Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Brief Question about Fighting for Change and the Ethico-Religious Hope

Just a little while ago I stumbled across the following quote from an article by Rabbi Michael Lerner:

The most important changes in our country have come about because people were willing to fight for what everyone supposedly knew to be “unrealistic” (e.g., ending segregation, ending ten thousand years of unchallenged male supremacy and sexism, legitimating gay and lesbian lives, building an environmental movement, and the list goes on).
Realism is idolatry — believing in God is believing that there is some Force in the Universe (some of us call it God) that makes possible the transformation from “that which is” to “that which could and should be.”
It immediately brought to mind the following passage from Martin Luther King's 1956 speech at UC Berkeley, "The Power of Nonviolence":

I am quite aware of the fact that there are persons who believe firmly in nonviolence who do not believe in a personal God, but I think every person who believes in nonviolent resistance believes somehow that the universe in some form is on the side of justice. That there is something unfolding in the universe whether one speaks of it as an unconscious process, or whether one speaks of it as some unmoved mover, or whether someone speaks of it as a personal God. There is something in the universe that unfolds for justice and so in Montgomery we felt somehow that as we struggled we had consmic companionship. And this was one of the things that kept the people together, the belief that the univers is on the side of justice.
 
What both are talking about here relates to what I refer to, in Is God a Delusion?, as "the ethico-religious hope"--that is, the hope that in some fundamental way the universe is on the side of the good. In my book, I define God by reference to this hope: belief in God is belief that there exists that which fulfills this hope--or, put in more pragmatic terms, to have faith in God is to live one's life as if there is that which fulfills this hope.
 
There is no question in my mind that what Lerner and King are referring to can have enormously rich pragmatic fruits, in the sense of motivating people to face entrenched injustices and powerful opposition--and to do so without retreating behind a gun or a terrorist bomb, but with a commitment to honesty and nonviolence. The sense that the universe is somehow fundamentally on the side of the good can give people the courage to trust in good means to attempt good ends against seemingly impossible odds.
 
It doesn't have to be "God" in the traditional sense (and there are some conceptions of "God"--as I've argued in my book and elsewhere--that don't align with this hope in any way that could be expected to bear such fruits). But my question--and it is a serious one, not merely rhetorical--is whether there is in materialistic/naturalistic worldviews something that can serve the same motivating function. Could the civil rights movement have been built up around a secular humanist idea that would do the same work--in terms of motivating courageous and persistent nonviolence in the effort to transform the world for the better--that King's invocation of a God of agapic love served?
 
In part, my question is sparked by the fact that I am starting to read Greg Epstein's impassioned defense of secular humanism, Good Without God, which is in part an attempt to inspire humanists to stand together nonviolently and compassionately against the social forces that continue to marginalize those who reject theistic belief. He takes as one of his models Martin Luther King; but in so doing is Epstein implicitly embracing some non-theistic variant of the ethico-religious hope? If so, can it be sustained from his secular humanist foundations? And if not, is there some alternative to this hope, something consistent with seeing the universe as fundamentally indifferent to the good, that can motivate a commitment to relying on morally good means in the pursuit of morally good ends even when doing so seems utterly "unrealistic"?

77 comments:

  1. "He takes as one of his models Martin Luther King; but in so doing is Epstein implicitly embracing some non-theistic variant of the ethico-religious hope?"

    Yes- one might call it ethico-hope, or simple optimism. If the universe were on the side of good, we wouldn't be in the position we are in, having to fight for it all the time. Congress would be in the hands of rational people, for instance. And it isn't the universe at all- it is us who are ambiguous, but tending towards good.

    Brainwashing can be effective in the service of any number of goals, good or bad, and conversely, psychology tells us that depressed people are more realistic/accurate than "normal" people. Nevertheless, I'd rather have my position based on reality than non-reality, even if that gives up a modicum of psychic effectiveness, as is apparent in the Democratic (more apatheic, realistic) - Republican (more ideological, emotionally driven, climate-denial, evolution-denial, etc.) divide.

    Remember that important elements of the civil rights movement were non-theistic as well (Bayard Rustin). Pursuing good doesn't depend on the universe already being good, but on our efforts wanting it good and making it good. And the fact that we have a divided, complex moral nature keeps on making it possible and realistic as well, with some work.

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  2. There is something in the universe that unfolds for justice [...]

    Yes, and it is us. Evolved from that blind, pitiless universe, we brought to it justice, love, goodness, beauty, all these things we value - and this makes them (and us) all the more precious. There is no safety net, no Other that will take care of things if we fail. And to think that we have gone so far already is to believe in the promise of what could be.

    We are that force that makes possible the transformation from “that which is” to “that which could and should be.”

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  3. Hmm... I was hoping for a little more from Burk and JP. To go from the words of MLK Jr. to JP's blind pitiless universe is pretty uninspiring. Let's have some inspiration and hope about the human condition and its possibilities from the naturalist/materialist camp.

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  4. Hi, CPO-

    Sorry to disappoint! I guess the basic point would be that atheism is not trying to replace everything about religion. Heaven forbid! Atheism is a critique, concerned with putting theology in proper perspective. How to go about the rest of one's life.. that is up to you, really.

    Most atheists are humanists, as a correlated ethical position. But more broadly, one has to turn to all the other riches of life to find inspiration- art, science, tea partying... whatever gets you going. It is true that religion has done much inspiring and rule-making and world-creating in the past. To us that makes religion another art form- lovely, but often misunderstood.

    I have been reading Milton's Paradise Lost, and despite all the mysogeny, it is absolutely voluptuous in its portrayal of the human condition. But the key thing to realize is that ... it isn't true. It isn't even a metaphorical portrayal of god, Satan, human creation, the fall, and the rest. They are in turn metaphors for the inner conflicts of humanity, our paradisical dreams, our conviction that god is formed in the image of man (or the reverse..), our core feeling that we don't deserve the sad horrors of work, competition, and death, and all the other fascinating / maddening bits of being human.

    Religion embodies the fact that our model of reality interacts deeply with how we view our lives and possibilities. Psychology is a science, while doing science can be an inspirational life pursuit. They interact. It is not easy to put a boundary between ... reality is X, while inspiration comes from Y. That is why religions have from the beginning put a creation narrative at the core of their philosophical/ethical/ritual models, despite each and every one of them being wrong. Atheism aims to separate them, Mr. Epstein notwithstanding, and it is not clear how psychologically possible that is, however philosophically desirable.

    So, how are we going to change the world? Perhaps atheists are going to change it by greater intellectual depth and understanding, not by chanting. Hume was a pretty good example, Camus another.

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  5. Hello C.P.O

    For my part, I suspect hope is more of an emotional than a rational response. I think it emerges from a largely subconscious response to narrative. I for my part do not have to believe the world is good to feel hopeful, I need only to believe in the possibility of making spaces in the world where we can collectively rejoice in our humanity. And this optimism is a culturally shaped emotional predisposition

    So, exactly as Burk says, the arts are a fine place to start. As Martin Luther King has been used as an example, think of the way Spike Lee opens his film Malcolm X. He confronts the audience with footage of Rodney King being beaten. It's a very clever and powerful piece of film making. When I first saw it, it reduced me to tears. No reason, philosophy or theology was needed, just a perfectly judged image, a piece of art. And through such art we become inspired to rise up against injustice.

    Years ago when my younger brother died I read the novel Last Orders. Again, through art, I found a kind of understanding and peace. It's a beautifully worked piece of writing, and the fact that it is clearly fictional is crashingly irrelevant. One can find peace, hope and inspiration without belief. The narrative is the thing.

    My feeling is that religion, at its very best, is about art. It too provides narratives that, when well constructed, can raise our vision and lift our hearts. The thing that confuses me is the idea that such narratives lose their power when we cease believing in their literal truth. This is clearly not the case for any other form of art, where emotional resonance is far more important than explanatory power.

    Bernard

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  6. Hi C.P.O.,

    It's too bad I can't use language in any way like King but if I could I bet I could show you how inspiring can be this idea of us, and beauty and justice, evolving out of this blind & pitiless universe.

    Going back to Eric's topic, maybe we should not look at King's religious narrative as motivating in itself but rather as being successful because it resonated with the large majority of his audience – religious people. It is the match between audience and narrative that was successful, not the narrative in isolation. I wonder how much sense his narrative would make to Romans of the time of Augustus or in ancient China. Not much perhaps.

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  7. I just stumbled across the following quotation from the Humanist Manifesto of 1933: "...man is at least becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, (and) that he has within himself the power for its achievement." It is the second clause, here, that I think is sometimes invoked by humanists as the basis for the same kind of hope for the sake of which King and Lerner invoke a transcendent good.

    Of course, those who invoke this hope face their own version of the problem of evil: the evidence of human history does not provide clear support for the claim that humans really have within them the capacity--the moral fortitude, compassion, etc.--to make the world a better place. Reinhold Niehbuhr (who strongly influenced Martin Luther King, Jr.) was particularly acute in his critique of this humanist hope--showing the ways in which our strivings to be better often succeed at the individual level only by magnifying our inadequacies at the collective level. Moral improvement at one level of human interaction is achieved at the cost of shifting the injustice to a higher level where it is less readily seen.

    (For example, when I teach Marx and address his notion that capitalism results in the "emiseration" of the worker, students frequently note that the working class in America is not nearly as bad off as Marx would have predicted; I then invite my students to look at GLOBAL capitalism and the way in which the class distinctions Marx talked about have now taken on national boundaries--rich countries who own the means of production, and poor nations that have only their labor and so are grateful for the opportunity to work in sweat shops).

    King, while influenced by Niebuhr on these points, nevertheless challenged Niebuhr's resultant rejection of nonviolence. Niebuhr's conclusion that nonviolence couldn't work, that it was "unrealistic," seemed to King to presuppose that the gap between human capacities and the potential for real positive transformation through nonviolent means would not be filled by a transcendent benevolence. (John Hare, in The Moral Gap, is a strong contemporary advocate of the idea that there is a gap of this sort that can only be filled on the presumption of a transcendent good).

    Put another way, for King the hope in a transcendent benevolence came into play at precisely that point at which he could not hope in humanity. Of course, in invoking a transcendent benevolence, King opens the door to the more traditional problem of evil that Burk gestures to when he says, "If the universe were on the side of good, we wouldn't be in the position we are in, having to fight for it all the time."

    Put another way, I wonder if any commitment to relying on good means to achieve good ends, in the face of formidable opposition, really involves presupposing (at least pragmatically--that is, on the level of "behaving as if") that things are better than they appear: either humanity is better than it seems (humanism), or the universe is better than it seems (some variant of theism).

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  8. Eric-

    I doubt that King put his hope in transcendent benevolence, for if so, he would not have done anything. He would not have put on marches, speeches, sit-ins, teach-ins, lobbying, etc. Analytically speaking, he put his hope in the partial morality and compassion of his oppressors. If he were up against the Huns, or George Wallace alone, non-violence would not have gotten far. But if your adversary reads the same bible, and has fought the same war, only to return to a self-interested blindness after the war ... then rubbing his nose in the injustice may, in some fortuitous cases, if broadcast nationwide and not confined to the South, ... suffice.

    More generally, humanity is certainly good as well as bad. That is empirical fact. And we can be cultivated to express either tendency under different conditions. Our army is a fascinating case that inculcates both tendencies at the same time- killing and high morality- a very difficult balancing act indeed. It takes alot of discipline.

