. The concept breaks down.
Hi Eric
ReplyDeleteI am surely missing something important, because I can make no sense of what it means to say a thing is objectively right or wrong. I know what it means to say I think/feel something is wrong, and I know what it means to say most people feel something is wrong. But I can't see what extra is added if I say something is objectively wrong.
Objective seems to imply a measurement against something other than how people subjectively feel. What on earth could this something be, and how could such a measurement be carried out? This article seems to suggest we have some prior commitment to the notion of objective truth, but I have none and from my conversations suspect I am not alone. In this respect the comparison with falling rocks appears to fall down. The prior commitment is not to gravity as such, but to regularity. We observe rocks fall and expect it to continue. Any theory that runs contrary to such observation/expectation is rejected.
So, the analogy doesn't seem to hold. The commitment to induction, at least with regard to the physical world, appears to be both universal and functionally necessary. The commitment to objective moral truths appears to have neither of these characteristics.
Bernard
I think there can potentially be objectivity in ethics, but only if we define ethics in a certain way like "the pursuit of well-being" or something. Certain moral codes may create better brain states for individuals and more longevity and higher standards of living for cultures.
ReplyDeleteOf course one needn't consider the sociopath as a counterexample anymore than one might consider a blind person as a counterexample against the visual world's existence.
But surely all paths of inquiry start with some first principles - but at the same time, surely there is no real "starting from the beginning" for us, as we are born right into the middle. These first principles are not created out of nothing, but may be best viewed as heuristics
But yeah, if one cannot tie subjective feelings about morality to some external measurement independent of subjective feeling (like the success of cultures, etc.), then I don't see how morality could be objective.
At the same time, I always think that our understanding relates to our experience as part to a whole, so if one has no compelling empirical reason to think otherwise, then intuition is exactly what we should navigate from. And even our reliance on empiricism is a form of intuition ultimately. So what do we base our epistemology on? Its success for us. Empiricism and intuition in harmony - potentially even for ethics?
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ReplyDeleteAs usual, this hardly means that these beliefs are somehow immune from analysis and reconsideration. We may have pretheoretical beliefs in the perfection of our parents, of which we are eventually disabused. It does not even mean that everything we have build upon such a belief is automatically false, just that this part of the foundation is no longer there. Other founding beliefs may remain sound, and sounder replacement beliefs may be substituted that may or may not shore up what had been built.
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly right. The way reflective equilibrium works is that, while one starts with pretheoretic beliefs as a foundation for building a theoretic understanding, these beliefs may need to be modified, reinterpreted, or abandoned in the light of the theories that emerge.
But modifying our pretheoretic beliefs to accomodate the theory that has evolved from those beliefs as a starting point is only justified if the theory is so strong (if it makes such good sense of so much of our experience) that more is lost by adjusting the theory to match those beliefs than is lost by adjusting the beliefs to match the theory. This is what makes the process of pursuing reflective equilibrium dialectical.
Adams' point is that, while our scientific theories may be strong enough to challenge our pretheoretical moral beliefs, they don't demand abandoning those beliefs. Empiricist epistemological theories and physicalist metaphysical theories DO challenge our pretheoretic moral beliefs in different ways, but neither is strong enough to justify abandoning them (in effect, if these theories call into question the objective truth value of "torturing children for fun is wrong," then so much the worse for these theories").
Hi, Eric-
ReplyDeleteSorry, but I fail to understand your point here. The issue is not whether the torturing children is generally regarded as bad, but whether we can call this an objective fact of the universe. This seems, on the whole, a rather minor semantic point, barely relevant to morality at all, but rather an element of our philosophical ideas about it.
And those philosophical ideas are based on the most naive kinds of pre-theories that are not the morals that we feel about, but rather the narcissistic generalization that my moral preferences (especially the stronger ones) are objectively true for all and all time throughout the universe, which seems on its face to be the weakest kind of argument.
One could call it moral induction, but what distinguishes that from popularity? Nothing, because this form of induction makes no external references.
Burk,
ReplyDelete“As usual, this hardly means that these beliefs are somehow immune from analysis and reconsideration.”
Except, one’s “analysis” and “reconsideration” is always happening within this matrix Adams just described, which is “no cognitive enterprise can get off the ground…” That is his very point. I don’t think he is saying they (our presuppositions) are immune from analysis or reconsideration.
I absolutely agree with this point he makes:
"Given the strength of our confidence in many pretheoretical evaluative and normative beliefs, and the pervasiveness of their role in our thinking, I believe that physicalism has much more need to be found compatible with them than they have to be found compatible with it."
Hi Eric,
ReplyDeleteThe idea that we should refrain from torturing children for fun (everybody’s favourite example) because it is wrong strikes me as a very strange way to look at this issue. That I would not do so is definitively not because it is wrong or, for that matter, because of any principle or value.
I won’t do it simply because I have such a strong emotional reaction against acting this way that it becomes all but impossible. It has nothing to do with beliefs. I would think that beliefs come later (perhaps only as an expression of these instinctive calls). That someone might need a reason not to torture children is a very sad thought.
Burk and Bernard: I believe Adams would be inclined to say that your understanding of moral experience is, if you will, POST-theoretical--and that, more specifically, it is a way of thinking about what we are doing when we make moral judgments that is (implicitly) based on empiricist epistemologies (or, perhaps, on physicalist metaphysics).
ReplyDeleteIn brief, the idea is this: one concludes that one's moral judgments are nothing but expressions of feeling or personal attitude (as opposed to saying something that is true OF the act, state of affairs, etc.) because one can find no empirical foundation for assessing their truth-value, and because one is committed to an epistemological theory that equates "no empirical foundation" with "no foundation" and hence with "no reason to believe it is true or even has a truth value."
Now there are several ways to respond to Adams (if this is indeed what Adams would say, which I think it is). At first glance I see two. First, one might deny that one's moral experience is post-theoretical, that is, transformed by one's (perhaps implicit) commitment to contestable epistemological and/or metaphysical theories.
If one takes that approach, one would need to consider the reasons why Adams would be inclined to think that such an approach to moral judgments IS post-theoretical. Adams' reasons are rooted in moral semantics--but rather than try to do justice to them in a comment, I may weave that into my next post.
The second way of responding to Adams would be to disagree with his view that the theoretical considerations that shape one's understanding of morality are really as weak, really as contestable, as he takes them to be (such that the theories have "much more need to be found compatible" with our strongest moral intuitions than the other way around).
Indeed, if I could expand on the last note and offer an countervailing hypothesis.. We, as most animals, have been selected to care for and love children. That is certainly sensible in an evolutionary sense, and leads directly to a relatively universal revulsion at torturing children.
ReplyDeleteDoes this understanding of the feeling's cause and rationale make it an objective moral fact? Hardly. We could have been programmed differently for some other rationale (the treatment of stepchildren comes to mind), which in those cases would be the natural moral response. Many (male) animals kill stepchildren as a matter of course.
Through our enculturation, we could decide to enhance / emphasize everyone's love of *all* children, not just one's own, to mitigate the other impulses that may be natural, but repulsive in a larger sense to most people. This is again a tradeoff about feelings first and foremost.. how we feel about ourselves at the end of the day given our complex natures & how we exist in communities.
It is very hard to understand how one rationally makes of all this anything objective. Even if we favor blanket prohibitions and laws, they express only our feelings, and not even everyone's feelings at that, let alone objective facts.
Objective: of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers.
JP--Your comment touches on the relationship between the affective and the cognitive in morality. Clearly, if moral judgments have cognitive content and so can be REASONs for action, these judgments are affective as well. Hume (and others) developed an influential philosophical position according to which the cognitive and the affective are mutually exclusive--a given mental state is either cognitive or affective, but not both (unless it is a complex mental state such that one part is cognitive and a different part is affective). In brief, feelings do not represent the world, and representations of the world do not motivate.
ReplyDeleteThis perspective has not gone unchallenged. Linda Zagzebski, in her work on emotions, attempts to make plausible a view according to which emotions are BOTH affective and cognitive--at the same time, and in the very same mental act. From the perspective she develops in her "motivation-based virtue ethics," your aversive horror at the thought of torturing a child is both an affective aversion AND a way of cognizing (affectively cognizing) the act of child torture (seeing it AS unspeakably horrible). As such, it is an immediately motivating reason not to torture children.
But Zagzebski also recognizes that the basic kind of moral judgment--the immediate affectively powerful WAY OF SEEING the act--can become "thinned" through a "process whereby the motivational force is sheared away from the judgment that originally expressed an emotion."
When the judgment is separated from its original motivational element, it becomes a kind of abstract "reason" for action. And it would indeed be sad if anyone confronted with something like the torture of children were moved by nothing but such "thinned out" moral judgments--that is, if they didn't immediately experience it as horrible in a motivating way.
The reason WHY it would be sad, however, deserves some thought. For Zagzebski, it is because emotions have intentional objects, an emotion is a way of seeing or cognizing the intentional object, and because some ways of affectively seeing the intentional object "fits" it. In other words, it is APPROPRIATE or FITTING to immediately see child torture as horrible, such that there is something defective in the person who fails to immediately experience it in those terms. But the notion of fittingness takes emotions, for Zagzebski, out of the domain of the purely subjective. There are, in a sense, ways one can go WRONG in one's emotional responses to the world (e.g., taking delight in the torture of children).
There is far more to Zagzebski's theory(a fair bit of which I disagree with) than I can do justice to here, but what she says about emotion seems worth wrestling with in connection with this comment thread, so I'm introducing what I can in case it provokes deeper thought.
Hi Eric
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I see it quite that way. I more just can't see how the notion of objective morality makes sense. I don't know what people mean by the term.
Consider two people, one who prefers chocolate cake, one carrot cake. Can we make sense of the idea of objective cake truth, whereby one of these people is wrong in their preference, because chocolate cake really is objectively better tasting? I can't imagine what tasty would mean, without reference to one's subjective response to the cake, and morality feels similar to me. What on earth are these things called objective moral facts? I'm simply confused.
Bernard
Bernard,
ReplyDeleteYour question warrants something more substantive than a comment. In brief, there are two questions: (1) Is there a relevant difference between matters of taste and moral judgments, one that justifies treating them differently? (2) If so, what is that difference?
With respect to (1), MOST moral philosophers (but not all) have thought the answer is yes (and the "most" includes both naturalists and supernaturalists). With respect to (2), there are a number of proposed answers that essentially amount to different moral theories. In very brief terms, an affirmative answer to (1) implies that, even if there are subjective/affective components to moral judgments, these judgments are ABOUT something beyond the individual making them, a standard which the judgment can fail to meet and hence be mistaken. The question then is what this standard IS. And, of course, a variety of answers have been proposed and discussed, many of them powerfully developed and defended by some very great minds, but none of them enjoying anything approaching unanimous support.
Some might regard the lack of consensus on question (2) as undermining the affirmative answer (1)--but those who resist this move have reasons for doing so. These reason come in several forms, three of which seem to me especially significant: (a) analogies between immediate moral intuitions and immediate sense experiences; (b) the semantics of moral language; (c)the perceived fruitfulness--if not conclusiveness--of certain developments in moral theory.
I've been thinking about doing some stuff on moral theory and metaethics on this blog, and this seems as good an occasion as any to start. So I'll put together a post addressing these issues in the near future.
Hi Eric
ReplyDeleteI suppose one might argue that if there is no agreement on what the difference is, then objective moral truths, for now at least, fit into that category of things upon which we may develop private opinions without being able to necessarily transfer them. This is where the notion of the pretheoretical seems relevant, for here is a pre-theoretical notion that hasn't managed the leap into a widely accepted theory. In this sense, the comparison with science's pretheoretical assumptions (which I would argue don't actually extend much past induction - use whatever method provided the best generators in the past as the best guide for discovering new prediction generators) seems unfair.
Bernard
Bernard,
ReplyDelete“…then objective moral truths, for now at least, fit into that category of things upon which we may develop private opinions without being able to necessarily transfer them. This is where the notion of the pretheoretical seems relevant, for here is a pre-theoretical notion that hasn't managed the leap into a widely accepted theory.”
Two points: First, most people, even educated people, do not feel that a moral truth such that we should not torture children is a private opinion or that the pre-theoretical notion that we shouldn’t do such is not widely accepted. Second, I think you misunderstand the point of the “pre-theoretical” here. It doesn’t mean that it is something we are still waiting on for confirmation, through testing or empirical means—it means that no “cognitive enterprise” can get off the ground (including science) without some presuppositions, which are not in and of themselves, founded, the way our further structure of assertions are.
“I'm not sure I see it quite that way. I more just can't see how the notion of objective morality makes sense. I don't know what people mean by the term.”
Do you understand what Christians normally mean by it? Put aside whether you believe it to be true, does it make sense to you that if one believes there exists the God of Judeo-Christianity and this God is Love, good, and just, and has communicated those qualities/concepts to us, that such would make morality objective rather than subjective?
Eric-
ReplyDelete"(1) Is there a relevant difference between matters of taste and moral judgments, one that justifies treating them differently? (2) If so, what is that difference?
...
an affirmative answer to (1) implies that, even if there are subjective/affective components to moral judgments, these judgments are ABOUT something beyond the individual making them ..."
This is just the issue. What are moral judgements about? Are they about measuring pain in another being? Then why do we condone animal husbandry and carnivory? Are they about optimizing social harmony in the long term? Why do we want social harmony in the first place? What is the motivation and point? Isn't it our happiness and contentment?
The answer as far as I can see is that these judgements are all subjective/affective, all the way down. That is their point and criterion. That is why political & social power is so contested, not because, say, the objective measure of pain is a matter of disinterested dispute, but because the moral sentiments of people never agree entirely, and naturally, each believe that their own sentiments are more lofty and conducive to general happiness. Which is of course one reason why religion exists as well, to clothe exactly these sentiments and judgements with the patina of infinite, absolute, and everlasting, (and objective), arming their bearers with self-confidence in contests of social power.
Our civil war, now going through its various anniversary commemorations, would be an ideal case in point. That slavery is wrong is no objective fact, bubbling up to the discernment of or "discovery" by enlightened thinkers. It is, rather, a judgement based on our cultivation of empathy, sensitivity, etc. that allowed the various temptations of greed (not to mention a lot of biblical sanction) to be suppressed in favor of the better angels of our feelings/natures. The same process had to be gone through all over again during the civil rights movement.
It is, rather, a judgement based on our cultivation of empathy, sensitivity, etc. that allowed the various temptations of greed (not to mention a lot of biblical sanction) to be suppressed in favor of the better angels of our feelings/natures. The same process had to be gone through all over again during the civil rights movement.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I really can't see how you can meaningfully say this without presupposing that there is a component to moral judgments that is NOT purely subjective. Why "better angels"?
If the use of this phrase refers to NOTHING more than the fact that you so happen to subjectively prefer empathy to greed, and sensitivity to human suffering over ideological allegiance to passages from a text, then it seems to do nothing but deceptively deflect the revulsion that is likely to ensue if you were to straightforwardly say that those who happen to make the moral judgment that slavery is good, based on their greedy impulses and dogmatism, are no more in error than those who reject slavery out of compassion for the plight of the enslaved.
Are you ready to say (without invoking phrases such as "better angels of our nature") that you and others just happen to have a negative attitude towards the former but not the latter--but that there is nothing more fitting or appropriate about that than about celebrating the former and reviling the latter?
If you are not willing to make this concession, then you are implicitly holding that some feelings are better than others--which cannot be meaningfully said without positing a standard of value apart from feelings.
But the implications of making this concession, for something like the Holocaust, are that there is nothing to commend horror at it over the glee felt by the neo-Nazi. Shouldn't we, before embracing such a conclusion, at least investigate the possibility that beyond the unquestionably affective dimension to moral judgments there might be a transpersonal standard which renders some affective responses more appropriate than others--independent of what an individual happens to subjectively feel? Have you pursued such an investigation? That is, have you immersed yourself in the historical and cutting edge work of moral theorists?
I went into moral philosophy precisely because it struck me intuitively as a mistake to say that there is nothing more fitting about horror at the Holocaust than there is at neo-Nazi glee over it--but I wasn't sure how that intuition could be justified. And so I immersed myself in the critical study of philosophers who have sought to uncover a theoretic perspective that could support this intuition. That immersion has made me more convinced that my intuition can be theoretically justified, rather than less so, even though I concede that no extant moral theory is wholly uncontroversial and unproblematic.
I think the effort to explain why may occupy much of this blog in the months to come.
Burk,
ReplyDeleteI have to echo Eric’s sentiments here. You are getting ahead of yourself. Why should we cultivate “empathy” or “sensitivity” or think “greed” is wrong? How would we even know to do this? If there are no objective reasons here, then why couldn’t one make the argument that to ensure the survival of our “race” we should not cultivate these “virtues” at all, but the very opposite and name them as virtuous. The idea of “better angels” makes no sense whatsoever if there is no “better” or worse. All those descriptions demand some standard we are measuring against.
I love how after 2000 years of Christian influence and being raised up in a culture where, even if done poorly, these virtues are cultivated and encouraged for the most part, one can talk as if they were just natural to cultivate and just happened willy-nilly somehow.
That we did cultivate those virtues that overcame slavery certainly didn’t come from a materialist perspective. The fight against slavery and the American Civil Rights movement, if we look at it as to what actually happened historically, is inconceivable without religion and a view that saw slavery as objectively wrong, not just wrong for some but okay for others.
People like Martin Luther King Jr. do not give their lives over what they think is some subjective argument over something equivalent to “I like red wine- while you like white wine.” And, in my mind, to reduce slavery to some sort of subjective disagreement is to add insult to injury.
Why "better angels"?
