I read this rather interesting article on religion in the university, but was mostly struck by the comments, which were overwhelmingly hostile to religious belief. I know that the “New Atheism” is quite the publishing phenomenon these days, and that lots of people who think they’re smart also think that orthodox (and even unorthodox) believers are quite dense. What’s more, they’re clearly not afraid to say so.
This raises a couple of “practical” questions that they ought to consider.
First, if religion is as powerfully influential as they think, how is it that they can get away with saying such mean things about it? How did we come to live in a regime where it’s possible to speak freely about allegedly reigning “orthodoxies”? Did religious authorities voluntarily loosen their grip, or were they “misled” by smart atheists? (John Locke, for example, was a thinker who was quite possibly an atheist–I realize there is much scholarly dispute about this–who availed himself of religious arguments to argue for toleration, albeit not for atheists.)
Second, if we believers are as dumb as the New Atheists think we are, then how on earth are we going to govern ourselves? If we’re too stupid to live by the light of mere reason, then (to borrow a phrase) what is to be done with us? Are we to be disenfranchised and governed by a rational elite? Thomas Hobbes said something quite apposite here: “[T]here are very few so foolish that had not rather govern themselves than be governed by others: nor when the wise, in their own conceit, contend by force with them who distrust their own wisdom, do they always, or often, or almost at any time, get the victory.”
In the old days, those who were atheistic or religiously heterodox were–however smart and capable they thought themselves–at pains to accommodate themselves to the religious mainstream. They recognized the unusualness of their own opinions and understood that they could not widely be shared. They knew that good government required religion.
I think that George Washington, whatever his own opinions, expresses this “old-fashioned” view:
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
Are our New Atheists smarter than Hobbes, Locke, and Washington? About that, at least, I have my doubts.
March 25th, 2011 | 12:58 pm
My IQ dropped by half when I got religion.
March 25th, 2011 | 1:28 pm
Once upon a time, literacy was the province of a very tiny segment of the population. The kind of intense, lengthy training and practice necessary to develop literacy was a prohibitive barrier.
At that time, if you’d proposed universal literacy, you’d have been laughed at – at best. Yet now, in many places, we’ve come within spitting distance of that goal. Non-theistic moral reasoning isn’t terribly common now, but that doesn’t mean it can’t ever become so.
I think Washington may have overestimated the ‘peculiarity’ of that ‘mental structure’. And my evidence is that I, unlike Thomas Jefferson, am not a genius[1].
Yet, while not believing in any gods, I am nevertheless capable of reasoning and behaving morally and in a civilized fashion. I’ve seen the trick worked on myself, so I’m quite willing to believe it can be worked for others, too.
[1] Enjoy the straight line as my gift to y’all.
March 25th, 2011 | 2:14 pm
If you ever want to make your head hurt from sheer frustration, read the comments on a Huffington Post religion article.
March 25th, 2011 | 3:10 pm
I don’t doubt that a moral framework can certainly be built around an atheistic belief. It’s obviously possible. Just as vastly different religions come to different conclusions on morality.
The reality is, a moral framework built around atheism would be vastly and substantially different than that which has existed in the West for about 1500yrs. All moral frameworks base their reasoning and conclusions on their premise. In atheism, the premise is that there is no transcendent reality, and therefore all reasoning and conclusions must be based upon empirical and experienced truths.
I can see only two beginning premises for an Atheistic moral system:
1. A materialistic premise, where all morality is based upon material requirements and needs of creatures.
2. A Utilitarian premise that bases all it’s reasoning on the Utility of things.
There might be others, but this would be basic building blocks of an atheistic morality. It would by nature assign value to things, creatures, activities based upon their utility or material uniqueness. It’s incomprehensible how in a purely atheistic moral framework, those who are severely handicapped, would be allowed to continue to live. Especially if the handicap was mental, and therefore of no material or utilitarian benefit to society. A net drain. In purely non transcendent though, this person/creature, would only be seen to have a net drain on society, people and therefore limit society. Of course, in this moral framework, this person/creature would likely be disposed at a fairly young age in most cases. But those cases where accidents of adults caused these handicaps, certainly the logical result would be euthanization. Is it any wonder that as we drift further and further from a moral framework based upon the transcendent, that the push for abortion, infanticide and euthanasia have become far more prominent?