    So the problem of humanism seems a bit simpler than you portray it. It is finding ways to organize societies that bring out our better natures as consistently as possible. One could make the case that prosperity by itself has strongly pacific effects, for instance. As does education. One can also say that naive attempts to approach the ideal directly (such as communism) don't work well in practice.

    So it is a complicated problem, but not dependent on making of either humanity or the universe something they are not. Indeed, realism is not a bad way to go about it. I think that was one hallmark of our founding fathers, for instance. Compare their realism with the self-delusion of the founders of the Soviet union (or the French revolution) ... they make a striking contrast. Yes, they were theistic, but typically in the weakest sort of way, as deists. You don't hear much theology in the Federalist papers. The Bolsheviks, in contrast, were seized with a much stronger religious-style fervor. A millennial hope, indeed!

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  9. Eric,

    I think humanists share a particular attitude with a class of theists one may call “spiritual” or “non-dogmatic”, in that both seriously consider their own human condition. A fact of the human condition is that we experience a consistent attraction to goodness, and experience it as something precious. Theists interpret this as the pull of God’s love, for love wishes the good. Humanists (which term I understand implies that one is not a theist) interpret that attraction as a brute fact of the human nature, for which some kind of naturalistic explanation must exist. One way or the other, both groups of people take that attraction at face value and try to orient their lives according to it. The more seriously a person from either group takes that internal experience the more probably, I think, will they abstain from using violence.

    Having said that, I must say I have a problem with the idea of facing entrenched injustices and powerful opposition, or of fighting for what is good and for how society should be – even when one only uses good means. I mean I sometimes think that we should not fight for what is good. I know this must be an unpopular idea, but here are my reasons for it:

    1. Doing good is its own end; so in a fundamental way it’s incoherent to consider doing good as a means, even if it is a means for achieving something altogether valuable, such as social justice.

    2. The literal interpretation of Jesus’s moral teaching in the Gospels about this issue is a radical message not only of non-violence, but also of non-resistance. If somebody wants your shirt, give him your coat too. Jesus’s life according to the Gospels is, it seems to me, consistent with that teaching.

    3. Non-resistance to evil is, it seems to me, the natural response of somebody who is really aware of God’s presence. If a poor person who can hardly make ends meet were to learn that he would receive an inheritance of a billion dollars tomorrow, he would almost certainly not resist somebody trying to steal his modest shirt, and would probably offer him his coat also.

    4. The following reason is rather unconventional and one I can hardly justify, but I suspect that the world is created in such a way that if people would stop resisting evil then the world would quickly become a better place, much better than if people resisted evil even if only by good means. And what goes for the many also goes for one.

    5. We are made in such a way that the power of our freedom extends only to our fingertips. Thus we are responsible for the goodness of ourselves only. Let me turn this around: Who, among those who fight for justice, is not in his own life unjust to others? But if one is unjust to others, one should first fix oneself, before judging and pretending to fix others. If God Him/Herself does not judge or pretend to fix others, perhaps we shouldn't either.

    A final clarification: Not resisting evil does not of course mean abstaining from doing good; rather it means doing good as if no evil existed.

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  10. Burk,

    I should clarify that King's trust in a transcendent benevolence was a trust that such a benevolence would help to "close the gap" between our limited moral capacities/moral awareness and what is required to move us closer to what King called "the beloved community." That is, he did not conceive of this transcendent benevolence as a surrogate or alternative to human effort, but as operating *through* human effort to achieve what human effort could not achieve in its absence. Now this obviously raises numerous questions and challenges that cannot be adequately addressed apart from a more thorough treatment of King's theology--especially as it relates to the problem of evil. But it should be clear that there is a difference between trusting that there is that which will close the distance between where my unaided efforts can take me and where I ought to go, and trusting that there is that which will set things right if I just go home and make soup.

    Dianelos,

    It is interesting to consider how the view you sketch out here differs from King's view (at least as I interpret it above). It may be that much of the difference (but not all) lies not in the substance of what is advocated but in how it is expressed--especially given your final comment that nonresistance to evil is not to be equated with refraining from doing good. Nonviolence is in part defined as a willingness to let go of control of outcomes in situations of conflict--to allow outcomes to unfold through the uncoerced participation of diverse parties, where one participates by acting in loving ways towards those parties and by inviting them to respond in kind. But part of what it means to act in loving ways involves, for King (and, it seems, for Jesus as represented in the Gospels), saying NO to that which is shattering the life of the neighbor or crushing their dignity. That is, protesting evil (which may or may not be classified as a form of resistance) is part of what it means to be good.

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  11. Eric,

    Moral evil is an unstable thing, because it is not based on God’s nature. Evil’s existence then is in some way parasitic and depends on us upholding it in existence.

    Now you speak of protesting evil, presumably the evil one sees in what other people do. But if one *sees* that evil, then one is infected by it, and thus gives it more life. The picture I am trying to convey is that just by perceiving the evil in other people one makes it grow.

    In the Gospels Jesus behaves the same towards the just and the unjust. I don’t think that this was the result of Jesus actively applying some moral principle, but of Jesus literally not perceiving the evil in those we judge to be evil. Which comports well with the idea that when one is close to God doing good becomes the natural and easy thing. So when one is close to God and thus Christ-like, it is easy and natural to love one’s enemies, because one does not perceive them as enemies in the first place. But one can only protest against or resist, even if non-violently, those one perceives as enemies.

    A related thought: To perceive somebody doing evil is akin to perceiving one smelling bad; it’s an ugly experience and one which does not inspire one to love. Presumably God’s life, given that God is perfect, does not contain any ugly experiences and is one where love is fully inspired. Thus, it would seem, God does not perceive the evil in people, in the smelly and repelling way we do. Well then, if we are meant to become as perfect as God in heaven is then the good way to go is one in which we perceive less and less other peoples’ evil as something disgusting and repellent. And this way does not comport with protesting evil.

    Further, it seems to me, Jesus did not move one finger to right the social wrongs of his time, which were plenty. (Here I disagree with the idea that we find Jesus in the Gospels saying NO - I wonder how you’d justify that.) Rather, I think, Jesus was a social liberator of a radically different kind, a truly “utterly unrealistic” kind, namely that of not only non-violence but also of non-resistance. Perhaps the message here is that the most efficient way to right social injustice is by not raising even a finger against it, but in living in a way in which social injustice is not longer sustained. For the great injustice of the few needs the sustenance of the small injustice of the many.

    I am aware that the idea that one should not resist evil appears at first to be hopelessly impractical and even absurd. Did we do wrong to resist Hitler’s plans by war, the only way that as it turned out was possible? Shouldn’t the early Americans have resisted British domination? Shouldn’t workers organize themselves to fight against exploitation? If we see somebody about to physically abuse a child, shouldn’t we intervene, at least non-violently? These are not easy questions, and perhaps it takes a lot of faith in God and in God’s providence to accept that non-resistance to evil is a good thing. And I know that we especially admire those who did protest social evils and managed to do something about them while abstaining from violence, people like King or Ghandi. But I think other people who instead of fighting against the social evils of society more or less ignored them and simply went out and only did good, such as Jesus or St. Francis or Schweitzer or Mother Teresa – are much more admirable still. And perhaps the social impact of the people in the latter group, even if not always obvious, has been much greater than that of people in the former group.

    What I guess I am saying is that one fixes the world by fixing oneself.

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  12. Dianelos

    You write "If we see somebody about to physically abuse a child, shouldn’t we intervene, at least non-violently?" and suggest this is not an easy question. I find this deeply unnerving, an example of just how easily theology can turn rotten.

    Our greatest collective achievement has been the protection of children. I think it was in Sweden recently that in a calendar year not a single seven year old died. That, in times past, was unimaginable. But we did it. We beat child mortality. We did it through vaccines, through violence intervention programmes, through education, through poverty reduction, through road safety campaigns and scientific advances. We did it not by ignoring evil, but by actively acknowledging and managing potential for harm. By intervening.

    There is such a long way to go, but if we are able to ignore your call for passivity in the face of rightable wrongs, we can bring security and dignity to millions more.

    Bernard

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  13. Hi Bernard,

    I chose that particular question (i.e. whether to intervene to stop the physical abuse of a child) as an example of an indeed difficult question for the ethical theory of non-resistance to evil, precisely because it appears so obvious what one should do in that case.

    So here is another difficult question to ponder: Suppose your child is kidnapped and money is demanded of you otherwise the child will be killed. If you don’t pay then the child (actually your child) will lose its life – so it would seem obvious that the right thing to do is to pay and save the child. On the other hand if you do pay then you help uphold the kidnapping business that puts many children in harm’s way. – That example is relevant to our discussion because according to the non-resistance theory by resisting one evil one helps perpetuate the vast evil that dominates our world.

    You’re welcome to argue why you think the non-resistance theory is wrong, but I’d invite you not to resort to rhetoric, such as about how easily theology can turn rotten, or about the security and dignity of millions - for it’ not serious. (I hope you have not been taken in by the popular atheistic books that beat the drum about how ethically dangerous religion is.) And observe how emotional arguments about the security and dignity of millions have been used by those who have engineered the worse crimes against humanity the world has ever seen, and almost without exception by those about to start a war. Ethics is hard enough as it is; I think it’s best to leave emotionalism out of it.

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  14. Dianelos

    The question you pose is not ethically difficult, it is pragmatically difficult. The difference is, I think, extremely important. It is ethically correct to attempt to minimise the harm caused by the kidnapping of children. This is not an ethically difficult question at all. The pragmatically difficult question, grappled with by law enforcement agencies across the globe, is how best to minimise this harm, and you are right to identify the problem of making payment within this context.

    Apologies if you thought my response emotional, rhetorical or in some sense non serious, although to be fair, you'd already played the Mother Teresa card so glass houses and all that.

    Bernard

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  15. Dianelos

    It may be I've misunderstood your notion of non-resistance. Let me make use of a specific example (and sorry, it does involve saving countless lives, as does your kidnapping example, and really any example if we crank it up sufficiently).

    Let's say we have a vaccine for polio and the world has a serious chance of ridding the world of the disease. And let's say further that there's a particular national leader intent on spreading disinformation about the dangers of the vaccine, making use of conspiracy theories and geopolitical faultlines to further his own personal goals. Let's say this allows a reservoir of the disease to remain, seriously undermining the vaccination programme.

    Now, my instinctive response is to want to say, let's see if we can't undermine the propaganda, perhaps utilising the internet for example). One needs to be extremely wary of pragmatic dangers of course, clumsily inflaming the very anti-western sentiment he's exploiting for example. But that's a given surely. So, are you arguing:
    a. We shouldn't go down this path in principle, because opposing negative forces is just wrong.
    b. We shouldn't go down this path because it's very hard to keep control of all the consequences, and very often our good intentioned interventions make things worse, so it's too risky.

    b. is a pragmatic approach, that allows us to consider opposing negative forces when there is a sufficiently strong chance of making things better.
    a. however is fundamentally ideological and, I would argue, extremely dangerous. I base this on the very many instances of interventions making the world a seriously better place, and this is why I used the example of children earlier. It's not to be emotive, it's an attempt to show that our actions in the world can change it for the better, and very often this takes very brave people prepared to stand up and be counted (isn't feminism the very obvious modern example of wildly successful active resistance?)

