Monday, October 17, 2011

Cosmic Gratitude and Ways of Seeing

In the recent post outlining my overall “philosophy of religion,” I offered the following comment: “With respect to the origins of the cosmos, we have to decide whether to adopt a stance of gratitude—the kind of stance that makes sense if reality is the product of loving agency.”

My point here was to given an example of how ways of seeing the world are implicated in the practical choices we need to make in our lives. Among many examples I might have chosen, I considered the act of being grateful for the existence of the cosmos and everything in it. We might call this "cosmic gratitude." I chose this example because I wanted to be clear that some practical decisions are more matters of inner stance than outward action. While being grateful might express itself in concrete gestures (saying “Thank you,” for example), it is first and foremost an internal attitude that one adopts.

And adopting this attitude of cosmic gratitude clearly makes sense if the whole of our reality is seen as the product of loving agency. It might not make sense given certain other ways of seeing--in fact, I'm pretty sure it doesn't. But since I hadn’t thought about the issue deeply enough to decide whether adopting this attitude makes sense only if reality is the product of loving agency, I deliberately chose not to say that.

At this point, as a philosophy teacher, I can’t resist pausing to offer a brief mini-lecture about the kind of basic logic you're likely to learn in a critical thinking course. (And I don't mean to be condescending in doing this. Even those of us who know this stuff quite well can sometimes benefit from taking the time, every once in awhile, to walk through it deliberately, like a novice). A proposition of the form, “If x, then y,” is called a conditional. the statement that appears in place of "x" is often called the antecedent of the conditional, while the statement in the "y" place is called the consequent. Unlike conjunctions ("x and y") and disjunctions ("x or y"), switching the placement of x and y makes a difference.

When you do switch the antecendent and the consequent, what you get (“If y, then x”) is called the converse of the conditional, and it is logically distinct from the original conditional—in other words, they’re saying different things, which means that formally speaking the truth value of a conditional and its converse needn’t be the same.

Unfortunately, things get a bit messy because conditional statements can be expressed in a variety of ways. For example, “If x, then y” is also sometimes worded as “x only if y.” Even though the "if" here appears before the statement in the "y" place, the "only" has a logical function such that "y" is still the consequent. But if someone says, “x if y,” they mean “If y, then x.” In other words, “x if y” is the converse of  "if x, then y," and so is the converse of “x only if y.”

To sum it up: "x if y" is the converse of "x only if y." The two are not logically equivalent. Contrast the following: (a) “A thank you letter is polite if you receive a birthday gift”; (b) “A thank you letter is polite only if you receive a birthday gift.” Based on the conventions of etiquette in the US, (a) is true while (b) is false. Likewise, we need to clearly distinguish “Cosmic gratitude makes sense if reality is the product of loving agency” from “Cosmic gratitude makes sense only if reality is the product of loving agency.” It was my intention in the earlier post to say the former (a view which I am confident is true), not the latter (since I haven't considered it carefully enough to say for sure what I think of it).

But it is quite easy on a quick reading of someone’s argument to confuse a conditional statement with its converse--especially when the positioning of the "antecendent" and "consequent" are out of their usual order, as was the case in my earlier post. And, judging by recurring comments on my previous post, many readers apparently did just that. For example, SecularDad asked, “Why can’t someone have this sense of gratitude without belief in a loving agency?” Burk said, “The fact is that we can feel gratitude in any case.. it is all about us, not about the cosmos. We are here, and have feelings, so we can feel gratitude, and do so. The idea that we need a conjured ‘father’ or other totem on the other end, whose existence is, as above, hypothetical at best and utilitiarian in origin ... that is simply absurd.” More cautiously, Bernard said, “I, like Burk, feel hugely grateful for my own existence without having any conception of that beyond the physical, and readily accept it doesn’t work this way for you.”

But even if these comments were sparked by a misreading of my original remark, they raise an interesting set of questions. After all, this cosmic gratitude--this sense of gratitude for one’s existence and for the world in all its mystery and wonder—is a common human experience that seems to cut across religious and philosophical differences. And there is at least some reason to think that this sort of gratitude is healthy. People who cultivate cosmic gratitude (as opposed to very selective gratitude) are more likely to be at peace with themselves and their lives, even if things aren’t perfect.

Given the ubiquity and value of this attitude, it is worth digging deeper into the conditions for its coherence. What I said explicitly in my earlier post was that such cosmic gratitude is coherent under the traditional theistic view that existence is a gift of love. Given this way of seeing things, cosmic gratitude “makes sense.” Implicitly, of course, my remark suggested that there might be ways of seeing things where such gratitude wouldn’t make sense. (While I’ll resist another critical thinking mini-lecture, I will point out that this latter suggestion emerges based on principles of “conversational implication”: In ordinary conversation, one doesn’t typically point out that A is true under condition B if one thinks A is true under ALL conditions—and so, while one cannot make this assumption in formal logic, when someone asserts a conditional it is usually fair in conversation to impute to them the belief that the “consequent” of the conditional isn’t true under all conditions.)

In any event, I think it is pretty clear that there are ways of seeing reality such that, given those ways of seeing, an attitude of cosmic gratitude makes little sense. Here's an example: Suppose you see the cosmos and everything in it as the product of a supremely powerful Devil who created the universe solely for the sake of having targets for his malevolence. Everything exists purely so that this supreme Devil can achieve his goal of a universe teeming with endless conscious torment of the worst conceivable kind. And this Devil, being supremely powerful, will not fail to achieve this goal: In the end, every conscious being will be brought to a state of eternal suffering so horrific that it would have been better not to have existed at all. Those who at present enjoy their lives, who experience love and happiness, are afforded this glimpse of goodness only for the sake of making possible some special sort of torment later: perhaps the torment of having precious goods decisively and permanently ripped away, or the anguish of witnessing the crushing ruin of loved ones, etc. Ultimate affliction, we might suppose, is so much worse when there are points of contrast, so that endless, hopeless yearning for lost love and joy can be an additional source of anguish in the Devil’s arsenal.

And yes, I am fully aware of just how close this worldview I’m describing is to views actually embraced by some Christians—specifically, strict double-predestination Calvinists, as well as those who see eternal hell as the fate of all those who die without having explicitly accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior. In fact, I think an important objection to such versions of Christianity might be built around what I am saying in this post. But I won't develop that argument now.

My point here is this: If you see the joys of this life as fleeting moments in a whole existence definitively stripped of worth by neverending, soul-crushing anguish--and if, furthermore, you see the purpose of existence to be the realization of such states of torment in every conscious being--well, it hardly makes sense to adopt a stance of cosmic gratitude for existence. If, by contrast, you think that the sufferings of this life, no matter how serious, are but fleeting moments in a whole existence definitively imbued with worth by neverending, soul-uplifitng goods--and if, furthermore, you see the purpose of existence to be the bestowal of such goods on every conscious being--well, it clearly makes sense to adopt a stance of cosmic gratitude.

But these extremes are hardly the only two options. There are numerous alternatives, some of which make cosmic gratitude coherent, others of which don't.  The interesting question raised by the comments on my previous post is whether you need to see the cosmos as having loving agency at its root--whether, in other words, you need to see the cosmos as a benevolent creation--in order for cosmic gratitude to be a coherent response to existence.

In addressing this question, I first want to consider a line of argument that won't work. Specifically, the argument that of course gratitude makes sense without adopting this condition, because we exist and have feelings, and so can feel gratitude, and may do so. This won't work because the question is not whether we can feel cosmic gratitude no matter how we see the universe. The question is whether cosmic gratitude makes sense no matter how we see the universe. It is a question of coherence--over whether every way of seeing the universe can coherently undergird a grateful attitude.

I've already argued that seeing the universe as wholly the product of malevolent agency can't be coherently conjoined with cosmic gratitude. But few see the world in such a hideous way (although it may prove to be more common than one might think, once one digs below the surface of certain theistic beliefs). The more interesting question is whether gratitude makes sense given a naturalistic worldview. And here, rather than try to give an answer of my own, I want to consider something Bart Ehrman has to say on the matter.

For those unfamiliar with Ehrman, he is a religious studies scholar who has authored a number of highly successful popularizations of work in biblical studies. In one of those works, God's Problem, Ehrman devotes several pages to reflecting on his own deconversion from evangelical Christianity--a process that occurred in stages, and that took him from a "Bible-believing" Christian intent on saving souls from damnation, to being a progressive Christian, to being an agnostic who views the Bible as wholly a human artifact. In discussing this deconversion process, he reflects on some of its more painful aspects. One of those aspects has to do with gratitude. Here is what he says:
Another aspect of the pain I felt when I eventually became an agnostic...involves another deeply rooted attitude that I have and simply can't get rid of, although in this case, it's an attitude that I don't really want to get rid of. And it's something I never would have expected to be a problem when I was still a believer. The problem is this: I have such a fantastic life that I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude for it; I am fortunate beyond words. But I don't have anyone to express my gratitude to. This is a void deep inside me, a void of wanting someone to thank, and I don't see any plausible way of filling it. 
Now let me stress here that I'm not at all sure that Ehrman is talking here about cosmic gratitude, that is, the sense of gratitude for existence as such--both one's own and the existence of the universe. It seems to be more a case of gratitude for the kind of existence that he has come to enjoy. We might call this "specific gratitude." And he rightly notes, a bit later on, that this species of gratitude is problematic. As Ehrman puts it, "If I have food because God has given it to me, then don't others lack food because God has chosen not to give it to them? By saying grace, wasn't I in fact charging God with negligence, or favoritism?" 

These concerns are, of course, bound up with the problem of evil--which is Ehrman's focus in God's Problem. And it seems to me that the theist's only escape from these concerns is to deny that God is directly responsible for the precise distribution of blessings and challenges in this life. If this is right, then gratitude for specific blessings may not make sense within a coherent theistic framework.

But my concern here is with cosmic gratitude, and with the question of whether seeing the world as the product of loving agency is a necessary condition for such gratitude to make sense. And here, a different aspect of Ehrman's discussion becomes relevant. Specifically, gratitude is a feeling with what might be called a "double-intentionality." There's what we're grateful for, but there's also who we're grateful to. Is gratitude possible without the latter? And can the object of the latter be anything other than an agent who meant well in providing what one is grateful for?

If not, then while an atheist or agnostic might be happy for existence, or take delight in it, or have feelings that are in some sense analogous to gratitude, they couldn't be genuinely grateful (at least not coherently so). And that would mean that anyone who was genuinely grateful for existence itself would thereby be operating, at least implicitly, as if there were someone to be grateful to: an agency responsible for existence itself.