There is also the question of the value of each individual. It’s obvious empirically true that human’s have varying degrees of physical and mental capabilities. In a purely atheistic society/moral framework, it would be empirically obvious that some person’s have more value and therefore should be given more support because of their corresponding greater contribution to society. This would lead to a whole host of moral conclusions about pay, rights to free speech, rights to vote and hold office, rights to reproduce etc….
In other words, when God is removed from morality, we (meaning the elite) typically insert ourselves as the gauranteer’s of morality, and the guide to social structure and value. This is the natural outcome. And if you think this is just extrapolation, listen to the speeches, writtings and opinions of famous atheists. They certainly preach the goods of selective abortion, restricting rights of reproduction to only those who have social value, restricting gov’t to only those who have the ‘intelligence to lead’, having pay systems based upon education levels, restricting rights of speech to those who deserve to be heard.
Yes, there is a possible atheistic moral framework no doubt. Sadly, it would be vastly different than what we have today. Also sadly, we seem to be moving in that direction.
God Help us!
March 25th, 2011 | 4:17 pm
“Once upon a time, literacy was the province of a very tiny segment of the population. The kind of intense, lengthy training and practice necessary to develop literacy was a prohibitive barrier.
At that time, if you’d proposed universal literacy, you’d have been laughed at – at best. Yet now, in many places, we’ve come within spitting distance of that goal.”
One peculiar aspect of non-believers that is continually striking is the habit of leaning on canards like Hypatia’s persecution by Christians or Galileo’s innocent suffering at the hands of religious bigots in order to anchor their arguments. it’s almost like they haven’t bothered to challenge their own assumptions and fairy tales with anything like the vigor and glee with which they challenge other people’s beliefs.
It typically takes a few weeks, maybe a month or two, to learn to read. This is an experience widely shared by homeschoolers and others outside the education establishment. Where people have been illiterate, it is not been the difficulty of learning to read that has been behind it.
Using reading as an example, the point Mr. Ingels wants to make is that, just as the heroic few have spread, through patient toil, the rarefied skill needed to read to the unwashed masses, we can hope that, soon and very soon, this skill will reach the glory of its full bloom in the adoption of non-theistic moral reasoning by effectively everybody.
But the real point here is that, just as wishful thinking wedded to historical and practical ignorance might lead one to think that reading is this really hard thing spread, painfully and over the years to others, just so the flippant, sophomoric sophistry that passes for ‘non-theistic moral reasoning’ is in fact a rare and noble thing that the many have yet to exert themselves enough to grasp, BUT we can hope that they will eventually grasp it, as unlikely as that now seems.
On the contrary, I’ve read (and I’m really, really good at reading) plenty of non-theistic moral reasoning and am profoundly unimpressed with the ‘reasoning’ part. The problem is not lack of education or intelligence – as the kids say, the arguments suck.
March 25th, 2011 | 4:45 pm
@Blake: Did it drop by half again when you lost it?
@Ingles: Regards genius, not mine either. I suspect that’s true of the vast majority of us. And still we have to live.
March 25th, 2011 | 8:36 pm
Yet, while not believing in any gods, I am nevertheless capable of reasoning and behaving morally and in a civilized fashion.
Well, sure, since “moral” and “civilized” are now things that even children can redefine to mean whatever they want.
March 25th, 2011 | 11:01 pm
Doorman –
“…The Philosopher’s Syndrome: Mistaking a failure of imagination for an insight into necessity.” – Daniel Dennett
Click on my name for a framework that’s ‘utilitarian’ in some senses but has a different handle on ‘utility’ than you seem to expect. Which leads to different conclusions than you seem to expect.
March 25th, 2011 | 11:13 pm
Joseph –
Well, that partly depends on the language, too. Ideograms require a bit more time for mastery, for example. But sparing a few weeks or a month or two on learning to read wasn’t something a whole lot of people could afford to do. The lack of printed materials limited literacy considerably, as well, before the printing press.