    Bernard

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  16. Bernard,

    I am leaving for a trip and I won’t be having much time for philosophy the next couple of weeks, but I’d like to quickly make the following observation:

    A very common ethical idea is that what counts are the consequences; if the consequences are good then the action is good also. That idea, called “consequentialism”, turns out to be very problematic, but that’s not the point I wish to make here. The point I wish to make is that one is used to consider the current state of affairs as a given, and then to think about the effect of one’s actions. But, obviously, the current state of affairs is not a given, but is to a large degree the consequence of *our* past actions.

    The way I see it the theory of non-resistance to evil says that while we resist evil there will always be current evil states of affairs to deal with. Or, in other words, that the evil current states of affairs we now must ethically deal with are to a large degree the consequence of a culture of resisting evil in the past. Indeed, if you consider history you will see that from the point of view of the people who engineered some really heinous acts their purpose really was to resist some great evil they saw. If everybody were to only care about oneself and the evil one commits as an individual then, surely, the world would be a much better place. For example, there wouldn’t be any poverty, or exploitation of others, or wars, or environmental degradation, or overpopulation, etc.

    Now you mention the example of the national leader who knowingly spreads misinformation about the vaccine. This example shows how absurd it would be to not resist such a leader and perhaps save the life of millions. But I think it is not really an effective example, for the non-resistance theory does not claim that by not resisting one particular wrong it will be righted (even though this sometimes happens too). Rather it says that had we abstained from resisting evil in the past, that current wrong would not have obtained in the first place. In relation to your example it says that in a world of non-resistance this kind of leader would not exist. Indeed that there wouldn’t exist the kind of leadership structures where one person acting for his own personal goals may cause so much damage. Indeed, as you notice in your own example, that political leader will most probably justify his actions as “resistance to evil” – the evil being a geopolitical conspiracy, the West’s ongoing colonialist practices, and whatnot. (Incidentally that leader may actually believe that this evil exists and that he only tries to defend his people against it. And when facing the resistance you suggest, his preconceptions will probably increase, as will the strength of his cause in his government.)

    The idea then is that while resistance to evil is accepted as a good thing, people will have the opportunity to perpetrate great evils. By refusing to resist evil one paradoxically denies people the means to perpetrate great evils. Please observe that really great evils rely on the cooperation of the many, and that cooperation is almost always justified on the idea of resisting some external evil. A trivial example would be how the current popular New Atheist movement makes use of the idea that people must get organized (presumably under New Atheist leadership) to resist the terrible evils of religion.

    I personally find the idea of non-resistance very intriguing. My own position is that that ethics is a live and creative truth (for it is based on the nature of God and is moved by love) and thus that there is no generally applicable ethical rules anyway. On the other hand I believe that going towards non-resistance would be a very good thing. I wish I had the strength to do so in my own life.

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  17. Hi Bernard, Dianelos,

    This is a very interesting discussion. If I understand Dianelos correctly he is not arguing out of ideology but rather like this: we should not oppose evil now because, in the long run, we will end up better off. But this is, I think, a very dangerous approach. Many evils have been endured for the sake of an illusory better future or for abstract ideals.

    Shouldn't we simply fight the evils of our time to the best of our capacities? Of course, we must try to foresee the negative consequences of our actions but sitting idly while others suffer, in the name of some future promise land that may never come, comes with a terrible price.

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  18. Hi JP and Dianelos

    I agree with you on this JP. I think history is full of great examples of active resistance, to ignorance, prejudice and violence, having superb results. I've already mentioned feminism, in NZ we're very proud of the role we played in establishing welfare models that reduced poverty, another brave and mighty struggle (we've since gone backwards). You do appear to be arguing Dianelos that we should just give in when vaccination gets too hard (it's pretty much a real example) and I do stand by my claim that this is an example of theology going wrong, in essence getting in the way of humanity. This doesn't argue theology is always unhelpful, but in this case I would, well, resist.

    Bernard

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  19. This is a very interesting discussion but maybe for reasons that seem to be flying under the radar. I find it interesting that the naturalists/agnostics/atheists assume ideas or qualities such as the “good” the “just” and that “evil” is real. And yet, how is this possible in a cold, uncaring, and amoral neutral universe? If these are only imagined and psychological descriptions of states of affairs, then the exact opposite could be “correct” or “right” if we imagined such and believed them to be true, in other words that slavery was “good” and child abuse “normal.” I don’t think any difference can be passed off as simple “pragmatism” or with “well, would you like to be a slave?” When the world believed slavery to be the “natural” way of things, even slaves felt as if this was just “true” or “normal.” In other words, are we okay with a world where if the majority did believe slavery to be “good” then it would truly be “good” if that was what most people believed and imagined psychologically? It is very easy after 2000 years of the Judeo-Christian influence regarding ethics and morality for one to just assume these stances to be “good” “normal” or “just.”

    I see Bernard, Burk, and JP assuming what their philosophical world-view cannot produce or even account for, since even evolution has to start with something, some inherent thing and yet we are told that the natural was/is (which includes humans), from the beginning, amoral and absolutely neutral as to morality or ethics.

    I’m reminded of the motivational speaker who claimed he could turn anyone into a billionaire. His listeners were a little dismayed when he started the presentation with, “Okay, here is what you do, first, you need a million dollars, and then…”

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  20. Hi Darrell,

    I have seen this argument many times and I was actually surprised that it had not come up sooner.

    What you are saying, in effect, is that one cannot have or express moral values without a supporting philosophical doctrine. But this requirement is simply impossible to realize, for theists and atheists alike. The most such a doctrine can achieve is organize coherently moral principles in some kind of theory based on a number of primitive (self-evident?) principles. But these principles cannot appear out of thin air; they cannot be proven in any way. Some will rely on their intuition, others on our “moral sense” - it doesn't matter what. The inescapable fact is that the starting point of any theory can only be assumed, or “axiomatic” if you wish. Invoking God does not change the picture because one then has to assume what attributes God must possess in order to produce the desired results.

    I find the idea that to oppose slavery or the torture of children one must rely on a philosophical doctrine totally contrary to my experience. The desire or drive to fight these evils come first and is quite enough it itself to lead one to action.

    One needs only basic human decency to oppose these things. What you need theory for is to defend slavery and the other things. It is certainly true that people have been driven to do the most horrible actions by their beliefs in some theory or another.

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  21. JP,

    “What you are saying, in effect, is that one cannot have or express moral values without a supporting philosophical doctrine.”

    Not at all. One can have and express whatever morality or values he chooses. But everyone does so out of some philosophical worldview whether stated or unstated, whether it thought through or simply caught as it were from family or culture. It comes from somewhere.

    Most thoughtful people have reasons for why they think something to be “good” or “bad.”

    What is interesting is to hear the naturalist say that the universe is cold, uncaring, and amoral…but, that somehow, we should fight, be passionate, and care about something called “justice” and the “good.” Really? You mean right after the naturalist just told us that no such ideas or qualities could have arisen in this universe.

    In my mind we have self-defeating notions at work here.

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  22. Hi Darrell

    Nice to hear from you again. This may take us back to familiar contested ground, but it's an interesting question you ask, and I'd like to have a go at responding.

    My view of morality is fairly naturalistic, so let me explain what that means for me and you can say if you find this self defeating.

    I believe morality is personal and therefore relative. In very many cases we find our moral compasses are pulling in the same direction, which would surprise no biologist, we share some fundamental behavioural hardware. It is also more likely that those of similar cultures/backgrounds/traditions will have closely calibrated senses of right and wrong.

    Your question, which is interesting, is what happens if something we find reprehensible is widely accepted by another group and they seem happy enough with it? Is it okay for us to label it wrong? (I think the example you gave was slavery. I'm not aware of any deeply happy slave groups in history but let's not say it's impossible).

    Well, I suppose the simple answer is that it's wrong for me but might well be right for them, and if they are genuinely happy, then probably I should butt out. That seems reasonable to me. History is full of absolute messes created when one group sought to impose its values on another.

    This does not make one's personal morality an entirely private issue however. We live in communities and must somehow craft not just a personal but also a social ethical framework. What's more, my own morality is an ever evolving thing. As I learn more, hear more and experience more, my views change, and so it is valid to enter into discussions with others on matters of morality.

    Often the moral compass shifts through a mighty act of imagination. Once it just seemed so obvious that women would not hold positions of public power that nobody thought to ask why. Once the question was asked, an incredibly diverse range of societies began to move, each in their own way, towards a new morality in this area.

    Also, most societies most of the time aren't as happy as they'd like to be. They're riven with violence and anger and destruction that everybody agrees they'd like to be rid of. So here relativistic ethics still leads to a very public enterprise, the search for a pragmatic solution to shared problems.

    And finally, given what appears to be an innate capacity of empathy (and for the naturalistically inclined, evolution is a good place to search for how this may have come about) there are some moral axioms which we can employ with only scant danger of contradiction, as JP notes. We are repelled when children are needlessly harmed, and hence that seemed a safe example to use in an earlier comment.

    So, for me, morality is entirely relative, and yet the personal ethical quest is deeply tied to the wider social experience. Hence it is easy for a naturalist to involve themselves in debates on matters of morality, despite many, like me, being distrustful of moral absolutes.

    I suspect you have another objection however, related to what it even means for a naturalist to say they hold a personal belief, but on this you may surprise me.

    Bernard

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  23. JP,

    Allow me to clarify. I should have said I think every person is free to espouse whatever view he may have as to morality and ethics, regardless of why he/she thinks that way.

    However, I indeed do believe that every view of the “good” or what is “evil” stems from a deeper worldview whether the person has thought deeply about such things or if it was just “caught” from family, education, or culture. I think if we were to ask 20 people (here in the West anyway) on the street why they thought murder or slavery to be wrong, most would give a religious or some other justification that implied they thought such to be true for reasons outside their personal preference or “feelings” about it. I don’t believe in a tabula rasa, the person as blank slate.

    Even if someone were to say, “well, I just feel that way and have no reason,” I’m sure if we were to dig deeper into the person’s background we would find a religious, or an educational, or family, or a culturally grounded background that made the person’s “just feeling that way” make a lot more sense.

    Again, it is easy for one to think it is just “basic human decency” after 2000 years of Judeo-Christian influence. One only need look at history to realize that it is hard to see this thing called “basic human decency” and to believe such one must have some objective standard in mind. Where does that come from? Where is this standard for what is “basic?”

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  24. Bernard,

    I didn’t say any slave groups were happy; I said many just believed it was the natural order of things and their unfortunate station in life. And, if the majority felt that way and was happy—it appears your inclination would be to “butt out” as it is none of your business.

    I think most atheists/naturalists are good and moral people and extend the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. However, historically, there simply isn’t a tradition of atheists building hospitals, running orphanages, soup kitchens, or moving public opinion the way a Martin Luther King or a William Wilberforce did to change, not only laws, but minds. The one time historically when they were in charge and had influence, as with Mao’s China and the Soviet Union, let’s just say things didn’t turn out so well. If one believes the universe to be amoral, and nature amoral (which again means humans too), it really does not provide the best framework for moving people toward the “good” or the “just” because it is hard to even justify those ideas as having any weight or being anything beyond a simple preference such as, “I like the color red.”

    I think you still have a problem. You want morality to be relativistic, except when you don’t. You agree that the universe and nature is amoral and empty but you want some things to be “just” and “good.”

    Here is the problem the naturalist faces: He must live and act in the area of free-will (traditional sense) and in the area of morality and ethics, as if his worldview were not true.