But this conclusion follows only if we give negative answers to the questions I just posed (Is gratitude possible without the latter? And can the object of the latter be anything other than an agent?). So--what do you think of these two questions?

60 comments:

  1. Hi Eric

    Language is a funny beast: consider the way we use words like gratitude. Ultimately, it's a culturally crafted label; we learn through context and imitation to attach it to a certain mental/emotional state, and through observation and refinement come to guess it's something like the state others experience when they use the same word.

    This being the case, to talk of people experiencing something analogous to gratitude, but it isn't actually gratitude, seems odd. If gratitude is by definition a thing that requires somebody to be grateful to, then of course gratitude won't fit with a belief that there is no such agent. But I'm not sure what word play achieves. One can (I do) feel immensely satisfied and at peace when contemplating their very good fortune at being alive in this place and time; a tiny, fleeting part in a jaw droppingly beautiful mechanism of invention and hope. I struggle to imagine what extra feeling I might have if I believed something was directly responsible for this (perhaps I would feel even less grateful, as in my case it's the sheer unlikeliness of my own existence that brings about a certain tingle).

    I'm not even sure one couldn't coherently feel grateful in the world of suffering you outlined, for the human imagination is a wondrous thing (consider the person who sees themselves as so lowly that they deserve such punishment, and any small scraps of pleasure along the way are far more than they could have possibly hoped for - not an entirely random example, as you'll recognise).

    Bernard

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  2. Hi Eric,

    I also feel that the devil example you spell out may not really work. I can imagine being grateful for any scrap of happiness even if the price to pay is large. This has probably something to do with an inadequate realization of how enormous the price is but I think that, psychologically speaking, this is conceivable.

    Now, as Bernard points out, we must stay clear of semantic games. If gratitude, by definition, implies an agent then we're done, problem solved. But what counts, I suppose, is what gratitude does for us – the state of mind and the emotions it involves. So, while the duality you mention (double-intentionality) is real there is another we need to consider: gratitude as an emotional state, as actually physically experienced, as opposed to its expression in language, as a concept more or less well defined. The expression “cosmic gratitude” perhaps include both aspects: “gratitude” referring to the feeling and “cosmic” to the interpretation.

    I would suggest that the feeling/emotion involved in “cosmic” gratitude is available to everyone, even if it may not be interpreted alike in different world views. I would also suggest that, in general, all feeling/emotional states (even, say, those involved in mystical/religious experience) are available to everybody (but obviously rationalized differently).

    Feelings don't have to make sense. For example, people get angry at their computers all the time. It doesn't make sense at all, no more than being angry at a rock, but the emotions are real, totally genuine.

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  3. A couple of quick points (I'm home with a "sick" but energetic daughter, so don't have much time): First, while I can imagine someone in the Devil-universe being grateful for the scraps of happiness they have, this is a variant of what I'm calling "specific gratitude," not cosmic gratitude. The question is whether cosmic gratitude--gratitude for existence itself--makes sense given such a worldview.

    Second, it is clear to me that terms can come to possess common and acceptable usages that extend beyond their original "narrow" definitions--and this may be the way to go in rendering "gratitude" a coherent response to existence on a naturalistic worldview. But I also think that in making this move, one would presumably want to acknowledge that the naturalist's version of cosmic gratitude is the result of an extrapolation from an earlier emotion, some essential core of which seems worth preserving despite other elements no longer fitting (this seems to be where Ehrman is going).

    One of the things I'm convinced of in relation to emotions is that they have a kind of cognitive structure--intentionality or "about-ness." We are happy about this, angry about that, afraid of him, etc. One thing I'm not totally sure about is whether one can preserve the "feeling component" of an emotion unaltered if one changes its cognitive structure. If "gratitude" in its original usage had a double-intentionality, can the feeling dimension of this emotion remain exactly unchanged if it comes to acquire a cognitive structure characterized by single-intentionality? Perhaps so, but I'd think more inquiry is needed.

    In any event, even if the feeling-component of cosmic gratitude does remain the same once we move away from the original double-intentionality structure, the cognitive dimension has changed. This doesn't mean it is no longer appropriate to call the resultant emotion a species of gratitude, but at least we should see the new variant as having its roots in an earlier species of gratitude, and emerging from an expansion of the concept.

    As I said, such expansion in ranges of use happens all the time--and one of the things that interests me in philosophy of language is when such expansions are mere linguistic facts, when they are motivated by the need to more adequately capture our environment with our language (a positive change), and when such moves are potentially problematic efforts to extend, without sufficient justification, the appraisive content of a concept to something new (as in when certain communities are ideologically invested in having certain behaviors labeled "terrorism" so as to be able to justify violent reprisals).

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  4. Only a minute to comment today.. I don't have much time as I am ... no time to narrate, sorry!

    Anyhow, you may have noticed that gratitude is a feeling. Why it has to be philosophically coherent is not at all clear. That is one general issue with theology- needless over-thinking and rationalization. I feel gratitude, thus there has to be an agent in the void to which I am directed and feels back at me the love I am projecting out. Or perhaps a flutter of mystical profundity passes through my mind, and .. thus I must be in communication the creator of the universe. Does anyone see a philosophical problem here?

    Linguistically, the wiki site starts off with "Gratitude, thankfulness, gratefulness, or appreciation is a feeling, emotion or attitude in acknowledgment of a benefit that one has received or will receive." Well, irrespective of the source / agency of life, we have received the benefit of being alive, and thus have every right to feel gratitude.

    In our current understanding, this gratitude may extend to the vast history of 14 billion years, and the pains of evolution that have put us here. It is all rather humbling/inspiring. It may even cause us give back by caring for the biosphere in its current and coming crisis.

    But even in the prior state of ignorance, one had every right to feel gratitude for the benefit of life whether or not one came up with a story about its author & provenance. Indeed, we can't help but feel gratitude, being evolutionarily driven to love life over its opposite- to cherish it as a fleeting gift granted to us, without the least knowledge whence it comes, other than from our parents.

    So I think the philosophical problem is not that of failing to match words like "gratitude" and "gift" with objects/agents as sources. Quite the opposite, the problem is in devising such agents without knowledge, purely out of a prim approach to linguistic bookkeeping, or more likely as a rationalization for feelings which are proper, are indeed inescapable, and are, in the end, feelings. Philosophy may begin with intuition, but as usual, it certainly should not end there.

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  5. Eric,

    This was a great post because I think this area of “gratitude” or of being “thankful” is one of the areas that most give little thought to as to its meaning and significance. Why be thankful? To whom or what are we thankful? And as you note, the fact we are thankful or have this “feeling” doesn’t explain it or mean that it logically follows from our world-view or way of “seeing” existence. In fact, maybe it contradicts our world-view and calls it into question. Maybe it demonstrates we cannot truly live by our world-view. And that is fine, as most of us don’t. Christians are told to love their enemies…and yet.

    Clearly I think that atheists or strict materialists would have problems with the ubiquitous nature of gratitude in most cultures. If existence is a random meaningless chance event that in a billion years will be gone and forgotten, why would we be thankful in any cosmic sense? And yet, most cultures are.

    If I am entirely the cause of any “success” obtained in my life and if any other cause is those others (family/friends/community) who have helped me entirely out of selfish reasons (selfish gene/evolution/cooperation to survive or for reciprocity), then why be thankful or show any gratitude at all?

    What would a “blessing” mean in such a world? I would surmise it means nothing. There is only chance or meaningless “luck.” And yet, most people live and act as if they believe “blessings” are the more appropriate or true way of “seeing” the world around them.

    One final point. The nature of gratitude and being thankful is bound up in how we think about gifts. Is existence a gift or an accident? Clearly gifts imply a giver. But it is more than that—these areas (gifts and gratitude) also lead us to motive. Jacques Derrida asked his famous question, “Can a gift truly be given?” He surmised that even as we give gifts to others, we always harbor the sense that we are owed something in return (even as something as small as a “thank you” or smile) and the receiver of the gift is now in debt. So his answer was, no, a gift is never truly given. One of his points, I think, was if we only give gifts out of some selfish or evolutionary designed motive to survive or cooperate for our benefit, then it is not truly a “gift” and there would be no true reason to be thankful other than out of convention or some cultural power.

    Again, I don’t see how one can live this way. We want to believe that gifts truly are given and that there truly are blessings in life that matter, which we don’t deserve, but are freely given out of a plentitude, out of an infinite reserve. If one’s world-view cannot account for gratitude, blessings, or gifts, in a way that doesn’t reduce them to selfishness, then it is, in my view, seriously defective.

    Oh, and please, do not claim that somehow I am saying atheists are not thankful or grateful people. Of course they are. Many even more so than theists. I am simply saying I do not see how their way of “seeing” the world logically leads to it.

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  6. Eric,

    You write: “And it seems to me that the theist's only escape from these concerns is to deny that God is directly responsible for the precise distribution of blessings and challenges in this life.

    I too think that theodicy hinges on the question of whether God is justified in creating a world in which random evils obtain, not on the question of whether God is justified in allowing each individual evil to obtain. Thus we may start with the idea that God has created a world in which random evils and also random goods obtain, but this does not imply that all evils are random and all goods are random. Perhaps there is a justification for God to will some specific evils and goods.

    If this is right, then gratitude for specific blessings may not make sense within a coherent theistic framework.

    I think I disagree. A specific good may well not be random but directly willed by God. And even if random, I don’t see why gratitude for that specific good makes no sense. Suppose that God randomly distributes blessings, and I happen to receive one just by dumb luck; why shouldn’t I feel grateful for it? After all, all creation is God’s.

    So--what do you think of these two questions?

    It seems to me that gratitude entails gratitude to an agent, indeed to an agent well disposed to us. One does not feel gratitude towards an alarm clock for waking one up on time, nor to the aspirin for soothing one’s headache (even though one may feel gratitude to the people who produced these tools). On the other hand the naturalist will probably argue that feelings of gratitude are illusory, and explain how come our brain has been programmed by sociocultural evolution to see the world in anthropomorphic terms. (Which is true enough, and also quite irrelevant.) In conclusion it seems that we may add the experience of gratitude to the long list of experiences which do not fit well with naturalism, including our experiences of moral values, moral responsibility, moral duty, freedom of will, beauty, reason, etc. Finally the capacity to have experiences in the first place, i.e. consciousness, may fit with naturalism but is difficult to fit with scientific naturalism which entails some kind of physicalism.

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  7. Darrell,

    You write: “If I am entirely the cause of any “success” obtained in my life and if any other cause is those others (family/friends/community) who have helped me entirely out of selfish reasons (selfish gene/evolution/cooperation to survive or for reciprocity), then why be thankful or show any gratitude at all?