ReplyDeleteBecause we won the war, to put it most crudely. If the South had won, slavery might yet be celebrated and honored as best for everyone concerned. People might still be able to convince themselves of its morality and rightness, though it is frankly unlikely, because...
Secondly, most slaveholders (such as our founders) recognized the way slavery ate at their feelings- how it militated against their political proclamations about human equality, and how they felt degraded by the necessities of slaveholding. They were, as we all are, internally and subjectively conflicted, feeling emotions of greed, egotism, superiority, as well as sympathy and fairness.
It is a continuing project to sift through those feelings and figure out which ones we want to honor most highly, for what often seem utilitarian, but ultimately are subjective criteria- of how we want to live. Greed seems to carry the day among many in the economics profession, incidentally.
Are you ready to say (without invoking phrases such as "better angels of our nature") that you and others just happen to have a negative attitude towards the former but not the latter--but that there is nothing more fitting or appropriate about that than about celebrating the former and reviling the latter?
The problem is semantic. If you use words like "fitting" and "appropriate"- these are plainly subjective judgements. In the prior passage, however, you used the words "in error", which gives an objective sheen to the very same judgements. These shouldn't be mixed up. Subjectively, I would agree that slavery is an error, but its criterion is nothing other than my revulsion, which you so clearly allude to.
If you are not willing to make this concession, then you are implicitly holding that some feelings are better than others--which cannot be meaningfully said without positing a standard of value apart from feelings.
That is a fascinating proposition, but I think incorrect. Suppose I were addicted to alcohol. I would love alcohol, but judge it evil at the same time. I would be conflicted, and know very well that my long-term happiness depends on my resisting short-term happiness. Thus we can have a hierarchy of values entirely subjective, without calling god other other supposed criteria into the mix, or calling any of them objective.
I agree that you are right to pursue intuitions in this matter of morals and ethics, but not that we can go beyond intuitions. That seems merely an excercise in grandiosity- there is literally nothing there.
That is, have you immersed yourself in the historical and cutting edge work of moral theorists?
I merely offer what I can. If you intended to have those discussions, we wouldn't be on blogspot. This is an invalid form of critique, if we are offering substantive points and discussion. The fact that most moral philosophers have said X or Y is also unavailing. Most also have believed in god, which I would regard as fundamentally mistaken, for what that is worth.
Burk,
ReplyDelete"Because we won the war, to put it most crudely. If the South had won, slavery might yet be celebrated and honored as best for everyone concerned."
So "might makes right"? Is this an ethical principle you would advocate with your children, or have taught in public schools?
Hi guys
ReplyDeleteThis gets to the heart of the thing that most intrigues me here, and I must say I'm very much with Burk on this one.
Of course we like to be able to say 'the holocaust is objectively wrong', it fulfills an emotional need; we have been conditioned, I suspect, to believe that simply saying 'I feel great distaste toward it' is in some way a less humane statement. And so by extending the statement to the universal allows us to indulge in a certain moral righteousness.
But I remain entirely unconvinced by the distinction. I understand many moral theorists see it otherwise (although presumably there is selection bias at play here too, as those predisposed to thinking this way are surely more likely to devote their lives to being moral theorists, indeed you have said as much here Eric).
What we need to do though, to keep this rigorous, is to attempt to show how moral disapproval is something other than mere distaste, i the sense that we have an evolved distaste for bitter foods.
I feel, that by invoking the holocaust (which nobody on this blog has ever expressed a taste for) we are in danger of playing the man rather than the ball. The possibility that morality is a cultural phenomenon constructed on evolved behavioural tendencies, is a live one. And if we look at the complex behavioural tendencies that have evolved in other social species, from ants to rhesus monkeys, there is good cause not to dismiss it out of hand.
I look foward to seeing if anybody can establish the grounds for difference between taste and moral sense. Until that is done, I like the idea of not assuming there is something deficient about those who do not call the holocaust morally wrong. I am one such person, and make this stance only because the notion 'morally wrong' as yet makes no sense to me. My distaste for that particular abomination (subjective) is however very great indeed. Of course.
Bernard
Nothing deficient about those who approve of genocide. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. I have done very little reading in moral philosophy, but my hope is that there are some materialist philosophers who would find some way to disagree with that.
ReplyDeleteWhen saying a tree in front of me is really, objectively there, it requires certain first principles - such as the idea that the world as perceived by my senses exists and that my eyesight is accurate. The reason I adopt these first principles are - 1. they seems obviously true in some way and 2. they give me success when I attempt to create better brains states for myself. My senses help me seem to acquire things and control things which make me happier.
ReplyDeleteAn objective morality would require first principles, like anything. It could be a first principle like - pursuing the well-being of conscious creatures. This seems obviously true and it would obviously give us success in seeking that very thing.
First principles (or "pretheoretical beliefs"?) are still necessary for any establishment of objectivity.
If an Eastern mystic states that the physical world does not really exist, then is the tree no longer objectively there?
We need to be careful here. The point would be that words like “right” and “wrong” becomes dangerously ambiguous in a discussion like this because they are understood in very different ways by different people. To say that the phrase “the holocaust is morally wrong” is meaningless when “wrong” is taken in its absolute sense is saying something about the word “wrong”. It says nothing about the holocaust as such. Now, whether there is a way to attribute an absolute (or objective) meaning to these words is one of the question under discussion.
ReplyDeleteOne more point. To say that morality is not objective or absolute is not to say that it is arbitrary. And it is not in at least two ways. First, we could hardly expect a moral rule like “the supreme good is to kill one's neighbour” to become widespread – so, some values will never take root in a population. Second, there is no doubt a core of innate moral values or tendencies that we all share to some degree (taking care of one's children, for example). That, is unless one is deficient (not fully functional) in some way – which gives us for example psychopaths and genocide lovers.
Hi Steven,
ReplyDeletePursuing the well-being of conscious creatures seems like a good idea. We could agree on that, perhaps, and build some moral theory from it. It would say a lot about us, about how we feel about our fellow creatures, about what we consider important, and so on.
The question is: how could we then claim that these principles we agreed on are in fact inscribed in the very fabric of reality? What ground would be have to make such a claim?
Hi Steven
ReplyDeleteI am reminded of the Far Side Cartoon that goes: 'If a tree falls in the forest, and it kills a mime artist, does anybody care?' Not sure what Larson's problem with mime was, but I would suggest that if a tree falls on you, then irrespective of your beliefs about the existence of the tree, it's still really really going to hurt. this is where statements of the sort 'our beliefs define our reality' appear to hit a rather unyielding limit.
Bernard
CPO
ReplyDeleteThis is pretty much why I think there should be some sort of fine system for the introduction of the holocaust into any discussion on moral philosophy. It does seem to lend itself to misinterpretations.
Do I think there is something deficient about those who approve of genocide? Actually, yes, I think there exists a massive social deficiency here. I think such beliefs can be shown to demonstrably undermine those things I, and the great majority of people, value.
The issue however, as JP notes, is whether this value is somehow grounded objectively. I doubt we can show that it is, but I welcome attempts to convince me otherwise. It's certainly something I would like to believe.
Bernard
Hi JP,
ReplyDeleteIt's a good question and one that I am ultimately agnostic about. However to try to answer it, I would say that certain principles may be universal in any successful culture of community-oriented beings. For instance, it may be physically impossible to find one that does not have some sort of principle like "do not murder". And it may be universally true that symbiotic relationships will tend to contribute to both an individual and a community's fitness. This could very well be woven into the fabric of reality.
So perhaps this possible evidence could be used in conjunction with our ethical intuitions to justify a belief in objectivity? It is possible. And would this mix of intuition and empirical evidence be that different in forming the rules of objectivity than it would in other areas?
Bernard,
ReplyDeleteA person is crushed - because he visually saw and heard a tree rushing towards him, he decides that this tree is what crushed him. Aren't there still certain assumptions at play here?
I am not suggesting that all assumptions are equal, just pointing out that any system of knowledge is dependent on them.
And if we define morality as "the well-being of conscious creatures" or something like that, then there may be certain ethical codes that we discover through our intuitions, but are also proven through data, that are right and some that are wrong. Moreover, our intuitions probably evolved for a reason.
Hi Steven
ReplyDeleteI'm uncertain on this. No matter how the person interprets what happened, didn't the tree still crush him? In essence, I'm saying the physical forces involved were affected not one jot by the mime artist's beliefs or assumptions, and this respect they are not in play. This is not to say our unfortunate mime can not tell himself any story he so pleases about the events, but I'm claiming these stories have no power to affect the fact of his crushing. We are able to affect the way we see the world, but not the way the world sees us.
Of course, our ways of describing the objects and forces involved are themselves models of sorts, and so perhaps it is more accurate to say this process we model as a falling tree killed him. At this point I think we can state that the process is unaffected by the way we interpret it. And this pushes me towards describing this process as an objective fact of the world. There is more to it than our interpretations.(and so our best models f it become part of the public store of facts of the world).
Now, it may be quite possible to describe a set of moral beliefs that serve a certain set of criteria (say the maximising of wellbeing of conscious creatures) but these, as far as I can see, would still be entirely dependent upon the cultural assumptions that defined conscious creatures (do we include chimpanzees?), wellbeing, its measurement, the rate at which we discount uncertain future wellbeing and so forth.
What I struggle with is the idea that there exist independent of us, some sort of Platonic definitions of right and wrong. They always seem to have exactly the same quality as purely subjective, biological/cultural set of behavioural tendencies. What's more, we have reasonable evidence of the way these value systems are created in the natural world, while we have no model at all for the way objective values would get into our brains.
So I wonder if this idea of objective moral truth isn't just something we've made up, an appealing metaphor for the feelings of righteousness we experience.
Bernard
Hi Steven,
ReplyDeleteYou are probably right. If we were to survey hypothetical civilizations throughout the galaxy (supposing they exist), some patterns would no doubt emerge and this could lead us to identify some (almost) “universal” values or behaviours. The same way, perhaps, we would discover that species having developed an advanced civilization have a sense of sight. But, unless I'm very mistaken, this is not at all what is meant by “objective” values. In fact, objectivists would probably agree with the above.
There is also a selection bias in this kind of survey as the concept of “civilization” (advanced or not) is clearly understood in comparison with human society. I hear some species of ants enslave ants from other species. There might not be any moral lesson here but, still, why always take us human as the measure of all things?
Bernard,
ReplyDelete“Do I think there is something deficient about those who approve of genocide? Actually, yes, I think there exists a massive social deficiency here. I think such beliefs can be shown to demonstrably undermine those things I, and the great majority of people, value.”
But how? You have completely uncut your ability to make sense of what a “value” is or why we should “value” one action or attitude over some other action or attitude. To use the word “value” and “deficient” you much have some standard or notion in mind of what is not valuable or what is “right”. If these are only your subjective tastes, such as liking red wine over white, then who cares really? The Nazis “valued” race purity and felt certain races were “deficient” and that attempts to stop them undermined those values. They made the same pragmatic arguments you are making.
And you speak of the “majority”. As Burk pointed out with the Civil War, if the South wins, the majority would no doubt have, down the road some, been “for” slavery. Would such make it right?
In my view the question of whether morality can be objective or not is inextricably tied to the existence of God or some transcendent being or force that is the source and embodiment of love. For instance, in the Christian economy, it isn’t that God in general loves, it is, rather that God IS love.
If we presuppose materialism, then I see no basis to provide for an objective morality. But let us be clear. We have to presuppose materialism. There is no evidence or fact that compels us to believe it, just like there is no evidence or fact that compels us to believe in God, which is to only to say the evidence can be interpreted either way.
Given this, I can think of hardly any better evidence against choosing to believe in materialism or philosophical naturalism than these two quotes which are their logical outcome:
“Because we won the war, to put it most crudely. If the South had won, slavery might yet be celebrated and honored as best for everyone concerned.”
“I like the idea of not assuming there is something deficient about those who do not call the holocaust morally wrong.”
Eric,
ReplyDeleteI like Adams’ idea, especially because it is descriptive: it accurately identifies how in fact we think. If all philosophy started with the description of facts about the human condition (on which after all all knowledge must rest) then probably we would have less misunderstanding and noise in the philosophical discourse.
I have a few comments:
The distinction between pretheoretical beliefs and theoretical beliefs, while real, is kind of ambiguous. For example, is the belief “the earth is flat” pretheoretical or not? Perhaps the distinction is between beliefs based mainly on perception (or on how things seem) and beliefs based mainly on reasoning.
The dialectic, it seems to me, is not only between pretheoretical and theoretical beliefs, but rather between all beliefs in one’s noetic structure. The reason for that dialectic is the search for conceptual coherence (which is what I suppose Adams means by “mutual support”). When a belief does not cohere with other beliefs a cognitive tension builds up, which is normally resolved with the modification of one or various beliefs (but sometimes with the modification of the meaning of words, as I discuss bellow).
The idea of stepwise refinement of one’s noetic structure implied by Adams’ description while quite common is not always the case. Sometimes a large subset of one’s beliefs or even the whole structure of them, becomes so unstable because of internal tensions that the whole lot undergoes a paradigm shift. I suppose this is the case when, say, a theist becomes a naturalist, or vice-versa. Or when a fundamental Christian becomes a liberal Christian.
Given the basic accuracy of Adams’ description, I think that part of the problem of the disagreements among philosophers, is that the structure of one’s belief system influences the meaning of the words one uses. So there is an additional dialectic here: one’s noetic structure influences how one uses language, which in turn influences the dynamics of that structure. An example here is how a naturalist uses language when speaking about the existence of God, namely as one more existent besides all others. Another example that is quite evident in this thread is that the naturalist will modify the meaning of moral values to refer just to one’s subjective attitudes (or “feelings”) about them. A further dialectic takes place between normative and factual beliefs. The good news is that epistemological beliefs (which I include under normative beliefs) tend to be quite stable. (People tend to apply them asymmetrically though: typically when one discusses or thinks about other peoples’ beliefs one raises the epistemic bar far above the level one uses when thinking about one’s own. So, for example, naturalists asks theists for evidence but do not ask themselves what the evidence for naturalism is. Similarly, naturalists tend to be quite lazy when it comes to apply Occam’s razor to their ontology. I suppose that’s an unconscious defense mechanism, oriented to preserving the stability of one’s beliefs.)
Hi Darrell
ReplyDeleteLet's dig a little deeper beneath this notion of starting assumptions, and the pragmatic defence you offer for belief in objective morality.
My beliefs about the physical world are based upon certain assumptions. Crucially, I assume the models that best served to provide accurate predictions in the past will hold in the future. This is a pragmatic assumption that allows me to operate in the world. As far as I can tell, everybody makes this assumption to some extent.
I do not however take the next step, and claim that reality really will display this regularity for ever more. I don't know what reality is like, all I can asses is the success, to date, of various models of reality in enabling my interactions with it.
Now, it seems the pragmatic theist wants to help themselves to a similar process. Let's assume God's existence for the value that can be found in doing so. But, if we are applying the process, we are not saying, God actually exists. We are just saying, assuming God exists allows me to do the following things (just like assuming induction holds).
Unfortunately, for God to underpin moral objectivity, more is required than this. The God we have assumed for practical purposes provides no basis for objective morality, because this God, as we have freely conceded, is invented by us to serve our own purposes, just as inductive principles are.
To use God to make sense of objective morality, we would need a reason for believing in God that was not itself pragmatic/subjective. Any ideas how we might do that?
Bernard
I’d like to comment on this quote from Adams:
ReplyDelete“(Physicalism) is not a theory in physics, nor more generally a result established by modern physical science. It is rather a metapysical theory. inspired by enthusiasm for science. It holds, roughly, that all the facts there are can in principle be described in the vocabulary, and explained by the laws, of modern physics, in some ideal development thereof. It is obvious that such a theory is issuing large promissory notes to be paid by future developments, and hence is highly speculative.”
I agree on all particulars. What I’d like to contribute is the idea that naturalism is not only or mainly inspired by the physical sciences. I think the roots go much deeper. Our first cognitive steps as babies is about discovering the mechanical regularity in our environment. Soon afterwards we also perceive the presence of persons. Thus the common dualistic interpretation of reality ensues. In ancient times, when our life was much more dependent on people than on technology and we knew little or no science, we tended to exaggerate the personal side of the equation, and thus project personhood on mechanisms such as the weather, rivers, or the movement of the planets. Today, when our understanding of mechanisms has advanced much faster than existential knowledge and when we depend more and more on machines while getting alienated from people, the opposite tendency is becoming apparent with people projecting mechanisms on intrinsically personal aspects of reality, such as ethics, beauty, rationality, and truth – not to mention freedom and consciousness.
The influence of the physical sciences resides, I think, in that it is now proven beyond reasonable doubt that the physical universe is causally closed. Therefore, in principle, all physical phenomena can be described, studied, and explained using physicalist (aka scientific) language. Such phenomena include both peoples’ moral behavior, and peoples’ moral beliefs (at least as expressed in language). As the vocabulary of modern physics does not use any evaluative concepts, the fact that we do value some acts or states of affairs more than others is interpreted as referring to the production of those physical brain states that express in language and in behavior the corresponding value judgment. In turn these brain states are physically produced by sociobiological and cultural forces. Given the perfect correlation between subjective experience and physical brain states (which the physical sciences have also demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt) one will be able to describe any fact about our experience of life using physicalist language too, simply by translating subjective first person language to objective third person scientific language about brain states.