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  25. Hi Darrell

    No, for me if there is genuine unhappiness within group then I have no inclination to butt out if I feel my contribution could alleviate their pain. The situation is then wrong for me and wrong for them too. And so we can both agree slavery is bad, you for reasons of overarching morality, me because it is where my empathy takes me. It's no more complicated than that.

    There is no contradiction between an amoral universe and a moral being within it, if we think of morality being a cultural invention, as you appear to do with all your talk of world views. Morality exists because people exist, and people are cultural machines and social creatures. And people exist as cultural/social creatures because of our evolutionary history.

    The idea that people whose cultural influences are non-theistic are less capable of acting positively within the world is a brave one, and history being the one-off uncontrolled experiment it is, attempts to establish this are as fraught as the attempts of some atheists to show that religious influence is always negative. It just gets silly so quickly.

    There have certainly been some wonderfully positive social movements that have not, at heart, been religiously driven. Feminism and activism on behalf of homosexuals stand out as good examples. Equally you are quite right to identify some superb social contributions made by committed believers. That we are all capable of making this world a better place is, it seems to me, a fact worth celebrating.

    Bernard

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  26. Bernard,

    “There is no contradiction between an amoral universe and a moral being within it, if we think of morality being a cultural invention, as you appear to do with all your talk of world views. Morality exists because people exist, and people are cultural machines and social creatures. And people exist as cultural/social creatures because of our evolutionary history.”

    Well, I disagree. You would not believe in God if I put it the same way. You would think, “Well, I can see how that is possible—how that belief could have arisen, but it doesn’t mean God really exists.”

    In other words, let’s re-word this: “If we think of god or religion being a cultural invention…then god/religion exists because people exist…”

    The problem is that no one would really take this seriously as an argument that one truly believed there was a god, and neither should they if morality and ethics were thought about in the same way. In other words, with such a view one is saying “good” and “evil” do not really exist—they are imagined inventions. The fact is that there, indeed, is a great contradiction between the two beliefs (amoral universe somehow equals moral people), which is also clear from the considered conversations this has caused in western philosophy for centuries now.

    By the way, I do not mean that world-views are “cultural inventions” in the sense you are speaking. World-views are normally meant to convey the sense of what a person truly and deeply believes about themselves and the universe, regardless often of what the greater culture around them believes.

    In other words, your naturalism is your world-view.

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  27. Darrell

    There is a danger, if we are not very careful with our definitions, of falling into yet another of these cases where opposition is built only upon how we are using words.

    Yes, I think morality just is an invention. It is an invention that has tremendous utility to me, in the way that the telephone is an invention that I find most useful. So, I am most certainly not claiming that there is some thing called goodness or evil that exists independently of the human mind's use of these terms to organise and process information (any more than I believe in some platonic telephone). If I were making such a case, your argument against it would be quite correct.

    One place I think theists and non-theists disagree is how useful concepts can be if they are not thought to reflect some greater truth about the universe. As an agnostic I would have to say I still find such concepts tremendously helpful.

    While dealing with definitions, by culture I mean purely the intellectual context within which one lives, which includes one's own contributions and contemplations. It is in this sense that I claim my beliefs are a cultural and biological invention; that is they can be explained entirely within this context, with no need to claim the existence of any overarching truths.

    One piece of evidence I use in favour of this, is the remarkable range of moralities one can find within reasonably narrowly defined religious traditions. So, within Christianity for example, almost every moral position appears to be fiercely contested by somebody. So, if there is a greater religious truth, religion doesn't appear to be a particularly efficient means of finding it.

    Bernard

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  28. Hi Darrell,

    Bernard has very clearly explained his position and, as I find myself essentially in agreement, I will not repeat what he has said so well. Let me just comment on a couple of points.

    I take morality to be an entirely natural phenomenon, deeply anchored in our biology. In this view, there is some mechanism in our nervous system, a subsystem of sort, responsible for our most basic moral judgments. This we may share, to various degrees, with other species – the apes maybe. I suppose this moral “sense” originated long ago for reasons related to social life. Some moral rules may find their origins deep in our past (taking care of children?) while others are somehow “imprinted” on us by our culture and may vary widely.

    Over time, as society changes, so will moral rules – in some form of “cultural evolution” I suppose. In a different context, old rules may no longer play their role in social life and must be replaced.

    All this does not mean that we don't feel deeply about these rules. They no doubt affect us as strongly as anything – and feel “intuitively” right. This, even if they could have been different. I find also that basic moral judgments occur with an immediacy that I don't recognize in philosophical discourse.

    Now, you will no doubt disagree will all this and this is fine – I may be completely wrong, of course. However, I don't think there is any contradiction between the above and taking moral stands in practical situations. And, as Bernard points out, there is no contradiction either between an amoral universe and the evolution of moral animals. In this view, morality is just one more behaviour pattern (albeit very complex).

    jp

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  29. Bernard,

    “Yes, I think morality just is an invention. It is an invention that has tremendous utility to me, in the way that the telephone is an invention that I find most useful.”

    To read the above, all sorts of warning bells go off in my mind. It is exactly this view of morality that led to some of the atrocities of the 20th Century. When morality is viewed as something “useful” as opposed to something “true” “right” and “good,” in my view something is lost. I think morality must be thought about like love, in that it doesn’t always make sense, it is not always useful, and sometimes costs us something. The true, the good, and the beautiful exist in and for themselves—they have no use whatsoever except we are lost without them.

    The “useful” “pragmatic” view of morality, in my mind, is the same view that makes torture possible as a matter of public policy.

    Plus, you are still saying that there is no true “good” or “evil” but I still will live and act as if such ideas or qualities were real or true in a binding way. A person who believed in the exact opposite, as far as what was “good” or “evil” could probably rationalize and come up with his own useful and pragmatic reasons—just look at the arguments for and against slavery back in the early centuries as far as England and America.

    “One piece of evidence I use in favour of this, is the remarkable range of moralities one can find within reasonably narrowly defined religious traditions.”

    Perhaps you don’t understand how far I’m going with my critique. It is one thing to have people who actually believe morality to be objective and existing beyond simple preference to disagree over this or that point, it is entirely something else when one doesn’t really believe such qualities or ideas exist in the same way objective way in the first place.

    I repeat my earlier assertion: A naturalist must live and act as if his world-view were not true in two of the most important aspects of what it means to be human: free-will and morality. In my view, there could be no greater weakness to a world-view.

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  30. Darrell

    I'll leave aside the argument that this view of morality is in some way socially dangerous. I think it's too easy for either side of such an argument to manipulate historical events to suit their cause. I can only speak in terms of my own life, and I don't find those who believe, like I do, that morality is a human invention, to be in imminent danger of lurching to the dark side. Indeed I count a number of gentle, intelligent and generous people of this persuasion amongst my friends.

    Now, the two last assertions are more interesting, and I'm happy to linger on them. I'm not a naturalist as such but nevertheless let me defend against the morality and free will assertions. As I hope I've shown, one does not have to live as if moral values are absolute, one can live a perfectly adequate life acting as if one's own morality is a cobbled together, muddling response to an ever changing world. It's entirely possible to follow one's own moral code without believing it holds in any absolute sense, just as it is entirely possible to make use of language without believing language is anything more than a cultural and biological invention.

    Now, in terms of free will, as you'll see in the discussion on a previous post, I don't think either naturalists or theists are able to defend the notion of free will, so we're all forced to live as if we're free, while admitting, if we're honest, that the very notion of free will is flawed. I've invited Dianelos to show how this might be otherwise, and of course extend the same invitation to you. How does it make sense for a free agent to make decisions that are not bound by the determining factors of history, taste, values, expectations, understanding etc, without that agency disintegrating into randomness?

    I've never seen anyone answer this satisfactorily. But I'd love to see a solution. It would quite literally change my world view.

    Bernard

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  31. Hi, Darrell-

    "I repeat my earlier assertion: A naturalist must live and act as if his world-view were not true in two of the most important aspects of what it means to be human: free-will and morality. In my view, there could be no greater weakness to a world-view. "

    At risk of doing no good whatsoever, let me take a shot. The naturalist lives and acts in the knowledge that he or she is part of the natural world, subject to all its causes and vicissitudes. He or she (let's just say he for convenience) is introspective enough to know that whatever the causes of his own behavior and thoughts, he can't know them all and thus is treated to the experience of spontaneous and "free" thoughts arising within himself.

    Likewise, he also is introspective enough to know that he has various moral intuitions- that killing is bad, tranquil domestic relations are good, and fairness is important in trade and politics. He realizes that from these basic and individual moral preferences, among many, humans have forged societies by mutual negotation- coming to terms between the desires of men and women, between large numbers of people in larger groups, etc. It is all a very natural process of expressing our inner desires and aims.

    There is no apparatus of transcendence required to achieve all this, nor are deities, sprites, or goblins required either. These may serve as artistic tokens and metaphors of our complex inner desires and resources, but not being real, they certainly don't cause them.

    Nor is there any conceit required of "true" morals, or "objective" morals. If we can mutally agree on wisdom, that is quite enough. Indeed, the minute someone tells you that he knows the "truth" of what all others are supposed to do, that is the moment one has met a charlatan, or worse- someone angling for power, not truth.

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  32. Bernard,

    “As I hope I've shown, one does not have to live as if moral values are absolute, one can live a perfectly adequate life acting as if one's own morality is a cobbled together, muddling response to an ever changing world. It's entirely possible to follow one's own moral code without believing it holds in any absolute sense, just as it is entirely possible to make use of language without believing language is anything more than a cultural and biological invention.”

    No one believes differently, or at least I don’t. But it also has nothing to do with my criticism. One can believe anything he wants, but it doesn't make it logical or reasonable given the premises.

    I will have to leave aside the question about free-will for now and maybe pick it up in another post.

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  33. Oh- I forgot to mention that the naturalist also recognizes that he is responsive to various influences- the social mores and laws of his culture, as well as his own rational conclusions and most sensitive feelings. He can learn and direct his behavior in accordance with that learning, and thus becomes responsible in a moral and operative sense.

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  34. Hi Darrell

    Oh well, you've lost me a little. I took your initial criticism to be that the naturalist must act as if there really is an absolute moral code, but now you appear to be agreeing that it's perfectly possible to live as if this is not true.

    That being the case, it's difficult for me to see what aspect of the naturalist stance on morality you find inherently unreasonable.

    Bernard

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  35. Burk,

    “…Likewise, he also is introspective enough to know that he has various moral intuitions…”

    No, you call them “moral” but why not call them “preferences?” You call them “moral” because you are going through an algorithm in your mind that has some standard for what “moral” means. But, according to your world-view, there really is no such standard, idea or quality called “moral” there is only matter-in-motion running on a pre-determined course set by an amoral, neutral, and meaningless universe. That is what we are pre-programmed with. Again, we are told we can be billionaires---we just need a million to start with.

    “…humans have forged societies by mutual negotation- coming to terms between the desires of men and women, between large numbers of people in larger groups, etc. It is all a very natural process of expressing our inner desires and aims.”

    Yours is a completely anachronistic reading of history. Yes, humans and civilizations have done this, but all have done it with transcendental narratives or religions, which grounded their ethics and morality. Even modern secular states, as in the West, are still living off centuries of Judeo-Christian influence regardless their current stance.

    “…There is no apparatus of transcendence required to achieve all this…”

    Except for the historical record that overwhelmingly indicates otherwise and except for the fact you have no significant example of a naturalist or atheistic civilization that without the influence of a transcendental narrative, like Christianity, began on its own and produced something like Western Civilization.