    Because (the naturalist will respond) showing gratitude has adaptive value in a close-knit group of social animals. It can be demonstrated that in such a society the genes of those animals which do show gratitude (and indeed react fairly to others – but only up to a point) will become more populous in the gene pool. Therefore, since we are programmed by natural evolution to show gratitude (and hence also to feel it) to others in our group, as is often the case it happens that the same mechanism misfires and causes us to show gratitude (and hence also to feel it) for all of the world, even though there is no agent behind it and no adaptive value in showing such gratitude. In general, since the evolution of cognitive faculties capable of detecting agent causality has a very high adaptive value for social animals, we tend to detect agent causality even where none is present, such as is the case of the order and beauty of the world, in all the goodness of the world, etc. Which in turn explain the religious behavior (and hence also feelings) of the human animals.

    In conclusion, I think that the naturalist can explain behavior consistent with cosmic feelings of gratitude, or behavior consistent with moral feelings, etc. In general I see no reason to suspect that there is any physical phenomenon which cannot be explained by naturalism, i.e. I see no reason to suspect that the physical is not causally closed. Indeed there is a lot of scientific evidence that such a closure does indeed hold. On the other hand there is no conflict whatsoever between the closure of the physical and the theistic understanding of reality, including its premises of free will and of God's special providence. Thus the premise that there is a naturalistic explanation for all our observations does not in any way imply that there is no creator of the nature within which these explanations operate.

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  8. Dianelos,

    “Because (the naturalist will respond) showing gratitude has adaptive value in a close-knit group of social animals. It can be demonstrated that in such a society the genes of those animals which do show gratitude (and indeed react fairly to others – but only up to a point) will become more populous in the gene pool.”

    But as I also note, if one’s explanation for gratitude is ultimately about selfishness or survival benefit—great—but once such was our understanding, there would be no reason to continue to be thankful. We would realize that it’s just a programmed response and one that has no bearing on truly being thankful—it is only a ruse. In other words, we would understand every social interaction, every social transaction, like we understand what is going on when we go to the store or sales room. People are being nice for a reason (the customer is always right!) to make a sale or gain a repeat customer. Or, even people we meet on the street. If we smile and are nice, perhaps they will answer our questions or do something for us.

    Again, we can’t really live as if this were true no matter what the naturalist might say. If we truly believed it, we would never be thankful or gracious. We would simply smile at everyone, and say something like: “Hey let’s cut the crap—we all know about that adaptive thing that made us show gratitude to evolve, but we’re past that now. We survived. So, we both want something; here is what I will do if you will do the other—so let’s quit playing games.”

    In other words, every social transaction would basically reduce to what happens when someone pays for sex. No need for “thank you’s” or feeling gratitude—let’s get real. One person got what they wanted and the other person got paid. Done. There you have it. Why any need to feel “thankful” or show gratitude? Everything is a fair transaction. It is the ultimate Capitalist paradigm I guess.

    So, I realize that is the argument that would be made and I still think it ultimately fails.

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  9. Hello all

    Well, I would argue that one can feel quite meaningfully grateful for random events. Consider a family that is destitute and desperate. The parents face the unspeakable pain of watching their children wilt for want of decent food, shelter or healthcare. With their last few dollars they take a risk and buy a lottery ticket. It comes in and they are ecstatic.

    Can we properly say they are grateful for the random circumstances of the lottery draw? Surely we can. I can imagine the parents falling to the ground and kissing the dirt. Thank you world, they mutter through their tears, and mean it most sincerely.

    Is there a profound aspect of gratitude missing, that would appear should they discover a friend working in the lotteries commission tweaked the numbers in their favour? The gratitude would be different in that it would have a different flavour, and it would come with new psychological baggage (a feeling of guilt perhaps, fear of discovery, obligation to their benefactor) but to my mind these things all make the gratitude less pure (and this is my own taste speaking, I readily admit).

    Deep, reverberating gratitude for the meaningless, random unlikeliness of all we see is one of the great joys of the naturalistic viewpoint. I have no doubt the theistic viewpoint brings its own rewards, but the suggestion that theistic gratitude is in some sense more coherent does feel a little like wishful thinking.

    Bernard

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  10. Hi Darrell,

    What a gloom picture you paint! You say we can't be thankful or nice or compassionate or loving or whatever if we believe this is all a “ruse”, as if all our feelings were like the clothes we wear, an artificial and optional add-on to our basic self.

    Let's consider a simpler example, hunger. Obviously, the feeling of hunger makes perfect sense in a naturalistic framework: it's a signal that we need to eat. However, as you will no doubt agree, even if we believe that hunger is “just a trick” used by our body to fool us into eating, it's as real as can be. What we cannot do is live “as if this weren't true” - just the opposite of what you say.

    The same goes, I think, for feelings like compassion. We're wired, if you wish, to enjoy these feelings, the same way we're wired to feel hunger or physical pain. They are in both cases aspects of what we are. There is nothing artificial about this.

    There is a problem only if you insist that something has value or is real only if it can be related to some absolute. I believe this is the core issue, of which things like compassion (and, say, beauty) are special cases.

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  11. Darrell,

    You write: “But as I also note, if one’s explanation for gratitude is ultimately about selfishness or survival benefit—great—but once such was our understanding, there would be no reason to continue to be thankful. We would realize that it’s just a programmed response and one that has no bearing on truly being thankful—it is only a ruse.

    Yes.

    Again, we can’t really live as if this were true no matter what the naturalist might say. If we truly believed it, we would never be thankful or gracious.

    I agree. The human condition is such that one cannot really live out the naturalistic worldview. As you say it is not really possible to live as if naturalism is true. That’s why (virtually all) naturalists behave and speak and experience life as if freedom of will exists, as if moral values and responsibility exist, as if gratitude makes sense, etc. Eric uses the concept of “cosmic gratitude” in order to point out that this particular and common experience makes sense only if there is a good creator of the world, but as you point out on naturalism any experience of gratitude makes no sense.

    Incidentally, if we turn the table (which is always a good exercise) we see that it is extremely difficult to really live out theism also, for it entails to not resist evil, to love one’s enemies etc. On the other hand to live in a way consistent with theism is something that is both possible and admirable, and any small step one takes towards such as way of life is valuable, both for the individual and for society.

    So, I realize that is the argument that would be made and I still think it ultimately fails.

    I suppose you mean the naturalistic argument I presented before. Well, I agree it ultimately fails, but I think it is important to see in what sense it fails. Thus I think naturalism does not and cannot fail from the inside as it were. If you are a naturalist everything will fit well together. Subjective impressions such as having free will, feelings of moral value, and feelings of gratitude – these can all be explained on purely naturalistic grounds. Thus the same impressions and feelings would obtain if naturalism is true. Therefore, for all we know, naturalism may be true. To be more precise as long as the physical closure of the universe holds, and as long as a perfect correlation between mind and physical brain states also holds, naturalism is unfalsifiable. For example, in relation to the feelings of gratitude the naturalist may respond that one’s understanding of the blind mechanisms which produce such feelings does not by itself imply that one will not treasure such feelings. And if, perhaps, one finds that one’s understanding of these mechanisms makes it hard for one to treasure them, then that’s that. The premise the naturalist defends is the truth about reality, not the premise that knowing that truth will necessarily enlighten one’s experience of life. To put it plainly, on naturalism reality does not “care” about our wellbeing one way or the other, including about the impact that knowing the truth may have on our quality of life. It is thus up to every individual naturalist to find the way and make the appropriate choices that lead to her subjective feeling of wellbeing.

    So, in what sense do I think does the naturalistic worldview fail? It fails not considered by itself, but in comparison to other worldviews, and in particular with theism at its best. Naturalism fails not when considered from the inside, but from the outside when one understands that there are other viable alternatives and one is free to reason about them and see which works better. Here’s an example: All other things being equal, if two worldviews explain equally well how our experience of gratitude comes about, but only one is such that such an experiences makes intrinsic sense, then it is obviously more reasonable to embrace that latter worldview.

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  12. Dianelos,

    "...we may start with the idea that God has created a world in which random evils and also random goods obtain, but this does not imply that all evils are random and all goods are random. Perhaps there is a justification for God to will some specific evils and goods."

    This seems right, and I take your comments here as calling for some qualification to my original remarks. There are, however, inevitable complicating issues. Among other things, when it comes to gratitude there'd be the problem of distinguishing random goods (which, I agree, we can be thankful for...but as a kind of extension of our cosmic gratitude) and goods specifically willed by God. And as soon as you assert that God can and does bestow very specific goods in this life for which we should be grateful, you face the questions that Ehrman raises (why me and not all those others, etc.). I won't say that these questions can't be adequately answered, but I think they are hard questions that need to be wrestled with--and I am convinced theists can address them successfully only within the context of a theodicy that affirms divine constraints imposed on God's engagement with His creation.

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  13. JP,

    What I do is paint a gloomy picture if naturalism is true and we followed it to its logical conclusions. Since I think naturalism to be false, I take the opposite view and believe that our sense of gratitude and thankfulness comes from the inherent sense we have that there is some transcendent source to whom we can be thankful. I believe these feelings and sense are not a ruse—that they are real—and that they are not simply for survival or selfish reasons. I believe they stand alone as a source of joy and peace, with no sense of indebtedness or guilt intended, although our natural response should be, “Thank you.” But there is no transactional benefit, although clearly it is beneficial to be a thankful person.

    Also, I don’t think your example of hunger works. Hunger is a physical need that if not met would lead to our death. If for some reason we repressed any sense of gratitude, while we might end up miserable individuals—we would hardly die from it.

    Further, I think you, Bernard, and Burk are missing a point Eric was clear to make:

    “In addressing this question, I first want to consider a line of argument that won't work. Specifically, the argument that of course gratitude makes sense without adopting this condition, because we exist and have feelings, and so can feel gratitude, and may do so. This won't work because the question is not whether we can feel cosmic gratitude no matter how we see the universe. The question is whether cosmic gratitude makes sense no matter how we see the universe. It is a question of coherence--over whether every way of seeing the universe can coherently undergird a grateful attitude.”

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  14. Hi Darrell

    I think you do well to return us to the key issue being raised here. Does cosmic gratitude, stripped of the context of a divine giver, make sense? Dianelos uses the term intrinsic sense, you often refer to meaning, and Eric here proposes a test of coherence.

    To be very clear, the claim I am making is that such gratitude is every bit as coherent under a naturalistic model. One exists, enjoys existing and hence is grateful for the fact of existence. For me, this is entirely coherent. I readily accept other people don't find it coherent, and this is, I suspect, because the test of coherence is purely subjective - does it feel right to speak of such gratitude?