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ReplyDeleteSo, what’s wrong with this picture? Well, nothing really, from the point of view of the naturalist who feels content with its paucity. And it is a poor worldview as it reduces the human condition to one’s description of it, which indeed can be translated into physicalist language. The actual meaning of some of the most important and life affirming concepts we use, such as freedom, responsibility, goodness, love, beauty – is reduced to being illusory for in reality there is no beauty but only one’s feeling that something is beauty, there is no goodness but only one’s feeling of goodness, there is no freedom of will but only one’s feeling of such a freedom, there is no responsibility but only one’s feeling of it, etc, all such feelings being nothing more than physical brain states playing their part in the great and closed causal chain of the universe. And it is poor because it is morally weakening: If one believes that one’s moral sense is just a feeling one will tend to reason that the smart choice is for what feels good and not for what feels right. And it is poor because it is intellectually weakening: If all is a mechanism, then all knowledge can be discovered by mechanical means also, such as a computer. Deep questions become a fool’s errand: For example, if some properties of the universe, such as its deep mathematical structure, appear unexplainable on naturalism, why should the naturalist care? After all there is no reason why a mechanical reality should conform to our desire for explanations. And it is poor because it removes the concept of justice from reality, with most suffering unredeemed and all loss eternal. As black a worldview as it gets.
So perhaps the most important question is not what is wrong with naturalism, but rather, why would anybody in her right mind choose that worldview? After all, it’s not like there is some convincing evidence or good arguments for naturalism. Neither is it like there are no other worldviews that make much more sense, are more life enriching and morally empowering, have more explanatory power, are more beautiful and more simple, do not depend on changing or invalidating the meaning of common concepts about the human condition buy rather agree with them, have no trouble whatsoever with the findings of the modern physical sciences such as the nature of quantum phenomena, the deep mathematical nature of the physical universe, etc. – I have the impression that there are two main reasons which move people to pick naturalism over theism: First people (wrongly) believe that naturalism is implied by the physical sciences. As Adams says that’s an illusion, but then philosophers have done a poor job explaining this fact to the public. Secondly people (wrongly) believe that the alternative worldviews are intellectually unsustainable, or at least intellectually subpar. There is some remarkably bad argumentation offered by some naturalists in this context, to the tune that there is a positive correlation between intelligence or scientific expertise and being a naturalist.
You obviously feel deeply about your beliefs and I have no doubt they help you lead a fulfilling life. I can certainly respect that.
ReplyDeleteBut your comment shows one of the things that is very wrong with faith and, if I needed one more reason not to become religious, you've spelled it out in flashing letters.
You probably don't realize how arrogant you come out in your comment. But you do. The arrogance of those who have found “truth”, satisfied in their certitude. The arrogance to consider those who have opposing views, who have not seen the light, as somehow subhumans, living miserably in the paucity of their diminished morality, intellectually weakened, knowing nothing of beauty or goodness, a life away from any notion of justice, as black at it gets.
What on earth is that? I'm afraid you have no clue what you're talking about. This is utter nonsense and you should know better than go there.
Hi, Dianelos-
ReplyDelete"Today, when our understanding of mechanisms has advanced much faster than existential knowledge and when we depend more and more on machines while getting alienated from people, the opposite tendency is becoming apparent with people projecting mechanisms on intrinsically personal aspects of reality, such as ethics, beauty, rationality, and truth – not to mention freedom and consciousness."
This is sort of ironic, since the point we on the naturalist side have been making is that in the case of morals in particular, it is the theists who make a fetish of objectivity, while we firmly hold that man is the measure of these humanistic things.
"The actual meaning of some of the most important and life affirming concepts we use, such as freedom, responsibility, goodness, love, beauty – is reduced to being illusory for in reality there is no beauty but only one’s feeling that something is beauty ... all such feelings being nothing more than physical brain states playing their part in the great and closed causal chain of the universe."
The use of "nothing more" is a patently false construction. It is like saying that the suffering of someone dying of radiation sickness in Japan is "nothing more" than a set of nervous impulses and brain patterns. This is one descriptive perspective, but nothing in the naturalist paradigm restricts us to that perspective.
Naturalists have absolutely no problem with the subjective perspective in all its glory and pain. The point that naturalists wish to make is that subjective judgements are the right category for some things (morals, aesthetics) and the wrong category for other things (how the material universe works, how brains work, etc.) It isn't a matter of choice, really, or of world view, but of the inescapable perspectives by which we exist in inner and outer worlds.
There is, as you point out, a fascinating tangent between these perspectives, since the inner perspective depends on and exists within the materialistic account of brain activities that forms the outer perspective. But one hardly substitutes for the other ... far from! We just recognize that they have a material, real relationship.
Indeed, it really should be impossible to deny that our inner life is fundamentally dependent on material conditions, and I would suggest that your "choice" of world views is really the attempt to claim a (limited) sovereignty of the subjective over material reality that is every bit as invalid as the opposite claim of subjective non-existence which is "nothing but" some neuronal blips, etc. I would urge adoption of a golden mean!
Hello Dianelos and Darrell
ReplyDeleteGosh, there is something very interesting going on here, which I think JP has touched upon. It is the very great desire of the theist to pain the non-theist world view as lacking values or meaning. Where on earth does that come from? To JP's strong, and I think quite understandable response, can I just add a plea of sorts?
How about we take one another at our words when we say we are managing to carve out a valuable, meaning and stimulating existence on the back of our world views (give or take the odd stumble)?
Personally, I find the idea that our values are culturally informed, and humanity is collectively engaged in the search for those values that will bring us lives worth living, unconstrained by any odd notion of objective truth, most inspiring. I don't expect others to share this subjective perspective, that would be a sort of intellectual imperialism.
Let's get back to Eric's elephant in the room. How on earth are we to show that our moral sense is something other than mere taste? Darrell, I've commented upon your attempt to do so from pragmatism, but the comment is lost for now.
Bernard
Hi JP,
ReplyDeleteWhile reading your post I felt empathy with New Atheists who are also criticized for being arrogant. So here is the situation: Suppose somebody thinks (rightly or wrongly) that a particular understanding about reality is false and hurts both the individual and society. What is that person to do? Should that person come out and openly speak why she thinks so, or should she abstain from doing that lest she disturb those who might profit from what she has to say? My answer to this question is that unless she resorts to personal attacks but speaks only about ideas while maintaining the personal value of those who disagree, she is doing the right thing by speaking up. I hope I have fulfilled that standard while writing my previous posts; I certainly meant to do so. A potential problem here is that I understand the concept of truth in deeply personal terms, and thus cannot speak about what I believe is true without touching on personal issues.
Speaking of which, do I think that naturalists perceive reality in the horrible way I described above? No. I am a theist who believes that all people are made in the image of God and are thus by nature made to be good, to know truth, and to realize all the potential for beauty that exists in creation. I observe that how naturalists personally are and how they choose to act is not significantly different from how theists are and act, which only shows the power of God’s presence in all people, even in those who have missed the fact that reality is God structured. (Conversely, this same observation shows how little faith there is in the heart of theists.) When I was saying that naturalism is as black a worldview as it gets I was meaning it objectively, for I think that if one is a consequent with one’s worldview that is how it shall look. In order to avoid begging the question or trivializing a thought I often put myself in the shoes of a naturalist, and when I do this I experience the world as a horrible place indeed. But luckily for naturalists and unluckily for theists we are quite good at not being consequent with what we believe is true.
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ReplyDeleteHaving said that, there are real differences. Several statistical studies show that on average religious people experience more well-being than non-religious people, and are significantly more generous (even though there is a question about cause and effect). If one thinks that moral values are not intrinsic in the act (not to mention cosmically significant) but only express a feeling induced in one’s brain by our common sociobiological history then one will tend to discount one’s moral sense. I am not here talking of torturing children or the holocaust, but about one’s everyday dealings with moral challenges. On the intellectual level there are differences also. Fundamental physics has become very hard. If one believes that physical laws are the marvelous design of an intelligent creator and that by discovering them one learns something about the mind of a rational God one will tend to be more tenacious. And the same goes for philosophical problems, by the way. On the existential level, theism (at least the universalist kind I judge to be the only coherent one) entails that nothing that is good will ever be lost, and nothing that is evil will ever be victorious, and that all will be well in the end. Which insight one experiences every day of one’s life as hugely valuable and empowering in the face of life’s fears and tragedies.
Now I try to think critically and to study the issues, especially as seen by the best naturalistic minds. What I find is that there aren’t any good reasons or evidence for thinking that naturalism is more probably true than theism. Quite on the contrary, naturalism suffers from many serious conceptual problems without any known solution today (which is why Adams speaks of the emission of promissory notes). What perhaps Adams does not notice is that as long as naturalists hold on to the physical closure of the universe and to the exact correlation between mind and brain, they need not promise anything. The consequent naturalist will argue thus: “Conceptual problems too are physically induced brain states as is the feeling of discomfort at not finding a solution, which state of affairs in no way counts as evidence against naturalism. On the contrary naturalism explains why such brain states obtain.” My point is that once one has embraced naturalism, and as long as the physical closure of the universe and the exact correlation between mind and brain hold as a matter of fact, naturalism becomes unfalsifiable. It’s only from the agnostic point of view that one can compare the two worldviews, and if one consistently does this then (I say) one can’t miss the fact that theism works much better than naturalism under any reasonable epistemic principle one applies.
Hi Burk,
ReplyDeleteYou write: “But if the residents of Afghanistan think it is fine sport to kill each other, and I disagree, then we can hardly call either side objectively true or false. The concept breaks down.”
Physicalists disagree about some of the most important physical questions, such as whether there is one physical universe or many, whether our universe is stable or continuously makes copies of itself, whether reality is deterministic or not, whether causality can work also backwards in time or not, not to mention about the physical status of the mind. Yet I assume you don’t therefore think that the objectivity of physicalism breaks down. Despite all that disagreement you maintain that physical reality exists objectively, don’t you?
I mention the above, because it nicely illustrates how we tend to apply epistemic principles in an asymmetric fashion, raising or lowering them depending on whose view we are thinking about.
In any case the issue of “objective” versus “subjective” is a difficult one, and I am looking forward to discussing it in the context of ethics.
A common misconception regarding the concept of morality being objective is the fact of disagreement. Disagreement alone is said to prove that the concept must be subjective. This is, of course, not logical at all. Because people disagree or have various views of something hardly proves something isn't or can’t be objectively true.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDarrell
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that is a common misconception, but what you say is of course correct.
I have no idea whether or not there are objective realities, so I suppose the burden rests with those who would wish to convince me there are. At this point the apparent malleability of moral views is not an insurmountable problem, but it needs to be addressed.
Mostly though, I'm interested in what would cause somebody to choose an hypothesis of objective values over one of values crafted by evolution, culture and environment. What we experience, a sense of revulsion, joy etc, fits nicely with both hypotheses, and the second has the advantage of involving a mechanism we can and do study for the transmission of, and indeed creation of moral beliefs.
I'm also a little confused on how objective moral values apply. Are we the only animals they apply to? Was there a particular stage in evolution where this application kicked in? (Did it count for the neanderthals I wonder. Does it count for the chimps?) Do they only apply if we accept a prime mover style of free will (which appears to contain a contradiction)? Does the person to whom the rules apply need to have knowledge of the rules in order for them to apply? If knowledge is required, then aren't the objective rules subjective anyway, as whether an act is right and wrong hinges upon the cultural/biological context of the actor? If knowledge is not required, then is the notion of right and wrong removed from that of responsibility?
These are the sorts of questions that make me reluctant to embrace moral objectivism. I'm sort of hoping that soon people defending objectivism are going to turn stuff, because it's much more interesting.
Bernard
Hi, Dianelos-
ReplyDelete"Physicalists disagree about some of the most important physical questions, such as whether there is one physical universe or many, whether our universe is stable or continuously makes copies of itself, whether reality is deterministic or not, whether causality can work also backwards in time or not, not to mention about the physical status of the mind. Yet I assume you don’t therefore think that the objectivity of physicalism breaks down. Despite all that disagreement you maintain that physical reality exists objectively, don’t you?"
Ah- that is exactly the question. So what is the difference? What is it that can adjudicate objectivity? The question of multiple universes has not been adjudicated.. it is not solved, and physicists don't claim that either theory is "real" or objective. They are hypotheses at this point. On the other hand evolution is called real, due to the empirical evidence and associated productive theory that compels us ... who give it any serious thought ... to regard its processes as objectively real.
In contrast, a simple moral rule or observation, like, say - don't torture children (DTC) doesn't have this kind of compelling adjudication. We may agree with it, but the reason it is enunciated as a rule is that someone doesn't agree with it. As you say, that isn't sufficient to call its objectivity into question. Nor, conversely does its popularity establish its objectivity.
What else could adjudicate, aside from popularity or lack thereof? I frankly don't know. I have no idea what other resources we could draw on that are not fundamentally contested, as for example scriptures. My model of scriptural objective support is that they were written by cranky dead old white men just like the rest of our cultural rules, and can in no way be regarded as objective.
Conversely, consider the many reasons to falsely propose objectivity where the actual origins of a moral code are wholly subjective. The caste system of India ... wouldn't its proponents wish to have it regarded as objective- as the necessary concomitant of our long path through the many lives we ascend through, and just the way it is .. period! That would solve a great many problems, paramount of which is that societies whose rules are all open for negotiation are in chaos.
So I sympathize, but when you look deeply, there is nothing objective about any of our moral rules.. they express one fundamental task of philosophy- our evaluation of what is good, which is inescapably subjective.
Bernard,
ReplyDelete“I'm not sure that is a common misconception, but what you say is of course correct.”
I guess I should have said it is a common misconception you and Burk seem to have as noted by these quotes:
“I suppose one might argue that if there is no agreement on what the difference is, then objective moral truths, for now at least, fit into that category of things upon which we may develop private opinions without being able to necessarily transfer them.”
“But if the residents of Afghanistan think it is fine sport to kill each other, and I disagree, then we can hardly call either side objectively true or false. The concept breaks down.”
I’ve also read you both allude to it in some of your other responses having to do with this issue on Eric’s other posts. Perhaps I misread you though.
“I have no idea whether or not there are objective realities, so I suppose the burden rests with those who would wish to convince me there are.”
I think the great majority of both educated people and people in general believe in an objective morality, which is usually tied to their religious or metaphysical beliefs, or is simply tied to the more fundamentals aspects of their experience. I think if we were to ask most people if they thought murder would be “right” if the law and a majority or people thought so, most would disagree, and still think murder to be “wrong” in an objective way. Do you doubt this?
So I think the burden rests with those who believe otherwise.
“Mostly though, I'm interested in what would cause somebody to choose an hypothesis of objective values over one of values crafted by evolution, culture and environment.”
Well that is the whole point of many of Eric’s posts and why we are having this current conversation. Am I missing something? One pathway (theism/transcendentalism) allows for an objective morality and the other (naturalism/materialism) does not and makes moral judgments nothing more than saying something like, “I like cheddar over swiss cheese” and it also makes us say things like, “ I don’t think we can say the Holocaust was morally wrong.”
“What we experience, a sense of revulsion, joy etc, fits nicely with both hypotheses, and the second has the advantage of involving a mechanism we can and do study for the transmission of, and indeed creation of moral beliefs.”
Only if one presupposes materialism. Only if one believes some “mechanism” could produce such. You write as if it was a fact, but it is a belief. By noting that it “indeed [creates]…moral beliefs” is to say they are subjective then, but that just begs the question and is the very disputed notion on this blog.
Hey Bernard!
ReplyDeleteI guess what I meant is that there is no reality apart from interpretations ultimately. And you touched on that with your comment on the tree being a model for what has happened. I cannot stop a tree from crushing me, but describing that as an objective fact still requires faith in my subjective senses, which includes the validation of others around me, etc. Of course, I think for all practical purposes we should describe the tree falling as an objective fact and not a hallucination, a dream, a Matrix-style illusion or whatnot, but the point is we still have to make some reasonable assumptions which are justified by the successes they may bring - for instance, I discover that if I try to avoid the tree, I avoid pain so it seems most likely that for all practical purposes it is an objective fact that the tree is falling.
Sorry, that is annoying, but I just think that there is no black/white distinction between objective or subjective. Our only access to "objectivity" is through our subjective senses. So there are certain assumptions inherent in defining objectivity and I would argue that one assumption for attempting to find objective morality would be to define morality.
What does morality, or right and wrong mean? If something is good, what is it good for? Surely goodness could be described as some sort of well-being and if we actually give morality some context, some objective, then something close to objectivity may emerge.
JP, as to the different animals comment, it's a good thought. I would suggest that our access to objective morality would be commensurate to our level of awareness.
I would say that in my discussions with more conservative religious folks, I find that they are actually trying to make morality completely subjective, getting rid of any empirically measurable aspects to it, and then just saying that if one believes in God it creates an objectivity - presumably because he may enforce rewards and punishments in some way?
But this grounds morality in the subjective desires of an entity, UNLESS God has built into the fabric of reality certain facts about behavior which must be observed to attain a certain degree of success? And of course, if this is the case, then one needn't appeal to God, because one could discover it empirically. And I find this a more appealing definition of God anyway - something/one that is the ground for everything, not for just some aspect here or there in our existence. After all, if we need God to explain morality, then does that mean there is something out there that we don't need God for? It's theologically precarious to me.
Thanks Steven
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, I think, although I find this difficult. Absolutely, our models of reality are dependent upon the assumptions we make, a good many of them unavoidable (those that are hard wired into the very acts of perceptions for example). Hence we are best to think of them as models. But, beneath them, if reality is to mean anything, there is the pattern of effects which we then conceptualise. And these effects appear to be unaffected by our conceptualisation.
Hence, as Burk has put it, we can use our observations of these affects (assumption bound though they may be) to adjudicate between models. Those models adjudged best, (evolution being a good example) then stand as objective in the sense that no one is able, for now, to present a more powerful model.