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  36. Darrell-

    That is very interesting. Can you draw a line between morals and preferences?

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  37. Bernard,

    I simply believe the naturalist is acting out the fact that we are moral beings. But I believe this because I think humans and the universe bear the marks of being set in motion and founded by a moral God, the Trinitarian God of Judeo-Christianity.

    So, when the naturalist or atheist says he is acting morally even though he says he doesn’t believe morality to be anything more than an invented convention, I think she is acting out of something deeper. So of course it is possible to live morally without believing morality to be objective and absolute, but it’s also not very logical or reasonable in my mind. But people live and breathe all the time without thinking such things through.

    I believe you have thought it through, you are sincere, and truly believe your assertions; I just think you are wrong, as you also believe I am wrong. You think I am acting out of a belief in a god who probably doesn’t exist, while it is really evolution that has programmed me to be moral; and I believe you have the capacity to be moral because of that God who exists, but you believe evolution has provided this capacity. Clearly, we would both still expect the other to have this capacity, even if for different reasons.

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  38. Darrell

    Perhaps a difference is that I don't think the theist position is necessarily unreasonable. One thing that appeals to me about agnosticism is it doesn't require I consider other views less true than my own. I can just get on with the interesting business of following through the implications of a philosophy that makes pretty good sense to me.

    The same sort of acceptance can be reached from theism if one's position is fallibilist but that, I suspect, runs into some of the same problems as the non-theistic position for you.

    This suggestion that historically people have believed in transcendent truths and used this to ground their morality is interesting. I'm not sufficiently versed in anthropology to know how universal this is. Nevertheless, it may be true without implying the second thing you observe; that morality therefore needs this transcendental grounding. If there is a strong biological grounding, or if non-theistic stories/cultures can do as good a job of creating and reinforcing social norms, then this may not be the case.

    So, it's also likely that many societies also based their agricultural beliefs and behaviours on a religious superstructure, see the various rituals and celebrations associated with planting around the globe for instance. It is not true, however, that successful agricultural systems require a belief in or understanding of the transcendent. It is at least possible that morality is similar.

    I do often look with admiration at the great progressive social movements of the last century, things like feminism, the advancement of indigenous rights, the social inclusion of homosexuals, the rise of the modern welfare state, the environmental movement, and I'm not sure it's easy to argue that religious belief has driven what I see as moral advances.

    Bernard

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  39. Burk,

    No, I can’t draw a line between moral and preferences because I believe morals to be more than simple preferences. A preference is a subjective personal like or dislike. A moral truth, in the way understood by most people and cultures over time, is something objective and true regardless of how one personally feels about it. They are entirely different ideas.

    However, since you believe morals to be more like preferences, it is up to you to tell us why or how they are different—or not. Where are you getting this standard called “moral” that you are able to judge such things with?

    Also, from an earlier response, when you write:

    “Indeed, the minute someone tells you that he knows the "truth" of what all others are supposed to do, that is the moment one has met a charlatan, or worse- someone angling for power, not truth.”

    Can you tell us from what vantage spot, from what “truth” position you are able to tell us this from? Don’t look now, but you may have just violated your assertion. You are, after all, telling us what we should think and presumably do in this area, right? You are telling us the "truth." Correct?

    Is this a preference or a moral truth you are conveying to us?

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  40. Darrell-

    It sounds like you actually of agree with me.. that morals and preferences are different strengths of the same thing along a spectrum, not being able to define them separately. For my part, I might say in a humorous vein that the only difference is that morals are preferences one has on behalf of others than oneself.

    At best, one might say that preferences held on matters people deem personally important tend to be called morals. Especially preferences that go against individual interest and for group interest, and which take some maturity, wisdom, and experience to internalize as preferences.

    So if you wouldn't mind actually explaining your own position and showing that there is a difference by way of something other than assertion and appeals to what "everyone" believes, we could progress the discussion, so to speak.

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  41. Burk,

    I thought I did explain: A preference is a personal subjective like or dislike, such as I prefer Fords to Chevrolets. A moral truth is something like murder is “wrong,” whether or not I personally subjectively think otherwise.

    Most people and most cultures have understood that a moral law or truth was something that held whether or not a majority thought otherwise or even if the community or state law were changed to note something differently. In other words most people would not believe murder to be right, even if the state all of a sudden changed the law to make murder legal. However, no one thinks of preferences in the same way.

    Or if you know of an example where this difference doesn’t hold, please share it.

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  42. Bernard,

    “I do often look with admiration at the great progressive social movements of the last century, things like feminism, the advancement of indigenous rights, the social inclusion of homosexuals, the rise of the modern welfare state, the environmental movement, and I'm not sure it's easy to argue that religious belief has driven what I see as moral advances.”

    Wow, that is quite a statement. I hope you would believe that the starting and building of hospitals, orphanages, schools, feeding the poor, helping end slavery, and raising the status of women and children wherever it has taken hold to also be moral advances. Christianity has also been a key factor in the expansion of women’s rights, indigenous rights, and without the influence of Judeo-Christianity there would be no modern welfare state. Even in the area of homosexual inclusion, this very blog reveals that there are many Christians and churches working toward a better understanding. So I would have to disagree with your over-all observation as to what has driven moral advances.

    To get back to the original point, it doesn’t make sense to me to posit an amoral, neutral, uncaring, pitiless universe, including what would make up the ingredients of human life, atoms, molecules, cells, DNA, and such as the source or cause of a moral capacity in humans.

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  43. Hi Darrell,

    Maybe you can help me understand something.

    You have mentioned a few times how Christianity has been a key factor in many (if not most) social advances of the past. Now, I am no historian and I don't claim to be able to expertly evaluate this. However, as formulated, the claim is very imprecise and I wonder what exactly you mean by it.

    Consider an hypothetical social advance A. In its simplest interpretation the claim (C) may mean that A took place in a society in which the dominant religions were Christians. But this is far from proving causality – A may have occurred in opposition to religion.

    Or perhaps C means that A was made possible by values shared by a majority of persons in the given society. But, again, this does not show religion as a cause of A. There are many instances, I think, of values shared by a population in opposition to a Church.

    A stronger interpretation would that A was made possible by values taught by religious authorities that somehow trickled down to the population, so to speak.

    But the latter leaves open the question of what causes religious values to change. I think it is not controversial that values held by Christians have changed with time. There was a time I suppose when slavery was ok with the Church, as well as witch burning for example. And here we have two possibilities: either (1) social change forced values to change which in turn had an effect on Church teaching; or (2) change came from within the Church and was passed on to the population. If (1) then religion can hardly be said to be the major cause of change and if (2) the question becomes: what triggered it?

    Of course reality is much more complex than that and history is full of immensely complicated interplay of a large number of factors, with feedback loops going in all directions. But, in any case, these issues are, I think, interesting and important and, if you can, I'd like to see what you make of them.

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  44. Darrell-

    Maybe I could simplify this a little. Could you point to one instance where a moral and a preference disagree, for you? Not just that one part of you prefers X but another part prefers Y, but that you in all your wisdom prefer X, but morals say to do Y. Any instances of that?

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  45. Hi Darrell

    No, clearly I am not arguing Christianity is not capable of providing an engine for moral advancement. In its best form it can do exactly that, as can any number of philosophical and theological traditions.

    I do see that you have a problem equating an amoral universe with moral agency and that stems from your conviction that morality speaks of more than just an evolved set of understandings and preferences. While I see the appeal of that viewpoint, I can't quite make it work in my head. I'm sure you feel the same about mine.

    Bernard

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  46. JP,

    “…However, as formulated, the claim is very imprecise and I wonder what exactly you mean by it…

    I have to admit I’m a little dismayed that the historical record of Christianity’s contribution to the advancement of the good of society is so little known by those in this conversation. I suppose I could provide a bibliography of books if you wish—there are volumes and volumes—not even taking into consideration more recent works.

    Perhaps this link would help to start, let me know what you think of it:
    http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2009/01/10/christianity%E2%80%99s-positive-contributions-an-atheist-confession/

    Here is a quote:

    “Somewhat more recently has been the monumental work of Yale historian Kenneth Scott Latourette (1884-1968). He wrote extensively on the history and spread of Christianity around the world, and on its social impact. Perhaps the most important part of his work is his 12-volume history. The first seven volumes, A History of the Expansion of Christianity (1937-45) was a meticulous look at how the Christian faith spread. The set was followed up by a five-volume work, looking at recent Christian missions: Christianity In a Revolutionary Age; A History of Christianity in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (1958-1969).”

    “For those without the stomach – or time – to digest the 12 volumes, he also penned a two-volume history (A History of Christianity, 1953), and he also wrote a one-volume work, Christianity though the Ages(1965).
    Other specific studies were written as well. Latourrette was arguably our most prolific and exhaustive historian of Christianity. He makes it perfectly clear that Christianity has had a tremendous social, intellectual, political, cultural, educational and artistic impact wherever it was spread.”

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  47. Hi Burk,

    Excuse me for butting in, but it seems to me that there is an obvious difference between preference and morality, for they don’t even belong to the same conceptual category.

    Could you point to one instance where a moral and a preference disagree, for you? Not just that one part of you prefers X but another part prefers Y, but that you in all your wisdom prefer X, but morals say to do Y. Any instances of that?

    This strikes me as a trick question. For example I prefer to enjoy the surplus material goods I possess without giving them to others, including to those people who I know live in abject poverty - but to do so is a moral evil. Now I suppose you would say that there is a part of me which would prefer that I did the moral thing and give my surplus goods to those who really need them. This is true but in no way, shape, or manner evidences that morality is just a kind of preference. It only evidences that the human condition is such that all normal people at some level are attracted to morality, and thus that there is always a part of us that would prefer we did the moral thing. The relevant question then is this: What is that we are attracted to when we are attracted to morality? Theism gives a very plain and plausible answer to this question. I wonder what naturalistic answer would you give?

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  48. Burk,

    “Maybe I could simplify this a little. Could you point to one instance where a moral and a preference disagree, for you? Not just that one part of you prefers X but another part prefers Y, but that you in all your wisdom prefer X, but morals say to do Y. Any instances of that?”

    Are you kidding? Haven’t you just pointed to the universal human struggle? Don’t you think the prisons would be much fuller if many of us didn’t follow a moral truth over a preference? I might prefer taking the life of the burglar who breaks into my home and scares me to death, but perhaps a greater moral truth will take hold. I might prefer to cheat on my taxes and make up all sorts of rational reasons for my doing so, but perhaps a greater moral truth will prevail. I might prefer to cheat on my wife, but maybe a greater moral truth will dissuade me. I might prefer to hoard my resources and let my neighbor’s children go hungry, but maybe a greater moral truth will pull me differently. My goodness, the list could go on and on, but maybe I am the only one tempted by such things and the rest here are pristine—maybe everyone else in this conversation always prefers to do the right thing.

    Burk, do you believe that some things are wrong, regardless of whether a majority of people or the law says otherwise?

    Why or why not?

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  49. Darrell and Dianelos-

    Now we are getting somewhere! "For example I prefer to enjoy the surplus material goods I possess without giving them to others, including to those people who I know live in abject poverty - but to do so is a moral evil."