    An alternative is to propose a test for coherence that is objective, that is to say that all participants at least within this conversation would accept stands as a pretty good definition of coherence. I'm not sure this can be done, but it seems to me unless somebody has a crack of this, the conversation here amounts to little more than 'my perspective is more coherent than yours, so there.'

    So there's the challenge. What do we mean when you say something makes sense? Can this be framed in publicly accessible terms or is it pure gut feeling?

    Bernard

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  15. Thanks, Bernard.. for my part, I freely admit to lack of coherence. As stated above, feelings don't need to be coherent- they are not philosophical propositions.

    If one wants feelings to be coherent, one is perhaps seeking for utilitarian or evolutionary rationales for them, which we have also offered above.

    As you say, we are talking past each other on this point. Theists seem to regard the linguistic subject-object relation as some kind of permission to get around the need for ontological evidence, when they are feeling up the universe, as it were.

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  16. Hi Bernard,

    Important question.

    One way to interpret “P makes sense” is to say that P integrates well within a larger body of beliefs we happen to have. Or perhaps that P fits well with our experience, or matches our expectations. Something along these lines: we have a model of a part of reality and P fits well in this model – P gets meaning from the model.

    If so, the “must make sense” criterion is all but useless in areas about which we know little or nothing at all. I fully expect that “ultimate reality” would not make sense at all.

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  17. Hi guys

    Yes, I'm struggling to get a sense of what coherence might mean within this context. Emotion seems to be a personal response to a given circumstance. The idea that there is some form of logical relationship between circumstance and emotional response is an odd one to me. Emotion does what it does, so to speak.

    So the person faced with an ultimately tortuous existence who shrugs and says 'oh well, better than not existing at all, I guess. I feel grateful for that much' is responding just as coherently as the great majority who would collapse into despair.

    Or, as you say Burk, coherence itself seems a poor fit in this circumstance. Still, I may be missing something. Help, anyone?

    Bernard

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  18. Hi Darrell

    A thought that might appeal to your interest in the role of narrative in interpreting facts. Most biologists (sadly not all) are very careful not to speak of evolution in terms of purpose. While we may say that a tendency to experience gratitude has had a selective advantage, we are strictly speaking only on its subsequent impact upon gene distribution. If we take the next step, and say the purpose of gratitude (or love, jealousy, hunger, whatever) is survival, or the promotion of the relevant genes in the next generation, we are exceeding our brief, and venturing into the realm of interpretive story.

    The striking thing about evolutionary theory is that it provides for design without a designer, or if you like, design without foresight or purpose. As soon as we introduce purpose into the conversation, we are introducing a term native not to evolutionary processes, but rather to human interpretations of them.

    What then is the purpose of gratitude? Well, within an evolutionary context, whatever a person using it purposefully chooses to use it for. Just as the purpose of a car might be transport, shelter or garden decoration, so gratitude's purpose is ultimately defined by the user. Hence, when I say that for me the purpose of gratitude is that it allows me to engage more deeply with my world, I speak in a way entirely consistent with a purely naturalistic interpretation of creation (although, as you know, I am agnostic on this point).

    And so I would speak of love, moral obligation or beauty. These too make perfect sense within a naturalistic world view, in that they are conceptual tools by which we explore the true reach of our humanity, an uplifting project shared by theists and non-theists alike. That we use different frames of reference (or often just different words) in our search strikes me as far less important than many assume.

    Bernard

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  19. Hi Bernard,

    You ask an interesting question. Coherence (or consistency?) seems to come up often as some sort of requirement but it may be overplayed, I think. I have to think more about this but here's an example of what I have in mind.

    We often hear that if one holds some core beliefs (often in moral philosophy) then one must also accepts their logical consequences (in extreme cases). This assumes that the core beliefs are something like mathematical axioms, in which case we must of course accept theorems that follow from them.

    But in reality, core beliefs of this sort are more like approximations (as in a simple modelisation) and, while they apply more or less exactly in the context in which they were formed, the farther we go from the initial context, the less accurate they are.

    We see this at play in the book “Justice” by Sandel that I have mentioned before. Often, when explaining a given moral philosophy, he then goes on to say something like: “Ha ha! Now, if you accept these principles, you also have to accept these (absurd) consequences.” I feel this may be asking for more coherence than can be achieved. What do you think?

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  20. ) Emotions are consistent or inconsistent with your beliefs. Ex: If I am a determinist, the emotion of guilt/regret is inconsistent with my belief in determinism because I could not have acted otherwise. Why feel guilty? It is too simplistic to say coherence has nothing to do with emotion. A second example: I am angry at a person for wronging me. Once I discover they did not wrong me, the anger drops. It is no longer consistent with my beliefs.
    2) The remainder of the Wiki article cited says gratitude is felt by us when "it is perceived as(a) valuable to them, (b) costly to their benefactor, and (c) given by the benefactor with benevolent intentions (rather than ulterior motives)." The emotion of gratitude, by definition, involves a benefactor.
    3) If there is no benefactor, call it happiness, fortunate, etc.
    4) One loses pos/negative emotions when one loses religion, and one gains them when one gains religion? Why is this controversial? Is it the fear of there being a virtue exclusive to Religion?

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  21. On logical Consistency:A set of statements is logically consistent if they can all be true at the same time. A set of statements is logically inconsistent if they cannot all be true at the same time.

    When evaluating logical consistency, assume the statements are true and think about whether they fit together like the pieces of a puzzle. That is, consistency is about understanding the relationships between your beliefs, not proving a belief.

    Since many philosophers believe truth is logically consistent, they value logical consistency because it is a tool to discover truth. Although consistency is no guarantee of truth since one could create a consistent story that is false, it seems to be a necessary condition for truth.

    Of course, some thinkers believe truth is logically inconsistent. For example, many mystics speak of God in paradoxical language because they do not believe God can be understood in logical ways. They believe logic is best used to show the limits of logic and to open one to a different type of reality. Many existentialists also argue that life is absurd, not logical. Discoveries in modern physics too seem to indicate that we can describe a paradoxical reality, but not understand it. Nevertheless, logical consistency is still valued as a way to get at truth. Certainly, anyone who claims to be logical should take logical consistency seriously.

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  22. You make very appropriate points. There is a connection between emotions and beliefs, but hardly a determinitive one. Beliefs are better supported by evidence than by feelings, and certainly feelings are better supported by true beliefs than false ones.

    So, I/we would not dispute that gratitude in a theistic framework that posits someone/something to be grateful to is internally logical. That is sort of why people came up with such a framework in the first place. Does the existence of the feeling then validate the framework? Not at all. That would be circular.

    What we are saying is that gratitude is also quite consistent with what the evidence points to, which is that there is not agent or personal object at all. We are the product of unpersonal processes, and however non-intutitive that is to many people, especially those trained in theism, or whatever violence that may do to one's naive logic of gratitude->gratitude-ee, the evidence takes precedence over the feelings/intuition, and the feeling remains quite valid on its own terms. I hope you understand that.

    Lastly, on some virtues being exclusive to religion.. we would not dispute that religion has unique properties. Whether they are more analogous to heroin or to cotton candy.. that is the question that I would pose.. it plays out differently at different times and for different people. You seem to value logical consistency as the standard of philosophy. Surely religion displays a few problems in that regard?

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  23. Hi Burk,
    1)Yes, I think religion has problems with l consistency. In fact, I believe every worldview has l inconsistencies (so, it's a matter of choosing the lesser evil, the most consistent).
    2) I agree gratitude doesn't validate the worldview, no more than not feeling regret validates determinism. Also, whether the feeling leads to the worldview or vice versa is probably diff in each situation. Gratitude might lead to the worldview or maybe the worldview came first and caused the emotion of gratitude. The link between emotion/reason is deep and I see no reason to assume the emotion comes first.
    3)Finally, I think it is pretty clear that some emotions are only possible when certain beliefs/cognitive abilities are present? I imagine you agree with that?
    4) Finally Finally, I think gratitude may be present in the atheist's mind, but it is logically inconsistent with atheism just as guilt is logically inconsistent with hard determinism. Shouldn't one seek to overcome such irrational emotions like gratitude (or feeling guilty for breaking commandments) since there aren't any real commandments and there is no benefactor? Or perhaps one could choose to be logically inconsistent?
    I know these issues are a basic, but I don't think there is agreement on all of them... after reading the posts.

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  24. Eric,

    Among other things, when it comes to gratitude there'd be the problem of distinguishing random goods (which, I agree, we can be thankful for...but as a kind of extension of our cosmic gratitude) and goods specifically willed by God. And as soon as you assert that God can and does bestow very specific goods in this life for which we should be grateful, you face the questions that Ehrman raises (why me and not all those others, etc.).

    I consider the causal closure of the physical universe as a given. Therefore I hold that it is not possible to distinguish between random goods and goods specifically willed by God. (The general idea here is that the structure of physical law is such that it gives God a huge leeway for special providence without the need to violate the physical closure of the universe; if there are miracles which do violate that closure then they must be divine responses very special ocasions indeed.) Now I think it is possible to develop a theology which reveals some general knowledge about God’s special providence, such as that God has guided our evolution to produce reliable cognitive faculties, or that God has guided the formation of the Earth to produce a beautiful one. If I am right then it is not possible to make the distinction you mention in the sphere of one’s own individual life, and thus it will be never the case that one will face Ehrman’s kind of existential problem. I think we agree that this kind of problem does not obtain with random goods; nobody feels guilty for having won the lottery.

    In general I think it is pragmatically speaking an excellent dispositional attitude to consider that all goods and evils that befall one are of a random nature, but also that they form part of the deeply meaningful and beautiful structure of the great drama of creation and its marvelous end. Indeed I suspect that if the presence of individual evils is necessary for God’s purpose then God’s respect for created persons requires that they be random. Some of us therefore will be more “blessed” than others because of dumb luck, but given a soul-building kind of theodicy and its long and winding path towards God any such fortuitous blessings will be of a temporal scope. And in any case, given the fundamental unity of all humanity and the contingency of individual existence, the whole issue is ultimately immaterial. At the very end of creation I expect that justice will be complete in that respect also.

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  25. Bernard asks “ What do we mean when you say something makes sense?”, which I suppose is as deep a philosophical question as any.

    JP suggests that for X to make sense it must fit well with the larger set of beliefs one happens to have. This sounds reasonable to me; but such a condition seems to be only a necessary but not a sufficient one. So, for example, the feeling of cosmic gratitude fits perfectly well with a naturalistic belief system, because that system can (at least in principle) explain exactly how that feeling is produced. On the other hand it does appear that the feeling of cosmic gratitude does not make sense within a naturalistic world. Anonymous gives other examples, such as that the feeling of guilt fits well with a belief system which holds that the world is deterministic, but, again, makes no sense if the world is in fact deterministic.