And, I agree with you, should we be able to agree upon a standard of moral goal, in the same way we can agree upon sets of measurement in science, then we might be able to assess moral systems against them. Should such a system ever develop, we might then be able to call it objective in the same way.
However, the case being put on this blog appears to be for a different type of objectivity. One that exists independent of human judgement. Things that are wrong, just because they are, and not because humans tend to find them repulsive. If that is what is meant by moral objectivity, then my guess is it will be very hard indeed to establish an argument in its favour.
Bernard
Hi Steven,
ReplyDeleteYou write: “I just think that there is no black/white distinction between objective or subjective. Our only access to "objectivity" is through our subjective senses.”
Yes, I too have misgivings about the objective/subjective distinction. We are subjects, and thus all we know, or think we know, will ultimately be subjective too. Still, let’s make the best possible case for a objective/subjective distinction and see where that leads us. Here is how Eric puts it in a previous post speaking about the objective/subjective distinction in the case of moral judgments: “In brief, the idea is this: one concludes that one's moral judgments are nothing but expressions of feeling or personal attitude (as opposed to saying something that is true OF the act, state of affairs, etc.) because one can find no empirical foundation for assessing their truth-value, and because one is committed to an epistemological theory that equates "no empirical foundation" with "no foundation" and hence with "no reason to believe it is true or even has a truth value."”
Please note that Eric is careful to say that “one cannot find” an empirical foundation for the truth value of moral propositions when understood objectively, not that there isn’t such an empirical foundation. Indeed I think there is, namely in how acting in morally different ways transforms one’s own being. Thus the truth value of “the torture of children is wrong” is as empirically verifiable as “the stove is hot”. But that’s perhaps an issue we may discuss later when we see how the objectivity of ethics fits with theism. For now let’s try to nail down the objective/subjective distinction and see if it is of any use.
First, observe that what Eric writes above reduces to “A proposition about X is objective when it is about X”. It would then seem that all propositions are objective, but the idea is that the meaning of a proposition which seems objective may be subjective. I am not sure when the objective/subjective distinction entered the philosophical discourse, but I suspect it was when naturalists found out that moral talk made little sense within their worldview. In any case here is the best case I can do for an objective/subjective distinction from the naturalistic point of view:
A moral proposition such as “to help a child in need is better than to torture it for fun” can have two distinct meanings. It may describe one’s affective response to actions such as helping or else torturing a child (namely that one feels all warm and fuzzy with the idea of helping a child and that one is apt to help a child in need and that one admires those who help a child in need, etc, while in contrast one feels revulsion with the idea of torturing a child for fun and is apt not to do this and deeply dislikes those who do such, etc.) An altogether different meaning is that human actions have the intrinsic property of goodness, and that the action of helping a child in need is more good then the action of torturing a child for fun. The first meaning of the moral proposition is the subjective one, and the second is the objective one.
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Bernard,
ReplyDelete“However, the case being put on this blog appears to be for a different type of objectivity. One that exists independent of human judgement. Things that are wrong, just because they are, and not because humans tend to find them repulsive. If that is what is meant by moral objectivity, then my guess is it will be very hard indeed to establish an argument in its favour.”
I hope you realize that this whole issue is tied to the whole question of whether God(s) or a transcendentalism/force of some sort exists. The same arguments apply. It almost appears to me you are suggesting that this issue (the objectivity of morality) is somehow a separate argument or issue.
So, if you are thinking that unless someone can use empirical means like a test or unless we can locate an actual connection in the brain that produces “moral concepts or impulses” then of course I think you will be disappointed, because liked the whole mind-body problem it misses the point entirely.
What would it take to “prove” to you that morality was objective? If you say some empirical evidence like the eclipse of the sun test that was used to prove Einstein’s theory that gravity would bend light, then of course you will never be convinced.
Of course to suggest that this is what anyone would need to be convinced of a question of this nature is again to miss the point and confuse categories of knowledge and how we can know anything. It also reveals that one’s presuppositions (materialism/naturalism) are in play to an extent that one is almost precluded from receiving and considering other ideas or concepts that would help in his evaluation of such a question.
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ReplyDeleteWhen confronted with a proposition one may assume one of four attitudes: This proposition carries no meaning and thus is not even false. I don’t care to or can’t make up my mind whether this proposition is true or false. I think or tend to think that this proposition is true. I think or tend to think that this proposition is false. Now, the naturalist might continue as follows:
Like all cognitively normal people I too agree with the moral proposition “to help a child in need is better than to torture it for fun” in its *subjective meaning*. But given that in naturalism there is no such property as “goodness” which actions possess, I find that this proposition when meant objectively is rendered meaningless, so that it’s pointless to discuss whether it is true or false. A good analogy here would be with tastes. I agree with the proposition “chocolate tastes better than vanilla” because in my case my affective response to chocolate is more positive than that to vanilla. But when that same proposition is meant objectively then I find it is meaningless, and therefore that it is pointless to discuss whether it is true or false. Vanilla and chocolate do not themselves posses any intrinsic or objective “good tasting property” which would be needed before saying that chocolate tastes better than vanilla.
If my presentation above is correct then naturalism suffers from a deeper problem with ethics than just turning off people who have the clear intuition that some ethical propositions are objective (e.g: “racism, exploitation, the torture of innocents, are all intrinsically wrong no matter what anybody believes or how anybody feels or what society’s norms are or how humanity has evolved sociobiologically”). The deeper problem is a pragmatic one. The human condition is such that all people, including the consequent naturalist, must make decisions every day of their lives. Some decisions are about means, i.e. given some goal what should I do to reach it. But other decisions, of a more fundamental kind, are decisions about which goals to choose. It is the latter kind of decisions which ethics is meant to guide. But, on naturalism, all ethical propositions are merely descriptive, namely they describe the state of mind of an individual in relation to an action or state of affairs, and seem to be useless for making decisions about goals. As Hume has argued one cannot go from the “is” (the state of one’s mind, or the state of other peoples’ mind) to an “ought” (what decision to make about goals), and on naturalism it certainly looks like Hume is right. So the deeper problem naturalism suffers from is that unless some kind of realist ethical theory is discovered (i.e. some objective sense of ethics) then all decisions about goals are rendered arbitrary. Which is pragmatically very troubling. What is the consequent naturalist supposed to do when faced with such decisions? Toss a coin?
JP above argues that ethical decisions are not arbitrary even if not objective ethical values exist, because the sociobiological process will take care that some ethical values will never become widespread while others will. But my point is that given one’s feelings about ethics (which will probably be near to what is widespread), in most everyday situations where one must make a choice there are many alternatives as well as conflictive feelings and wishes to sort out (as I discuss bellow), and it seems some objective theory of ethics is necessary before making any non-arbitrary decision.
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ReplyDeleteSo, what does any reasonable naturalist do as a matter of fact when faced with ethical (i.e. goal defining) decisions? There are, I think, two alternatives:
Probably most naturalists simply forget the implications of the theory of naturalism, assume that some eminently reasonable ethical principles are objective and start from there. Sam Harris proposes that mental well-being is objectively good (for it is as obvious that mental well-being is better than mental misery as that an elephant is bigger than a mouse). Then Sam Harris makes a big deal of the fact that science (neuroscience presumably) can say much about mental well-being, thus justifying the claim that science has a lot to say about ethics. (Sam’s project, for all its initial plausibility, becomes rather complex later, as at some point one must decide goals about how to balance the mental-wellbeing of oneself, one’s family, the rest of humanity’s, the rest of animals, etc – which looks an impossible task without developing some quite complex objective ethical theory. Nor is it clear to me how neuroscience can help one decide between two competing hypotheses about mental well-being.)
Others stick with the implications of naturalism and take into account only their own affective responses before defining goals. In other words they pick such goals as they wish to pick, and presumably such goals that they will enjoy achieving. But here too a problem of balance arises: One enjoys many things, some of which are alternatives but some of which are exclusive (so one’s wishes may be conflictive, as Burk above notices). Without some objective standards, how is one to choose among them, or, say, choose among shorter and longer term joys, or choose among goals which are easier to achieve and goals that are more expensive?
In conclusion, it seems one can’t really make ethical decisions in a non-arbitrary fashion (such as tossing a coin) without assuming some objective ethical principles, and thus entertaining ideas which according to naturalism are meaningless.
At this point the consequent naturalist will shrug hes shoulders and say: “Yes, the human condition is a mess, especially given the illusion of freedom of will, which makes decision making a self-contradictory process. People experience themselves as being something which they in fact are not. Naturalism explains all of that.” But, one may ask the consequent naturalist, “How do *you* make ethical decisions then?” to which the answer will be “Messily and uncomfortably as everybody else. I also experience getting old messily and uncomfortably. But these are my problems, not naturalism’s. After all, naturalism explains the existence of all of them. Surely you don’t expect reality to care to make life easy or meaningful for you? You must open your own way, create your own meaning, find your own good, and live with the consequences.”
Thanks Dianelos
ReplyDeleteThat's thoughtful and interesting.
I don't yet understand what you see as a pragmatic problem with choosing between ethical stances. Let's say I'm deciding whether to buy a new car that performs well and is fun to drive but uses a lot of fuel, or a more frugal but less immediately satisfying vehicle.
Ethically speaking, I may be swayed by my desire to contribute in a small way to the future good of the planet and go for the small car. Not because I believe this stance is objectively good, but rather because it is good within the narrative context of my species, my culture and my life.
I don't see a pragmatic difficulty here. What's the problem I'm missing?
Bernard
Hi Dianelos
ReplyDeleteAnother thing I'd appreciate your input on is this. You say that when it comes to believing things, we often must choose between options on the grounds that one appears more likely to us. And to an extent I agree with this. On balance I feel it's likely there's no God, that consciousness is just physical, that we don't have free will, that objective morality is meaningless and so forth.
But, and here is where my agnosticism kicks in, I note that people like yourself, Eric or Darrell, faced with the same evidence, and using pretty much the same types of reasoning, feel the opposite to be more likely in all these cases. So, what is the difference between us?
Well, one thing that is different is our personal life histories. We have built up over time different narratives against which we reference these probabilities. In this respect, our probabilities are just stories, things we choose to believe because it feels good to do so. Acknowledging that that's all my beliefs are, in cases like this where reasonable people can conclude otherwise based purely upon their differing intuitions, is in essence what I mean by agnosticism.
I hold certain beliefs in the sense that I feel the tug of my intuition and often build my actions and perspectives about it. But I don't for one moment assume they tell me anything about reality. Because that would require me to assume my own intuitions are better guides to reality than those of others. On what could I possibly base that assumption?
Bernard
Hi Guys,
ReplyDeleteHere's what I see as some problems with seeing moral facts as absolute.
First and foremost, there is the question of what it means. I'm not alone in not being able to make sense of them. To say “X is objectively good in some absolute sense” seems to require a criterion for truth, a truth maker and none is offered. Of course, as Darrell points out, there is nearly universal agreement on some moral judgments. But this may mean no more than there are some invariants within the human species. It does not imply anything outside of the human sphere.
Is God the truth-maker? Or some logically established moral theory? Imagine what you will. Now, let's suppose that, somehow, we learn from this authority that torturing children is good – with no place whatsoever for doubt. That wouldn't work, would it? I expect nobody would start torturing children after this revelation. But why? I suggest our moral instinct is simply too strong for that. Eric says as much in his post: these instincts, this feeling that we simply cannot do this will trump any argument, theory or authority.
So, we're left with this basic feeling/instinct/intuition/belief (pick your choice) telling us what to do. But moral values vary widely in time and space. What is seen as horrible today was viewed in the past as virtuous – and what we see as a moral obligation today may very well become wicked tomorrow. Even now there is huge disagreement on many moral matters. And this is just taking into account our own species. Presumably, objective, absolute moral truths will be so also for the zillions of other advanced conscious species that have populated the universe in the past or will in the future. But we might also expect that many of their moral feelings will significantly differ from ours.
That leaves us with, certainly, an immense number of mutually contradictory moral feelings. Of course, this variety does not logically imply that objective moral facts do not exist but, let's get real here – with all these zillions to choose from, everyone of them feeling as deeply as any other, how on earth could we know? Can one really claim that his own feelings must represent the truth while the multitudes who differ are mistaken? The absolute, inalienable, moral truth, applying to all, everywhere, anytime, in all circumstances, most of them we cannot even begin to imagine? Really?
Thanks Dianelos - I think you have a lot of good stuff thought through here. You point out a lot of the paradoxes of believing that there is a true objective reality, but trying to find it while being a subjective part of that reality. And I agree that we should take our feelings quite seriously - they evolved for a reason. Of course they should be cross-checked by empirical findings.
ReplyDeleteI fear, however, that your description of "objective reality", that there is an inherent "goodness" in some actions, renders the term "goodness" a bit hard to understand for me. I am no longer sure what you mean by it if we don't, for instance, define it as some sort of well-being, or even as something in larger metaphysical terms - for example - "goodness is what brings people together rather than what isolates them" or something like that. Of course that still makes well-being the goal. What do you think goodness is?
Bernard, yes I think we are on the same page. Once again, I don't want to try to come across as overly wishy-washy. Certainly, for all practical purposes, the objective/subjective distinction is useful in everyday life and we know what it means. I just wanted to point out that we need assumptions, based on intuition, to get anything off the ground, so perhaps we can make assumptions about morality and then move forward from there. An assumption like "the overall, long-term well-being of conscious creatures is the purpose of moral actions" or something like that.
And once again, I dislike moral arguments for God (although I still describe reality in terms of "God" myself), because morality is a part of the world like anything. The couch I am sitting on needs as much explanation as morality if God is the animating ground behind everything, not just this or that. And, for the atheists, this also means that it makes sense to not believe in God - because no specific thing should require explanation more than any other. So it comes down to our intuitions, our deep feelings, about what mythical language we should use to describe that which is.
Hi Bernard,
ReplyDeleteYou write: “Ethically speaking, I may be swayed by my desire to contribute in a small way to the future good of the planet and go for the small car. Not because I believe this stance is objectively good, but rather because it is good within the narrative context of my species, my culture and my life. I don't see a pragmatic difficulty here. What's the problem I'm missing?”
Well, you raise a realistic case of an ethically challenging situation. First of all I’d like to make a distinction between the theoretical problem (i.e. deciding what is right) and the practical problem of ethics (i.e. deciding to do what one thinks is right). The latter problem is far more important, because just finding out what is right is of little use if one doesn’t actually act on it (which is almost always costly). I’d say that naturalism is especially problematic in the latter sense. Suppose that Carmen (the car buyer) has little doubt that the right thing to do is to buy the smaller car. But she is also a naturalist who understands all about how her ethical feelings are caused by entirely physical and thus blind sociobiological processes. In that state of mind it will be easier for Carmen to mark down her feelings about what is right, which will make it more difficult for her to summon the strength to do what she feels is right. I my previous post, though, I mainly talked about the theoretical problem of ethics, argued that a naturalist faces some pragmatical difficulties in that context, and I understand it is to that claim of mine you now object.
So Carmen is torn between her desires to drive a fast and flashy car and her desire to do the right thing, which at first sight she feels is to help the future generations by saving the planet for them. It is certainly right to care about the future generations. But there is also the issue of utilitarianism. Her not buying the fast and flashy car will make virtually zero contribution to the salvation of the planet, but will affect her enjoyment of driving to a significant degree. Using Sam Harris’s principle of mental well-being as the measure of good, it’s not clear what the best action is here. There is also the ethical principle of justice, and right deserts. She has worked hard and honestly to earn her money, so isn’t it right that she should enjoy it? In a society where people did not enjoy their money people would stop working hard, to the eventual detriment of all.
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ReplyDeleteWhat I am trying to illustrate above is that unless you believe that reality is such that there is a good-making property in one’s actions, a property the value of which one may try to discover, ethical thought becomes aimless. Sociobiological pressures do clearly specify broad ethical tastes (such as, it’s wrong to kill your neighbors), but their effect is simply too chaotic and vague for being much of a guide in one’s everyday morally challenging situations. What’s more, a lot of critically important ethical questions (e.g. should I vote for bigger government or not, should my country build nuclear weapons or not, should we produce genetically modified foodstuffs or not, how should I balance my own country’s interests with another’s) are so recent that the sociobiological process has not had the time (and won’t have the time) to be of any use. We must find these answers quickly and in a way that is broadly convincing, and I don’t see how this will even be possible if reality is in fact naturalistic. But if reality is in fact theistic and good-making properties really exist and we are all (including non theists) made in a way that makes it possible for us to find out what they are, then we have a chance.
Let me put this in another way: If reality is naturalistic then the universe is a big, blind, purposeless mechanism, which happened to produce intelligent life on earth. But intelligent life is not something supernatural or supra-mechanical, but only a complex manifestation of the underlying mechanical processes. Now, on naturalism, there is nothing in reality that favors survival or justice. There is no in-built “good force” out there. Which, given the destabilizing effect of the ever increasing power of science and technology, implies that sooner or later a catastrophic disaster must strike. That’s why my reason forces me to conclude that if naturalism is true than it’s really bad news, not only existentially for those who believe in naturalism, but also for the future of humanity as a whole, which is doomed to be like the burning of a match that brightens for a few seconds before necessarily self-destroying. I am not saying that the Earth is physically incapable of supporting a thriving humanity for millions of years more at least. I am saying that for that to be possible ethical wisdom will be necessary, and that in a naturalistic reality that ethical wisdom is simply not available. On naturalism, our future is written in our purposeless mechanical nature, and that future is not beautiful.
Incidentally, if Carmen finds this out then it will be even less probable that she buys the small car. Which effect has a strange implication: That an ethical naturalist should be quiet or even lie about how reality is. Of course, my thoughts about naturalism which bring me to this rather dark result may be in error, but if so I’d like know where.