Still, thanks for helping me out. I didn’t imply that reading was particularly difficult. I simply pointed out that it took a long time and a lot of effort for universal literacy to become a reality.
And I certainly didn’t imply that ‘non-theistic moral reasoning’ was difficult – rather the opposite, you’ll note[1]. No more difficult than literacy, really. Some training, practice, and so forth.
Please point out where I proposed any timescale different from the centuries it took literacy to spread, let alone “soon and very soon”. I’m curious.
(It’s really interesting how often on this site I’m informed of the ‘point I want to make’ rather than the point I, you know, actually made. If you’re in doubt, just ask. Sheesh.)
[1] Another straight line, I suppose.
March 26th, 2011 | 12:06 am
Religion is growing faster than ever before. From Jenkins’ The Next Christendom: Today in the world, there are 6 billion people, 2 billion Christian, 1.5 billion Muslim. By the year 2100, there will be 9 billion people in the world, 4 billion Christian, 4 billion Muslim.
Let the atheists squawk. They’re clearly living in a bubble.
March 26th, 2011 | 10:16 am
“Once upon a time, literacy was the province of a very tiny segment of the population.”
For what it’s worth, the time of the Founders was not one of those times. The 18th century American literacy rate was remarkably high, so I’m not sure how pointing out that people across history have had low literacy rates is terribly relevant to what might have been the Founders’ motivations.
March 26th, 2011 | 10:57 am
pentamom – I was drawing an analogy between literacy and “the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure”. Both require training and practice. Just about anyone can become literate.
I was saying that it seems to me just about anyone could learn how to be civilized without religion as well. As I specifically wrote, “I think Washington may have overestimated the ‘peculiarity’ of that ‘mental structure’.”
March 26th, 2011 | 11:00 am
Well, Washington’s argument points to a deeper requirement than just being possibly moral. After all it was always possible for Hitler to establish a society that protected innocent life and lived at peace with neighboring states. Washington is concerned for finding a source that would nurture tendecies that see to it that such a state would come about rather than otherwise, a state where the agents were careful to uphold their oaths. The requirement if oath taking presupposes this need to be certain, given human nature. We continue to affirm this in our requiring professionals to belong to associations where they are held accountable to a code of conduct which they must sign, like a contract. We hope the professional association will provide a sufficient proxy as an agency that will inspire the desired conduct and intimidate misconduct. As being the best we can do, we welcome such associations and would rather hire agents who belong to them rather than not. But for all that, such associations remain made of humans and we have seen that such societies may fail us altogether. There remains a possible recourse that is most intimate in it’s supervision, most perfect in it’s judgment, and most certain in it’s sentence, than a professional association – and that is the religious Object. If the value of professional associations is clear and intelligible, the value of religious piety is even more so. We certainly want those to most pious to include those in charge of the Red Buttons.
March 26th, 2011 | 11:02 am
Mr. Ingles has evidently re-discovered the natural law. The idea that much of moral behavior can be discerned by reason was a point made by St. Paul in Romans 2, and has been orthodox catholic doctrine ever since. Oddly, the deniers are folks like Nietzsche, Sartre, Rorty, et al., who claim that anyone who thinks there is an objective morality is already on the slippery slope of theism.
Alas, ever since the triumph of the will, people more and more confuse the good with what they want; and truth, as Nietzsche affirmed, is what makes you feel empowered. Typically, we find that folks already “know” the right answers because Western Civ has been marinating in them for a thousand years or so. They construct ad hoc arguments for them, but they are not rooted in their own axioms. Nietzsche’s name for them was “English flatheads,” since this was evidently an Anglophone tendency. Stanley Fish pointed out that efforts to ground morality on things like “fairness” or “the good of society” beg the question. “Fair” with respect to what standard? How do we know what is “good for society”? Racial hygeine, perhaps?
March 26th, 2011 | 1:05 pm
I’m not too worried about the New Atheism. There are no atheists in foxholes. And our economy will gradually but relentlessly put is in the foxholes. Lets see how the New Atheists fare then. We’re all living in a dream world now.