    Perhaps we should here distinguish between an epistemic fit and an ontological fit (or of epistemic versus ontological coherence). Our feelings of cosmic gratitude and of personal guilt fit well ontologically with a naturalistic/deterministic worldview, but do not fit well epistemically with that worldview. They fit well ontologically, because a naturalistic/deterministic world may well produce in it the respective feelings. They don’t fit well epistemically, because the intrinsic *meaning* of “cosmic gratitude” and of “guilt” conflicts with how such a world in fact is. Thus, the meaning of “cosmic gratitude” entails the existence of a good creator of the world, and the meaning of guilt entails the possibility of one having chosen differently. But in fact there is no such agent, nor such a possibility, in a naturalistic/deterministic world.

    So should the naturalist/determinist be troubled by the fact that she has feelings of cosmic gratitude and of personal guilt? I suppose the answer to this question depends on the temperament of that person, and particularly on how that person *feels* about her own cognitive powers. If she tends to value her cognitive powers then she will tend to find the state of affairs troubling. But if she feels ok accepting that her brain has evolved in such a way as to massively fool her then she will take these problems in stride. Still I suppose even the latter kind of people must wonder if it is proper for them to continue having feelings of cosmic gratitude or of personal guilt – and I find either answer to this question to be problematic. Perhaps a way out of this kind of bind is to actually change the meaning of a concept in order to attain epistemic coherence. So, for example, one may change the meaning of “feeling cosmic gratitude” so as to express the same as “feeling delighted with the world”. Another major example of course would be how the meaning of “having free will” is changed by so called compatibilists so as to express the same as “not being externally restrained”.

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  26. Bernard,

    The striking thing about evolutionary theory is that it provides for design without a designer, or if you like, design without foresight or purpose.

    Two very quick comments.

    Strictly speaking the concept of “design” entails a “designer”, so I think it is better to say “evolutionary theory provides for functional complexity without a designer”.

    My second comment is that the Darwinian algorithm is very sensitive to environmental parameters, in the sense that it will only work and increase functional complexity in very specific environments (by which I mean both the physical laws with their fundamental constants, and the actual physical facts of the environment, both static and dynamic). It is not clear to me in what sense evolutionary theory evidences that the environment in which life has evolved is not the result of foresight or purpose. Actually I think there is no any such evidence in the actual science. If this is so then evolutionary theory does not really provide for functional complexity without foresight or purpose, despite what so many naturalistic biologists loudly proclaim. Perhaps science will do so in the future, but given how many problems naturalists are facing with modern science, I don’t feel particularly optimistic that it will.

    My general point here is that it does not serve truth when some scientists oversell the actual science by adding to it their own metaphysical assumptions (even should it be the case that their metaphysical assumptions are in fact true).

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  27. JP,

    Often, when explaining a given moral philosophy, he then goes on to say something like: “Ha ha! Now, if you accept these principles, you also have to accept these (absurd) consequences.” I feel this may be asking for more coherence than can be achieved.

    I think you are here committing the fallacy of accident, or of sweeping generalization. Even if it is the case (and I think it is) that no successful moral theory exists, and therefore no consistent system of moral beliefs based on such a moral theory exists, it does *not* follow that no coherent belief system exists (which would necessarily lack any such a moral theory).

    As for morality, I think that moral theories fail because the moral landscape is a natural and not a mechanical one, by which I mean that it resembles a natural landscape such as a mountain range and not, say, a complex mathematical object. In the same way that you can’t exactly describe a mountain range by a formal theory, you can’t devise a moral theory that will always produce the right answers. Incidentally, the very fact that we are able to *directly perceive* the absurd consequences of a failed moral theory without the benefit of using another moral theory, evidences that ultimately we know about moral truths using a perception-like cognitive faculty. Which I think has momentous metaphysical implications.

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  28. Anonymous,

    The remainder of the Wiki article cited says gratitude is felt by us when "it is perceived as(a) valuable to them, (b) costly to their benefactor, and (c) given by the benefactor with benevolent intentions (rather than ulterior motives).

    I hadn’t thought of (b) but it seems plausible. Which, interestingly enough, allows one to use the feeling of cosmic gratitude to create an argument not just for theism but more specifically for Christianity.

    Assume that our cognitive faculties are reliable. Our seeing a tree only makes sense if there is a tree out there, therefore, given that our cognitive faculties are reliable, there is a tree out there. Similarly, our feeling cosmic gratitude only makes sense if there is a benevolent creator out there, therefore, given that our cognitive faculties are reliable, there is a benevolent creator out there. Which is inconsistent with naturalism but consistent with theism.

    Now for the Christianity specific step:

    Assume theism. Our feeling of cosmic gratitude only makes sense if the creation of the goodness of the world for which we are grateful was costly to God. Given God’s attributes nothing is costly to God, unless part of the goodness of the world was created by God in a state of kenosis, i.e. a state in which God has emptied Him/Herself from the relevant divine attributes. According to Christianity the incarnation of God in Jesus of Nazareth has created a major good of the world, namely atonement, and was costly to God because of the agony suffered in that incarnation. Thus our sense of cosmic gratitude makes sense on Christian theism, but fails to make sense on any theistic theory which differs from Christianity in the respects discussed here.

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  29. Hi, Anonymous-

    Let me comment on your interesting question of whether naturalists/atheists can make logical sense of moral guilt or gratitude.

    On gratitude, you seem to be proposing (as is Eric and many others) that any feeling we have is necessarily met with its object in the real world. We feel gratitude, thus there must (logically) be an agent we feel it toward. This is like saying I feel love towards a woman, thus she must feel love back to me. It is an old and rather sordid story, really, of requiring the world to line up with our feelings. It does not.

    Or, I feel a love of flowers in spring time. Is that a coherent feeling? Flowers certainly exist, but they don't love me back. They don't know I exist. Yet I love them. The object relation is sadly one-way here, as it is very often in the world of feelings.

    Second, the question of guilt is more interesting. As you say, the mechanism of guilt can be well enough explained, as Bernard shows the feeling of hunger can be explained. If we explain something, does that mean that we "explain it away", rendering it defunct for our practical purposes? If that were true, we would be in a sorry state indeed by this point. No, explaining things, especially aspects of human nature, doesn't wash away either their objective nature or their subjective significance. We may appreciate them less or more, depending on the nature of that explanation, however.

    Our feeling of guilt is highly useful and deserves cultivation. It is the internal signal that we've done something wrong. Even if we were psychopaths who didn't feel it internally, we would be well-advised to study and model it (as I hear dogs do) to maintain our social relations. But we do feel it internally, so the atheist has no conflict whatever.. she recognizes herself part of a social system that makes various legitimate demands on her, and thus can and should induce the triggering feeling of guilt when needed. Knowing all about it doesn't make it feel better, and nor would an atheist for any philosophical reason want to feel it less.

    So determinism may render our guilt explainable in many ways, but insofar as we are social, learning, trainable beings, we have every reason to heed it and shape ourselves better to the social setting. Just as in the case of hunger, explaining its nature and orgin doesn't alter our basic relationship to this feeling or make it "inconsistent" with atheism.

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  30. Hello Anonymous

    I'm not yet convinced it makes sense to speak of an emotion being inconsistent with beliefs. We can speak, as your two examples do, of the beliefs that trigger an emotion being themselves inconsistent, but this is a different matter.

    So, imagine I am a determinist but feel guilt. The inconsistency here arises only if the guilt is itself built upon a belief that I had a choice in my actions. I may hold that I was always going to do the thing I did, and yet still hold myself responsible for having done it, and hence feel guilty. There is no contradiction here. The cultural assumption that responsibility must be linked to choice (as opposed to lack of external constraint, as used in our legal system) gets us in trouble here. In exactly the same way the assumption that gratitude must be linked to a giver is not a necessary one (in everyday language we speak both of being grateful to, and being grateful for).

    I can say I am grateful for my existence, without being grateful to anyone for making it happen. This is a perfectly consistent stance.

    None of this is to say there are not flavours of guilt, gratitude etc, and these will in every case be affected by our personal lifelines, including our metaphysical beliefs.

    What I question is a move that attempts to take ownership of language terms like gratitude, by proposing that gratitude without somebody to be grateful too is not real gratitude. At this point the discussion becomes about word usage, and here discussion becomes the wrong vehicle, as one of the search programmes used by linguists to track usage patterns will better resolve such a dispute.

    The more important dispute, to my mind, is about the relative flavours of gratitude experienced by believers and non-believers. The gratitude I feel for existence is about a sense of extreme good fortune, of heightened appreciation, of wonder and humility. And, leaving aside the word usage question altogether, these feelings are all entirely consistent with my agnosticism. My question then is, what is the distinct flavour of theistic gratitude that I am missing out on? I ask this not as a challenge, but out of genuine curiosity.

    Bernard



    Bernard

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  31. Hi Dianelos

    You are quite right, it is more correct to speak of apparent design without a designer.

    I also agree that evolutionary theory is not a vehicle for showing there is no guiding force, so to speak, behind existence itself. What it does allow, and herein lies its major cultural impact, is a breaking of the automatic assumption that complexity is evidence of a designer at work (at least in the case of life).

    Bernard

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  32. Many great thoughts:
    1) The ontological and epistemoogical distinction is, I agree, important.
    2) Burk, there is a difference between having feelings line up with the world and feelings having nothing to do w/the world. If I am angry with Bob because he stole my money, the anger disappears when I later discover that he did not steal my money. Sometimes explaining the origin of my anger and that the origin does not correspond to the facts... does explain away the anger.
    3)Perhaps there is a compatibilist way to acct for guilt. However, if you adopt guilt because it is beneficial (or go with the feeling because it's beneficial), how is that different from pragmatic ideas of going with religion for similar reasons? I may be confused on that one
    4) Finally, hunger is a desire, anger is an emotion with cog components (schacter and singer experiments).

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  33. Unfortunately I've had little time the last few days to attend to my blog (midterm grading and memorizing lines for the upcoming play and doing Fall Break things with the family do tend to take precedence). I have been catching up on the discussion this morning, and find it rich and fascination. Anonymous has made many of the points I would make in this discussion--and I think Dianelos's distinction between ontological and epistemic coherence of emotions is really helpful.

    Two quick points before I return to grading: First, Burk said (to Anonymous):

    On gratitude, you seem to be proposing (as is Eric and many others) that any feeling we have is necessarily met with its object in the real world. We feel gratitude, thus there must (logically) be an agent we feel it toward.

