In honor of the recent court ruling overturning Proposition 8 in California, I'm posting here the text of a talk I gave as part of a 2004 OSU Ethics Center Panel on “Gay Marriage: Civil Right or Threat to Tradition?” Here is what I said a bit more than six years ago:
My goal tonight is to make the case for same-sex civil marriage—civil marriage, not holy matrimony or any other religious rite of marriage. Civil marriage is a legal category. It has nothing to do with religious beliefs and everything to do with tangible legal benefits—such things as inheritance rights, rights to make health care decisions for an ailing spouse, and the right to sponsor a spouse for immigration. By some counts, civil marriage confers more than a thousand federal protections. It’s desired not only for these legal benefits, but because it’s become a treasured social institution. If you’re legally wed, whether in a church or a courthouse, your relationship receives a special social recognition: you and your spouse are treated as a family.
I want to begin my case for same-sex civil marriage by doing something rather presumptuous, given that I’m a happily married heterosexual. I want to paint a picture of what it’s like to be gay or lesbian in our society. I feel remotely qualified to do this only because I’ve listened compassionately to the personal stories of my gay and lesbian friends. Anyone who’s done so knows, without having to consult a scientific study, that gays and lesbians don’t choose their sexual orientation. And they can’t ordinarily change it, even though those raised in conservative religious environments often go to Herculean efforts in the attempt—fervent prayer, ex-gay ministries, doomed heterosexual marriage. In every case I know the struggle has proved fruitless. Some manage to suppress or sublimate their sexual desires, and can find support for a life of celibacy in such organizations as the Courage Apostolate of the Roman Catholic Church. But if any manage to change their orientation, it’s few and far between. If God miraculously transforms those who pray to be made straight, he’s rather frugal with this so-called miracle. For most, being gay isn’t something you change but something you live with. The question is how you live with it.
In our society, gays and lesbians have four options. First, they can pursue a heterosexual relationship despite their lack of attraction. If they do, they can marry and know what it’s like to have a relationship recognized by law and supported by society. But it’ll be a marriage deprived of something most of us find crucial. Heterosexual sex, while possible for gays and lesbians, can neither express nor contribute to the intimate feelings of connectedness that we call romantic love, what the Catholic Church calls the unitive end of sex. When gays and lesbians choose a heterosexual relationship they give up on the possibility of such love, and they deprive their spouse of any prospect for mutual desire. Loving friendship is of course possible, but romantic love is not.
For this reason, many gays and lesbians choose a second option: a monogamous relationship with a member of the same sex. Then they can experience the unique bonding that comes with loving sexual expression. But their relationship will be socially marginalized, the privileges and supports of marriage withheld. And there is a further risk: When we work hard to build an intimate relationship, it becomes an important part of our self-understanding. When gays and lesbians build such a relationship, many in society will demonize it, effectively assaulting a deeply valued part of who they are.
To avoid this assault, they might embrace a third choice: a life of casual sexuality. If it’s furtive, done in the heat of the moment rather than as part of a committed relationship, then at least they can’t be accused of making a commitment to sin. If it’s something they themselves find rather demeaning, then at least they aren’t in danger of working hard to build something precious only to have it called an abomination.
Finally, they can choose a life of celibacy. Now it seems to me that a celibate life might well be, for some, a richly rewarding one. But it’s one thing to choose such a life, quite another to have it thrust upon you. And even though St. Paul himself argued that celibacy is a gift not given to all and that it would be better to marry than to burn with lust, gays and lesbians may feel that since marriage isn’t an option celibacy has to be their calling whether they have the gift or not. And so they grit their teeth, and they burn.
The one choice not available is the choice held up to the rest of our society as the ideal: loving marriage. Gays and lesbians can marry someone they can’t love, and they can have a loving relationship with someone they can’t marry. But the state denies them what’s available to every heterosexual: the opportunity to develop a loving, intimate sexual union recognized and supported by law. Two serial divorcees who meet at the gambling table in Vegas are free to marry that same night on a whim, so long as they’re straight. But my gay and lesbian friends who have been in faithful partnerships for years are denied marriage rights as if marriage were some kind of reward for the accidental good fortune of being straight.
I’ll be honest. It’s hard for me to discuss whether people I love will be granted the same life opportunities as everyone else. That’s not something you discuss. It’s something you do.
But I’m not naïve. I know that many believe this is something we absolutely must not do. While it seems clear from what I’ve already said that withholding civil marriage rights from same-sex couples amounts to legal discrimination against gays and lesbians, I also know that legal discrimination is sometimes justified, and that many think the current policy of exclusion is just such a case of justified discrimination.
But why think that? Amidst all the rhetoric, it seems to come down to this: opponents of same-sex marriage believe that homosexuality is a moral evil to be prohibited, and hence not something to be legally enshrined in marriage. But let’s be clear about this view. It’s not just promiscuous homosexual sex that’s being condemned. Consider the relationship between my friends Karen and Suzanne: a monogamous, faithful, loving partnership that has lasted for fourteen years and is characterized by mutual respect and care and the commitment to provide mutual support over a lifetime. The claim is that this relationship is an evil to be prohibited, even though, were the relationship heterosexual, it would be held up as a model of virtue, of chaste sexual expression, an example for the rest of the world to follow. Their relationship has every appearance of being good for them, and it doesn’t seem to harm anyone else. Why think their relationship is so morally pernicious that it’s better to practice legal discrimination than to recognize their relationship in law?
Some simply appeal to tradition here: marriage has always been between a man and a woman; society has always condemned homosexuality. But even if that were true, tradition alone is a poor guide on this issue. Traditional views were developed at a time in history when gays and lesbians had neither the conceptual categories nor the public voice to adequately express what it’s like to be gay. As a result, these beliefs were formed in a context of ignorance. We don’t have that excuse. Charity and fairness, it seems, would call us to rethink archaic dogmas in the light of compassionate attention to the lived experience of gays and lesbians, rather than squeeze them into a mold they had no part in fashioning. Tradition alone is no reason to perpetuate a discriminatory practice.
Of course, most opponents of same-sex marriage rely, not on tradition alone, but also on religious arguments. They appeal to Scripture or to some understanding of God’s plan for human sexuality in the natural order. The Catholic Church, for example, argues that God designed human sexuality to be essentially reproductive, such that all sex incompatible with the reproductive end violates human dignity. On the basis of these kinds of arguments many conclude that homosexual acts are immoral and that same-sex marriages should be prohibited no matter how hard that is on gays and lesbians. It’s just their cross to bear. We can be compassionate in helping them bear it, but bear it they must.
Such religious arguments are, of course, relevant for debates within religious communities about who should receive the religious rite of marriage. I don’t find these arguments decisive in my own religious context. While I treasure Scripture as a rich testament to the human encounter with God, I can’t accept those theories of scriptural authority which assume that just because some injunction appears in Scripture, or in Paul’s letters, we can conclude that it’s the timeless will of God. I believe, furthermore, that fidelity to an ethic of Christian love demands that we abandon a teaching that it seems to me has consistently borne poisoned fruits for our gay and lesbian neighbors. But these aren’t the arguments I want to pursue here. I want to focus, not on religious marriage, but on civil marriage.