March 26th, 2011 | 1:17 pm
In a discussion of historic literacy rates it’s important to keep a couple things in mind:
1. In an oral, face-to-face culture, as was more common in the pre-modern world, the ability to read is a luxury. It’s not just the expense of reading–in both the effort required to learn the skill and the cost of materials–that’s prohibitive. Rather, it’s that there no real need for communication across space or time that cannot be met orally.
2. The previous point is reinforced by considering that, historically, reading and writing were different skills, often acquired separately (unlike today, when children learn them together). Some people thus learned to read, because there was some use to being a consumer of print, but not to write, because there was little use to be a producer of anything. It’s easy to imagine that someone might want to read the Bible but not send a letter if they regularly see everyone they want to talk to.
3. People read out loud much more often in the past then they did today. Thus, people had access to print even if they themselves could not read.
4. Although today literacy is often seen as a stand in for education level and intelligence–and with good reason, considering the demands of today’s world–the ability to read is really one ability amongst many that has meaning in reference to what people want to accomplish.
March 26th, 2011 | 2:44 pm
The Gnu –
Of course, not everyone, even in the Founders’ time, was convinced by that argument. Or not entirely, at least. Unlike the Constitutions of many states (at the time), the U.S. Constitution specifically does not mandate oaths. The only time “Oath” is mentioned in the Constitution without “or Affirmation” is in Amendment 14, well after the Founders’ time.
An ‘affirmation’ is perfectly accepted in all legal contexts as identical to an oath, but has no religious connotations. It is subject to the usual worldly penalties as oath-breaking, of course.
(Do you know of study that actually shows that perjury, for example, is reduced among those taking oaths instead of affirmations? And if so, to what degree? I’m not.)
March 26th, 2011 | 4:43 pm
Bob G –
Well, except for the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, motto: “Atheists in Foxholes”.
March 26th, 2011 | 4:51 pm
Ye Olde Statistician –
Yes, and much of society is basically “moral engineering”, setting up systems whereby what y’all term the “natural law” is reinforced.
Now, the claim above is that religion is an essential reinforcement.
How about a real-world test? In 1969, the Montreal police went on strike. God, presumably, did not. Which one had a more dramatic impact on moral behavior?
Seems to confirm what H. L. Mencken wrote; “People say we need religion when what they really mean is we need police.”
March 26th, 2011 | 6:57 pm
How about a real-world test? In 1969, the Montreal police went on strike. God, presumably, did not. Which one had a more dramatic impact on moral behavior?
Seems to confirm what H. L. Mencken wrote; “People say we need religion when what they really mean is we need police.”
Which matters more in influencing the crime rate, the presence/power of police, or the beliefs, traits, characteristics, etc. of the culture, or the residents of a neighborhood?
If you go to Amazon and type in “Sociology Social Issues, Services & Welfare, gang” you will find a bunch of books that will tell you that studies have shown that gangs only flourish in neighborhoods where the residents do not cooperate with police.
That is the extreme at one end – where adding more cops isn’t going to change the real crime rate much (though you’ll see a lot of arrests of people who were caught standing on a corner looking like a punk).
And the reason that adding more cops makes no difference is because the relevant factor involves the personal characteristics of the residents in a neighborhood.
The gangs actually take over the functions normally served by police. According to these guys who write books about gangs, that’s why gangs shoot at civilians instead of each other – because they are trying to demonstrate the other gang is too weak to protect its neighborhood and/or they are trying to get the residents to stop supporting that gang. (I think it was in the book Islands In The Street: Gangs And Urban Society that I read that. I could be mistaken.)