Hi Dianelos,
ReplyDeleteYou often contrast naturalism and theism to point out what you see as the advantages of the latter. This is not how I look at these issues. I am interested certainly in knowing more about reality and increasing my understanding but I don't approach these questions as some “competition” between competing philosophical doctrines.
Take physicalism. From Eric's post above, it claims that all the facts there are can in principle be described in the vocabulary, and explained by the laws, of modern physics. How could anybody know that? I certainly don't and I suppose it means I am not a physicalist. So what? I believe that, instead of explicitly adopting a philosophical doctrine, we have to keep our thinking more fluid and refrain from taking a firm stand where it's obvious we don't know enough.
Likewise, I'm not rooting for either side here. I don't “want” naturalism to be true and theism to be false. This would be silly. And I don't think it's a question of choice either. You claim that ethical problems are so much simpler under theism. It may very well be the case but, what's the point? Social life would be much simpler and enjoyable if there were no criminals. But there are. We have to cope with reality as we find it, don't we? I could dispute your description of our future under naturalism - you clearly don't like the idea. But how can this be an argument for theism?
Hi Burk,
ReplyDeleteI claimed that on naturalism there is not, inter alia, such a thing as beauty, but just our feelings of beauty, and that “all such feelings [are] nothing more than physical brain states playing their part in the great and closed causal chain of the universe.”
You object to my use of the “nothing more” clause, explaining that naturalism allows for an inner/subjective perspective of things. Of course I agree. Naturalism would not be viable if it denied the reality of our subjective life. Indeed I speak about what feelings are in a naturalistic reality, and by “feelings” I mean what I suppose you mean by inner/subjective perspective.
What I fail to understand is your objection to my “nothing more” construction. Naturalists disagree about exactly what conscious experience is, but they all agree that (as you write) “our inner life is fundamentally dependent on material conditions”. So, on naturalism, either our inner life is identical to these material conditions (the view of physicalism), or else our inner life is not identical but some kind of intrinsic property of the material conditions (the view of property dualism), or, perhaps, our inner life is some kind of immaterial but mechanical emanation of the material conditions (which is the most liberal naturalistic view I can think of, but which to my knowledge no naturalist really defends) – like an immaterial shadow which follows the material conditions around. But in all three cases it seems to me that the “nothing more” construction is appropriate. I could have written something like “On naturalism there is no such thing a beauty, but only our feelings of beauty (or if you prefer, our inner perspectives of beauty) which are nothing more than physical brain states, or some property of such physical brain states, or some emanations of such physical brain states.”
The point I wanted to make is that on naturalism our inner perspective of life (with all its splendor and pain) is nothing more than a manifestation of a mechanically (and thus blindly and purposelessly) evolving universe.
Now you probably agree with the above, but feel that given what we know from the physical sciences, all people, including theists, should also agree. But this, I'd argue, is a fallacious thought. That the physical universe can be modelled as a mechanism does not imply that it is a mechanism. Or, to be more precise: The premise that all our experience of life (in both its quantitative/scientific and qualitative/subjective dimensions) can be modelled in a mechanical fashion, does not imply that reality is mechanical, nor that we are mechanical beings.
Eric,
ReplyDeleteYou write: “(1) Is there a relevant difference between matters of taste and moral judgments, one that justifies treating them differently? [snip] An affirmative answer to (1) implies that, even if there are subjective/affective components to moral judgments, these judgments are ABOUT something beyond the individual making them, a standard which the judgment can fail to meet and hence be mistaken.”
Taste judgments can also be mistaken and can be falsified. When I say “I like chocolate more than vanilla” I mean an empirical fact, namely “Should I eat chocolate I will enjoy it more than if I eat vanilla”. Thus the original judgment is about something beyond myself (but in relation to myself), an objective property of chocolate and vanilla, namely that if I taste them they will cause some identifiable change in my experience of life. And in that judgment I may be mistaken, for my tastes are not an eternal given but change.
I personally don’t see a relevant difference between matters of taste and moral judgments. There is perhaps a large difference in relevance, but I find the analogy is almost perfect. For example, some moral judgments are universal (e.g. to help a child in need is better than to torture it for fun), and some taste judgments are also universal (e.g. fresh strawberries taste better than rotten ones). In the case of non universal agreement we find that both taste and moral judgments are strongly influenced by cultural and other recent environmental factors.
In general I think the objective/subjective distinction is not a very useful one in philosophy. Here is why:
First this distinction appears to be fuzzy, for I don’t see any purely objective or purely subjective propositions. Every proposition about an object outside of us entails some relation to us, otherwise we couldn’t know about that proposition in the first place. So, for example, the nominally objective proposition “an elephant is bigger than a mouse” refers in part to properties of the subjects who might hold that belief, namely that they know of elephants and mice, quite probably have seen them, know of the concept of size, can judge relative sizes, and so on. Conversely, nominally subjective propositions such as taste judgments always refer in part to some external property, as we saw above. It seems to me then that the objective/subjective distinction artificially places a boundary around the subject to separate her from the rest of reality. But in fact subjects are an integral part of reality; one cannot speak of subjects without speaking of reality. The converse also holds, because any claim about reality which is meaningful from the point of view of a subject entails some claim about that subject too.
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[continues from above]
ReplyDeleteSecondly, in those contexts where the objective/subjective distinction appears at first to be useful (e.g. when naturalists discuss ethics) the distinction is not between a subjective and an objective interpretation of a moral proposition, but rather the distinction between a meaningful and a non meaningful interpretation of a moral proposition. But that’s a spurious distinction, for a non meaningful interpretation is no interpretation at all. Within naturalism one can only meaningfully speak of one’s affective response to ethical questions (i.e. roughly, how one “feels” about that ethical question). Thus, on naturalism it is not really the case that ethical propositions are not objective, but rather it is the case that ethical propositions are not meaningful: It is not meaningful to say “to torture children for fun is wrong”; it is only meaningful to say “I abhor the very idea of torturing children for fun”, or “I wish to live with people who would never torture children for fun”. The same goes, say, for the concept of freedom, which too is meaningless within naturalism: It is not meaningful to say “I am free to choose between A and B”; it is only meaningful to say: “I don’t feel anything impeding me from choosing between A and B”.
In conclusion, I think that the objective/subjective distinction instead of clarifying things in philosophy only confuses them. As Steven notices the objective/subjective distinction has some use in daily discourse, but given how difficult metaphysics is I wonder if we’d not be better off sticking with the meaningful/meaningless and true/false distinctions and avoid using the objective/subjective one. I think that philosophical discourse will do better concentrating on what propositions actually mean, why it is reasonable to think that they are true or false, and what the practical implications of their being true or false is.
Hi Dianelos
ReplyDeleteAn interesting proposition. I think the notion that it makes it practically harder to weigh up the various ethical influences may be wrong. Under both systems, theism or naturalism, there would be a requirement to balance all the various influences you mention, and come down on one side or the other. And practically speaking, in the end it's probably true that a certain amount of gut feeling is going to be in play, so the power of the underlying narrative is resolved at the subconscious level. )Although the extent to which we consciously consider and litigate these narratives of course has its effect). Now, whether that gut instinct is being pulled there by an innate ethical facility, or an evolved behavioural tendency, I can see why it becomes pragmatically harder to make the call either way.
You may be oversimplifying the notion of evolved responses when you talk of modern problems having no link to our evolutionary past. If we have evolved to seek solace in particular types of narratives which themselves involve a fair degree of plasticity, then this may not be the case.
Finally, if I believed in an innate ethical facility, but my moral compass was indeed poorly set, then theism would make it easier for me to make the wrong ethical decisions, wrong in the sense that they lead to my future well being and sense of satisfaction. Why? Because they may encourage me to put too much faith in my gut feelings. At this point, the observation that our ethical instincts vary dramatically when it comes to the messy real world problems you mention becomes pertinent.
Bernard
Hi Bernard,
ReplyDeleteYou write: “But, and here is where my agnosticism kicks in, I note that people like yourself, Eric or Darrell, faced with the same evidence, and using pretty much the same types of reasoning, feel the opposite to be more likely in all these cases. So, what is the difference between us?”
I think that’s a very good question, especially because it is an existential one. I find that when the philosophical discourse loses sight of the human condition then it becomes irrelevant and probably meaningless.
As you say, one difference is our personal life histories. I know an atheist philosopher (and very good person) who is quite active in his atheism, has written a book on it, has publicly debated against theists, and so on. I turns out that he became an atheist when he found out how much intellectual hypocrisy there is in the church he attended. In other words, in this person’s life history ethical principles played a major role. In my life history ethics played a major role too, but in the opposite direction: it was my impression when I first read Jesus’ ethical teaching in the gospels that pushed me towards critically-aware theism. In this context, I think that our “noetic structure” (i.e. our personal belief system – even though “system” is too grand a word here) is strongly influenced by emotional parameters, such as empathy, character traits, even political passions such as communism or pacifism. What one has read as a young person (Sufi poetry anyone? Zen Buddhism?) is also an influence. In turn all these factors affect one’s life choices, which further affect not only one’s experiences but the very quality of one’s experience of life. Indeed I think it is wrong to assume that all peoples’ qualitative experience of life is virtually identical. The whole of one’s experience of life is a dialectic process, so that the very data we have to work with (and especially intuitions) may become quite different. All these differences may affect even the meaning we attach to words, which in turn may explain why people from different sides of the metaphysical divide have sometimes trouble communicating with each other. They literally have come to live in different worlds.
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ReplyDelete“Acknowledging that that's all my beliefs are, in cases like this where reasonable people can conclude otherwise based purely upon their differing intuitions, is in essence what I mean by agnosticism.”
It is an observational fact that equally reasonable and educated people can radically disagree about how reality fundamentally is. This much is settled. But this does not imply that theism and naturalism are equally reasonable. I personally think that when one consistently compares theism and naturalism one-to-one under any of the various and widely agreed epistemic principles then the evidence for theism becomes overwhelming – even if one takes into account the differences in life histories. Take for example the field of ethics we have been discussing. I think we agree that on naturalism ethics is meaningless (or “non objective” as some people prefer to say). Some people believe that theism too has trouble making sense of ethics (here the Euthyphro dilemma is often mentioned; JP points out the lack of an empirically accessible good-making property). But I find that under the Irenaean theodicy (an advanced and relatively uncommon theistic understanding) ethics is not only meaningful but meaningful in a way that exactly represents our ethical intuitions. Indeed, whereas naturalism (at least in principle) can explain why we hold some ethical beliefs, theism (I’d argue) can moreover explain why such beliefs are meaningful and thus can have a truth value, and also how to find out what that truth value is.
Another reason that keeps reasonable people (theists and atheists alike by the way) realize that the evidence for theism is overwhelming is that we live in a scientific age, which colors the thinking of people (especially educated ones) in a mechanistic fashion, thus affecting their power of conceptualization. I find that even theists have sometimes trouble conceptualizing a non-mechanistic reality, and thus unconsciously use mechanistic mental images when thinking about issues such as free will.
Another reason is that, I think, our age is as plagued by myths as any other age. A major modern myth is that the physical sciences in general, and natural evolution in particular, support naturalism and oppose theism. And that myth is unfortunately believed by both naturalists and theists, which misguides the thinking of both.
Now I realize I am making some huge claims above. These issues are outside of the theme of this thread though, and I’d like to suggest that we stick with the problem of ethics and how (I will argue) theism solves it – which in any case is a extremely interesting matter in its own right.
Hi, Dianelos
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I would suggest it is rather typical of our respective positions that you would discount the subjective/objective distinction. Something that I would regard as absolutely fundamental to proper philosophy, not to mention science. The blending of objective with subjective is precisely what science exists to resolve and eliminate, so that we no longer, say, infect our ideas of communicable disease with subjective concepts of just desert, moral lapses, and the like. Not that it is easily done.. but that it is worth doing and can be done with a great deal of work. Blending objective and subjective is the hallmark of magical thinking and superstition- one of the meta-poles this blog lies between, incidentally.
Secondly, I could easily recast everthing I claim about subjectivity of morals in a true/false paradigm as you wish. One would say that the preference for "don't torture children" (DTC) is true for me and for everyone I know, as far as I know, for the vast majority of the time. It is a widespread preference, and may be virtually universal, though we also know it is not quite universal.
That is to say, this truth is a matter of observation and of self-report by humans such as me about our preferences. I don't know how this really advances the discussion, since the counter-claim you would make is that morals such as DTC are not solely a property of humans in their preferences, but arise from some deeper structure of ... whatever it is you claim ... reality, the universe, god, etc. The onus would certainly be on you to demonstrate that this model is more than an intuitive hunch, however common, and however useful to social controllers.
cont...
Switching to naturalism,
ReplyDelete"The point I wanted to make is that on naturalism our inner perspective of life (with all its splendor and pain) is nothing more than a manifestation of a mechanically (and thus blindly and purposelessly) evolving universe. "
...
"On naturalism there is no such thing as beauty ..."
These don't agree. The latter kind of statement goes too far, because beauty most certainly exists in our internal frame of reference. That this frame of reference can be accounted for, described, etc. as dependent on and existing within a material matrix is, I think, true, and the point of naturalism. It is like saying that video games depend on the paraphernalia of computers, even though they look rather ethereal there on our screens. Suppose you had grown up in a cave and been introduced to video games under carefully controlled conditions that hid the various mechanical underpinnings. You would regard them as some kind of supernatural magic.
"That the physical universe can be modelled as a mechanism does not imply that it is a mechanism. Or, to be more precise: The premise that all our experience of life (in both its quantitative/scientific and qualitative/subjective dimensions) can be modelled in a mechanical fashion, does not imply that reality is mechanical, nor that we are mechanical beings. "
Very well- a model doesn't just have to provide an account for your chosen problem, but also have evidence in its favor that supports its truth. Tinkerbell is a model, but not one with alot of evidence on its side. Where is your evidence for a better model? The naturalist model is encompassing more and more of our emotions, cognition, and related processing all the time (speaking of mind models). My sense is that time is running out for you to come up with a robust and substantiated alternative model. With respect to universe models, it's pretty crazy out there in particle physics, but every working model to date is of a mechanistic type. At some point, they may give up and say that neutrinos are just ... made by god. But not yet!
Dianelos
ReplyDeleteYou propose, amongst many other things, that under naturalism there can none of the ethical wisdom required to guide us towards favourable outcomes. This seems an odd claim to me. Surely a person or indeed a community, are still as capable of examining options, considering probable outcomes and comparing these to the value systems created by their personal narratives.
I concede of course that if there is some special extra-physical information stream nudging us towards outcomes that are for the good of the universe, then this system will produce better outcomes. But we have no evidence of this, eihter by process or outcome, and no reason to believe that defined in its own objective terms, the good of the universe may not indeed entail its own annihilation. Objective morals could go in any direction after all, if they are not tethered to our own subjective desires. How would we ever know that it isn't ethically better to torture the child, and that humans are just quite mistaken?
Bernard
Hi JP,
ReplyDeleteYou write: “I am interested certainly in knowing more about reality and increasing my understanding but I don't approach these questions as some “competition” between competing philosophical doctrines.”
Well, there is one thing I definitely agree with Sam Harris, namely that beliefs matter. Whether one holds that theism is true, or that naturalism is true, or remain an agnostic – it does make an important difference in one’s life. It affects how one understands life, it affects one’s life choices, it affects the very quality of one’s life experience. Now, metaphysics (i.e. to find out how reality is as contrasted to how it seems) is hard. If having theism and naturalism compete with each other can help one realize which of the two views is more probably true, then I say let’s have a competition. By natural disposition I consider that truth is always an indisputable good, i.e. that one can only benefit from learning the truth.
“I believe that, instead of explicitly adopting a philosophical doctrine, we have to keep our thinking more fluid and refrain from taking a firm stand where it's obvious we don't know enough.”
I agree that we should keep our thinking fluid, should not become dogmatic, should have a critical attitude especially towards our own ideas, when considering differing thoughts we should try to understand them instead of trivializing them, we should be careful not to beg the question or commit other logical fallacies, and so on. But this does not imply that one should not adopt a view which one finds probably true, to the best of one’s cognitive ability. Incidentally, we never really know enough to be certain about anything (the only thing we really know is the subjective experiences we have right now). But that does not mean that one should never embrace any belief. Life would become impossible if one embraced such excessive skepticism.
Hi Bernard,
ReplyDeleteYou write: “Under both systems, theism or naturalism, there would be a requirement to balance all the various influences you mention, and come down on one side or the other.”
I tend to agree. I think that, existentially speaking, ethical reasoning as waged by theists or naturalists is not different in kind, but different if you will in execution (as I have argued above). But, as you say, in the end it all comes down to balancing one’s “gut feelings”. What is dramatically different, though, is what one can say about this common existential process, and thus how a theist and a naturalist will view that process. In other words, what that process is (i.e. how we interpret the respective experience) becomes very different depending on whether one believes in naturalism or in theism: On naturalism ethical reasoning is the manifestation in our subjective life of underlying mechanical processes taking place in the universe without any purpose or goodness or indeed intelligence. On theism it is the manifestation of our power of free thought and of our power to perceive and discover what is right and wrong, which personal powers form part of a purposeful and marvelous drama taking place in the cosmos and in which God plays an active part. (And which, on universalism at least, will have a perfectly good ending). So, what is existentially experienced about the same, couldn’t be more different metaphysically. And how one metaphysically views that process (and consequent naturalists and theists will view it quite differently) influences how one will experience and manage that process.