We live in a liberal democracy that endorses the separation of church and state. Our Constitution was designed in part to ensure that no religious dogma, no matter how popular, could be employed to deny some people full equality under the law. If the only grounds for denying same-sex couples civil marriage rights are religious, then any government policy that discriminates against same-sex couples effectively endorses a particular religious view, and thus violates the separation of church and state.
The issue of same-sex civil marriage needs to be decided, not on the basis of religious arguments, but on the basis of the state’s constitutionally defined role in promoting social stability and the welfare and freedom of its citizens. It’s tempting to pursue this issue from the standpoint of privacy or freedom of association, but that’s not the approach I mean to take here. The fact is that marriage serves a number of important social functions. That’s why the state is in the marriage business in the first place. To preserve church-state separation, the state must base its decision concerning same-sex marriage on the considerations that got it into the marriage business: the social functions of marriage.
So what are these social functions?
One function is to provide a stable context for rearing children. This might lead some to think we can deny marriage rights to same-sex couples since they can’t make babies. But even though they don’t make babies, they can and do participate in raising them, and would thus be served by the civil marriage protections that contribute to a stable child-rearing environment. I might add that social scientific research does not support the view that same-sex couples are less effective than heterosexual ones at raising healthy, well-adjusted children.
More importantly, child-rearing isn’t the only social function of marriage. The state extends civil marriage rights to couples beyond child-bearing years and other couples who either can’t or don’t intend to have children. Why? A second important social function of civil marriage is to establish a kind of “default support person” for adult members of society as they confront life’s hardships. Hardship places stress on intimate relationships, and legally married couples are simply more likely than unmarried ones to stick together during difficult times and hence be available to each other as support persons. As Jonathan Rausch has pointed out, in the absence of a spouse the role of providing support falls “sometimes crushingly” on less immediate family and friends who have their own problems, as well as on charities and government programs that are already overtaxed, underfunded, and ineffective. If this is one of the social functions of civil marriage, then it’s in the interests of the state to extend same-sex marriage rights to gays and lesbians who, by virtue of their sexual orientation, can’t establish successful heterosexual marriages.
Perhaps even more important is the fact that civil marriage is a stabilizing force on society as a whole. The legal benefits of civil marriage encourage couples to form and sustain monogamous partnerships, and the prevalence of such partnerships helps to shield society from the more volatile effects of human sexuality run amok—the suicidal heartbreaks, the violent jealousies, the complex soap operas of sexual rivalry and exploitation that cause so much psychological damage to those caught up in them. At least as significantly, in this age of AIDS the stabilization of human sexual activity plays a critical role in promoting public health.
As it stands, gays and lesbians are denied participation in the primary social model for responsible sexuality. Denied access to the social supports of marriage, intimate relationships lose their traditional social anchor and are prone towards impermanence and, in some cases, promiscuity. If civil marriage were expanded to include same-sex couples, the stabilizing power of marriage would also be expanded.
Finally, there is this simple fact: people in mutually caring, sexually satisfying long-term relationships tend to be more satisfied overall with their lives. While access to civil marriage is no guarantee of a fulfilling relationship, it does provide social and legal supports that can facilitate the development of such a relationship. Promoting the life satisfaction of its citizens is surely one role of government—not merely for the sake of individual citizens but also for the sake of social cohesion. The more satisfied people are with their lives, the less likely they are to engage in disruptive antisocial behavior, and the more likely they are to support the society that contributes to their quality of life.
So: Why is the government in the marriage business? Because there are social advantages to promoting monogamous sexual partnerships. And these advantages would be advanced by extending civil marriage rights to same-sex couples. Hence, the social functions of marriage can’t justify the current policy of legal discrimination. It seems as if only sectarian religious arguments can do that. But to allow such arguments to determine social policy violates the separation of church and state. In a sense, that is what is really at stake in this debate: do we as a nation really believe in the separation of church and state?
Friday, August 6, 2010
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
My Cousin's Target Protest: New Article in Religion Dispatches
I have a new essay over at Religion Dispatches--one which touches on gay rights, campaign finance, and my cousin Randi.
Let me explain. Last week, Randi (also the godmother of my son) heard that the Target Corporation had donated $150,000 to a business PAC actively supporting a right-wing Minnesota gubernatorial candidate with strong anti-gay views. This triggered her own personal protest action against Target--which was filmed and posted on YouTube. The video has now been viewed more than 200,000 times, and a clip of it was also shown the other day on Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Here is the video clip:
As I say in my article, in this post-Citizen's United campaign finance world, our best hope may be in making corporations gun-shy about making big donations. And the way to do that would be for all of us to follow Randi's lead, and make a big stink when corporations give money in ways we don't like.
Let me explain. Last week, Randi (also the godmother of my son) heard that the Target Corporation had donated $150,000 to a business PAC actively supporting a right-wing Minnesota gubernatorial candidate with strong anti-gay views. This triggered her own personal protest action against Target--which was filmed and posted on YouTube. The video has now been viewed more than 200,000 times, and a clip of it was also shown the other day on Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Here is the video clip:
As I say in my article, in this post-Citizen's United campaign finance world, our best hope may be in making corporations gun-shy about making big donations. And the way to do that would be for all of us to follow Randi's lead, and make a big stink when corporations give money in ways we don't like.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Why Would Christian Universalists be Motivated to Evangelize?
The other day I received an e-mail from one of my students. As I finished writing my response, it occurred to me that readers of this blog might be interested in it. And so I’m including the relevant pieces of the exchange in this post.
Here’s the question my student asked:
I started to read Thomas Talbott's book The Inescapable love of God, and wanted to ask you something. Most Christians seek to convert others out of a desire to save them. As a universalist, would you still be concerned with saving and also converting other people? If so, what are you saving them from? Unlike most evangelists who claim to save the potential Christian from hellfire, a universalist would not be worried about eternal damnation. It seems then, the motivation for evangelism is at least partially removed by removing the fear/threat of eternal damnation. Unless you believe in some form of original sin, you wouldn't be saving the person from their depravity either. Perhaps you would be offering them the chance to a better, more fulfilled life. It seems the motivation for a universalist would be positive; trying to make someone’s life better whereas to others it would be more focused on saving them from Hell (removing a negative consequence). What are your thoughts? I know this might be personal, so you don't have to respond to this. But as a Universalist yourself, do you have a motivation and if so, what is your motivation, for “seeking souls” (so to speak)?
Here is my reply:
Speaking for myself, I have very little invested in converting people to Christianity (although I do have a great interest in convincing people who think otherwise that there are versions of Christianity that can be embraced by reasonable and morally decent people). That said, Christian universalists might experience an evangelical calling for several reasons. I can think of four off the top of my head.
(1) The first is the one you touch on in your comment. Specifically, Christian universalists might believe that there are positive life benefits (in terms of subjective life satisfaction or happiness, and in terms of resources for moral improvement) that are possible in this life if and only if one opens oneself up in this life to the kind of relationship with God that Christianity claims has been made available through Christ's life and work. Desiring others to enjoy these benefits here and now, Christian universalists might take on an evangelical mission.