At the other extreme, you have studies on Japan:
“In sharp contrast to the United States, Japan has one of the lowest crime rates in the world…yet Japan’s population per square mile is almost thirty times that of ours…
“…rooted in long-standing traditions that are profoundly related to fundamental matters of morality, culture, and historical experience. Bayley shows …[the difference is]… the characteristic way in which people are expected to relate to one another and the sorts of social institutions that shape and reinforce those expectations. ”
http://www.amazon.com/Forces-Order-Policing-Modern-Revised/dp/0520072626/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301179013&sr=1-7
“Criminologists have despaired that modernization and crime are inseparable, but Japan has long been seen as an exception to the rule…[because of]…sociological insights concerning responsibility, obligations and collective identities.”
http://www.amazon.com/Japan-Low-Crime-Nation-Dag-Leonardsen/dp/1403941114
March 27th, 2011 | 12:22 am
I’m not sure what statistics on crime rates and police strikes might prove; but then laymen always see more in statistics than professionals do. In particular what it might prove about moral principles accessible to reason as Ray Ingles, St. Paul, and St. Thomas assert against the likes of Nietzsche, Sartre, or Rorty.
Suppose in a city, let’s call it Montreal, there are N people whose will has triumphed over their intellect, so that they want what they want when they want it. The intellect being then in service to the will rather than vice versa, some percentage of the N will prudently refrain from illegal evils from fear of the police. Remove the police and you remove their inhibition. But there has been no change in the inclinations of the population.
March 27th, 2011 | 1:11 am
[...] [...]
March 27th, 2011 | 6:16 am
“Claiming to be wise they became fools.”
Or something like that.
March 27th, 2011 | 8:10 am
Blake –
I’ve often thought the belief – promulgated almost every Sunday in one form or another – that the only reason to be good is religion, and the sole alternative is naked short-term self-interest, had a powerful influence on the “beliefs, traits, characteristics, etc. of the culture”.
And, um, I’m not aware of any data showing that gangs were a problem in Montreal in 1969…
Which, you’ll note, don’t have anything much to do with any Western religion. Indeed, there are plenty who say that the recent earthquake and tsunami are punishment for their materialism and atheism.
Whereas I’d say that Japan offers a goodly amount of support for my thesis that culture and sociological elements have a much greater influence than religion.
March 27th, 2011 | 8:18 am
The question I asked was, “Which one [police or religion] had a more dramatic impact on moral behavior?” Does that help?
March 27th, 2011 | 3:22 pm
Which, you’ll note, don’t have anything much to do with any Western religion
No, western religion is not necessary for a low crime rate.
Social cohesion, a sense of obligation (that is, the belief that in return for what society gives you, there is a corresponding obligation to give something back), a sense of responsibility –
These things are all directly related to the “golden rule” – which every religion embraces.
…except humanism, whose competitive advantage stems entirely from its positioning as the un-religion, promising people that they can have whatever they want, be whatever they want, do whatever they want, and that any and all “limits” are bad.
So, western religion is not “necessary” – it’s just that all the qualities that humanists use to demonize western religion happen to be exactly the same qualities that are related to the low crime rate.
If humanism were to adopt the belief that selfish, inconsiderate, immature, narcissistic behaviors need to be punished….
…except it can’t: it is a faith that offers nothing except the promise of selfish, inconsiderate, immature, narcissistic values.
March 27th, 2011 | 4:42 pm
I too am fed up with the New Atheists. This may surprise some when I hasten to add that I have been an atheist for the last four decades of my 52 years. This means that I was one long before it became the latest fashion. The New Atheists do not speak for me. They seem to have an agenda. They think they have a monopoly on the definition of what it means to be an atheist. An atheist is simply someone who is not a theist. One is defined by what he is not. There is no defining philosophy of atheism. There is no atheist manifesto; no secret initiation. If you think that the New Atheists speak for all atheists then you must think that there has been a war declared and that all atheists are your sworn enemies. I personally find the New Atheists to be an ill-mannered lot. They are the products of a time when opinion in politics and religion seem to be characterized by an all-or-nothing, either-or mentality. We need a return to polite discourse and mutual respect.
March 27th, 2011 | 9:20 pm
It’s the Huffington Post. If you really want an unvarnished view of what blind hateful ignorance looks and smells like, check out the comments after any article in the religion section, in particular those dealing with Catholicism or Islam. For self-proclaimed humanists, they seem to be a really bigoted lot…
March 27th, 2011 | 10:56 pm
All this talk about the importance of religion in producing moral behavior is quite besides the point. The important question is this, can a moral code validly be grounded upon a non-theistic principle?