I hope I am making myself clear: Given that there is one reality we all share, there is also basically one process of ethical reasoning we all share. But our beliefs about how reality actually is affect that process to a significant degree, especially if one is consequent with one’s beliefs. (And, conversely, how one views the process of decision making can influence one’s beliefs about how reality actually is.)
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ReplyDelete“You may be oversimplifying the notion of evolved responses when you talk of modern problems having no link to our evolutionary past. If we have evolved to seek solace in particular types of narratives which themselves involve a fair degree of plasticity, then this may not be the case.
We agree that on naturalism natural evolution (biological and social) is a mechanical and blind process. Can you suggest how historical evolutionary mechanisms that weeded out self-destructive ethical gut feelings (e.g. “kill your neighbors”) and left in place such ethical gut feelings that favor social survival in conditions quite different than the ones we face today, will be useful today? “Plasticity” sounds good, but the fact remains that there is no benevolent intelligence guiding our sociobiological evolution, and those who think that we have any kind of control over it and may nudge it towards our survival are deluding themselves. We are riding a train without a driver. Thanks to science and technology the conditions we face today are changing at an exceedingly fast rate which is measured in decades or even years. The sociobiological evolution of ethical feelings is faster than the evolution of biological traits (memes copy faster than genes) but even sociobiological evolution has no time to adapt to our current rate of change. There is simply no time for the blind system of ethical gut feelings to learn. Even sociobiological evolution requires at least a few generations time to affect any change that may benefit survival. – Again, perhaps I am missing something, but what? Does anybody know of any material on this issue I could read?
“Finally, if I believed in an innate ethical facility, but my moral compass was indeed poorly set, then theism would make it easier for me to make the wrong ethical decisions, wrong in the sense that they lead to my future well being and sense of satisfaction. Why? Because they may encourage me to put too much faith in my gut feelings.”
Or put too much faith in scripture, or in religious authorities. I agree on all particulars. If reality is naturalistic then it makes little difference whether the Earth is filled with theists or with naturalists or with agnostics. The very idea of worrying about what we should do to survive becomes absurd, for the future is already set (at least probabilistically), and spells disaster. I don’t see how one can be a consequent naturalist without becoming kind of a fatalist.
(reposted :-(
ReplyDeleteHi Burk,
You write: “The blending of objective with subjective is precisely what science exists to resolve and eliminate, so that we no longer, say, infect our ideas of communicable disease with subjective concepts of just desert, moral lapses, and the like.”
First of all I am not blending objective with subjective; I have only pointed out that the even though there is a valid subjective/objective distinction it is a fuzzy one, and one which can lead to confusion. I gave arguments justifying that position, which you are welcome to dispute.
Having said that, I don’t understand your point above. After all there may be a connexion between moral failings and communicable diseases. I mean, if we found out that there is a positive correlation between one’s failing moral norms and one’s susceptibility to communicable disease – would that indicate any problem for science?
Thinking of which, I find that on naturalism it is especially clear that the objective/subjective distinction is a fuzzy, not to say artificial, one. We agree that subjective experiences perfectly correlate with physical processes in one’s brain, and that these physical processes in one’s brain are causally interdependent with the rest of physical reality. But then it is literally impossible to speak of subjective/inner reality (or “perspective” if you prefer) in a way that is independent or separate from the objective/external reality. Don’t you agree?
Now it is true that people often speak of first-person data and third-person data, but this is an example of the confusion engendered by the subjective/objective distinction. After all, clearly, all data we have are first-person data, because if they weren’t how would we know about them? Third-person data are a specific subset of first-person data, namely data which we find are quantifiable in a publicly verifiable way. Our condition (at least for now) is such that we cannot transcend our own individual being. We are, first and last, individual subjects, and therefore all our data is subjective, and all our knowledge is therefore subjective too. The subjective/objective distinction, even though a valid one, can easily deteriorate in imagining a boundary which I think is not there.
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ReplyDelete“Secondly, I could easily recast everything I claim about subjectivity of morals in a true/false paradigm as you wish.”
I agree of course, and I think it would be a good idea. Given the fact that philosophical discourse is plagued with misunderstandings, it is clearly better to use as few concepts as possible. In relation to propositions the meaningful/meaningless and true/false distinctions appear to be entirely adequate.
“The onus would certainly be on you to demonstrate that this model is more than an intuitive hunch, however common, and however useful to social controllers.”
Sure. The onus is on theists to explain what goodness is, and in general what the meaning of ethical talk is. I trust we shall be discussing this in the near future.
Hi Dianelos
ReplyDeleteI suppose I think you are taking some leaps that are too big for me to comfortably follow. I tend towards a naturalist explanation of the world, at least as a best working model, but it doesn't imply any sort of fatalism for me at all. Fatalism is embraceable under both models, under theism the future is still the future, one can over extend the metaphor of fatalism I think. All we are doing here is twisting our personal narratives to extract meaning. I accept you find more meaning in the theistic narrative, but to make the next leap, that the theistic narrative is simply more meaningful, is perhaps to betray a failure of imagination.
How much can evolution underpin ethical thinking? You ask how we might have evolved instincts not to kill our neighbours. As with any evolutionary process, a certain amount is post hoc speculation, but studies of primates are interesting in this regard I think. There is a lot of work on the survival advantage of reciprocity, tracking favours, protecting those who might in the future do the same. Is it vampire bats where the successful share their food with others at the end of the hunt, irrespective of their relatedeness? The evolution of empathy, a capacity to imagine the other as the self, is clearly crucial, and will be tightly linked to the evolution of self awareness/consciousness. Some have suggested this is in itself linked with the development of language capacities.
Whatever the process, we do have gut instincts that allow for the successful functioning of societies. It is no surprise that our favourite morality example involves the protection of children, as the evolution of the large brain made ours the most vulnerable and helpless children in the animal kingdom.
Your speculation that our cultural and biological evolution will not be up to the task of sustaining our human community is fanciful. It may be right, or it may be wide of the mark. Only time can tell. To base a philosophy on your prior hunch is, as always, a little idiosyncratic.
Bernard
Hi Dianelos,
ReplyDeleteWhether one holds that theism is true, or that naturalism is true [...]
I agree with most of what you say here. You're right of course to point out that excessive skepticism is not altogether healthy. But this is not at all what I'm proposing.
One point, important I think, is that this is not an either-or situation. You oppose one brand of theism to one brand of naturalism, arguing that the former is the best choice. But I would argue that this artificially restricts the field of possible solutions.
For instance, you point out in a previous comment that the term God, as many (or most) use it, is not just any supernatural being but one with specific attributes. Surely we can conceive of a large variety of all-powerful beings that would do as well as creators of the universe.
Likewise, if the naturalism you criticize states positively that all there is can be studied by science (I'm not sure what exactly you assume), surely this can be seen as over-characterizing the naturalist field. There are many variations to this theme.
As for me, I like to keep options open, so to speak. And I expect that, at the end of the day, we will all be surprised beyond our wildest expectations.
JP
ReplyDeleteI think it was the biologist Haldane who once said 'the world is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.' I've always liked that idea.
Bernard
Hi Bernard,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the quote – I entirely agree. I think Haldane is also the one who answered, when asked what the study of biology taught him about God, that “He had an inordinate fondness for beetles”.
Talking of inspiring words, I picked up an old book of essays by Loren Eiseley from my shelves this morning (The Star Thrower) ; had not touched this in a long time. I suppose you've read him but if not, you should. It was “Science and the Holy” on the subway this morning; next will be “The Last Neanderthal”.
Hi Burk,
ReplyDeleteYou write: “The latter kind of statement [“on naturalism there is no such thing as beauty”] goes too far, because beauty most certainly exists in our internal frame of reference.”
My entire statement was: “On naturalism there is no such thing as beauty, but only our feelings of beauty (or if you prefer, our inner perspectives of beauty) which are nothing more than physical brain states, or some property of such physical brain states, or some emanations of such physical brain states.”
The situation is exactly analogous to the problem of morality. Consider the proposition “Halle Berry is more beautiful than Winston Churchill”. This proposition is universally agreed upon. Now suppose a far more technologically advanced civilization visits us and in order to make a philosophical experiment uses their technology to rewire the wiring in our brain that produces our feelings of beauty, so that next day all people feel that Winston Churchill is more beautiful than Halle Barry. Faced with such a state of affairs, the theist would maintain that even so Halle Berry is still more beautiful than Winston Churchill, and that our messed up brains had lost the ability to recognize this truth. The naturalist, on the contrary, would maintain that Halle Berry is not any longer more beautiful than Winston Churchill - which is kind of paradoxical given that the extraterrestrials had modified nothing in how both of them look. Which shows that there is no beauty in a naturalistic reality; there are only the feelings we associate with beauty. According to naturalism when people say “Halle Berry is more beautiful than Winston Churchill” they are talking nonsense; they only thing they can meaningfully say is something like “Looking at a picture of Halle Berry causes in me a more pleasing visual sensation than looking at a picture of Winston Churchill”. Some naturalists go further than that and claim that when people say “Halle Berry is more beautiful than Winston Churchill” what they actually mean is “Looking at a picture of Halle Berry causes in me a more pleasing visual sensation than looking at a picture of Winston Churchill”, but this is demonstrably false, for the latter is not in fact what people mean when the say the former.
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ReplyDelete“Where is your evidence for a better model?”
My evidence for the belief that the theistic model of reality is better than the naturalistic model is that it works better than the naturalistic model when tested under any widely accepted epistemic principle I can think of and which I consistently apply to both. To mention one important example, let’s use the logical principle of abduction, namely that among two hypotheses the one which explains more is more probably true. This principle, incidentally, is very much used in the physical sciences. So: The naturalistic model (or at least, scientific naturalism) by its very nature cannot explain more than the physical sciences explain, so, strictly speaking, explains nothing. The theistic model can and does explain more than the physical sciences. For example, whereas the physical sciences explain (at least in principle) the physical processes which produce ethical feelings, theism moreover explains what such feelings mean and why they are relevant. Or take a second epistemic principle, namely that of coherence and specifically the requirement that a model's compatibility with the vast array of knowledge produced by the physical sciences. So: Whereas there is an easy concord between the theistic model and the modern discoveries of the physical sciences, there is conflict or at least great unease between the naturalistic model and the modern discoveries of the physical sciences. Hence the craziness you mention bellow.
“The nauralist model is encompassing more and more of our emotions, cognition, and related processing all the time (speaking of mind models).”
You are here talking of the physical sciences, not of the naturalistic model. To conflate naturalism with the physical sciences is a common fallacy of our times. That the physical sciences are not identical with naturalism is evidenced by the fact that all scientific propositions remain true under theism. It is the naturalistic intepretation of the physical sciences which of course does not remain true under theism. The conflict then is between theism and naturalism, not between theism and the physical sciences.
“My sense is that time is running out for you to come up with a robust and substantiated alternative model.”
My sense is that you imagine that the successes of the physical sciences are successes of naturalism, and thus give naturalism far more credit than it deserves. In fact the project of the physical sciences works at least as well on theism as it does on naturalism.
“With respect to universe models, it's pretty crazy out there in particle physics, but every working model to date is of a mechanistic type.”
Suggesting pretty crazy things is not a good sign. And please observe that it is naturalism which proposes the crazy things when trying to interpret naturalistically the mathematical models of phenomena which physics so successfully discovers. The theistic physicist does not face any such problem. As for your last phrase I suppose you mean “every naturalistically working model to date is of mechanistic type” which is true but also a truism.
“At some point, they may give up and say that neutrinos are just ... made by god.”
Observe that to say that the existence of neutrinos is caused by God explains how these elementary particles manage to display such a computationally complex behaviour without having access to any visible computing machinery.
Hi Dianelos
ReplyDeleteThe idea that theism explains more than naturalism is one of these brave assertions that can not in fact be backed up. It rather depends upon whether the explanation in question is any good.
Take an unsolved murder, one of your favourite examples. We don't have enough evidence to put together a convincing explanation. Our best bet has some circumstantial weight, but would never stand up in court. Along comes explanation number two, that it was done by mischievous fairies. We have no evidence for this, but because it can be twisted to cover existing evidence, and explains more of the event that any opposing theory (i.e names the guilty party), we should accept it on the grounds of abduction?
I'd say let's not apply that particular principle, as it privileges flights of fancy, and then crucially offers no way to decide between them (it wasn't fairies, it was gnomes). When we don't have enough evidence, we don't have enough evidence. Making stuff up to cover the gap strikes me as recreationally sound, but philosophically suspect.
Bernard
Hi Bernard,
ReplyDeleteYou write: “You ask how we might have evolved instincts not to kill our neighbours.”
No, not really. Given what the physical sciences teach about sociobiology I think we already have a pretty good idea how our instincts evolved to not try to kill our neighbors. Indeed I agree with your description of the mechanical process that produces the ethical principles we all agree with, such as “don’t kill your neighbors”. Further I agree that all ethical beliefs we hold, and the variations between them, can at least in principle be explained by sociobiology. Meme theory may not be a mature scientific theory yet, but I find it is very plausible that it or something very close to it explains on mechanistic grounds the evolution of human beliefs of all sorts.
“Your speculation that our cultural and biological evolution will not be up to the task of sustaining our human community is fanciful. It may be right, or it may be wide of the mark. Only time can tell. To base a philosophy on your prior hunch is, as always, a little idiosyncratic.”
I don’t think it’s only a hunch or a fancy flight of speculation. On naturalism the whole world is a blindly evolving mechanism. If so we have a good shot at predicting the future in its broad characteristics. So I use naturalistic reasoning to the best of my ability to predict whether it is probable that humanity will survive for significantly more time, and the result I find is that it is not. You say above that I am making some big leaps, so let me restate the thought in smaller steps, and see if we can discover some error in it:
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ReplyDeleteWe know that science and technology increase humanity’s power extremely quickly; it is fair to estimate that humanity’s power in the last 50 years has increased tenfold, and in the last century a hundredfold. There is a clear danger that abuse of this power will lead to self-destruction (from the possibility of a catastrophic nuclear war to the possibility of catastrophic environmental degradation). In order to avoid humanity’s demise we must collectively behave in an ethical manner. Ethical decision making reduces to the effect of ethical beliefs (or feelings if you prefer) which evolve mechanistically through sociobiological processes. The only way for that evolutionary process to adapt to the effect of such beliefs and thus modify them is by trying them out (that’s for example how the belief/feeling “it’s good to kill your neighbors” was weeded out). That process of “trying out” a belief takes at least a few generations, for it is at least that long that the effect of belief requires to make a survival difference. This sets the upper limit for the speed that the predominant ethical beliefs which result from the sociobiological process can evolve in favor of survival. But the dangerous conditions we face today change much faster and therefore the sociobiological process which produces humanity’s dominant ethical beliefs/feelings will not have the time to adopt to make survival probable. Therefore survival is not probable.
It’s basically the same reason that species have often disappeared in the past: Environmental changes (caused either by external factors or by the same species) modify the survival conditions faster than the rate of biological evolutionary adaptation can adapt too. In humanity’s case we have the faster rate of sociobiological adaptation, but a speed of environmental change that is simply too fast.
When I try to find some error in my reasoning above, I often come to this thought: We people can think, can predict the effect of our actions, and can thus modify our ethical thought in respect to them. And we can do this within minutes. I recently read a story about how in 1983 a Russian colonel, Stanislav Petrov, while working at the command center of the early warning system of the Soviet nuclear forces, did not communicate to his superiors a satellite signal that said that Russia was being attacked by several American missiles, even though that was his explicit duty, thus perhaps saving the world. – But when I do this I realize that I am committing the error of personalizing (or blending the subjective with the objective as Burk would say) of what in reality is an entirely mechanical and blind process, which only feels free or rational from our inner or subjective perspective. In the particular case mentioned above the mechanisms in the Colonel’s brain happened to evolve in a way that was positive for humanity’s survival. But luck can hold only for so long.
Hi Dianelos,
ReplyDeleteTherefore survival is not probable.
I tend to agree. We're quickly turning this planet into our private garbage dump and this may very well prove our downfall.
But how on earth is this relevant? Are you really using this as an argument for theism? Unless you “know” a priori that we will survive, that everything will turn out for the best, there is no argument at all. I don't understand this one.
Hi Dianelos,
ReplyDelete[...] to say that the existence of neutrinos is caused by God explains [...]
It would be useful if you spelled out what you mean by an explanation.
I can think of this: an explanation of A is always in terms of something else, say B, and it consists in laying out a detailed path going from B to A. For this to work, I think the following is necessary: (1) A and (2) B are sufficiently well defined; and (3), the path can be described in minute details. In fact, the more details we can provide, the better the explanation is.
To say that “the sky is blue” is explained by “the laws of physics” means that we describe in details how the former is a consequence of the latter. There is a path that anybody can study and evaluate.
Theistic explanations fail with respect to (2) and (3) above and, for me, the most obvious problem is the complete absence of a path. To say “the sky is blue because God made it so” is saying next to nothing.
If we were to apply the same loose standard to naturalism, we could simply say “the laws of physics explain consciousness” and be done with it.
Hi Dianelos
ReplyDeleteYes, if evolution has produced both the parameters and the plasticity of our responses, then in time, whether we survive or not will be in part determined by this process. And you are quite right, evolutioin is a most wasteful process in this regard, mostly we species go extinct.
I have lost the thread of why you think this matters though. I think it had something to do with optimism. Despite understanding that eventually the sun will burn out, I remain optimistic. I have a localised sort of hope. I see evidence of love, art, enquiry, generosity, and know that these things have a while to run yet, no matter what the outcome.
There is no need to jump from understanding the future is the future (true under theism too) to any sort of fatalism. Even if the species keeps going, each individual still dies. One could be morose about that, were it one's want.