    This is a great example. I would counter that in truth, (and in practice), this is not a moral evil, since all our economic insight indicates that a society built on complete equality and self-abnegation will leave everyone poorer, not richer or happy. So while we struggle with exactly how charitable to be, giving everything away is open only to those with some alternate assurance of support (through begging, or being a monk, etc.). If such charity could lead to a better world, we would do it. But it really doesn't. Development literature is full of critiques of aid to poor countries being not just unproductive, but counter-productive, for instance.

    So while it is indeed an example of one's explicit morality differing from one's preferences, the explicit morality is in this instance something of an unrealistic and unpracticed fantasm, and seems a bit unworthy, like saying that my morality consists of motherhood, apple pie, and peace on earth. In reality, we are striving to make a good world- that is our ultimate preference AND morality.

    Conversely, to Darrell, I would counter that the universal human struggle is where preferences are conflicting among themselves, as you point out with your examples. Morality tends to focus on those preferences we hold for long-term and large-scale societal goods/preferences, in conflict with our short-term and selfish goods/preferences. Both are preferences, and we make our choices.

    And the question about criminals is the most acute one- don't they prefer to do exactly what they know to be morally wrong? I don't think so. I think that the actuality is that either they don't recognize moral rules as relevant to them or even existing, (psychopathy), or they are forced by circumstance into situations they know are wrong and bad, and also don't prefer. They have to juggle various goals, like making money, surviving, and obeying the law. Making a calculation that goes against the latter in the interest of other imperatives doesn't mean that you don't prefer a lawful society, or wouldn't be law-abiding if other pressing interests weren't in the way.

    How about white-collar crime, where greed wins routinely, and is often painted as respectable business practice? Here, the entire moral landscape has become degraded, to the point that practitioners routinely regard "greed as good". We see human's ability to brainwash themselves that preferences and morals coincide. Which goes to agree with my case again. Since whole schools of economics are devoted to the proposition that greed is good, we arrive again at the relativism of morality and its existence on the scale of preferences. An individual can have her individual morality and preferences- she doesn't have to share those of the culture, but that doesn't make either her or her culture "true" on the matter. One will just better when looked at in hindsight, perhaps, in light of future societal preferences.

    Psychologically speaking, we are dealing with the internalization the parent, or of societal values more generally. This is a lengthy process through childhood, where we suppress personal desires for the larger and longer-term desires, ending up (with any luck) by truly and internally preferring the social and long-term goods. While preferences certainly compete, (as do morals), they form a perfectly good language for discussing and encompassing morals as well.

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  50. Hi Burk,

    You write: “This is a great example. I would counter that in truth, (and in practice), this is not a moral evil, since all our economic insight indicates that a society built on complete equality and self-abnegation will leave everyone poorer, not richer or happy. So while we struggle with exactly how charitable to be, giving everything away is open only to those with some alternate assurance of support (through begging, or being a monk, etc.). If such charity could lead to a better world, we would do it. But it really doesn't. Development literature is full of critiques of aid to poor countries being not just unproductive, but counter-productive, for instance.

    I was not speaking of "complete equality", I was speaking of doing our bit to create a more just world, where fewer people live with less than our pets.

    And do you really think that "if such charity could lead to a better world, we would do it"? Do you really think we do anything that could lead to a better world, and doing that reflects our preferences? I mean forget the saintly case of giving every last bit of one’s surplus goods to help the abjectly poor, and take the modest example of consuming a little less energy. That would certainly lead to a better world, correct? Still we don’t do it (I don’t) for we prefer the comfort of consuming all the energy we can easily afford.

    Anyway, you are driving the discussion way off course. Let’s use one concrete and realistic example of a moral conflict: If, instead of spending a lot of money on a ski vacation abroad I were to choose a more modest ski vacation closer to home, I could use the money saved to help a neighbor who really needs it. That would certainly be the moral thing to do (and would also lead to a better world), don't you agree? But this is not as a matter of fact my preference. Thus, it’s pretty obvious to me what we think is the moral thing to do is not just what simply reflects our preference. To think otherwise strikes me as hugely unrealistic. To be a good person is hard and also admirable, precisely because what we know is moral is in virtually all significant cases not what reflects our preferences.

    And I notice you did not answer the question I put: What is that we are attracted to when we are attracted to morality (which in turn explains why we all at some level would prefer to do the moral thing)? I am really curious about your answer, for any naturalistic answer I can imagine is either incoherent or else is morally self-defeating.

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  51. Hi, Dianelos-

    You are right. If I wanted to save my hypothesis, I would say that preferences are still preferences even if we don't fulfill them out of selfishness. We are full of all sorts of preferences, and as I mentioned, giving directly to the poor instead of paying them as employees at ski resorts is not an uncontested notion of goodness in the economic literature.

    So one might draw a distinction where preferences are what we customarily do and desire, while morals might be what we desire in our most idealistic moments, typically divorced from our more short term and practical desires, and even, in the case of utopianism, from reality itself. Though for some people, morals are a much darker project, expressing ideals of domination and mysogeny. But those are other preferences again.

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  52. Hi Guys

    I think Burk's point is a good one here. If preferences are broadly described as tendencies towards action (where this action includes thinking a particular thought, or uttering a particular sentence) then there's no obvious reason why we couldn't categorise such preferences, perhaps immediate versus longer term, personal versus social, intuitive versus reasoned or self serving versus moral. Because I think of the term 'morally good' as a useful narrative category, a way of reminding myself of lessons learnt in the past for instance (so, through experience I understand the satisfaction available to me from forgoing unconsidered consumption on favour of providing assistance to others) and pointing me towards behaviours that have broadly provided me deep reward, then morally good is easily seen as a category of preference.

    As an aside, I find this idea of morality as most optimistic, the idea that behaving well, as defined by dominant moral mores, benefits us in tangible ways seems to me to be a most hopeful stance. Dianelos I think this may accord with your own view that religious life has pragmatic value?

    Bernard

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  53. Hi Darrell,

    I think you misinterpreted my question. I was not trying to deny any accomplishment. My remark was to the effect that the claim that Christianity has led to this or that is imprecise and can be interpreted in many ways. In any case, however it is interpreted, saying that Christianity is responsible for all the good things we enjoy is as silly as the claim some make that, on the contrary, it caused all our problems.

    In a somewhat abstract manner I am interested in the question of what caused Christianity to change with time. More specifically, if we consider (say) Western Europe of the past as a more or less homogeneous Christian territory we can ask how changes in moral values came about. I don't think one can deny that it did happen.

    Now, I can understand in a general way how social changes (which may be the consequence of a number of factors, including outside influences and growth of knowledge) may force an evolution of moral rules. From there, through a complex interplay of influences and feedback loops, religion may adapt to the new reality and become a (very efficient) vector for disseminating the changes.

    What I don't quite get is how change can originate from within religion itself and, I must add, I never saw a satisfying answer to this question. Of course, when religion and the general population are not “in sync”, they will tend to converge, I suppose, through mutual influences. But, if we assume a starting point in which there is harmony between the two, in which religion, so to speak, integrates seamlessly with social life then I don't really see how change can come from within religion. Something from outside must trigger change, doesn't it?

    I don't think I am denigrating religion by asking this and I am, by necessity, oversimplifying. But don't you think it's a legitimate question?

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  54. JP,

    “I think you misinterpreted my question. I was not trying to deny any accomplishment. My remark was to the effect that the claim that Christianity has led to this or that is imprecise and can be interpreted in many ways. In any case, however it is interpreted, saying that Christianity is responsible for all the good things we enjoy is as silly as the claim some make that, on the contrary, it caused all our problems.”

    We could interpret everything in many ways, right? My point however was that the best interpretation of what caused many of the most prized social advances in history was the influence of a single narrative, a way at looking at the world, called Christianity. What is imprecise about at least two facts: One, that slavery is ended in England by, mostly, the efforts of one man, William Wilberforce, whose religious faith is what drove him on; or, two, that the key and most influential leaders of the Civil Rights Movement here in the US were pastors and priests? I could go on and on. What is imprecise? If you have other causes, please share them.

    Further, my point wasn’t that Christianity was responsible for every good thing, but that it is certainly partly, if not fully, responsible for many of the very good things we simply take for granted in the West. This was in keeping with the context of the post where several were implying they didn’t see any connection or that somehow this all would have happened with or without Christianity. The historical record says otherwise. Conversely, can anyone show from history where a culture or civilization operating, from the beginning, from naturalistic or atheistic principles produced something similar to Western Civilzation?

    The rest of your questions about how does religion change from within do not, in my mind, really fit with the context of this post and should really be a topic for a different discussion—unless I am missing how it fits with what Eric’s post was originally regarding and the subsequent responses. Please help me if I'm missing how it fits.

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  55. Hi JP,

    You write: “In a somewhat abstract manner I am interested in the question of what caused Christianity to change with time.” and also “What I don't quite get is how change can originate from within religion itself and, I must add, I never saw a satisfying answer to this question.

    According to all religions the nature of reality is intrinsically and fundamentally moral; there is a force or attraction or pointer (put it as you will) towards goodness in the very fabric of reality. Further, according to all religions, the meaning and sense of our life is to orient our own nature according to that fundamental moral nature of reality. Thus the answer I'd suggest is this: Religions, by being expressively aware of this moral dimension of reality, have been more effective in perceiving its direction and affecting accordingly the societies in which they exist.

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  56. Bernard,

    “I think Burk's point is a good one here. If preferences are broadly described as tendencies towards action (where this action includes thinking a particular thought, or uttering a particular sentence) then there's no obvious reason why we couldn't categorise such preferences…”

    Well, I think there is an obvious reason, which is that most, if not every, culture throughout recorded history has noted a difference between a moral truth, something objective and universal, and a preference, something subjective and individual. Why is that? Why the distinction? No one offers the distinction to be because of short-term and long-term thinking.

    “Because I think of the term 'morally good' as a useful narrative category, a way of reminding myself of lessons learnt in the past for instance (so, through experience I understand the satisfaction available to me from forgoing unconsidered consumption on favour of providing assistance to others)”

    I think this a little unrealistic and it assumes too much. First, what if the lessons I have learned from the past are that I can steal and get away with it? Second, you assume there should be a feeling of “satisfaction” when helping others, why? Don’t greedy people feel a sense of satisfaction when hoarding? You also miss the point that morality, like love, or grace, or any such significant quality is not about how it can be “useful” to us. This is simply the Western obsession with self-help and the idea that unless something benefits us, of what point or use is it. What if being moral means not being satisfied sometimes? What if everything is not about pragmatic value? I don’t think Naturalism has an adequate answer to that question.

    I would pose my question again: Do we believe there are some actions or omissions that are wrong, regardless of whether a majority of people or the law stated otherwise. Why or why not? And, if it (some choice) is only a preference and not something we think others should also follow, why would we care whether or not they did? I like Mexican food, but I’m not offended if others do not. People like Martin Luther King, and others who have literally given their lives for a cause, normally do not do so because they disagreed with the preferences of others. The gulf between the two (a moral truth and a preference) is too wide and too deep.

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  57. Hi Darrell,

    I agree with you that there is a difference between the expression of a preference and moral judgments. However, as you might expect, I don't attribute this it to the existence of some “objective” moral truths but to some underlying differences between the biological mechanisms involved. I would guess that there is some connection between the two, the evolution of morality having no doubt occurred later than that of preferences and evolution acting in the patchwork manner that we know. This is a question for biology perhaps.

    I also agree with you that we may be led to make moral judgments that go against majority opinion. If, as I think may be the case, moral values may be imprinted on us in our youth and difficult to change thereafter, a difference in upbringing or cultural origin may lead to the situation you describe.