(2) They might believe that, while the salvation of all is inevitable, this is not because they don't think there is a subjective requirement for salvation but because they think it is inevitable that all will eventually come to meet this requirement. So, they may think that enjoying the blessings of union with God is only possible for those who have chosen to open themselves up to those blessings--and while it is certain that all will eventually open themselves up in the relevant way, those who do not do so by the time of their death will exist after death in a state of alienation from God that can only bring increasing misery the longer that it lasts (a finite "hell," if you will). These universalists might believe that the effort of human evangelists is one of God's means for hastening the salvation of all, and so feel it is their calling to be God's agents in this way. In the absence of those efforts, they might think that more people will experience the "hell" of alienation from God for a longer period of time before realizing their error and turning to God.
(3) In its original meaning "evangelist" means "good messenger." To evangelize is to share good news ("gospel" means "good news"). In the Christian context, the good news is typically taken to be that God loves us all with an unwavering love and that, on account of Christ, we have been forgiven all our transgressions. In short, it's not about conversion at all, but about declaring good news as widely as possible. In this sense, the motivation for evangelism is, at least in part, the same sort of motivation that would impel someone to call everyone they know as soon as they learn that their child has been cured of leukemia. They want to share their joy at this wonderful news. But in the case of the Christian gospel, the news also seems to be of a sort with beneficial pragmatic implications for those it is being shared with. If people are hunkering down in their cellars waiting for enemy planes to fly overhead and drop bombs, the news that the enemy has been defeated will mean that people can come out of their hidey-holes. In such a case, running through the streets shouting out the good news is not merely motivated by a desire to share a personal joy but to let people know that they no longer need to burden themselves in a particular set of ways.
(4) Christian universalists might be convinced that the Christian worldview makes the most sense of human experience, that it fits the pieces of our experience together into the most coherent whole, as well as offering pragmatic resources for living better lives. In other words, they might be convinced that by the most plausible ways of measuring the truth of a worldview, some variant of Christianity comes out as the worldview most likely to be true. In this case, what might motivate them is the same kind of thing that presumably motivates Dawkins to preach atheism--a belief that one has the truth (or at least the most rational worldview) combined with the belief that it's just good in itself if more people believe the truth (the most rational thing).
Let me dwell for just a moment on (1). My own thinking with respect to (1) is that what has the pragmatic benefits is not belief in Christian doctrine as such, but rather a certain kind of attitude of openness to being moved and transformed by a good greater than oneself. While the Christian narrative can inspire the relevant kind of openness, it doesn't always do so. In my judgment it depends a great deal on just how the story is told—and versions of the story that emphasize hellfire seem to me to be less effective in this respect. It also depends on the life history of an individual. Some have had such a poisonous relationship with Christianity that even the best versions of the story evoke all the psychological crud laid down by that relationship. In that case it is likely that the greatest pragmatic benefits will come from a different narrative altogether, one which hasn't been poisoned. And my experience (with friends who are Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, agnostics, religious naturalists, etc.) is that many different narratives can be effective in evoking the relevant attitude of openness. Again, it depends on just how the story is told. So, believing Christian teachings is neither necessary nor sufficient for bringing about the kind of openness to being transformed that, I think, has the clearest pragmatic value.
I also think this openness will have to be the primary subjective component to any defensible view of eternal salvation--a fact which has clear implications for my understanding of (2). While I have thoughts on (3) and (4) as well, I suspect my arguments in my book and on my blog make my views on (4) pretty clear, and my thoughts on (3) would probably take awhile to formulate precisely. So I'll leave it at that for now.
Here’s the question my student asked:
I started to read Thomas Talbott's book The Inescapable love of God, and wanted to ask you something. Most Christians seek to convert others out of a desire to save them. As a universalist, would you still be concerned with saving and also converting other people? If so, what are you saving them from? Unlike most evangelists who claim to save the potential Christian from hellfire, a universalist would not be worried about eternal damnation. It seems then, the motivation for evangelism is at least partially removed by removing the fear/threat of eternal damnation. Unless you believe in some form of original sin, you wouldn't be saving the person from their depravity either. Perhaps you would be offering them the chance to a better, more fulfilled life. It seems the motivation for a universalist would be positive; trying to make someone’s life better whereas to others it would be more focused on saving them from Hell (removing a negative consequence). What are your thoughts? I know this might be personal, so you don't have to respond to this. But as a Universalist yourself, do you have a motivation and if so, what is your motivation, for “seeking souls” (so to speak)?
Here is my reply:
Speaking for myself, I have very little invested in converting people to Christianity (although I do have a great interest in convincing people who think otherwise that there are versions of Christianity that can be embraced by reasonable and morally decent people). That said, Christian universalists might experience an evangelical calling for several reasons. I can think of four off the top of my head.
(1) The first is the one you touch on in your comment. Specifically, Christian universalists might believe that there are positive life benefits (in terms of subjective life satisfaction or happiness, and in terms of resources for moral improvement) that are possible in this life if and only if one opens oneself up in this life to the kind of relationship with God that Christianity claims has been made available through Christ's life and work. Desiring others to enjoy these benefits here and now, Christian universalists might take on an evangelical mission.
(2) They might believe that, while the salvation of all is inevitable, this is not because they don't think there is a subjective requirement for salvation but because they think it is inevitable that all will eventually come to meet this requirement. So, they may think that enjoying the blessings of union with God is only possible for those who have chosen to open themselves up to those blessings--and while it is certain that all will eventually open themselves up in the relevant way, those who do not do so by the time of their death will exist after death in a state of alienation from God that can only bring increasing misery the longer that it lasts (a finite "hell," if you will). These universalists might believe that the effort of human evangelists is one of God's means for hastening the salvation of all, and so feel it is their calling to be God's agents in this way. In the absence of those efforts, they might think that more people will experience the "hell" of alienation from God for a longer period of time before realizing their error and turning to God.
(3) In its original meaning "evangelist" means "good messenger." To evangelize is to share good news ("gospel" means "good news"). In the Christian context, the good news is typically taken to be that God loves us all with an unwavering love and that, on account of Christ, we have been forgiven all our transgressions. In short, it's not about conversion at all, but about declaring good news as widely as possible. In this sense, the motivation for evangelism is, at least in part, the same sort of motivation that would impel someone to call everyone they know as soon as they learn that their child has been cured of leukemia. They want to share their joy at this wonderful news. But in the case of the Christian gospel, the news also seems to be of a sort with beneficial pragmatic implications for those it is being shared with. If people are hunkering down in their cellars waiting for enemy planes to fly overhead and drop bombs, the news that the enemy has been defeated will mean that people can come out of their hidey-holes. In such a case, running through the streets shouting out the good news is not merely motivated by a desire to share a personal joy but to let people know that they no longer need to burden themselves in a particular set of ways.
(4) Christian universalists might be convinced that the Christian worldview makes the most sense of human experience, that it fits the pieces of our experience together into the most coherent whole, as well as offering pragmatic resources for living better lives. In other words, they might be convinced that by the most plausible ways of measuring the truth of a worldview, some variant of Christianity comes out as the worldview most likely to be true. In this case, what might motivate them is the same kind of thing that presumably motivates Dawkins to preach atheism--a belief that one has the truth (or at least the most rational worldview) combined with the belief that it's just good in itself if more people believe the truth (the most rational thing).