Equally, one could produce reamarkably gloomy versions of theism. The human imagination, when it comes to narrative construction, is close to boundless. When we choose to call these stories reality, simply because they apeal to us, we seem to me to be making an error of reasoning (in that many appealling stories are clearly untrue - Santa Claus for example).
Bernard
Hi JP,
ReplyDeleteYou write: “But how on earth is this relevant?”
Well, a few posts back I made a strong claim, namely that if reality is naturalistic then humanity is doomed. In my previous post I described in some detail why, given what we know from the physical sciences, if reality is entirely mechanical then our survival is improbable, and as it gets more improbable with passing time, why we are in fact doomed. I did this in order to justify my original claim, which one could have interpreted as crying wolf. (By the way, this result is so strong that I still feel uncomfortable about it, and wonder if there might not be an error in my reasoning.)
Now perhaps you are wondering what the relevance of this result is in our discussion about ethics. I think it is relevant: Previously, I had made (and tried to defend) several claims about the relationship between metaphysical belief and ethics, for example: “If naturalism is true then ethical talk is nonsense”. Therefore, “If one believes in naturalism then, pragmatically speaking, this affects negatively one’s ethical thinking”. The relevance of “if naturalism is true then humanity is doomed” is relevant in the context of ethics because it implies that “If one believes in naturalism and finds out that humanity is doomed then, pragmatically speaking, this will affect even more negatively one’s ethical thinking”. Indeed it has an ethical implication, namely that if one believes in naturalism and finds out that we are doomed, one would do better not to tell others about this truth. Which in turn shows that if reality is naturalistic then the free movement of ideas can be harmful.
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ReplyDelete“Are you really using this as an argument for theism?”
What we can right away establish is that if humanity does self-destruct in the near future that event won’t be evidence for naturalism (the syllogism "if naturaism then disaster, disaster, therefore naturalism" is fallacious as per affirming the consequent).
So, can we build an argument for theism, based on what we have found out (or think we have found out) above? I think we can build an argument against naturalism (and thus indirectly for theism). Here is one:
1. Humanity has a good chance to survive for several more centuries on Earth.
2. If naturalism is true then humanity has not a good chance to survive for several more centuries on Earth.
3. Therefore naturalism is false.
Bernard also wonders about why all this matters, and says that perhaps it has something to do with optimism. So it does. If one accepts the truth of premise (1) and many people “feel it in their bones” that (1) is true then one will find in the argument that shows why in a naturalistic reality humanity is doomed evidence against naturalism, i.e. one more reason that makes naturalism less probably true. (This is the case of a fallibilist finding herself in the respective EC2 according to the nomenclature of Eric's latest post in this blog.)
A similar argument would be this:
1. The free flow of ideas is a good thing.
2. If naturalism is true then the free flow of ideas is not a good thing.
3. Therefore naturalism is false.
Here is a different type of argument:
1. If naturalism is true then humanity will probably not survive for several more centuries on Earth.
2. Humanity will survive for several more centuries on Earth.
3. Therefore naturalism is probably false.
Of course we don’t know yet whether (2) is true or not. But this argument shows the possibility of a historical disproof of naturalism. For the longer we survive the less probable naturalism becomes. If we survive long enough then our survival will prove that a real miracle is happening, one which breaks the causal closure of the physical universe. It will prove that some kind non-mechanistic and hence personal force for good is at work in reality and guides our ethical thinking and acting. This state of affairs will not strictly speaking prove theism (perhaps this is a non-transcendental Star Wars kind of force) but it certainly will increase the probability that theism is true even from the point of view of the most skeptically disposed thinker.
Hi Dianelos
ReplyDeleteWell, now you have completely lost me. If naturalism is true, then humanity is probably doomed in the near future, appears to be a central plank here for you. Only, you've established no such thing. What you've actually established is that under naturalism, our behavioural and decision making tendencies have a evolutionary/cultural/biological basis. You have then asserted that this particular type of decision making process will be unable to keep up with the complexity of the decisions it faces.
Well, perhaps, perhaps not, only time will tell. What you haven't given is any mechanism by which this probability could be calculated. Next, to justify theistic belief, you claim this probability is at odds with a gut feeling that we probably will continue a little longer. It'll not surprise you I have no expectation either way, just some hope. Furthermore, if a credible means of calculating the probability of our survival (how many would need to survive to call it survival by the way?) emerged, then my gut feeling would alter accordingly. Hence your propositions 1 and 2 would never clash for me.
Which brings us back to such a central point, visited by Eric in his latest post. If we give primacy to our gut feelings, as you clearly do, then of course one can establish absolutely any case one wishes. All that's needed is to reach into the bag of intuition and pull out the appropriate self evident truth.
Bernard
(third intent to post)
ReplyDeleteHi JP,
You write: “It would be useful if you spelled out what you mean by an explanation. I can think of this: an explanation of A is always in terms of something else, say B, and it consists in laying out a detailed path going from B to A. For this to work, I think the following is necessary: (1) A and (2) B are sufficiently well defined; and (3), the path can be described in minute details. In fact, the more details we can provide, the better the explanation is.”
I would say that any pattern we discover in our experience of life is an explanation. At the very least a pattern must include two elements, in the case of your example (B, A). But I do not agree that for an explanation to work a path between B and A must exist. If it exists then we have a more interesting pattern, say (B, X, Y, Z, A), and to know of that pattern may, as you say, provide a better\more detailed explanation. Here is an example of an explanation (B, A) which does not require the knowledge of a path or even the existence of a path between B and A:
In your experience of life you notice a stable pattern between B=”fire burning under the kettle” and A=”water in the kettle getting warmer”. Then, the observation of A (the water in the kettle is getting warmer) is explained by B (there is fire burning under the kettle). Conversely, and given that explanation one already knows, the observation of B (fire burning) allows you to predict A (water getting warmer). Indeed, the mark of a successful explanation is successful predictions. Predictions are reasons to assign larger probability to a belief, need not be temporally ordered, and when they are need not point from the past to the future. In any case observe that in this example even without knowing of a path
between B and A, we do have a valid, albeit not detailed, explanation.
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ReplyDeleteActually, if you think about it, you’ll see that it can’t be the case that such a path must be known for an explanation to be valid, for the simple reason that at some point such a path does not exist. Even an ideal physical science will only give us finite detail about the path between B (fire under the kettle) and A (water becoming warmer). Suppose that given physical reality the best possible explanation is (B., P1, P2, … P98, P99, B). Suppose then you asked for an explanation for the pattern (P63, P64), i.e. asked why or how P63 leads to P64. This question admits of no answer. We see then that at some point explanations must hit a metaphysical bottom.
Now even though longer patterns (i.e. more detailed explanations) do correlate with our sense that we have a better explanation, what really gives us confidence that an explanation is a good one is pragmatic usefulness, i.e. that its predictions obtain in one’s experience of life.
A final point. It should be clear that data are data, no matter if such data are quantifiable or not, public or not, whether one calls them physical sense data, subjective impressions, perceptions, intuitions, feelings, gut feelings, or whatever. If one discovers a pattern among data then one has an explanation and can make predictions. Here is an important and universal pattern in our experience of life (D=”I understand X” , C=”I experience X as meaningful”). If you experience X as more meaningful you can predict that you understand it, and vice versa. That you understand the meaning of the sounds of spoken Chinese is explained by the fact that you understand Chinese. Here is another important pattern (F=”I love X”, E=”I experience X as more beautiful”). If you feel you are falling in love with a person you can predict that she will strike you as more beautiful, and vice versa. That you find a person more beautiful is explained by the fact that you are finding here more beautiful. Can one find a more detailed path between F and E, something that explains even better (F, E)? I think one can, as one can in the example (B, A) about the kettle, but this does not rest anything from the fact that (B,E) and (F,E) are already valid explanations.
One more final point: Patterns need not be deterministic but can very well be probabilistic.
And a definitely final point: My above explanation of “explanation” conforms with what it says, and is: (I discover pattern (B, A) , I experience that B explains A)
Oops. I meant:
ReplyDeleteThat you find a person more beautiful is explained by the fact that you are falling in love with her.
Incidentally, by "falling in love" I here mean "loving her more than before".
Hi Bernard,
ReplyDeleteYou write: “Equally, one could produce reamarkably gloomy versions of theism.”
One could, but, given the fundamental attributes of God, one would almost certainly be in error. Coherent theism must sound like wishful thinking.
On the other hand, one must produce remarkably gloomy versions of naturalism. Coherent naturalism must sound like a nightmare.
“If naturalism is true, then humanity is probably doomed in the near future, appears to be a central plank here for you. Only, you've established no such thing.”
I think I have, and I notice you are not suggesting some error in my reasoning.
“What you haven't given is any mechanism by which this probability could be calculated.”
If naturalism is true and we all function in a blindly mechanistic manner, then this probability is defined in purely scientific terms. Now it is probable not feasible with the current scientific and technological resources to actually compute the probability that humanity will survive the next few centuries. But neither is it very relevant. In any case of unguided natural evolution (i.e. natural evolution as it must take place in a naturalistic reality) where the environmental survival conditions change quicker than the maximum evolutionary rate of adaptation, extinction will ensue. This is a general law. If we could compute the actual probability of the survival of humanity during the next few centuries it would be very nice, but makes little difference to my argument. It’s like me saying that if you let a stone free in the air it will fall down and hit the floor after a little while, and you objecting that I haven’t computed exactly when it will hit the floor.
“Hence your propositions 1 and 2 would never clash for me.”
Perhaps there is a misunderstanding here. In philosophical discourse the reason one gives an argument is to justify one’s own beliefs, i.e. to describe the reason one holds a particular belief. One doesn’t give an argument in order to convince others. And in my case, even though I try to be critical and careful about what I do with the data I have, I don’t make any distinction between “presumptive evidence that reasonable people generally accept” (aka “objective evidence”) and “apparent truths I experience as clearly true/self-evident/obvious/hard to deny/intuitively correct” (aka “subjective evidence” or “feelings” or “intuitions”). Why should I? I understand that some of my feelings/intuitions are such that many other people do not have them, or have the opposite ones. So? Somebody living in Costa Rica will experience much more rain that I do living in Greece. Similarly, depending on where one is situated in the epistemic or existential sense, one will have different feelings/intuitions. Why should this fact be reason for me to discount my own feelings/intuitions? But perhaps we can continue that discussion in the latest thread.
(repost)
ReplyDeleteHi Bernard,
You write: “Equally, one could produce reamarkably gloomy versions of theism.”
One could, but, given the fundamental attributes of God, one would almost certainly be in error. Coherent theism must sound like wishful thinking.
On the other hand, one must produce remarkably gloomy versions of naturalism. Coherent naturalism must sound like a nightmare.
“If naturalism is true, then humanity is probably doomed in the near future, appears to be a central plank here for you. Only, you've established no such thing.”
I think I have, and I notice you are not suggesting some error in my reasoning.
“What you haven't given is any mechanism by which this probability could be calculated.”
If naturalism is true and we all function in a blindly mechanistic manner, then this probability is defined in purely scientific terms. Now it is probably not feasible with the current scientific and technological resources to actually compute the probability that humanity will survive the next few centuries. But neither is it very relevant. In any case of unguided natural evolution (i.e. natural evolution as it must take place in a naturalistic reality) where the environmental survival conditions change quicker than the maximum evolutionary rate of adaptation, extinction will ensue. This is a general law. If we could compute the actual probability of the survival of humanity during the next few centuries it would be very nice, but makes little difference to my argument.
Hi Bernard,
ReplyDeleteYou write: “Hence your propositions 1 and 2 would never clash for me.”
Perhaps there is a misunderstanding here. In philosophical discourse the reason one gives an argument is to justify one’s own beliefs, i.e. to describe the reason one holds a particular belief. One doesn’t give an argument in order to convince others. And in my case, even though I try to be critical and careful about what I do with the data I have, I don’t make any distinction between “presumptive evidence that reasonable people generally accept” (aka “objective evidence”) and “apparent truths I experience as clearly true/self-evident/obvious/hard to deny/intuitively correct” (aka “subjective evidence” or “feelings” or “intuitions”). Why should I? Data are data. I understand that some of my feelings/intuitions are such that many other people do not have them, or have contradicting ones. So? Somebody living in Costa Rica will experience much more rain that I do living in Greece. Similarly, depending on where one is situated in the epistemic or existential sense, one will have different feelings/intuitions. Why should this fact be reason for me to discount my own feelings/intuitions? But perhaps we can continue that discussion in the latest thread.
Hi JP,
ReplyDeleteYou write: “One point, important I think, is that this is not an either-or situation. You oppose one brand of theism to one brand of naturalism, arguing that the former is the best choice. But I would argue that this artificially restricts the field of possible solutions.”
I agree with the effect you point out, namely that the method I propose cannot establish what is true. But neither do I claim that my theistic model is true. What I claim is that my theistic model is more probably true than the best naturalistic model I can find or think of. And I justify that claim by the method of comparative metaphysics I have been proposing: Instead of trying to argue in favor or against the truth of a particular model, do something that is much easier and thus more effective, namely compare two models one-to-one under the same widely accepted epistemic principles. It is generally the case that it is more difficult to measure the value of a property of X than to compare the values of that property between X and Y. And that holds, from the truth value of metaphysical worldviews to the temperature value of liquids.
Having said that, there are some results that hold broadly. For example I find that *any* mechanistic model of reality cannot account for my inner perceptions of freedom and of ethics and of beauty, which by itself does not disprove such models (my perceptions of freedom and ethics and beauty may by illusory in some sense), but which by itself certainly implies a *relative* disadvantage of any mechanistic model. Especially given that there is at least one model I know of (namely my current theistic model) which I think nicely accounts for it.
Incidentally, I use the same comparative method to decide which theistic model is more probably true. I currently think that the best theistic understanding is one characterized by the metaphysics of subjective idealism, the theodicy of John Hick (aka Irenaean theodicy) which entails universalism, and the Christology of orthodox Christianity (including the Trinitarian nature of God, the incarnation of the second hypostasis of God in Jesus of Nazareth, and the salvific meaning of that event, including that perfection is found by following the path of Christ – which does not require that one be Christian or a theist or even a religious person, but it does require a life of self-transcendence).
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ReplyDelete“For instance, you point out in a previous comment that the term God, as many (or most) use it, is not just any supernatural being but one with specific attributes. Surely we can conceive of a large variety of all-powerful beings that would do as well as creators of the universe.”
Right. That’s why theistic philosophers say that the cosmological argument, for example, does not prove the existence of God (with His/Her classical attributes of perfection), but only makes it more probable. The idea is that if the cosmological argument successfully proves that some personal and transcendent intelligence of great power has created the universe, it becomes more probable that God (as classically understood) exists. But, in my judgment, this stepwise process of arguing for the cumulative probability of theism is less effective than the comparative method I suggest.
“Likewise, if the naturalism you criticize states positively that all there is can be studied by science (I'm not sure what exactly you assume), surely this can be seen as over-characterizing the naturalist field. There are many variations to this theme.”
Naturalism is the idea that all of reality is at bottom mechanistic. There are several variations of that idea, some of which are very vague indeed. The only sufficiently spelled out naturalistic model I know of is scientific naturalism, namely the idea that scientific models (which are mechanistic by nature) don’t only describe phenomena but also describe the reality which produces them. And when the scientific models are too abstract to directly serve as descriptions of reality (as is the case with quantum mechanics) then we must search for the naturalistic models which strike us as being the most plausible/elegant ones, while satisfying the scientific knowledge about phenomena (so naturalism does require a good dose of subjective judgment). I myself have tried to think of better naturalistic models than scientific naturalism. For example I think that some kind of dualistic or even multipolar naturalism, which considers the physical to be just one dimension of a mechanistic reality, works better. I also find that the computer simulation model works better, but it mimics the theistic model in so many aspects that I don’t think that it will ever become a favorite of non-theists.
Hi Dianelos
ReplyDeleteYes, it seems the subjective/objective thig is where we fall down continually. When you say coherent naturalism must be gloomy, you mean it must be gloomy to you. Well yes. Incidentally, I find theism, in many respects, to be a most gloomy outlook. And as you say, so what.
The idea that if our faclity for dealing with complexity is evolving more slowly than the complexity itself we must become extinct is circular, insomuch as the only way we could measure the relative rates of change would be through the fact of extinction or otherwise (so it could be that our ideas evolve more quickly than the physical environment surrounding them, for example). To assume you can see what is happening in advance of the evidence is fanciful. But again, I suspect you don't mean it's a law per se, but just a law to you.
And at this point, let me say I entirely agree with you. I agree, that withn the context of your subjective world view, these things make perfect sense. That they make no sense to me is neither here no there, once we agree to admit subjective data to the conversation. I shall leave you to your stories.
Bernard
Hi Bernard,
ReplyDeleteYou write: “When you say coherent naturalism must be gloomy, you mean it must be gloomy to you.”
Of course. Given that I am nothing more but a subject, everything I say, including all my value judgments, are my personal and thus subjective opinions. I also claim that they are true, and that I can justify why (while of course knowing that I may be mistaken). This is all as clear as it gets. I wonder whether the subjective/objective distinction may not be leading you into confusion.
“To assume you can see what is happening in advance of the evidence is fanciful.”
I am not sure what you mean by “in advance of the evidence”. Given the mechanical order present in physical phenomena (which the physical sciences investigate and discover) there is in many cases more than enough evidence to predict what will happen. Our whole technological civilization is based on this premise, and its success evidences its truth. If naturalism is true and there is not some transcendental power taking care of us then we can predict that humanity will most probably go extinct in the few next centuries as a matter of physical law.
“But again, I suspect you don't mean it's a law per se, but just a law to you.”