March 28th, 2011 | 5:15 am
All this talk about the importance of religion in producing moral behavior is quite besides the point. The important question is this, can a moral code validly be grounded upon a non-theistic principle?
People can’t live without religion.
There are religions that don’t have gods. But there are no people who don’t have a belief system that has the following qualities:
1. deals with the gap between what we can know vs. what we need to know (in order to live and have a viable “working philosophy) through articles of faith
2. has mythological narratives that explain who we are, where we come from, where we are going (sometimes but not always with alternate versions, depending on whether or not we “do it right”), and what the point of it all is.
3. provides the core assumptions necessary for a moral code.
What is necessary for a moral code is the so-called “Golden Rule”, or reciprocity.
Every religion in the world except humanism understands this, and embraces some variant on the Golden Rule.
The belief system that currently resists naming (because it is exploiting its status as “not a religion” in its attempt to breach the so-called “separation of church and state” to establish a monopoly on belief in the western world), is attempting to do away with reciprocity.
This is a flaw that originates with the Enlightenment itself – the two contradictory yet still unresolved beliefs that:
(a) “human beings have a right to self-governance”
and
(b) “some human beings are elite/more intelligent than others, and therefore allowing less able humans to have democracy is not a good thing”.
March 28th, 2011 | 8:50 am
“The important question is this, can a moral code validly be grounded upon a non-theistic principle?”
Dear Jeff: I would add, “Can a moral code be KNOWN by non-theists?” To that question I would say that clearly the answer is yes–see Ray Ingles, above, for example. Moral laws that are known through the natural law can be known by anyone with access to natural reason (even as original sin guarantees that knowledge will often be ignored).
Now, can moral rules be grounded upon non-theism? I would tend to think, with Aquinas, that a rule needs a rule-giver and a method of enforcement; that is, moral rules need adequate authority and adequate punishment for their violation. Therefore, I am a lot more dubious about the answer to that question.
However, people definitely do not have to be believers to know the moral rules already in place.
March 28th, 2011 | 8:53 am
Jeff, did you see my response to Doorman above?
March 28th, 2011 | 8:54 am
Let me know when you find such a “humanist”, and we can have a three-way debate; your position, my position, and theirs. (Note: they’re all different.)
March 28th, 2011 | 11:53 am
Craig Payne –
Consider the game of chess. There are certain fundamental structures of chess that define it – the ‘rules of the game’. An 8×8 board, 8 pawns per side that move in certain ways, two rooks per side that move in other ways, castling, the initial configuration of the pieces, etc.
Now, when playing chess, there is no rule that you can’t sacrifice your queen in the first few moves of the game. It’s illegal to move your king to a threatened square, but it’s perfectly acceptable by the rules to stick your queen in front of a pawn at the start of the game.
However, if you want to win the game, you shouldn’t do that. There are almost no situations (at least, assuming evenly-matched opponents) where giving up your queen at the start will lead to your victory. Similarly, it’s rarely a good idea to move your king out to the center of the board. It’s usually a bad move.
Note words like “shouldn’t” and “bad”. They are value judgments. They prescribe ‘oughts’. They are not part of the ‘rules’ of chess. From where do they come?
They arise from the combinations of two things – first, the rules and structure of chess, and second, from the player’s desire to win the game. They are strategic rules. A player is free to disregard them, but they do so at their peril – it’s unlikely to further their goal.
Hopefully the parallel to wider life is obvious. We have ‘rules of the game’ in life, too – the laws of physics, for example. We are not free to violate these strictures. (Well, technically, if we find a case where they are violated, we reformulate the laws and our theories to take into account the anomalous case.) Many of them are so well-established that it’s difficult to see how they could be wrong to a significant degree. (Unless you can produce a magic carpet, I think we can expect to have to obey the laws of gravity, for example.)
We also have desires and goals as well. Some are very basic and inborn and apparently universal (air, water, food, sleep, shelter, etc.) and some are so common that only extremely rare individuals seem not to need them (e.g. the company of other people), and some are deeply personal and not common at all (a desire to write a novel, say).
Might there be strategies that would arise from the combination of natural laws, and our own desires?