    I also agree, but up to a point, that “being moral” may involve personal costs of some kind. But I suspect that acting on such moral judgments come with a satisfaction of its own. If the evolution of morality was related to the need to ensure an harmonious social life, it is to be expected that such situations will occur but, also, that a mechanism to make us act despite the costs will co-evolve.

    jp

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  58. Darrell, Bernard-

    "Well, I think there is an obvious reason, which is that most, if not every, culture throughout recorded history has noted a difference between a moral truth, something objective and universal, and a preference, something subjective and individual. Why is that? Why the distinction? No one offers the distinction to be because of short-term and long-term thinking."

    If I could offer an answer- propaganda. If the dominant preference is made into not only the best judgement we have at the moment, but the god's honest truth forever and for all, then it will have more social power to compel compliance, which after all is the point of writing things like the ten commandments, Levitical laws, and the like. I am not saying that this makes them substantively wrong or bad, but simply that you are buying into excessive propagandistic claims about what are, in the end, human judgements like any other.

    And the nature of morals was often enough not couched as objective, but sometimes in the form of "because I said so". This is essentially how god deals with the Jews- they are to have special laws and status, just because. And then they regarded eating pork and much else as unclean and immoral. Ditto for Muhammed, who dictates so much of Muslim behavior and mores for frankly idiosyncratic reasons.

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  59. Darrell

    I think I've already made it clear that I don't believe in any absolute objective measures of right and wrong, I think what is deemed right or wrong is a negotiated social understanding.

    In the context within which I work, education, this has important pragmatic implications. Clearly, in order for a community of 2000 adolescents to function, there are sets of social behaviours that are required, and it is of pressing concern how best to get a level of adherence to such norms.

    For those who come from the perspective of morality as preference (as I do) the trick is to create an environment where compliance is its own reward. Kids want to play along with these rules because the upside for them, in terms of the active and positive engagement that results, is so clear.

    There is a prediction associated with this, and that is behavioural problems are most likely to emerge when certain groups of kids are shut out from the rewards on offer, be they social engagement, academic success, or whatever. And this does seem to be what happens. The kid with reading difficulties, or a sense the teacher doesn't much value them, or who has problems communicating with their peers, they're the ones that are hard to get to play along.

    The alternative thesis often leads to the claim that kids today just aren't given the right moral guidance in the home. But watch how the said youth transforms under the influence of, say, their basketball coach, and this belief becomes harder to sustain. The salient variable is that here is an activity they value, so much so that the reward of compliance shifts their moral preference away from rebellion.

    The behaviour of adolescents is of course far more complex than this brief treatment suggests, and deeply ingrained narratives about what is right and wrong are clearly still important, as JP notes, but the preference model is, in the case of education, (and I would suggest more broadly law and order) is a very powerful one.

    Bernard

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  60. Burk,

    “If I could offer an answer- propaganda.”

    Yes, of course, and I could say that to posit that preferences and moral truths are really the same thing is atheistic propaganda.

    So, really, your argument is that most cultures, in most times, including our own, were and are, wrong. All were followers of propaganda, while the few enlightened knew better. Perhaps you are correct- but I doubt it.

    “And the nature of morals was often enough not couched as objective, but sometimes in the form of "because I said so".”

    Well, it was considered objective because it was thought God was saying it. But anyway, we have the same factor involved when one says “because evolution says so.” Right? Or, because “the scientific evidence and facts say so.” Although in these instances it really does take the form of “because I said so,” as what one really is saying is, “because I must interpret evolution and the facts to say such and such…”

    Interesting.

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  61. JP,

    “However, as you might expect, I don't attribute this it to the existence of some “objective” moral truths but to some underlying differences between the biological mechanisms involved. I would guess that there is some connection between the two, the evolution of morality having no doubt occurred…”

    What then to make of Richard Dawkins’ take on this, who might know a bit more about evolution and biology than some of us. Here are some quotes:

    “I am not advocating a morality based on evolution. I am saying how things have evolved. I am not saying how we humans morally ought to behave.… My own feeling is that a human society based simply on the gene’s law of universal ruthless selfishness would be a very nasty society in which to live. . . . Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature.” (The Selfish Gene)

    “No decent person wants to live in a society that operates according to Darwinian laws. I am a passionate Darwinist, when it involves explaining the development of life. However, I am a passionate anti-Darwinist when it involves the kind of society in which we want to live. A Darwinian State would be a Fascist state.” (Interview)

    This seems like a significant disagreement. Also, how is it that “morality” evolving from preferences changes anything? I thought that was the very point of contention. What Burk and Bernard are saying is that, because of evolution, we may use words like “moral” but to be more accurate, we might as well say “preference.” A human makes a choice; he acts or refuses to act. The universe does not care what choice is made. Since any difference between a moral and a preference is, they would argue, completely imagined—they are on the same plane then—the “moral” cannot be higher or different than a preference, even if it is mistakenly perceived that way by the greater culture.

    Finally, how could an amoral, neutral, impersonal dead thing like a “mechanism” (whatever that might be?) cause, produce, or provide for what we think of as a moral sensibility? This sounds like alchemy, or a theory like the spontaneous generation of life.

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  62. Darrell-

    Well-put, but Dawkins, or at least these quotes, is a bit behind the times. Lots of more recent work shows that evolution leads directly to our social natures, including morals and individual vs group conflicts that make up our natures. One only has to observe love within the family to know that evolution leads to strongly positive and moral natures, within the most elemental and universal social system. I recently blogged on Peter Kropotkin, who was a visionary in this perspective, seeing our natures as not just irremediably bad and fallen, but good as well as bad- as we observe in practice, and as issuing from the processes of evolution (the naturalistic mechanism).

    So our natures are not mysterious from an evolutionary perspective. Are our natures alone enough to guide modern morals? Surely they require some amount of cultivation: culture. That is a feedback system between our natures and our reason and experience- the latter of which are growing all the time. Where once the power of myth was the only going method of cultivating respect for social institutions, divine kingship, and the all the rest of it, now I think we can have some faith in our collective reason to figure out how best to organize and cultivate ourselves, fox news excepted, naturally.

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  63. Darrell,

    What then to make of Richard Dawkins’ take on this [...]

    It's interesting that you raise this point because there is much confusion about this.

    I am not saying that evolutionary theory should guide our morality or ethics. What I wrote was that I take morality to be an entirely natural phenomenon, evolved like any other. I wouldn't know whether the mechanisms involved in making moral judgments and expressing preferences are separate, identical, or made in a patchwork manner from simpler subsystems. This is a question for biology.

    As for Dawkins, what he is saying is that we should not build our morality by reference to what happens in nature and I certainly agree. Biology can certainly help explain why we hold certain values and not others. However, using evolutionary theory to justify doctrines like social darwinism is totally unjustified.

    I have seen this confusion many times, people saying “if you believe in evolution, then you must have such and such values”. I don't know where that comes from and it does not make any sense at all.

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  64. Hi JP,

    You write: “I take morality to be an entirely natural phenomenon, evolved like any other.

    Morality is not a phenomenon. Behavior, including moral behavior, is a phenomenon. Thus moral behavior, as per the physical closure of the universe, is a natural phenomenon. I mean what else could it be? I don’t think that anybody is claiming that moral behavior is an unnatural phenomenon in some sense.

    The question, which I think Richard Dawkins does understand well, is rather this: What is it that makes a class of behaviors moral, and moreover some morally good and others morally evil? It can’t be their physical origin or physical nature, for all behaviors and, indeed, all events have some physical origin and nature. It is here that morality appears to be unreachable by scientific thought. From naturalism’s point of view the source or ground of morality is a sheer mystery. I think Dawkins understands this, and that’s why he has said something like: “Wherever morality comes from, it does not come from the Bible”. I for one agree with him in this.

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  65. JP,

    I'm confused. As I look over the range of your statements and thoughts for this post, they seem contradictory. You have lost me I'm afraid. You also seem to disagree with Burk and Bernard at points. Maybe the three of you teasing those points out might help us understand better.

    Also, I wonder if you might quickly just go back through your responses and see if you think I'm just misreading or if there might be some truth to my confusion.

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  66. Dianelos

    You ask:

    "What is it that makes a class of behaviors moral, and moreover some morally good and others morally evil? It can’t be their physical origin or physical nature, for all behaviors and, indeed, all events have some physical origin and nature."

    I don't quite see how the second statement follows. Isn't that like saying 'what gives an item heat? It can't be its physical nature because all items have some physical origin or nature.'

    I would argue morality is a function of the physical world, and specifically the evolved nature of the physical brain. Take a computer running a chess playing programme. For such a programme we can identify a category of choices which we could label good choices, in that they are consistent with the desired outcome of maximising the likelihood of victory. Not morally good yet, but good in terms of goals, and entirely physical in their nature.

    Morally good then might be seen as a category of human choices consistent with an outcome which is, by some established narrative, considered desirable. And how is this narrative established? Via evolution in the first instance, and subsequently modified by culture. So, empathy, the foundation of human morality I think, appears to have a strong evolutionary component. So too co-operation and loyalty.

    Different cultures, religions and times then appear to churn through these narrative instincts in different ways. So, is easy access to abortion services or euthanasia a moral good? Rather depends on the where and when in history you live doesn't it?

    Bernard

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  67. Darrell-

    You'll have to be a bit more specific about any discrepancies. I think JP, Bernard and I are pretty much on the same page, all trying rather desperately to put some meat on Dianelos's bone of the "final call" and the sovereign agent untethered from any reason or rhyme.

    So far, it seems that Dianelos is simply trying to save the theistic free will argument through magic.. by asserting that what seems random and without discernible cause is actually the sovereign free will we are all looking for, capable of moving mountains and ruling human affairs, without leaving traces prone to analysis. Bold, yes. Reasonable and humble in its interpretation, not so much.

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  68. Burk and JP,

    This statement seems contradictory to me:

    “I am not saying that evolutionary theory should guide our morality or ethics. What I wrote was that I take morality to be an entirely natural phenomenon, evolved like any other.”

    And,

    “I agree with you that there is a difference between the expression of a preference and moral judgments… I would guess that there is some connection between the two, the evolution of morality having no doubt occurred later than that of preferences and evolution acting in the patchwork manner that we know.”

    This seems to go against you and Bernard’s suggestions that, at bottom, there is no real difference between a moral truth and a preference, other than the imagined or made up one we attribute to culture and psychology.

    Or, perhaps I misunderstand each of you.

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  69. Hi Darrell,

    I think there is a significant difference between, say, expressing a preference for apple pie against chocolate cake and being against torture. I also said that I wouldn't know whether the mechanisms involved [,,,] are separate, identical, or made in a patchwork manner from simpler subsystems.

    So, it may be a difference of degree or a more fundamental one. I suspect science has something to say about this – maybe in the form of brain scans taken under both conditions (moral vs preference decision). They could show if similar or separate parts of the brain are stimulated in each case. If somebody knows, this would be useful information.

    As for the contradiction you see in my statement, I think it is due to a misunderstanding.

    I take it we are the product of biological evolution. For reasons of its own, so to speak, evolution has endowed us with a wide array of capabilities, including superior intelligence and a very high degree of flexibility in our behaviour. Our behaviour patterns are to a large degree learned instead of innate and, most importantly, we have the capacity to form our own goals.