Let me dwell for just a moment on (1). My own thinking with respect to (1) is that what has the pragmatic benefits is not belief in Christian doctrine as such, but rather a certain kind of attitude of openness to being moved and transformed by a good greater than oneself. While the Christian narrative can inspire the relevant kind of openness, it doesn't always do so. In my judgment it depends a great deal on just how the story is told—and versions of the story that emphasize hellfire seem to me to be less effective in this respect. It also depends on the life history of an individual. Some have had such a poisonous relationship with Christianity that even the best versions of the story evoke all the psychological crud laid down by that relationship. In that case it is likely that the greatest pragmatic benefits will come from a different narrative altogether, one which hasn't been poisoned. And my experience (with friends who are Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, agnostics, religious naturalists, etc.) is that many different narratives can be effective in evoking the relevant attitude of openness. Again, it depends on just how the story is told. So, believing Christian teachings is neither necessary nor sufficient for bringing about the kind of openness to being transformed that, I think, has the clearest pragmatic value.
I also think this openness will have to be the primary subjective component to any defensible view of eternal salvation--a fact which has clear implications for my understanding of (2). While I have thoughts on (3) and (4) as well, I suspect my arguments in my book and on my blog make my views on (4) pretty clear, and my thoughts on (3) would probably take awhile to formulate precisely. So I'll leave it at that for now.
Friday, July 30, 2010
More on God and Aesthetics
Just now, as I was preparing for my fall philosophy of religion course, I stumbled across an article, Aesthetic Arguments for the Existence of God by Peter Williams, which touches on many of the same issues that we have been wrestling with here, and so may be of interest to readers of this blog.
That said, I don't think William's take on these issues is going to change anyone's views--and, I suspect, won't even do much to convince those who think this line of thinking is intellectually bankrupt to rethink the premises from which they reach that conclusion. It's more of a survey article combined with a sketch of a philosophical case than it is a rigorous philosophical argument in its own right. But I like the taxonomy of aesthetic arguments that Williams offers (I think it would be an interesting exercise to go through the arguments that have been sketched out by commenters on my two Music and Spirituality posts, to see how they fit into this taxonomy).
I also think the article may have some value just insofar as it offers a different perspective from which to understanding the experiential starting points and assumptions that can lead someone to find a theistic worldview most conducive to making sense of beauty.
That said, I don't think William's take on these issues is going to change anyone's views--and, I suspect, won't even do much to convince those who think this line of thinking is intellectually bankrupt to rethink the premises from which they reach that conclusion. It's more of a survey article combined with a sketch of a philosophical case than it is a rigorous philosophical argument in its own right. But I like the taxonomy of aesthetic arguments that Williams offers (I think it would be an interesting exercise to go through the arguments that have been sketched out by commenters on my two Music and Spirituality posts, to see how they fit into this taxonomy).
I also think the article may have some value just insofar as it offers a different perspective from which to understanding the experiential starting points and assumptions that can lead someone to find a theistic worldview most conducive to making sense of beauty.
Pragmatic Value of Belief in Free Will
A friend of mine just posted a short essay on his blog that touches on some of the themes that recur here, so I thought I'd share it. The essay, Detrimental Determinism, quotes the results of a study in which participants were given essays to read about free will and determinism from a scientific perspective and then invited to perform a simple task in which cheating was possible. Those exposed to essays that argued for determinism were more likely to cheat--and the more they believed in determinism (as assessed by a questionnaire administered at the end), the more likely they were to cheat.
My friend speculates that the result would be the same if the participants were all Christians and were presented with contrasting essays by theologians who argue for and against divine predestination.
My friend speculates that the result would be the same if the participants were all Christians and were presented with contrasting essays by theologians who argue for and against divine predestination.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
A Decision About the Direction of the Blog
Let me begin by saying that I have been really impressed and delighted by the depth and richness of some of the recent discussions that have been taking place on this blog. The highest praise I can offer is this: it is the kind of discussion that I want my students to be exposed to (and to participate in).
And this has led me to make a decision about the direction of this blog over the coming months. My school year starts up again in a few weeks, and one of the courses I will be teaching is philosophy of religion. What I'd like to do is, for the duration of the coming semester, link this blog to that course in a deliberate way.
In other words, I will be routinely posting on topics that directly relate to current course readings and lectures, and I will be explicitly inviting my students to visit the blog. This is not to say that I will not be posting on other topics, but it is to say that I will prioritize posts that directly relate to current discussions in the course.
One implication of this decision is that pedagogical considerations will shape the character of the posts. You will likely see me devote more attention than usual to explicating the views and arguments of different philosophers and religious thinkers. I may be more judicious about when I reveal what I think on an issue (based on my sense of how such revelations are likely to impact my aim of inspiring independent critical thinking in my students*). And there are likely to be more posts that serve primarily to set up discussion questions.
Another implication of this decision is that certain promised posts (e.g., on Hegel, on philosophy of mind, etc.) may be delayed (unless I get to them before the school year starts...but given my need to prepare for the coming semester, I'm not expecting a lot of really time-consuming posts between now and then). While this is regrettable, I think that the benefits--both for my students and for regular contributors to this blog--outweigh the drawbacks.
*On this point, I've found that a balance between being mercurial on some topics and forthright about my position on others works best. When I do the former, some students feel less intimidated about sharing their own views, and it becomes easier to operate as a facilitator for discussions among students. But the discipline of philosophy proceeds by philosophers developing arguments for their own positions which they then present to others with an invitation to raise objections, challenges, and opposing arguments (and which they then defend or revise in the light of these objections). Modeling this process in the classroom (or, it seems, on a blog) is one valuable way for students to learn how philosophy works--and while I can (and do) ask students to be in the hotseat and defend their views in the light objections, I believe there are real pedagogical benefits to putting myself in the hotseat by presenting my own arguments and ideas and inviting students to act as fellow philosophers critically assessing them--at least once I'm confident that the students understand that they are supposed to challenge me, that I do not punish them for disagreeing, etc.
And this has led me to make a decision about the direction of this blog over the coming months. My school year starts up again in a few weeks, and one of the courses I will be teaching is philosophy of religion. What I'd like to do is, for the duration of the coming semester, link this blog to that course in a deliberate way.
In other words, I will be routinely posting on topics that directly relate to current course readings and lectures, and I will be explicitly inviting my students to visit the blog. This is not to say that I will not be posting on other topics, but it is to say that I will prioritize posts that directly relate to current discussions in the course.
One implication of this decision is that pedagogical considerations will shape the character of the posts. You will likely see me devote more attention than usual to explicating the views and arguments of different philosophers and religious thinkers. I may be more judicious about when I reveal what I think on an issue (based on my sense of how such revelations are likely to impact my aim of inspiring independent critical thinking in my students*). And there are likely to be more posts that serve primarily to set up discussion questions.
Another implication of this decision is that certain promised posts (e.g., on Hegel, on philosophy of mind, etc.) may be delayed (unless I get to them before the school year starts...but given my need to prepare for the coming semester, I'm not expecting a lot of really time-consuming posts between now and then). While this is regrettable, I think that the benefits--both for my students and for regular contributors to this blog--outweigh the drawbacks.