March 28th, 2011 | 11:58 am
Blake –
I’d say you’re confusing a “worldview” – which everyone indeed has – with a “religion”. Some worldviews are religious, and some aren’t.
What’s the difference? Religious worldviews contain some notion of the supernatural, and non-religious ones don’t.
March 28th, 2011 | 4:42 pm
Hopefully the parallel to wider life is obvious. We have ‘rules of the game’ in life, too – the laws of physics, for example. We are not free to violate these strictures.
No we don’t.
We have things that are sacred.
Life is sacred.
If nothing is sacred, then there’s no reason to value or respect anything. There’s only “because I want to” and “because I will get in trouble if I don’t”.
And that is what we see with atheists. They believe in right and wrong, of course – they just believe that right and wrong can be defined to correspond with whatever they happen to want.
But if there is no right and wrong – no external reality with a good and bad that applies to all of us – then you cannot say that what Hitler did was bad or wrong; you can only say you don’t like it or that you feel threatened by it.
There is no way, logically or rationally, to argue that the Holocaust was wrong, but that abortion is not, without explaining scientifically just how the act of being born transforms an inanimate object into a human being. And this can’t be done scientifically – it can only be done ideologically.
The atheist justifications for abortion prove that they are only capable of being “good” to the extent that they are allowed to define what “good” is (so that they are not required to refrain or be limited by anything they don’t want to refrain from or be limited by).
March 28th, 2011 | 8:17 pm
Blake –
Valuing life can certainly be part of the “desires” I was talking about. (It’s also a good self-defense measure, a la Niemoller.)
You might find this interesting: http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/07/12/universal-morality-and-the-morality-of-the-universe/
I think one can explain scientifically how a conceptus isn’t a “human life” – but sometime in the neighborhood of 20 weeks, there’s a pretty solid case to be made for humanity. (http://ingles.homeunix.net/rants/atheism/braincase.html)
On the other hand, there are other ethical principles involved. You can’t force someone to risk their life for another, for example.
March 28th, 2011 | 9:28 pm
Ray Ingles
The question I asked was, “Which one [police or religion] had a more dramatic impact on moral behavior?” Does that help?
YOS
But you also thought that an alleged increase in crime during a police strike proved something about the police as a source of moral behavior. But this is absurd. First of all, moral behavior is not always the same thing as legal behavior. Secondly, it begs the question as to which things are regarded as immoral and why. Thirdly, behavior (or action) is not the same as disposition.
Suppose in a population 10% do not believe that X is wrong, but that it is an arbitrary imposition on their perfect will by some authority. Suppose further that half of them (5%) are sufficiently inhibited by the chance of getting caught, while the remainder (5%) act regardless, trusting in their native wit to elude apprehension. So the crime rate is (roughly speaking) 5%.
Now suppose the police go on strike, reducing the chance of getting caught to virtually zero. Now the crime rate doubles to 10%. (We’re assuming for the sake of simplicity that every one acts uniformly.) This might seem to show the importance of police for illegal behavior (and hence to some degree for immoral behavior).
However, this overlooks the influence of religion in two manners:
a) Making X illegal in the first place.
b) Convincing 90% that it is wrong.
IOW, religion affects the 90% who will behave morally regardless whether the police are present or not and, in the West (perhaps until recently) this has been the overwhelming majority. The police power affects only that small minority who are inclined to illegal immorality, but are inhibited from acting.
Hope this helps.
March 28th, 2011 | 10:22 pm
I think one can explain scientifically how a conceptus isn’t a “human life”
I said that science needs to explain how an inanimate thing turns into a human thing.
Science cannot do this.
The scientific definition of a living thing is such that an embryo is not an inanimate thing, so the point at which an inanimate thing becomes a living thing is the moment of conception.
At what point a living thing that is not human becomes a human is not something that science is able to define.
The current definition is not a “scientific” one, but a value judgment. You have basically made the claim that “to be human” is something that can be made arbitrary – that you can determine that a thing is “not human” through the method of coming up with arbitrary definitions of criteria designed for no other purpose than to justify depriving people of human rights.