That “when the speed of adaptation falls behind the rate of environmental change then extinction will quickly ensue” is a scientific law, as valid and certain as the law of thermodynamics. Each living organism (as well as the whole biosphere) is an island of low entropy, and is thus intrinsically unstable. Life is intrinsically unstable, and it’s only because of the physical processes of natural evolution that life phenomena endure, and specifically how some species manage to survive. And natural evolution only works when adaptation works. That’s that.
Hi Bernard,
ReplyDeleteYou write: “When you say coherent naturalism must be gloomy, you mean it must be gloomy to you.”
Of course. Given that I am nothing more but a subject, everything I say, including all my value judgments, are my personal and thus subjective opinions. I also claim that they are true, and that I can justify why (while of course knowing that I may be mistaken). This is all as clear as it gets. I wonder whether the subjective/objective distinction may not be leading you into confusion.
“To assume you can see what is happening in advance of the evidence is fanciful.”
I am not sure what you mean by “in advance of the evidence”. Given the mechanical order present in physical phenomena (which the physical sciences investigate and discover) there is in many cases more than enough evidence to predict what will happen. Our whole technological civilization is based on this premise, and its success evidences its truth. If naturalism is true and there is not some transcendental power taking care of us then we can predict that humanity will most probably go extinct in the few next centuries as a matter of physical law.
“But again, I suspect you don't mean it's a law per se, but just a law to you.”
That “when the speed of adaptation falls behind the rate of environmental change then extinction will quickly ensue” is a scientific law, as valid and certain as the law of thermodynamics. Each living organism (as well as the whole biosphere) is an island of low entropy, and is thus intrinsically unstable. Life is intrinsically unstable, and it’s only because of the physical processes of natural evolution that life phenomena endure, and specifically how some species manage to survive. And natural evolution only works when adaptation works. That’s that.
(That’s my third intent to post)
ReplyDeleteHi Bernard,
You write: “When you say coherent naturalism must be gloomy, you mean it must be gloomy to you.”
Of course. Given that I am nothing more but a subject, everything I say, including all my value judgments, are my personal and thus subjective opinions. I also claim that they are true, and that I can justify why (while of course knowing that I may be mistaken). This is all as clear as it gets. I wonder whether the subjective/objective distinction may not be leading you into confusion.
“To assume you can see what is happening in advance of the evidence is fanciful.”
I am not sure what you mean by “in advance of the evidence”. Given the mechanical order present in physical phenomena (which the physical sciences investigate and discover) there is in many cases more than enough evidence to predict what will happen. Our whole technological civilization is based on this premise, and its success evidences its truth. If naturalism is true and there is not some transcendental power taking care of us then we can predict that humanity will most probably go extinct in the few next centuries as a matter of physical law.
“But again, I suspect you don't mean it's a law per se, but just a law to you.”
That “when the speed of adaptation falls behind the rate of environmental change then extinction will quickly ensue” is a scientific law, as valid and certain as the law of thermodynamics. Each living organism (as well as the whole biosphere) is an island of low entropy, and is thus intrinsically unstable. Life is intrinsically unstable, and it’s only because of the physical processes of natural evolution that life phenomena endure, and specifically how some species manage to survive. And natural evolution only works when adaptation works.
Hi, Dianelos-
ReplyDelete" If naturalism is true and there is not some transcendental power taking care of us then we can predict that humanity will most probably go extinct in the few next centuries as a matter of physical law. "
Could I ask what on earth you are talking about here? We may run out of oil and other helpful resources, but humanity will march on, through decimation and environmental degradation. We tend to do that. If you had said we are likely to go extinct in a billion years, you might have been on firmer ground, but by that point machines will have taken over anyhow, rendering the issue moot.
Earlier on...
"In any case of unguided natural evolution (i.e. natural evolution as it must take place in a naturalistic reality) where the environmental survival conditions change quicker than the maximum evolutionary rate of adaptation, extinction will ensue. This is a general law."
Ah- but this makes little sense. Even if maximal climate change scenarios occur, some humans will be able to eke out a living. Perhaps not ten billion, but not extinction, either. If we were some kind of cloud-forest adapted rodent with no migration possibilities, you might have a point, but we have shown ourselves to be a bit more adaptable than that.
(That’s my fourth and final intent to post :-(
ReplyDeleteHi Bernard,
You write: “When you say coherent naturalism must be gloomy, you mean it must be gloomy to you.”
Of course. Given that I am nothing more but a subject, everything I say, including all my value judgments, are my personal and thus subjective opinions. I also claim that they are true, and that I can justify why (while of course knowing that I may be mistaken). This is all as clear as it gets. I wonder whether the subjective/objective distinction may not be leading you into confusion.
[continues bellow]
[continues from above]
ReplyDelete“To assume you can see what is happening in advance of the evidence is fanciful.”
I am not sure what you mean by “in advance of the evidence”. Given the mechanical order present in physical phenomena (which the physical sciences investigate and discover) there is in many cases more than enough evidence to predict what will happen. Our whole technological civilization is based on this premise, and its success evidences its truth. If naturalism is true and there is not some transcendental power taking care of us then we can predict that humanity will most probably go extinct in the few next centuries as a matter of physical law.
“But again, I suspect you don't mean it's a law per se, but just a law to you.”
That “when the speed of adaptation falls behind the rate of environmental change then extinction will quickly ensue” is a scientific law, as valid and certain as the law of thermodynamics. Each living organism (as well as the whole biosphere) is an island of low entropy, and is thus intrinsically unstable. Life is intrinsically unstable, and it’s only because of the physical processes of natural evolution that life phenomena endure, and specifically how some species manage to survive. And natural evolution only works when adaptation works.
Hi Burk,
ReplyDeleteYou write: “Even if maximal climate change scenarios occur, some humans will be able to eke out a living. Perhaps not ten billion, but not extinction, either.”
Sounds plausible, but I still don’t see any error in my reasoning.
“If we were some kind of cloud-forest adapted rodent with no migration possibilities, you might have a point, but we have shown ourselves to be a bit more adaptable than that.”
You see, here’s the problem: If naturalism is true then what counts for predicting the evolution of the state of physical system is one’s understanding of the mechanical (and thus impersonal and blind) forces that move that system, even if that system includes us humans. Our thinking should not be clouded by our intuitions about how superior we humans are from animals, and about how our intelligence provides us with some kind of privileged control over the physical system in which we exist. After all, intelligence is a mechanical phenomenon like any other, and has evolved and operates via the mechanical laws that govern natural evolution and socioevolution. These processes which instantiate what we call “intelligence” are literally blind and indifferent; they don’t see the future and they don’t care about humanity’s well-being.
Anyway, I hope that either naturalism is wrong or else that you are right.
(repost)
ReplyDeleteHi Burk,
You write: “Even if maximal climate change scenarios occur, some humans will be able to eke out a living. Perhaps not ten billion, but not extinction, either.”
Sounds plausible, but I still don’t see any error in my reasoning.
“If we were some kind of cloud-forest adapted rodent with no migration possibilities, you might have a point, but we have shown ourselves to be a bit more adaptable than that.”
You see, here’s the problem: If naturalism is true then what counts for predicting the evolution of the state of physical system is one’s understanding of the mechanical, impersonal, and blind forces that move that system, even if that system includes us humans. Our thinking should not be clouded by our intuitions about how superior we humans are from animals, or about how our intelligence provides us with some kind of privileged control over the physical system in which we exist. After all, intelligence is a mechanical phenomenon like any other, and has evolved and operates via the mechanical laws that govern natural evolution and socioevolution. These processes which instantiate what we call “intelligence” are literally blind and indifferent; they don’t see the future and they don’t care about humanity’s well-being.
Anyway, I hope that either naturalism is wrong or else that you are right.
Hi Dianelos
ReplyDeleteYour statement: “when the speed of adaptation falls behind the rate of environmental change then extinction will quickly ensue” doesn't quite gel with my understanding of evolution. Tell me what you think of this idea:
Some life forms (e.g types of bacteria) have undergone very little change over billions of years, despite the immediate environment changing very greatly over that time period. For these, stasis rather than adaptation has proven the best survival strategy. So the relationship between adaptation and extinction seems to be more complex than your law allows.
Other life forms experience massive and rapid environmental changes and despite having no time to adapt in evolutionary terms, flourish in their new circumstance (see many introduced species for example, or animals like pigeons and rats that have flourished in urban environments).
The actual relationship between adaptation and survival is complex; and difficult, if not impossible to predict. There is something distinctly rat-like about the modern human's tenacity (and I mean this as a compliment to both species). Whether this will be sufficient, I would suggest only time will tell. Hence it seems reasonable to be a naturalist yet not succumb to the gloom of your two century calculation.
I would like to continue the discussion about the subjective/objective divide, but that conversation has moved to the latest post, where your description of the human landscape will prove fruitful I think. Another participant on the blog has suggested one of my earlier replies to you was impolite. Sincere apologies if my language was intemperate.
Bernard
Hi Dianelos,
ReplyDeleteWhat I claim is that my theistic model is more probably true than the best naturalistic model I can find or think of. And I justify that claim by the method of comparative metaphysics [...]
I understand what you're doing with your comparative approach and you describe it quite well. However, I do believe that by limiting the field of possibilities to the doctrines you compare (as well chosen as they may be) this approach may end up missing the mark completely.
There is also the problem of relying a lot on intuition and the idea of “reasonableness” (and all these pre-theoretical beliefs), which has a very strong bias towards the familiar and expected. This is perhaps obvious – our intuition is built from our experience and we find reasonable what matches our expectations. And, as a rule, such arguments end up establishing very conventional positions.
I would rather expect that the ultimate nature of reality, if knowable at all, is nothing like what we can imagine.
Hi Bernard,
ReplyDeleteYou write: “Some life forms (e.g types of bacteria) have undergone very little change over billions of years, despite the immediate environment changing very greatly over that time period.”
The environment has many properties. When one talks about the “environment” in the context of natural evolution one means those parameters that critically define a species’ evolutionary niche i.e. a species’ survival properties. When one talks about environmental change one means those changes that are relevant to the future of a species (either negatively as a challenge or else positively as an opportunity – e.g. how the event that drove the dinosaurs into extinction also opened up the way to mammals). In that sense, the environment of bacteria did not change much and that’s why their rate of adaptation has been slow too. I understand the same goes for sharks by the way. But the same does not go for humanity today. I started the argument by pointing out what challenging parameter in our environment is changing very fast, namely the power at our disposal (based on science and technology). I also pointed out the kind of adaptation we need, namely ethical adaptation. And finally I pointed out why, on naturalism, the maximal speed of ethical adaptation is quickly falling behind the accelerating rate of increase of power. Which spells doom.
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[continues from above]
ReplyDelete“For these, stasis rather than adaptation has proven the best survival strategy.”
Let’s be careful here. Natural evolution is not about the survival or the species, nor about the survival of individuals, nor about any kind of survival. Natural evolution is a mechanism driven by the incidental increase of the relative frequency (not absolute number) of copies of a gene within the environment, a property we call the gene’s reproductive success – which sometimes but not always drives the survival of the species too. Consider for example a gene which *lowers* the individual’s survival probability but has a greater reproductive success. Such a gene will *lower* the number of individuals in the species while becoming more popular in the diminishing gene pool. (An example of such a gene would be the one that imparts absurdly long feathers to many bird species.) In other words natural evolution sometimes far from driving some survival strategy for the species (let alone the best survival strategy) may very well push the species towards extinction – even at the absence of some relevant environmental challenge.
It should be clear why these facts about the mechanism of natural evolution strengthen my argument: It is true that when a species survives some environmental challenge it is because of the adaptive properties of natural evolution, so all species we observe around us have been saved by adapting to challenges (which may give one the illusion that adaptation is more powerful than it really is). Actually, when a species faces an environmental challenge the existence of natural evolution only implies that the species has some chance to survive, but only if the challenge is such that its adaptive properties may be effective. In our case, I argue, natural evolution’s adaptive mechanism’s cannot work at all for the lack of time. I think it is an error to believe that the awesome power of natural evolution will probably find a survival strategy for a species when that strategy is available.
Now a basic premise of my argument is that intelligence works and evolves by the same means that biology works and evolves (i.e. by those memes which happen to be more reproductively successful) and that therefore the same laws that apply to biological evolution apply also sociobiological evolution. If that’s not the case then perhaps there is another mechanism at play which may increase the probability of survival. But I have never heard of such a mechanism.
Incidentally, I don’t in some way “wish” my argument to work. On theism, the apparent and certainly conspicuous physical closure of the universe implies that God wanted it to be this way for some good reason (perhaps because S/HE wanted to keep Him/Herself at some epistemic distance in order to maintain our epistemic and emotional freedom, to use John Hick’s thought, or perhaps because S/He did not want to give us grounds to confuse the physical with the spiritual dimensions of reality, as I tend to think, or for other reasons too). If my argument above is right and we do survive then that elegant physical closure of the universe will be broken. So, I kind of hope that there is an error in my reasoning, but I can’t see where.
Hi Dianelos
ReplyDeleteYou are correct, I think, to define environment carefully with respect to impact upon gene distribution. This, however, implies that the law you suggest can only be applied retrospectively, as there is no way of anticipating in advance the impact on gene distribution of particular environmental changes, so defined (hence the rat example). Look at human population growth over the last ten thousand years as an excellent example of certain gene combination flourishing under powerful environmental change.
So, this law you propose is essentially truistic, and may in time underpin a rise, fall, stabalising or disappearance of the gene package peculiar to humanity. Which we predict over the next two hundred years is a guess (personally I'd plump for a fall in world population, but what do I know). As always, accepting our guesses are just that remains my preference.
Bernard
Hi Bernard,
ReplyDeleteYou write: “Another participant on the blog has suggested one of my earlier replies to you was impolite. Sincere apologies if my language was intemperate.”
For all it’s worth, when you wrote something about me and fundamentalism I did not feel insulted but only perplexed. So don’t worry about it. Obviously there is much you and I disagree about, but I find our exchange to be quite profitable nonetheless. In enjoy thinking, and I like discussions like this because they motivate me to think more, and, I hope, better.
Hi JP,
ReplyDeleteYou write: “ However, I do believe that by limiting the field of possibilities to the doctrines you compare (as well chosen as they may be) this approach may end up missing the mark completely.”
I may be missing the mark completely. On the other hand I don’t see how I am limiting the field of possibilities. Rather, I am pruning it by discounting those worldviews which in comparison to others do not work well. If the truth (or something close to the truth) lies among the field of alternatives I am considering then I think the comparative method is effective in identifying it. Now perhaps the truth is such that I have failed to even consider it as an alternative, but the comparative method is not designed with the purpose to broaden the field of alternatives, but to discover which alternative within that field is more probably true.
Hi Bernard,
ReplyDeleteYou write: “This, however, implies that the law you suggest can only be applied retrospectively, as there is no way of anticipating in advance the impact on gene distribution of particular environmental changes, so defined (hence the rat example).”
I don’t think that the rat example is a good one. Changing a natural environment with lots of food and few enemies for an urban environment with lots of food and few enemies does not constitute an environmental change in the relevant sense, i.e. a change that is either a challenge or an opportunity for the survival of the species.
What can only be applied retrospectively is whether adaptation did work when a species faced a challenging environmental change. That indeed cannot be predicted in advance with any precision. In our case though, according to my argument, adaptation *cannot* work in the first place. Let me give you an analogous case:
Suppose a species of birds feeds almost exclusively on a particular kind of insect. Suppose further that some epidemic is killing off that kind of insect. If the speed of decrease in the numbers of insects is larger than the speed that these birds can adapt (perhaps by “learning” to eat a different kind of insect), then, even assuming that adaptation works ideally well, that species of birds will go instinct. That is, I think, a physical law which one can apply to predict the demise of a species.
“Look at human population growth over the last ten thousand years as an excellent example of certain gene combination flourishing under powerful environmental change.”
A little scientific/technological power changes our survival environment in a positive way (from the point of view of species survival), but the current huge and rapidly increasing amount of power at our disposal signifies now a challenging environmental change.
Here is another disturbing thought: If intelligent life is not hugely rare (if it is then we may well be the only intelligent race in the universe), and given the sheer number of life permitting planets in our physical universe, one would expect our universe to be by now flooded with colonizing intelligent life, the same way that we humans have filled almost the last habitable space on Earth. But the universe appears to be awfully quiet and empty, which is what we would expect if the following law was always applicable: All technological civilizations reach a relatively early stage where their technological power and the survival challenge entailed by it grows so fast that the sociobiological adaptation of the ethical use of that power cannot (at its best) keep up, and are thus driven to extinction.
Hi Dianelos
ReplyDeleteI suppose whether or not the rat analogy is a good one is exactly the point to be assessed, and I'm unconvinced we can make this assessment in advance.
You speak of a little technological change being helpful, and a large level of change being unhelpful. I'm going to stubbornly insist that this can not be quantified meaningfully until after the event. The rise of agriculture, the growth of cities, the invention of the alphabet, the printing press, guns, disease spread via colonisation processes; all massive changes. But not, in hindsight, massive enough to wipe us out. Will the current changes (which have upsides too) be big enough to tip the balance? I absolutely understand the gloomy perspective, and sometimes share it, but I don't pretend to be able to calculate the odds. Time will tell.
And yes, I've always enjoyed the speculation about the significance of our lack of space visitors. Your suggestion is of course one of a number of possibilities.
Bernard
This is only indirectly related to the argument that if the socioevolution of humanity is a naturalistic process then we are doomed, but looks interesting on its own right: Eminent physicist Martin Rees has written a book titled "Our Final Century" arguing that the probability that humanity will survive the 21st century are not good.
ReplyDelete