*On this point, I've found that a balance between being mercurial on some topics and forthright about my position on others works best. When I do the former, some students feel less intimidated about sharing their own views, and it becomes easier to operate as a facilitator for discussions among students. But the discipline of philosophy proceeds by philosophers developing arguments for their own positions which they then present to others with an invitation to raise objections, challenges, and opposing arguments (and which they then defend or revise in the light of these objections). Modeling this process in the classroom (or, it seems, on a blog) is one valuable way for students to learn how philosophy works--and while I can (and do) ask students to be in the hotseat and defend their views in the light objections, I believe there are real pedagogical benefits to putting myself in the hotseat by presenting my own arguments and ideas and inviting students to act as fellow philosophers critically assessing them--at least once I'm confident that the students understand that they are supposed to challenge me, that I do not punish them for disagreeing, etc.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Buying and Selling Constraints on Academic Freedom and Integrity: The Case of BP
I just finished reading the short opinion article, "BP and Academic Freedom," published a few days ago in Inside Higher Ed. While the article has nothing directly to do with philosophy of religion (and while I'm pretty sure BP won't be knocking on my door offering me an opportunity to sell my academic soul in exchange for gobs of money), it chilled me enough that I wanted to share it here.
In brief, the article notes a recent trend on the part of BP to seek out researchers who are doing or may do work related to the oil spew in the Gulf of Mexico, and to offer them lucrative contracts--in exchange for agreeing to relinquish control of research findings and their dissemination to BP. As Cary Nelson, the author of the article, puts it:
Is this right? I think not. Academic researchers are under enormous pressures to secure corporate funding for their research. Often, their careers depend upon it. More often than that, their ability to do the kind of research they want to do depends on it (because other forms of funding are limited). If corporations are free to put restrictive clauses into research contracts, the ultimate effect may be that the careers of university researchers will depend on those researchers giving away their academic freedom. That is, they will be forced to choose between not having jobs or the resources to do their research, and having those jobs and resources but lacking the freedom to share their findings in the environment of open and unbiased communication essential for effective science.
To avoid this outcome, the scientific community and universities must make it clear to corporations that they are not free to put such restrictive clauses into research contracts. Were universities in general to adopt clear policies prohibiting faculty from entering into such contracts, corporations that wanted to impose these kinds of restrictions would thereby be denied access to the intellectual resources universities can provide. This would likely be the most effective way to ensure that research moneys do not come with strings (and chains, and gags) attached. In this case as in others, policies that put constraints on what people can agree to actually serve the function of protecting freedom. They do so by ensuring that people don't find themselves with no real alternative but to accept a restrictive agreement.
In brief, the article notes a recent trend on the part of BP to seek out researchers who are doing or may do work related to the oil spew in the Gulf of Mexico, and to offer them lucrative contracts--in exchange for agreeing to relinquish control of research findings and their dissemination to BP. As Cary Nelson, the author of the article, puts it:
...the work these scientists do will essentially belong to BP, which will be free to suppress it or characterize it in any way it chooses. Faculty members under contract to BP, meanwhile, would be unable to testify against the company in court and would be available to testify on the company’s behalf. Several faculty members in the area have confirmed to the American Association of University Professors that they have been offered contracts by BP in exchange for restrictive confidentiality clauses. A notably chilling provision directs contracted scientists to communicate through BP’s lawyers, thus raising the possibility that research findings will be constrained by lawyer-client privilege.Contracts of this sort directly violate AAUP standards for corporate funding of research, which hold that no contract should restrict the free and open dissemination of research findings. Nevertheless, there are some who might say that no one is strong-arming researchers into accepting such contracts, and that if they choose to accept them they have voluntarily agreed to the contract's terms. As such, the contract terms do not violate Academic Freedom.
Is this right? I think not. Academic researchers are under enormous pressures to secure corporate funding for their research. Often, their careers depend upon it. More often than that, their ability to do the kind of research they want to do depends on it (because other forms of funding are limited). If corporations are free to put restrictive clauses into research contracts, the ultimate effect may be that the careers of university researchers will depend on those researchers giving away their academic freedom. That is, they will be forced to choose between not having jobs or the resources to do their research, and having those jobs and resources but lacking the freedom to share their findings in the environment of open and unbiased communication essential for effective science.
To avoid this outcome, the scientific community and universities must make it clear to corporations that they are not free to put such restrictive clauses into research contracts. Were universities in general to adopt clear policies prohibiting faculty from entering into such contracts, corporations that wanted to impose these kinds of restrictions would thereby be denied access to the intellectual resources universities can provide. This would likely be the most effective way to ensure that research moneys do not come with strings (and chains, and gags) attached. In this case as in others, policies that put constraints on what people can agree to actually serve the function of protecting freedom. They do so by ensuring that people don't find themselves with no real alternative but to accept a restrictive agreement.
Monday, July 26, 2010
The Science of the Violin and the Subjective/Objective Distinction
Readers of this blog--especially those intrigued by the issues raised in the last couple of posts--may enjoy a recent article in Science, "Probing the Secrets of the Finest Fiddles." In it, accoustics engineer James Woodhouse is quoted as saying, "We know pretty well how to distinguish a really bad instrument from a really good one. What distinguishes a pretty good instrument from a stratospheric instrument, I think we still don't know."
What particularly interests me here is that scientists have been able to discern measurable physical properties that distinguish instruments whose tone most listeners find lovely from instruments whose tone most listeners find tinny or in other ways less than beautiful. While a similar achievement hasn't been realized with respect to the differences between good and truly great instruments, scientists are not without hope or resources for making headway.
One implication of this fact is the following: Our aesthetic judgments in this area have been shown to track scientifically measurable differences. In this respect, even if we set aside the question of whether there are any realities beyond the physical ones scientists study, it seems that aesthetic judgments can and sometimes do track differences in the physical world.
This raises some questions about the sharp line that is often drawn between "objective" and "subjective" claims. Aesthetic judgments are routinely classified as "subjective," especially by naturalists. But on naturalist assumptions, is this entirely right? After all, that an object has a certain color is usually taken to be an objective claim (asserting something about the object that is true of it), even though color is ordinarily understood to be something that exists only "in our heads." Despite this, we treat color attributions as objective because our color experiences correlate with physical realities, tracking changes in the physical world. By contrast, calling a pizza tasty is said to be a subjective claim--that is, a claim which is really saying something about the speaker rather than about the pizza.
Could it be that this distinction is far muddier than we usually treat it as being, more a matter of degree than of differences in kind, even from a naturalist perspective?
What particularly interests me here is that scientists have been able to discern measurable physical properties that distinguish instruments whose tone most listeners find lovely from instruments whose tone most listeners find tinny or in other ways less than beautiful. While a similar achievement hasn't been realized with respect to the differences between good and truly great instruments, scientists are not without hope or resources for making headway.
One implication of this fact is the following: Our aesthetic judgments in this area have been shown to track scientifically measurable differences. In this respect, even if we set aside the question of whether there are any realities beyond the physical ones scientists study, it seems that aesthetic judgments can and sometimes do track differences in the physical world.