    We use this capacity all the time. We eat elaborate meals not primarily to nourish us but because we enjoy them. We also enjoy involving ourselves in elaborate play and games to a degree that has nothing to do with the learning of survival skills. We have philosophical discussions on blogs. And so on, the list is endless – and none of this is programmed by evolution. We have “created” theses things all by ourself.

    For the same reason, and contrary to what happens in nature, we have decided to cure the ill, to help the poor, to create social institutions that help achieve some degree of social justice. If we followed the lessons of nature, I suppose we would have to refuse taking care of sick children because only the strong must survive – and so on. This is how you get social darwinism and all the nonsense.

    This is what I mean when I write that our ethics should not be guided by evolutionary principles. And, I think, this is also what Dawkins was saying in the text you quote.

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  70. JP,

    You are talking about the fact that most people, like you, do see a difference, I assume because of psychology and the imagined creation of a difference whether through education, culture, or what have you. But that does not mean there is a true difference. How could a brain scan tell us if there is a true difference between a moral truth, something objective and universal, as opposed to a preference, something subjective and personal? I would love to have a scientist hold up a brain scan and show us that! A brain scan could only show us reactions to some input, it could never show us if those reactions were “good” or “bad” “normal” or anything else—and certainly not why people thought differently about morals truths and preferences.

    “…to a large degree learned instead of innate and, most importantly, we have the capacity to form our own goals.”

    Yes, but what if those goals are evil? If Evolution has provided this capactity, why should we look at it as worse than a “good” goal? In fact, these become arbitrary and meaningless choices.

    “…and none of this is programmed by evolution. We have “created” theses things all by ourself.”

    But nothing is outside biology, even our minds, as you have pointed out, right? We create only out of the bounds and resources provided by evolution—so this doesn’t really resolve the problem. You are giving something called “evolution” way too much credit here. The physical universe is amoral, uncaring, and impersonal. That we can imagine with our minds that something is “moral” or “good” only means the same thing when we say we can imagine “god” or “fairies” it doesn’t mean they are true (Burk and Bernard, I think would argue). My point, again, is that most people and cultures do see a difference between a moral truth and a preference—that they in fact are more than just imagined, evolved, created “preferences.”

    “For the same reason, and contrary to what happens in nature, we have decided to cure the ill, to help the poor…”

    But you are side-stepping the greater question, which was the point of the post—that being the fact that it has been transcendental narratives, such as Christianity that have provided the impetus to curing the ill and helping the poor, on a large organized scale anyway. There is no history or tradition of groups of naturalists or atheists moving and influencing entire nations and cultures to help the sick and poor over long periods of time.

    I don’t see where you have addressed the core problems here at all.

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  71. Darrell

    This quote:

    "There is no history or tradition of groups of naturalists or atheists moving and influencing entire nations and cultures to help the sick and poor over long periods of time"

    is a little rough on the countless numbers of non-believers who each in their own ways have sought to make the world a better place. If we look about the globe today, can we argue convincingly that there exists a strong correlation between the degree of theistic belief, and the achievement of social harmony? I live in New Zealand, a country with very low levels of involvement in religious rituals, and a high level of reported 'non-belief. Yet there is a strong tradition of concern for social justice issues. Scandanavian countries are often held up as similar examples, although I don't know them well enough to comment.

    The alleviation of poverty seems to me to have a massive amount to do with the way cultural and economic systems interact, post war japan is an interesting case study here perhaps, and it's certainly not a country that drew heavily upon Christian traditions in providing excellent economic support to its population. By contrast the US struggles on the poverty alleviation front despite its relatively high level of reported religious belief. This suggests the issue is much more complex than simply one of nominal motivations.

    There is also the matter of medical research, perhaps the greatest driver of advances in physical well being. I suspect that as a rule such researchers are driven by a desire to discover and contribute that transcends religious belief. I think I've read that scientists in general tend to have higher levels of reported non-theism than the general communities from which they are drawn.

    Bernard

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  72. Bernard,

    "...is a little rough on the countless numbers of non-believers who each in their own ways have sought to make the world a better place."

    But I wasn't speaking of non-believers in general. Naturalists and atheists make up a committed group--a group that has thought things through to a greater degree than the average non-believer. They normally can articulate deeper philosophical reasons for their position. Another factor to consider is that the average non-believer has largely been influenced by theistic belief, in the west anyway, culturally and historically, to a degree that while he might not have a good answer to why we should feed the poor, he believes we should--along with many other similar moral positions.

    There are many moral and good atheists and naturalists. There are many immoral and bad Christians. It frankly has nothing to do however with the overall point. The greater questions are which narrative, what frame of reference, and what view of who we are and our place in the cosmos is largely responsible for what moves a Martin Luther King or produces what we have come to think of as Western Civilization? While we could credit many individual non-believers in also helping with these endeavors, it certainly wasn’t the atheistic narrative that provided the motivation or moral resources.

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  73. Darrell,

    The bit about brain scans is about determining whether similar or different brain systems are involved in making moral judgments and expressing preferences. It has nothing to do with the values of these decisions as such. The point that has been raised is more or less this: are moral judgments simply a variety of preferences? Now, I am quite ignorant in neuroscience and wouldn't know if such an experiment has been performed – although I would expect so. It appears simple: you hook somebody to some scanner and have the subject, say, choose between different drinks and see what happens. Then, you present the subject with a moral question and look again. What is similar, what is different? This seems quite interesting.

    You have an issue with us overstepping the bounds set by evolution on the ground that if there is no such thing as morality in the amoral universe then it cannot evolve in any way. Then, what do you make of life itself? There is nothing in physics that spells “life” in any way whatsoever. Look at any molecule as long as you wish, there is nothing there that is even remotely alive. Look at any living thing at the level of chemistry and you'll see nothing fundamentally different from any chemistry going on in inanimate matter. But life exists nevertheless and is very well understood in terms of chemistry alone. I don't expect you can argue that anything more is needed to explain insects or bacterias?

    What's going on is that new structures, new mechanisms, new phenomena – call them as you wish – can appear at higher levels of organization - this being perfectly in accordance with what we know through science.

    I'm saying nothing more than that: higher levels of organization come with new – completely new – structures, structures that don't exist at lower levels. We get molecules, stars and planetary systems, weather systems, living things, nervous systems, brains, intelligence and, I would add, what we would qualify anthropomorphically as “higher” capabilities like consciousness, social behaviour patterns, morality and so on.

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  74. Darrell,

    Saying that the Christian narrative had such a dominant role in shaping our societies seems quite oversimplified. Our history is replete with so many intricate influences, mutual dependencies and feedback loops of all sorts that I suspect we are far from being able to sort out the whole thing in a way that permits such blanket statements. The whole subject seems immensely complex. Maybe we can say more cautiously that it's Western Civilization in general that has brought us all the goodies.

    But, in any case, there is a bit of circular reasoning here, isn't it? Because, indeed, why do we find all these things good and valuable? Well, I suspect, largely because we were raised within the said civilization and have learned to value them – it's part of what a civilization does.

    Were we raised in a completely different society, at another time, on another planet, or whatever, we would perhaps find all these Western values quite nonsensical and, who knows, even morally wrong.

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  75. JP,

    I think you clear most of this up at the end of your last post, where you finally assert what Burk and Bernard do as well and I will get to that, but first:

    “The point that has been raised is more or less this: are moral judgments simply a variety of preferences? Now, I am quite ignorant in neuroscience and wouldn't know if such an experiment has been performed – although I would expect so. It appears simple: you hook somebody to some scanner and have the subject, say, choose between different drinks and see what happens. Then, you present the subject with a moral question and look again. What is similar, what is different? This seems quite interesting.”

    Well, I have been speaking of something else. I was speaking of moral truths, not judgments. The point was that Burk and Bernard state that they (a preference and a moral truth) are really the same thing, and I believe otherwise, although at one point you did write:

    “I agree with you that there is a difference between the expression of a preference and moral judgments.”

    All a brain scan would do is show what areas “lit” up when people were making choices, whether about a preference for Coke or whether or not they should cheat on their taxes. So what? That would not tell us anything about whether cheating or not was a preference or the following of a higher moral truth.

    “But life exists nevertheless and is very well understood in terms of chemistry alone.”

    Well, that is not the case because of the very discussions on this blog! Many of Eric’s post have been that life is more than chemistry! The mind, consciousness, clearly cannot be explained by chemistry alone. You do raise a good point however, which basically is- what is the difference between a dead thing and a living thing? One could argue that according to you, none really, which is another interesting, if not morbid, product of the naturalist view.

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  76. JP,

    (Continued)

    Your point about evolving and systems becoming more complex I don’t believe helps you. Because we can imagine that a moral truth is different than a preference doesn’t make it so. One could say we have evolved to imagine god over and against impersonal forces but it wouldn’t mean there was a god.

    “I would add, what we would qualify anthropomorphically as “higher” capabilities like consciousness, social behaviour patterns, morality and so on.”

    But you don’t know that they are “higher.” Maybe they are lower. That is the whole point. Higher and lower become arbitrary references that ultimately mean nothing if there is no true difference between a moral truth and a preference.

    “Saying that the Christian narrative had such a dominant role in shaping our societies seems quite oversimplified.”

    I’m sure you understand the limited ability to elaborate in these responses. There are volumes and volumes out there that might make it not as simplified if you are willing to do some reading. But perhaps this is simpler: Who were the key leaders and influencers in the US Civil Rights Movement? Where they not pastors and priests?

    “Were we raised in a completely different society, at another time, on another planet, or whatever, we would perhaps find all these Western values quite nonsensical and, who knows, even morally wrong.”

    And here you come back to my point all along. Indeed, you do agree with Burk and Bernard that moral truths are no different than preferences. For all we know, if we had evolved to prefer cannibalism and the torture of children, then such would be “moral” but we might better say simply a “choice” or a “preference” and get rid of language like “evil” or “good” as it simply makes no sense in such a world-view.

    One then can see how this view could act as a solvent or acid as to a moral world-view. One should not get too worked up over different preferences after all or die trying to change something that, for a twist here or there in a meaningless evolution, might actually be the “moral” or “good” choice. And perhaps that explains why the likes of a Martin Luther King has not risen out of a naturalistic world-view.

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  77. Hi Darrell

    I think moral issues often collapse into issues of pragmatism, no matter what one's beliefs. If this were not the case, then Martin Luther King simply changing the conversation would have been enough, but the sad fact is race inequality in the US remains as vicious and intractable a problem as ever. It may be that in the long run it's the boring, unglamorous stuff that underpins change; long tortuous debates on economic policy settings, painstaking research on drug addiction treatment programmes, heroic teachers in public schools refusing to believe it has become hopeless. I sometimes wonder if the great joy we sometimes find in feeling righteous doesn't make things worse, because the implication is almost - so long as our beliefs are right, the work is done.

    I'm still struggling to believe the Christian narrative is the game breaker here. As JP has observed, it does feel like a massive oversimplification. The gentlest, most peaceful city I have ever lived in was Tokyo, and yet only fifty years before, very similar cultural settings produced awful atrocities. And let's not forget that 1930's Germany was, by in large, a Christian society.

    This question of how to build communities that meet our deepest desires (and here the only concept we need is preferences, but sophisticated, delicately constructed, satisfying preferences) is difficult and important. My best guess (and it comes from a position of massive ignorance, this is not my field) is that circumstances and attitudes are more important than beliefs. And these two factors need know no religious boundaries. This gives me great hope.

    Bernard

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