    Neither Anonymous nor I maintain such a thing. You can be angry at Joe for cuckolding you even if Joe is not cuckolding you. You can be overjoyed about your son graduating from college even though, in fact, he flunked out. The point is that, in these cases, there is a disconnect, a lack of fit, between the emotion and the state of things. In both of the above cases, the disconnect arises because of a false belief: The feeling does fit with what one believes about the world, but not with what is the case about the world.

    (I suspect Burk attributes to me this odd vie--that if one has an emotion and the emotion "fits" only on assumption Y, then Y must be true--because he is either uncharitably interpreting some of my arguments pertaining to religious experience, or uncharitably interpreting some of my arguments about pragmatic choices in the adoption of worldviews. But that is a matter for another time).

    The notion that emotions can be fitting or unfitting given one's circumstances is an ancient one--finding clear expression in Aristotle's virtue ethics and, I suspect, in most virtue theories of ethics since then. It also seems to be an implicit assumption of much if not most psychological therapy.

    Unpacking this notion of fit isn't easy. First of all, it seems that more than one emotion can fit the same state of affairs--that is, it isn't the case that a state of affairs demands one and only one emotional response. But this is not to say that there aren't unfitting emotional responses. Second, an emotion's fit to a state of affairs is, at least sometimes, a function not just of the state of affairs but other facts about the person experiencing the emotion under those cicumstances. Consider the following combinations:

    Combination A:
    1. Dave is overjoyed about his son Mike graduating from college.
    2. Dave values the state of affairs, "Mike graduates from college."
    3. Mike graduated from college.

    Combination B:
    1. Dave is overjoyed about Mike graduating from college.
    2. Dave does not attach any value to the state of affairs, "Mike graduates from college."
    3. Mike graduates from college.

    Combination C:
    1. Dave is overjoyed about Mike graduation from college.
    2. Dave attaches value to this state of affairs.
    3. Mike failed to graduate from college, flunking out instead.

    I would contend that there is something out of place, a failure of fit, in both combinations B and C.

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  34. A final remark: On the issue of the fittingness of emotions and the implications of such fit, I think Linda Zagzebski offers at least *some* reasons to take seriously the idea that emotional responses to what we take to be the case may operate as acts of discernment in the realm of values.

    On Zagzebski's analysis of emotions, to be angry with Joe is, roughly, to see Joe's actions in one kind of strongly negative way or another. That is, we are seeing Joe's actions as possessing negative value *in* the act of being angry about what he has done. For Zagzebski, such anger can be unfitting not just in those cases where our beliefs about what Joe did are mistaken, but also in those cases where the beliefs are right but the actions are not of the sort a virtuous agent would be angry about.

    Since we've already debated Zagzebski's ideas elsewhere on this blog, it's probably not fruitful to rehash all those same arguments in this discussion thread (unless someone has something genuinely new to add). I bring Zagzebski up here simply to call attention to the relevance of other debates to the disagreements that are coming up here in relation to the questions posed about cosmic gratitude.

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  35. Eric-

    I believe the original argument was that .. I feel gratitude for life & cosmos, therefore, it is logical and presumptive ("coherent" was the word) that an agent / object exists to receive that gratitude.

    This is clearly an argument from feeling to ontology (or world view, framework, etc.). You have muddied the waters in these late comments to speak about the logic of emotions that are tied to ascertainably true or false beliefs. If, in the case of god, we could independently ascertain the truth, theists wouldn't be in this position of (lamely) trying to make up ontological arguments out of lingistics.

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  36. I believe the original argument was that .. I feel gratitude for life & cosmos, therefore, it is logical and presumptive ("coherent" was the word) that an agent / object exists to receive that gratitude.

    That was not my original argument. My question was whether an attitude of gratitude was one that made sense to adopt on a naturalistic worldview, or whether it only made sense given some form of theism. I pointed out that if we adopted the "double-intentionality" understanding of gratitude, and if we assume that only agents can be the ones to whom we feel grateful, then cosmic gratitude would make sense only on the presumption of theism. I then asked what people thought of these two assumptions about gratitude.

    At issue is whether cosmic gratitude only makes sense on the presumption of theism (and I still have questions about this, in part because of some of Bernard's examples about people who experience what seems to be appropriately described as gratitude in circumstances where they attribute their fortune to blind luck). If so, I would NOT be inclined to use that as a premise in an argument of the following sort:

    1. Cosmic gratitude only makes sense if theism is true.
    2. Cosmic gratitude makes sense.
    3. Therefore, theism is true.

    I'd be interested in seeing someone try to work out this argument in a way that plausibly defends both premises without begging the question, but that's not how I'm inclined to pursue the issue. For me, what's at issue are the pragmatic implications of worldviews.

    So, suppose it were the case that cosmic gratitude only makes sense--only coheres with one's view of the world--if one's view of the world is theistic. One might then note that rejecting theism would require one to regard cosmic gratitude as an emotion that doesn't fit with one's way of seeing reality. If someone can't live with that--if they can't do without cosmic gratitude, and they can't happily adopt cosmic gratitude thinking it makes no sense--they might then have a pragmatic basis for choosing to live as if theism is true. In other words, they would have a pragmatic reason for adopting theism as a matter of faith.

    Even if this argument doesn't work, there may be a more subtle version of it that does. For example, perhaps whether or not cosmic gratitude makes sense is not merely a function of what one takes the universe to be like (naturalistic, theistic), but also a function of values. It may be that cosmic gratitude fits with some combinations of beliefs and values but not others. If so, it may matter a lot for the force of this argument whether values are wholly subjective or not.

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  37. Eric,

    I don’t think one can defend premise (2) without begging the question. The naturalist will deny it arguing that on naturalism cosmic gratitude does not in fact make sense. And should one in response successfully argue that on naturalism cosmic gratitude does make sense after all, then one will have negated premise (1).

    I think a successful argument must be a conditional one and have the following structure:

    1. If my cognitive faculties are reliable then my major dispositional attitudes fit with reality.
    2. My feeling of cosmic gratitude is a major dispositional attitude.
    3. Therefore, if my cognitive faculties are reliable then my feeling of cosmic gratitude fits with reality.
    4. My feeling of cosmic gratitude fits with reality only if there is a good creator of the world.
    5. Therefore, if my cognitive faculties are reliable then there is a good creator of the world.

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  38. Eric

    To go back to your original questions, I would answer, by the criteria provided in these follow up comments, that cosmic gratitude makes excellent sense under naturalism.

    So, if we take your values example, then we get:

    John values his own existence
    John exists
    John is grateful for the fact of his existence

    which appears at least as coherent as the alternative

    John values his existence
    John exists
    John is not grateful for the fact of his existence

    If we consider the logical consistency of the beliefs upon which the gratitude is based, there also appears to be no problem here for the naturalist. Some have claimed that there is something odd about being grateful when there is nobody to be grateful to, but this sense of oddness has nothing to say about the logical relationship between the beliefs and the emotion.

    And finally, the argument has been made that gratitude requires a recipient because, well that's just what gratitude is, which is question begging. Against this, one can only offers one's own experience. The gratitude I feel for random events feels to me to have exactly the same emotional flavour as the gratitude I feel when identifiable individuals provide for me (In the sense that I can identify a commonality of flavour amongst various experiences of frustration, love, anger, sadness etc.)

    So, in my case, at least (and ultimately I suspect this is subjective), yes, gratitude is most certainly possible without a personified recipient. What's more, it is as coherent as any alternative, by the criteria offered here. To claim otherwise is to be tempted into a sort of intellectual imperialism, the 'because I can't imagine it being that way for me, it can't be that way at all.'


    Bernard

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  39. Perhaps another emotion would clarify.
    Can one have loyalty towards the universe?

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  40. Hello Anonymous

    Excellent question. I'd answer yes and no, depending upon which aspect of loyalty we're referring to. If we're talking purely emotion, so the feeling of oneness with, if you like, the 'we're all in this together, and you are part of my greater definition of self' type feeling (a lousy description, nailing the frisson of emotion os linguistically difficult isn't it?) then sure, why not? All one needs to make any emotion consistent is a little imagination, which is why I can't yet make sense of the idea of incoherent emotions. I remain open to a counter example which will help me get it.

    If we're talking loyalty as a set of behavioural requirements, loyalty to the purpose of the universe, if you like, then there would appear to be a need to in some sense personify the universe to make this fly, as there needs, by definition, to be at the very least a vague sense of this purpose. Similarly with gratitude, if by gratitude we mean an attitude towards the giver, then clearly a giver must be part of the picture, but I get the feeling Eric is getting at something more than a definitional trick here.

    Bernard

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  41. Anonymous-

    Another emotion would indeed clarify. As atheists, the observation we make is that there is no necessary or evident super-being or agency to the cosmos. Thus necessarily, if one invokes emotions/language that require a transactional undestanding, (i.e a transitive verb whose object must be a responsive agent), then an atheist wouldn't recognize such a construction applying to the cosmos, deities, etc.

    The language follows from the logic and the evidence, not the reverse. This whole discussion, as Eric's lengthy admission (prefaced by a denial) illustrates, is an attempt to argue the reverse... that somehow conventional usages of gratitude, etc. are items of evidence for the ontology of reality, using typically vague / indirect language like "coherence", etc..

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  42. This whole discussion, as Eric's lengthy admission (prefaced by a denial) illustrates, is an attempt to argue the reverse...

    As the character I am playing in "Incorruptible" would say: Why do I bother?

    I guess the answer is that others hopefully see the difference between admitting to a caricature and denying the caricature followed by offering a summary of my actual argument, which has different premises, a different logical structure, and a different conclusion than the caricature.

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  43. 1) I think I presented a clear example. If I am angry at Bob for stealing my money the anger disappears when I discover Bob did not steal my money.
    If I continue in my anger, it is not consistent with the fact that he did not steal my money. In short, my anger is inconsistent with my worldview, my newfound belief that he did not steal. So the question is, "What emotions are inconsistent with a newfound belief in Naturalism?" or vice versa (what emotions are inconsistent with a newfound theism?). If you say none, it seems as though you are artifically sep reason/emotion. A whole new topic.
    2) Nobody has argued the lang used justifies some ontology (straw man).

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  44. Hi Dienalos,

    You make interesting points. I only wish I had more time for this discussion – right now is a busy time for me. Anyhow, here's a few comments.

    You write: [...] the very fact that we are able to *directly perceive* the absurd consequences of a failed moral theory without the benefit of using another moral theory, evidences that ultimately we know about moral truths using a perception-like cognitive faculty.