This raises some questions about the sharp line that is often drawn between "objective" and "subjective" claims. Aesthetic judgments are routinely classified as "subjective," especially by naturalists. But on naturalist assumptions, is this entirely right? After all, that an object has a certain color is usually taken to be an objective claim (asserting something about the object that is true of it), even though color is ordinarily understood to be something that exists only "in our heads." Despite this, we treat color attributions as objective because our color experiences correlate with physical realities, tracking changes in the physical world. By contrast, calling a pizza tasty is said to be a subjective claim--that is, a claim which is really saying something about the speaker rather than about the pizza.
Could it be that this distinction is far muddier than we usually treat it as being, more a matter of degree than of differences in kind, even from a naturalist perspective?
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Share Links Added to this Blog
I just wanted to point out to readers of this blog that I have now added a feature which enables you to quickly and easily share blog posts you like with your friends through facebook, twitter, e-mail, etc. Look for the icons at the end of each post. If you think the post will interest (or outrage, or inspire) those in your own network, click the appropriate icon and maybe they'll join the conversation!
Music and Spirituality, Part II: The Difference Ontology Makes
My last post, which was about music and spirituality, sparked a number of thoughtful comments. As I started to respond to some of these, my response kept growing until I realized that it should be a post of its own. So...here is Part Two, in which I want to focus more deeply on what difference, if any, our ontology makes for assessing the significance and value of our aesthetic responses to music (and other aesthetic objects, human-made and otherwise).
Let me begin by sharing my affinity for Bernard’s comment, when he expresses “great wonder in being able to create worlds through words which are then reimagined into existence in brains on the other side of the globe. I delight in this from a purely materialist point of view.” Like Bernard, I think there is something amazing about the idea that activity in my brain could produce something in the physical world—a work of fiction, say—which would then stimulate the brains of people across the world to follow patterns similar to (but not identical with) many of those that motivated the author (and many of those experienced by other readers).
But if this is right, does that mean I should be able to dispense with any non-materialist beliefs without my aesthetic experience thereby losing any of its significance? Let me put it this way. When I contemplate a world in which artists produce physical artifacts that stimulate the brains of others, producing a kind of connection and harmony among far-flung human brains—well, I find this to be a kind of meta-level artistic creation. One of the wonders of a live musical performance is that this kind of shared experience can itself become an object of experience by musicians and listeners. One gazes across the auditorium and sees feet tapping to the same rhythm as one’s own, tension building and releasing in tandem across dozens of faces, etc.
The original work of art—the musical work or the piece of creative writing—becomes an instrument for producing another work of art at a higher level, one painted on a human canvas. And this work of art is beautiful.
But the same question that we confronted with respect to the beauty of the original work arises with respect to the beauty of this meta-level creation. In what does that beauty consist? Is the beauty of this neurological interplay among different human brains just another brain response? When I call this interplay beautiful, does that simply mean that when my brain receives this interplay as input, it is stimulated to generate a certain kind of pleasure response?
More profoundly, does it matter? Does it make a difference for the significance of the statement “X is beautiful” whether my subjective response to X is produced by its beauty (and is a fitting or appropriate response to its beauty) or whether the statement just means “X produces in me (and others) a certain kind of neurological response.”
One thing we can say about the latter alternative is this: If beauty just is a neurological response (or, more precisely, if something having the property of being beautiful just amounts to it have the propensity to produce a certain kind of neurological response in human observers), then it is a contingent fact that Beethoven’s 9th Symphony is a great aesthetic work whereas my dog’s farts are not (please excuse the crudeness--my dogs have been eating something recently that made this example leap to mind).
What this contingent fact is contingent upon is what our human neurological wiring happens be. Had human brains been wired differently, so as to generate the kinds of responses to canine farts that Beethoven’s 9th tends to produce and vice versa, then—by virtue of brain wiring—it would be true that canine farts are things of sublime beauty whereas Beethoven’s 9th is not.
And it would follow, furthermore, that there would be nothing deficient or defective about our brain responses in this hypothetical state of affairs. That is, we could not rightly say that brains wired in this way are less discerning than brains wired in the other way (in the way that we could, for example, say that brains which fail to distinguish between fresh milk and spoiled milk are deficient in their capacity to discern significant truths about the world).
Let me summarize my point in the following way. Consider this claim: “Beethoven’s 9th symphony is a sublime aesthetic achievement worthy of Beethoven’s labors, and if our brains were wired such that we found more of aesthetic value in sniffing dog farts, then our brains would be deficiently wired.” This statement is true only if there is more to beauty than a certain kind of neurological response. If “beautiful” just means “apt to produce X kind of neurological response,” then the claim is false (because in that case alternative neural wiring could never lead to deficiencies in aesthetic discernment, and certain kinds of alternative wiring would entail that Beethoven’s efforts become aesthetically fruitless—akin to the compositional efforts of my tone deaf friend from high school—without there being any change in the actual substance of what he produced).
Now I’m pretty sure that if reductive materialism is true, then we must accept all of these implications. But I’m also pretty sure that these implications are not trivial—that they do have an impact on the significance of what is going on between artists and their audiences. If these implications are right, and there were some drug that could mimic the neurological effects of exposure to a flawless performance of Beethoven’s 9th, then wouldn’t the act of administering the drug have a comparable aesthetic significance as the act of putting on a flawless performance of Beethoven’s 9th?
Perhaps there is a difference insofar as the performers undergo neurological events that aren’t repeated when the drug is administered on the would-be audience. But then suppose there’s another drug that could produce in the would-be musicians the relevant neurological outcomes.
One might point out that administering these drugs severs the neurological activities associated with our encounter with a flawless performance of Beethoven’s 9th from the actual human effort that ordinarily goes into such a performance—the hours of individual practice and collective rehearsal, not to mention the investment of energy and attention during performance. One might suppose (and I think this is true) that the aesthetic “payoff” is cheapened if cut off from that effort—that there is something valuable about these aesthetic payoffs being the result of the cultivation of human talents and the collective effort to channel those talents together into a great performance.
But when we say it is valuable that these things--artistic effort and aesthetic payoff--be linked, what do we mean? The value of connecting effort with a certain kind of outcome is not a physical property of that connection, measurable with scientific instruments, etc. And so materialism cannot treat that value as a property of the connection. It has to treat it as nothing more than a subjective response to that connection. And if subjective responses are nothing more than neurological responses, the value of this connection just is another neurological response.
And so, once again, what if there were a drug that could produce that response? Of course, there isn’t. But the point is that if there were, the reductive materialist could offer no reason to favor a world in which musicians cultivate their talents and put on a great performance over a world in which the right drug cocktail is administered instead. The materialist cannot offer any such reasons because the offering of such reasons requires that there be objective values—aesthetic and other kinds of values that aren’t just “in our heads.” (I think this line of thought has bearing on issues of free will as well, but I won’t pursue that here).
Of course, the reductive materialist can still point out that, as a matter of contingent fact, we don’t have the hypothesized drugs. And so, in the real world, the desired neurological effects will be achieved only if actual musicians take up their instruments, work hard, and put on a performance before an appreciative audience. Since the desired effects really are highly desired and appreciated by many, this means that the work of musicians and other artists has real significance in the actual world, even if materialism is true. But my point is that, given reductive materialism, there is nothing about a great performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony that makes it true of that performance that it is has aesthetic merit. The aesthetic merit is purely a brain event, which can hypothetically exist even in the absence of the work of art.
Now, obviously, none of this is an argument for the existence of God. At most, it is an argument in support of looking for some coherent alternative to the reductive materialist account of aesthetic value. But whether it is even that much is open to dispute. What I have most directly aimed to do here is point out that the reductive materialist account has implications for our understanding of aesthetics that I (and others) find both counterintuitive and personally troubling. These troubling implications can be avoided only if we assume that aesthetic judgments have an objective truth value—that is, only if they are true or false apart from what is going on in our heads. And it is hard to see how they can have such a truth value if we accept a materialist ontology.
While this helps to explain why I am drawn to alternative ontologies—why I might “root for them,” so to speak—can it have any bearing on what it is reasonable for me to believe?
As has been pointed out before, one cannot conclude that an ontology is false just because one finds it to be troubling or counterintuitive. That is, true statements are often personally troubling, and our intuitions can deceive us. But, as has also been pointed out before, there is a big difference between a holistic interpretation of experience and a specific hypothesis about the world of experience for which specifiable standards of evidence are clearly applicable. Among other things, one’s holistic interpretation of experience plays a crucial role in determining which of our experiences are to be treated as having the veridicality necessary for counting as evidence. As such, when we go about deciding on a holistic interpretation of experience, any attempt to do so by first settling on specific criteria of evidence will beg the question (because we will thereby implicitly embrace a holistic interpretation of experience in advance).
So how do we approach the task of deciding among such holistic interpretations, if any standard of evidence we invoke for doing so is necessarily going to beg the question? As I have alluded to before, Hegel offers an approach that I think is quite brilliant (even if his own application of that approach was, in my judgment, fatally infected by arrogance)—an approach which proposes that we tentatively “put on” or try out a holistic framework with its standards of evidence and see where it takes us. His presumption is that an inadequate framework will encounter deep problems of various kinds (which he collectively calls “contradictions”). We should then revise the framework to overcome these problems and try out the new and improved framework to expose its problems. And so on.
I will develop these ideas more fully in a later series on Hegel. For now, I just want to note that in this methodological approach, our intuitions as well as an awareness of where we cry out in protest against a framework’s implications can and do play a role.
One last point deserves mention. An important reason why many insist that aesthetics is ultimately all in our heads is because they believe that treating aesthetic claims as objective makes no sense. And the reason why they think this is because they implicitly or explicitly accept the core thesis of logical positivism, which holds the following:
“In order for a proposition to be a meaningful statement (that is, a statement with a truth value), it must either be an empirically testable claim (a claim such that the world would be different in empirically discernible ways were the claim true than it would be were the claim false) or an analytic one (one that asserts a logical relationship among concepts).”
I will hereafter refer to this as the "Logical Positivist Thesis." If this Logical Positivist Thesis is embraced, then aesthetic judgments will be meaningful only if they are understood to be saying something about what is going on in our heads. Why? First of all, because aesthetic judgments are not analytic, and so (given the Logical Postivist Thesis) in order to be meaningful they need to be empirically testable. But, to put it loosely, no scientific instrument could measure how many turps of beauty are contained in Beethoven’s 9th. If beauty is a property of the symphony, it’s not an empirical one. Since Logical Positivism has no room for the meaningful attribution of non-empirical properties, it must either dismiss aesthetic judgments as meaningless or identify them with something that is empirical. Neurological activity is empirical, and it does correlate with judgments of beauty (that is, those who experience what they take to be beautiful have something going on in their heads that is empirically different from what is going on in the heads of those who are smelling dog farts). And so the identification is made.
The big problem with this entire line of thought—one I’ve pointed out before—is that the Logical Positivist Thesis is self-referentially incoherent: it’s neither empirically testable nor analytic. And so, if we accept it, we must reject it. It is one of those principles which absolutely cannot be true. And this means that there must exist meaningful (true and false) statements that are neither empirically testable nor analytic.
In short, it is necessarily true that there exists a class of meaningful propositions (propositions which have a truth value) which are not reducible to empirical or analytic propositions. There must be true propositions that are not just matters of how ideas are related to each other, and are not empirically testable statements about the material world.
Perhaps aesthetic propositions fall into this class.
Let me begin by sharing my affinity for Bernard’s comment, when he expresses “great wonder in being able to create worlds through words which are then reimagined into existence in brains on the other side of the globe. I delight in this from a purely materialist point of view.” Like Bernard, I think there is something amazing about the idea that activity in my brain could produce something in the physical world—a work of fiction, say—which would then stimulate the brains of people across the world to follow patterns similar to (but not identical with) many of those that motivated the author (and many of those experienced by other readers).
But if this is right, does that mean I should be able to dispense with any non-materialist beliefs without my aesthetic experience thereby losing any of its significance? Let me put it this way. When I contemplate a world in which artists produce physical artifacts that stimulate the brains of others, producing a kind of connection and harmony among far-flung human brains—well, I find this to be a kind of meta-level artistic creation. One of the wonders of a live musical performance is that this kind of shared experience can itself become an object of experience by musicians and listeners. One gazes across the auditorium and sees feet tapping to the same rhythm as one’s own, tension building and releasing in tandem across dozens of faces, etc.
The original work of art—the musical work or the piece of creative writing—becomes an instrument for producing another work of art at a higher level, one painted on a human canvas. And this work of art is beautiful.
But the same question that we confronted with respect to the beauty of the original work arises with respect to the beauty of this meta-level creation. In what does that beauty consist? Is the beauty of this neurological interplay among different human brains just another brain response? When I call this interplay beautiful, does that simply mean that when my brain receives this interplay as input, it is stimulated to generate a certain kind of pleasure response?
More profoundly, does it matter? Does it make a difference for the significance of the statement “X is beautiful” whether my subjective response to X is produced by its beauty (and is a fitting or appropriate response to its beauty) or whether the statement just means “X produces in me (and others) a certain kind of neurological response.”
One thing we can say about the latter alternative is this: If beauty just is a neurological response (or, more precisely, if something having the property of being beautiful just amounts to it have the propensity to produce a certain kind of neurological response in human observers), then it is a contingent fact that Beethoven’s 9th Symphony is a great aesthetic work whereas my dog’s farts are not (please excuse the crudeness--my dogs have been eating something recently that made this example leap to mind).
What this contingent fact is contingent upon is what our human neurological wiring happens be. Had human brains been wired differently, so as to generate the kinds of responses to canine farts that Beethoven’s 9th tends to produce and vice versa, then—by virtue of brain wiring—it would be true that canine farts are things of sublime beauty whereas Beethoven’s 9th is not.
And it would follow, furthermore, that there would be nothing deficient or defective about our brain responses in this hypothetical state of affairs. That is, we could not rightly say that brains wired in this way are less discerning than brains wired in the other way (in the way that we could, for example, say that brains which fail to distinguish between fresh milk and spoiled milk are deficient in their capacity to discern significant truths about the world).