    Unless I misunderstand, I think you're stretching quite a bit here. To make your point you have to assume first that there are absolute/objective moral truths (something I still can't make sense of) and, second, that our moral sense somehow synchronizes with them. In any case, the observation remains valid: morality appears to be, at its core, an instinctive process. Would you say then that moral theories are best understood as models of this process? (And, thus, almost necessarily incomplete).

    It is not clear to me in what sense evolutionary theory evidences that the environment in which life has evolved is not the result of foresight or purpose.

    What we don't find is often as significant as what we do find. Wouldn't you say that if the evolutionary process had a direction/goal/purpose there would be some evidence of it? To my knowledge, there is no such thing: no discernible overall trend towards anything like complexity, intelligence, consciousness, and so on. For all we know, humans constitute just one species among millions, not in any sense the result of the process.

    Perhaps you're referring to the setup of the initial conditions. But I don't think this helps. If the initial conditions were such as to direct evolution towards us, it would be a strange thing if this directed process acted without leaving any trace of it.

    [cont.]

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  45. [cont.]

    I see no reason to suspect that the physical is not causally closed. Indeed there is a lot of scientific evidence that such a closure does indeed hold. On the other hand there is no conflict whatsoever between the closure of the physical and the theistic understanding of reality [...]

    I take it that, by causal closure of the physical world, you mean that no outside “force” is acting causally on the physical. Could you elaborate on this? It seems to preclude the existence of a non physical consciousness acting on the physical. My understanding of your position is that our free will, for instance, is non physical but, in order to be of any use, it must be able to affect causally our body in order to act. How do you reconcile the two?

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  46. Anonymous-

    If one takes some completely transactional behavior vis-a-vis god, like I pray to god and he talks back to me, ... that is inconsistent with naturalism and would not be valid in that world view.

    Likewise, some necessarily transactional emotion, like the loyalty you mentioned before, would be inapplicable to a naturalist view. All we were saying before is that gratitude has the particular characteristic that it doesn't really need in all cases to have some agent/recipient on the other end to be valid. Thus naturalists/atheists find it quite congenial.

    Now one can even construct loyalty as being one-way, in the sense that we of the biosphere have some aesthetic as well as utilitarian loyalty to its health and want to do all we can to keep it healthy. But for your point, I would freely grant that there are emotions out there, at least in principle, that have to have an agent on the other end, and thus are not applicable to naturalists when looking at the cosmos.

    Of course that still begs the question of whether an imaginary agent is a fitting emotional correspondent for the theist, rather than a real one as the emotional language presupposes.

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  47. Hello Anonymous

    Sorry to be a bit of a dog with a bone on this one, but I'm still unconvinced Angry Bob has anything interesting to say about the issue of cosmic gratitude. In the case of Bob, he is angry because he believes John stole his money, and then discovers he didn't. If his anger remains, we might conclude his anger is actually triggered by something else, and the theft was just a narrative coating. Inconsistency arises only at the point where Bob says, 'well I know John didn't steal my money, but I'm still angry with him for stealing it. I know that's irrational, but this damned anger has just lodged in me and I'm having a devil of a time shifting it.'

    In the case of the naturalist who feels gratitude for existence, no such contradiction exists. The naturalist does not say, I know there's no God, but I'm still thankful he created me. The naturalist says 'I know I exist, and I am grateful for this fact.' And that, as a number of us have suggested, seems to be an entirely consistent point of view, logically speaking. If we are looking for logical inconsistency, we will find it not in the emotion felt, but in the reasons given for feeling this emotion, which themselves, being expressed as reasons, may be inconsistent in a way that an emotion can't be. The emotion itself, as Burk noted early on, is hardly a proposition.

    In order to show that the naturalist's gratitude is incoherent, somebody first needs to show the manner in which the theists gratitude is coherent. At this point, with criteria for coherence established, we can look to see whether naturalist gratitude is equally coherent. So far, the examples provided (Anger, determinism/guilt, values, language usage and the 'feels right to me' test) all fail to distinguish between the naturalistic and theistic cases. Which makes me suspicious.

    Bernard

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  48. Anonymous,

    I agree and I think you take us back to Eric’s point, which is, do our emotions cohere with and are they consistent with our beliefs or worldview. I would unpack it a little bit this way: It is not that our language creates reality or justifies an ontology, but it reflects, in interpretations, that reality. So historically, language has tried to reflect, to communicate, to catch as it were, the underlying truth of a matter as we perceive it and how we “feel” about it. We assume our emotions, how we feel deeply about something, actually coheres with reality and our language tries to reflect that link between ourselves and the outer world. If we encounter someone whose emotions, and the language used to articulate those emotions, doesn’t fit or cohere with what they say they believe, we have every right to question that logic. Thus, in the sense of any cosmic gratitude, such as in the language of “blessing” or “gift” it would not seem to make any sense (from a naturalist world-view) that we would even have such an understanding/emotion and if we did it wouldn’t make much sense to acknowledge it or cultivate it. Why would we emote something (that is clearly transactional) entirely without any outer referent? The rocks or stars do not care that I exist. If I have only myself to be thankful to, because anyone else helping me is doing so out of some pre-programmed evolutionary survival impulse, then why be thankful or show any gratitude at all? Even if it were some private anomaly, how is it that this sense resonates with the great majority and is cross-cultural over time? How is it that people from different cultures can talk about being thankful in a cosmic sense and know what the other means, if this is just a private inward sense with no outer referent? Anyway, I have heard nothing in this conversation that even begins to explain how this is possible. All I’ve heard is two assertions. One, there is no outer referent or object to my sense of cosmic gratitude; two, I feel this gratitude anyway and it doesn’t need to make sense—you are over-thinking it. Interestingly, this is exactly the type of argument one sometimes hears theists make about their belief in God and is the one that seems to draw the most criticisms from atheists.

    Burk,

    “Of course that still begs the question of whether an imaginary agent is a fitting emotional correspondent for the theist, rather than a real one as the emotional language presupposes.”

    To write the above imagining you are pointing out question-begging is pretty rich.

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  49. Hi, Darrell, et al.

    Could I ask what the point of this discussion is?

    Either Eric et al. are making a purely linguistic point- gratitude goes with an agent/object and not otherwise, therefore atheists claiming gratitude are linguistically incorrect. If that is what Mr. Webster says, I would be quite happy with it an concede the point. It is not very important. Indeed, I would be ready to rename my feelings if needed, from gratitude to appreciation, etc.

    Or you are trying to make a philosophical point, to the effect that atheism itself flies in the face of our feelings and language ... We feel gratitude; gratitude implies a gratitude-ee; thus the ontology of the universe as reflected in our god-given feelings & language disproves or is inconsistent with atheism.

    I am aware that this was put in various caveated forms- as a "question", or as a gesture towards an argument, etc. But that is the bottom line. And I for my part differ with the premise that our feelings or our language in this case are somehow dispositive about the nature of the universe. It is a rather backwards way to do philosophy.

    Do feelings have to be consistent with one's philosophy? That is an interesting question. Suppose someone with a positivity philosophy, perhaps a purveyor of Herbalife or Amway, suffers from depression. Does that invalidate their philosophy? I doubt it. Suppose a widow feels the desire to speak to her departed husband or say a small prayer, and feel him present. Does that validate spiritualism? I doubt it.

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  50. Burk,

    I can only repeat Eric’s points here in response:

    “That was not my original argument. My question was whether an attitude of gratitude was one that made sense to adopt on a naturalistic worldview, or whether it only made sense given some form of theism. I pointed out that if we adopted the "double-intentionality" understanding of gratitude, and if we assume that only agents can be the ones to whom we feel grateful, then cosmic gratitude would make sense only on the presumption of theism.”

    “So, suppose it were the case that cosmic gratitude only makes sense--only coheres with one's view of the world--if one's view of the world is theistic. One might then note that rejecting theism would require one to regard cosmic gratitude as an emotion that doesn't fit with one's way of seeing reality…”

    “…In other words, they would have a pragmatic reason for adopting theism as a matter of faith.”

    “I guess the answer is that others hopefully see the difference between admitting to a caricature and denying the caricature followed by offering a summary of my actual argument, which has different premises, a different logical structure, and a different conclusion than the caricature.”

    I think the greater question here is have you actually understood and addressed Eric’s points? As far as I can tell all you have done is say, “yes, it doesn’t make sense but you are over-thinking it—it doesn’t have to be logical.” Or to quote you:

    “Anyhow, you may have noticed that gratitude is a feeling. Why it has to be philosophically coherent is not at all clear... That is one general issue with theology- needless over-thinking and rationalization.”

    Or, you have responded with question-begging assertions. If this forum were made up only of atheists, such would be fine—just preaching to the choir. Fine. But, since it is made up of a mix of world-views and since the blog’s creator is a theist—such question-begging is completely unhelpful.

    My point about language seems clear enough. When we use language we are interpreting the world. Our language doesn’t create reality but we do hope it reflects something true about that reality. The ubiquitous sense and noting of cosmic gratitude (an inherently transactional notion) in our language and in every culture/language I am aware of would seem to point to something real rather than something false.

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  51. "point to something real"

    Precisely.. my point exactly. You are trying to make an ontological argument out of linguistic/emotional premises.

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  52. Hi All,
    Burk, you wrote "I would be quite happy with it an concede the point. It is not very important. Indeed, I would be ready to rename my feelings if needed, from gratitude to appreciation, etc".

    There's something we agree on, except the part about it not being important. I think it's important to use precise emot vocab and seek logically consistency between our beliefs and the cognitive aspects of emotions (or at least beliefs that support emotions). Nor are these just linguistic distinctions since emotions are not merely words or physiological responses, they are physiological responses that involve cognitive elements. This 2 min video may shed some light http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyEaSp50Svs
    I think the theist can be confident that the atheist does not experience some emotions just as the atheist can see, after studying such things, that some emotions are unique to atheism.
    Do my emotions prove God exists? Of course not. No more than my anger at Bob proves Bob stole the money. So, we agree on that too... but maybe for diff reasons.

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  53. Burk,

    No, that is not what anyone is saying. But, let me ask you: Is the language you use, are using now, divorced from reality?

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  54. Anonymous-

    "I think the theist can be confident that the atheist does not experience some emotions just as the atheist can see, after studying such things, that some emotions are unique to atheism. "

    I sincerely doubt that, except to the extent that we have not been "felled" by the spirit, so to speak. On atheism, there is no one out there, so theist or atheist alike are having the same emotions, and the same cognitions, though with different interpretations. But since no interpretation can create something out of nothing.. i.e. a deity, we are, emotionally, in the same boat. In a pinch, we might go to the theater or read a book to suspend disbelief. Or meditate, etc. There are many avenues of spiritual engagement.