Let me summarize my point in the following way. Consider this claim: “Beethoven’s 9th symphony is a sublime aesthetic achievement worthy of Beethoven’s labors, and if our brains were wired such that we found more of aesthetic value in sniffing dog farts, then our brains would be deficiently wired.” This statement is true only if there is more to beauty than a certain kind of neurological response. If “beautiful” just means “apt to produce X kind of neurological response,” then the claim is false (because in that case alternative neural wiring could never lead to deficiencies in aesthetic discernment, and certain kinds of alternative wiring would entail that Beethoven’s efforts become aesthetically fruitless—akin to the compositional efforts of my tone deaf friend from high school—without there being any change in the actual substance of what he produced).
Now I’m pretty sure that if reductive materialism is true, then we must accept all of these implications. But I’m also pretty sure that these implications are not trivial—that they do have an impact on the significance of what is going on between artists and their audiences. If these implications are right, and there were some drug that could mimic the neurological effects of exposure to a flawless performance of Beethoven’s 9th, then wouldn’t the act of administering the drug have a comparable aesthetic significance as the act of putting on a flawless performance of Beethoven’s 9th?
Perhaps there is a difference insofar as the performers undergo neurological events that aren’t repeated when the drug is administered on the would-be audience. But then suppose there’s another drug that could produce in the would-be musicians the relevant neurological outcomes.
One might point out that administering these drugs severs the neurological activities associated with our encounter with a flawless performance of Beethoven’s 9th from the actual human effort that ordinarily goes into such a performance—the hours of individual practice and collective rehearsal, not to mention the investment of energy and attention during performance. One might suppose (and I think this is true) that the aesthetic “payoff” is cheapened if cut off from that effort—that there is something valuable about these aesthetic payoffs being the result of the cultivation of human talents and the collective effort to channel those talents together into a great performance.
But when we say it is valuable that these things--artistic effort and aesthetic payoff--be linked, what do we mean? The value of connecting effort with a certain kind of outcome is not a physical property of that connection, measurable with scientific instruments, etc. And so materialism cannot treat that value as a property of the connection. It has to treat it as nothing more than a subjective response to that connection. And if subjective responses are nothing more than neurological responses, the value of this connection just is another neurological response.
And so, once again, what if there were a drug that could produce that response? Of course, there isn’t. But the point is that if there were, the reductive materialist could offer no reason to favor a world in which musicians cultivate their talents and put on a great performance over a world in which the right drug cocktail is administered instead. The materialist cannot offer any such reasons because the offering of such reasons requires that there be objective values—aesthetic and other kinds of values that aren’t just “in our heads.” (I think this line of thought has bearing on issues of free will as well, but I won’t pursue that here).
Of course, the reductive materialist can still point out that, as a matter of contingent fact, we don’t have the hypothesized drugs. And so, in the real world, the desired neurological effects will be achieved only if actual musicians take up their instruments, work hard, and put on a performance before an appreciative audience. Since the desired effects really are highly desired and appreciated by many, this means that the work of musicians and other artists has real significance in the actual world, even if materialism is true. But my point is that, given reductive materialism, there is nothing about a great performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony that makes it true of that performance that it is has aesthetic merit. The aesthetic merit is purely a brain event, which can hypothetically exist even in the absence of the work of art.
Now, obviously, none of this is an argument for the existence of God. At most, it is an argument in support of looking for some coherent alternative to the reductive materialist account of aesthetic value. But whether it is even that much is open to dispute. What I have most directly aimed to do here is point out that the reductive materialist account has implications for our understanding of aesthetics that I (and others) find both counterintuitive and personally troubling. These troubling implications can be avoided only if we assume that aesthetic judgments have an objective truth value—that is, only if they are true or false apart from what is going on in our heads. And it is hard to see how they can have such a truth value if we accept a materialist ontology.
While this helps to explain why I am drawn to alternative ontologies—why I might “root for them,” so to speak—can it have any bearing on what it is reasonable for me to believe?
As has been pointed out before, one cannot conclude that an ontology is false just because one finds it to be troubling or counterintuitive. That is, true statements are often personally troubling, and our intuitions can deceive us. But, as has also been pointed out before, there is a big difference between a holistic interpretation of experience and a specific hypothesis about the world of experience for which specifiable standards of evidence are clearly applicable. Among other things, one’s holistic interpretation of experience plays a crucial role in determining which of our experiences are to be treated as having the veridicality necessary for counting as evidence. As such, when we go about deciding on a holistic interpretation of experience, any attempt to do so by first settling on specific criteria of evidence will beg the question (because we will thereby implicitly embrace a holistic interpretation of experience in advance).
So how do we approach the task of deciding among such holistic interpretations, if any standard of evidence we invoke for doing so is necessarily going to beg the question? As I have alluded to before, Hegel offers an approach that I think is quite brilliant (even if his own application of that approach was, in my judgment, fatally infected by arrogance)—an approach which proposes that we tentatively “put on” or try out a holistic framework with its standards of evidence and see where it takes us. His presumption is that an inadequate framework will encounter deep problems of various kinds (which he collectively calls “contradictions”). We should then revise the framework to overcome these problems and try out the new and improved framework to expose its problems. And so on.
I will develop these ideas more fully in a later series on Hegel. For now, I just want to note that in this methodological approach, our intuitions as well as an awareness of where we cry out in protest against a framework’s implications can and do play a role.
One last point deserves mention. An important reason why many insist that aesthetics is ultimately all in our heads is because they believe that treating aesthetic claims as objective makes no sense. And the reason why they think this is because they implicitly or explicitly accept the core thesis of logical positivism, which holds the following:
“In order for a proposition to be a meaningful statement (that is, a statement with a truth value), it must either be an empirically testable claim (a claim such that the world would be different in empirically discernible ways were the claim true than it would be were the claim false) or an analytic one (one that asserts a logical relationship among concepts).”
I will hereafter refer to this as the "Logical Positivist Thesis." If this Logical Positivist Thesis is embraced, then aesthetic judgments will be meaningful only if they are understood to be saying something about what is going on in our heads. Why? First of all, because aesthetic judgments are not analytic, and so (given the Logical Postivist Thesis) in order to be meaningful they need to be empirically testable. But, to put it loosely, no scientific instrument could measure how many turps of beauty are contained in Beethoven’s 9th. If beauty is a property of the symphony, it’s not an empirical one. Since Logical Positivism has no room for the meaningful attribution of non-empirical properties, it must either dismiss aesthetic judgments as meaningless or identify them with something that is empirical. Neurological activity is empirical, and it does correlate with judgments of beauty (that is, those who experience what they take to be beautiful have something going on in their heads that is empirically different from what is going on in the heads of those who are smelling dog farts). And so the identification is made.
The big problem with this entire line of thought—one I’ve pointed out before—is that the Logical Positivist Thesis is self-referentially incoherent: it’s neither empirically testable nor analytic. And so, if we accept it, we must reject it. It is one of those principles which absolutely cannot be true. And this means that there must exist meaningful (true and false) statements that are neither empirically testable nor analytic.
In short, it is necessarily true that there exists a class of meaningful propositions (propositions which have a truth value) which are not reducible to empirical or analytic propositions. There must be true propositions that are not just matters of how ideas are related to each other, and are not empirically testable statements about the material world.
Perhaps aesthetic propositions fall into this class.
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