    On theism, there is certainly the claim of higher and better emotional states, met with a spiritual resonance from the deity of one's choice. I am not competent to judge this fully. There have been studies of this kind of thing, and LSD and similar drugs seemed sufficient to confer highly religious emotions and cognitions, all without any particular theory of what was going on, or resulting in any better evidence for theism.

    To me it seems that precision in emotional language, while admirable, is far above our pay grade. Something for novelists to engage in. I like the language of George Eliot, myself. The idea that we can pin down feelings like butterflies and make them tell us something about the universe rather than about ourselves is dubious.

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  55. Burk, you said, "butterflies and make them tell us something about the universe rather than about ourselves is dubious." Again, nobody has argued such (straw man). Logical consistency is about us, not necessarily reality.

    Also, if many emotions involve cognitions (* phil and psychological research indicates they do), it's not merely the interpretation that separates theists and atheists... and still other worldviews. I think you are fallaciously equating feelings with emotions. Also, one can be more specific without nailing emotions into a butterfly case. :)

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  56. Hi all

    It is often observed that academics run the risk of living their whole lives from the neck up, and I wonder if this discussion isn't a rather wonderful example of that.

    What is at issue here is what we mean when we say an emotion coheres, and whether, if we can indeed pin this down, this coherence would apply to theistic cosmic gratitude in a way it does not apply to naturalistic cosmic gratitude.

    So, what do we mean by coherence? We are still being unhelpfully vague here. It might be we mean the emotion coheres to reality, but at this point which gratitude is more coherent depends upon whether there really is an entity to give thanks to, and we're all just taking punts on that one, so it's of little help.

    We might mean the emotion coheres to a set of reasoning which itself is consistent. Under this test, both do rather well. I believe there is a God, and thank him for the fact of my existence, or I believe I exist, and am grateful for the fact of my existence, are both logically coherent.

    Another possible test, hinted at by many, is that of the feel of an emotion. Does gratitude directed at a giver have the same feel as one that is directed only at the fact of one's good fortune? How do we answer this? We could look at language usage, but both modes of expression are common (the child complains about their meal, just be grateful you have any food, the parent retorts. Gratitude at a lottery win is another example I've provided) so under this approach we don't get a difference.

    We could try analogy with personal gratitude, but cosmic gratitude is different in kind for both theists and non-theists here (perhaps it makes no sense to give thanks to a infinite entity, which has made no sacrifice in order to provide you with your existence, for example), if we are to establish arbitrary rules, the variations available are endless.

    The assertion that non-theists feel a different type of gratitude to theists would take a fairly impressive piece of justification, I'd think. At the trivial level it is true, because gratitude is different from person to person and case to case. It's a bit like arguing that being angry with your pet is different than being angry with your friend, and then in an astounding leap of egocentricity, claiming only pet owners experience real anger, and it's wrong to use the word in other contexts.

    Anyway, if somebody does have a way of measuring coherence that amounts to more than a claim to word use, why not put it out there so we can look at it?

    Bernard

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  57. JP,

    To make your point you have to assume first that there are absolute/objective moral truths

    I think it’s the other way around: I see the moon without the benefit of any scientific or philosophical theory, and I notice that everybody else also sees the moon. Therefore I say there is a moon. I don’t first have to assume that objectively speaking there is a moon before making sense of the fact that I see it. Rather I think the moon objectively exists because I as well as everybody else sees it.

    Similarly I don’t first have to assume that objectively speaking there are moral values before making sense of the fact that I see them. And some moral perceptions have the property that everybody sees them too. I mean it’s really striking how academic books on ethics are written: The author first describes a particular moral theory, then points out an obvious counterexample, then describes how the original theory is modified to avoid that counterexample, then points out a different counterexample to the new theory, and so on. The author does not in any way defend the counterexamples; she assumes that all her readers will *see* them as clearly as she does. So here’s the thing: One publicly tests physical theories by checking their implications on the physical domain. In the same way one publicly tests moral theories by checking their implications on the moral domain. But, many naturalists insist, the physical domain is really (objectively, absolutely, factually) there, whereas the moral domain isn’t. Why not? Apparently, because it does not fit the naturalistic metaphysical assumptions.

    So here is the question: Beyond anybody’s metaphysical assumptions, if I clearly see X, and moreover I notice that everybody else also clearly sees X, shouldn’t I believe that X (really, objectively, absolutely, factually, etc) exists?

    At this juncture a naturalist may argue thus: 1. We only perceive things inside our brain. 2. Our brain is a purely physical thing. 3. Purely physical things are only affected by other physical things. 4. Therefore we can’t possibly perceive non-physical things. – The idea is clear: If there are moral values then they are non-physical things which therefore do not affect the brain which in turn implies that we can’t perceive them directly. If we have the impression that we do perceive non-physical things such as moral values then it must be some kind of illusion. We are all only perceiving common physical structures within our brain and experiencing them as “values”.

    The error in the above argument lies in the premise (3). The fact that the universe is causally closed in the physical does *not* imply that non-physical things cannot affect the physical. If it were so then only a deistic god would be possible, and also we couldn’t possibly have free will. But in fact the structure of physical law is such that God can massively influence the evolution of the physical world, and we can have free will in it, without breaking the physical closure of the universe. Incidentally, the fact that physical law has that remarkable structure strikes me as hugely teleological, and hence represents for me strong science-based evidence for the existence of God, stronger than the deep mathematical nature of the physical order, and stronger than the apparent fine-tuning of the physical constants. For an explanation of how physical law is such as to open space for God’s providence and for human free will please see here.

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  58. Hi Burk/Bernard,
    1) Weak Analogy (anger at person: anger at dog:: gratitude towards meaningless universe: gratitude towards transcendent entity beehind meaning of universe). It's comparing apples and nonapples... and is a subtle case of begging the question.
    2) The fact that mystics convert to some sort of transcendent belief based on said experiences seems to be introspective evidence for the difference between said experiences (for them).
    3)Finally, I still don't think it's a matter of semantics, rather it's a matter of logic. Words have meanings and those meanings are either consistent or inconsistent with each other.

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  59. Thanks Anonymous

    You're quite right, it was question begging of me to imply that's a good analogy. Better if I'd phrased as a question, why isn't this a fair analogy? Of course, to dismiss it as a weak analogy is also question begging, in the same way.

    Upon reflection I was too hasty to dismiss what you were saying about the connection between emotions and the underlying logic of the associated beliefs/narratives. I tend to push against an argument and then discover the weaknesses in my view when the push comes back; habitual and inefficient.

    So, am I right in thinking you are saying emotions appear to often have an internal logic to them, so for example when we feel disappointment, there is an implication that there is an associated expectation in play somewhere?

    If so, then questions about semantics may also be questions about logic, in that in rejecting disappointment without expectation, we are saying we can't see what the disappointment would relate to, if not an expectation?

    The interesting question for me, then: is this about logic in some formal sense, or more about imagination? Am I really saying, in rejecting the disappointment case, that I can't imagine what it would mean to be disappointed if there was no expectation in play (even though I could imagine being administered some drug that gave me an overwhelming of disconnected disappointment?) Or rather is there some rule of logic (beyond the learned language association of 'no, that's just not what disappointment means') in play here?

    In the case of gratitude, if imagination is our arbiter, then we should perhaps accept as evidence the observation that people like me find that both directed and undirected gratitude have the same flavour, even though others can not imagine it being the case. There exists an alternative context for gratitude, not the giver, but the fact of the 'gift'. The fact that we speak freely of gratitude in undirected terms (I am so grateful my children are healthy) and the psychological compulsion (for some) of things like the lottery example also suggest Eric's caution is well grounded.

    Of course, it may be there is another kind of logic at play here, one not tethered to our imaginative capacities, in which case we need to be able to express what this is. Any ideas? I'm sticking to this point because in general I think the conclusion 'I can't imagine seeing the world that way, therefore that's not a valid view of the world' is unhelpful, and underpins much that is sad about the theist/atheist divide.

    Bernard

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  60. JP,

    Wouldn't you say that if the evolutionary process had a direction/goal/purpose there would be some evidence of it?

    If the evolutionary process does not have direction/purpose then we won’t find any physical evidence that it has. But if the evolutionary process does have direction/purpose it is not necessarily the case that there is physical evidence for it. And if it is the case that the evolutionary process has direction/purpose and there is physical evidence for it, we should not believe that the physical sciences would by now have discovered it. Since the evolutionary process may both increase and decrease the complexity of the species it is not today at all clear that an unguided evolutionary process in our universe would produce the functional complexity required for intelligence. Finally, to scientifically compute what the probability is that in a universe like ours unguided natural evolution would produce an intelligent species may well be impossible in practice and even in principle – so we may never know. In any case the following stands: As long as we don’t know that an unguided evolutionary process will probably produce beings as complex as we are, it is *false* to claim that science has proven natural evolution has no direction/purpose and that the existence of God is not required for our existence. The fact that this false claim is being propagated by many specialist scientists (such as Richard Dawkins) and that it is even believed by many scientists who are theists shows how little critical thought there is around. Indeed we live at a time where anything anybody says is “scientific” gets automatic credit.

    Still, this was not exactly my argument. My argument was this: Assume that there is no direction or purpose in the evolutionary process. Even then the evolutionary process does not in any sense evidence that there is no direction or purpose in the environment in which it takes place. Please observe that as a matter of fact we are not the product of an evolutionary process alone, but of an evolutionary process taking place in and strongly interacting with its physical environment. And by “physical environment” I don’t only mean the fundamental physical laws and constants and how they appear to be fine-tuned for life, but also all the contingent physical facts (such as that physiology of the Earth and the Moon and the Sun, or the cosmic disasters which have regularly wiped out much of life on Earth) and which by themselves very strongly affected our evolutionary process. Evolutionary theory says nothing about whether the physical environment has direction/purpose or not.

    Perhaps you're referring to the setup of the initial conditions. But I don't think this helps. If the initial conditions were such as to direct evolution towards us, it would be a strange thing if this directed process acted without leaving any trace of it.

    I am not sure what “trace” you’d expect to find. It is a matter of fact that the fundamental physical constants and initial conditions of universe do appear to be fine-tuned for the evolution of life. So the naturalist has the burden of proof and argue that nonetheless we should not believe that these fundamental properties of the physical domain have direction/purpose. And naturalists have risen to the challenge arguing that perhaps there is a huge number of parallel universes out there and we just happen to exist in a rare universe with properties which favour life. The hypothesis works, but unfortunately there is no actual evidence, scientific or philosophical, that such universes exist.

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