I don’t see your logic as any different from the logic that “justified” a German saying a Jew is “not human” based on the German’s opinion of what it means “to be human”.
You do not recognize human life as sacred, so the word “human” is nothing more to you than a label that can be used to grant rights to some but not others. Denying the reality of the sacred, you are incapable of more than an ethics based on your own desires, thoughts, feelings and wants: a baby is not human because you think… and you feel… and you want… – not based on categories or classifications, not based on reason, but based on you you you.
An atheist is incapable of being more than just about himself. That’s all he is. That’s his choice.
What is the “scientific” definition of “to be human”?
And who decided it, since the question of what is or is not “human” involves a value judgment?
March 28th, 2011 | 10:27 pm
Correction: I said
The scientific definition of a living thing is such that an embryo is not an inanimate thing, so the point at which an inanimate thing becomes a living thing is the moment of conception.
At what point a living thing that is not human becomes a human is not something that science is able to define.
I should have said,
“If the living thing is defined as not-human, then the point at which it becomes human is something science cannot define”
The question is one of integrity: there is no difference between a human being’s status as a human vs. not as a human if that human is on life support – and we do not want to introduce such a distinction – so why should a viable fetus be “human” if it is outside the womb, but “not human” if it is inside?
You cannot have a categorization scheme where the question of whether an organism belongs to one category or the other is determined by whether the mother wants the child.
As anyone who recognizes human life is sacred can see.
And anyone who believes that ethics can be whatever you want it to believe can refuse to see.
Two identical organisms cannot be, in one case, worthy of human rights, and in the other case, not deserving of even the rights granted to animals, based on how an external party chooses to treat them.
I put it forward that the fact that atheists have constructed such a scheme in the first place may be taken as proof that atheism is incompatible with ethics.
March 28th, 2011 | 10:29 pm
I should add:
If the thing in a woman’s belly were not a human regardless of whether the mother wants the child or not, then simple property damage laws should cover the problem of deliberately induced miscarriage or “murder”, in cases where criminals kill unborn children.
What we have here is a deliberately propagated double standard.
March 29th, 2011 | 8:43 am
March 29th, 2011 | 10:08 am
“I think one can explain scientifically how a conceptus isn’t a ‘human life’.”
Easy: either show by the DNA that it isn’t human OR show that it isn’t alive.
+ + +
“Not a whole lot of people think murder, riots and looting are moral.”
According to Christian tradition, this is because of the natural law, accessible through the intellect by introspection. However, modern philosophy rejects finality, natural law, and other linchpins.
Surely “morality” is not mere popular opinion! What then, when “not a whole lot of people” thought slavery was immoral? What, when the Athenians told the Melians that “the strong take what they can and the weak suffer what they must” to justify their attack on that neutral polis?
But when you say “Not a whole lot of people think murder, riots and looting are moral” you have begged the question: what is “moral”? You are not allowed to piggy-back on the morality derived from any religion. Go.
PS. Do you exclude the riots taking place in the Arab world? What about when a battered woman murders an abusive boyfriend? What about Jean Valjean looting a loaf of bread to feed his starving child?
+ + +
a) Making X illegal in the first place.
b) Convincing 90% that it is wrong.
“Wait, I missed the case for religion being the only thing that could do either of those?”
See Civilization, Western, history of.
March 29th, 2011 | 11:07 am
Blake –
A liver cell – heck, even a whole liver – is human tissue. It’s human life, in one sense of the term ‘human life’ – but a liver is not a human being.
Science can’t (yet?) identify all the sufficient conditions for what makes up a human being… but it can identify some necessary conditions. One of those necessary conditions is a brain. If you decapitate someone, and use machines to keep the body alive (lungs breathing, heart pumping, etc.) you don’t have a human being anymore – you have a human body. As I asked before here, if your spouse had a brain transplant would you regard the person who came off the operating table as them?
A conceptus doesn’t have a brain. Ipso facto, it’s not a human being. By 20 weeks or so, a fetus has an organized brain with all the connections sufficient to be aware of something as basic as pain. Sometime between conception and delivery, a fetus goes from human tissue to a human being. When? We can’t yet be sure. (Though I’d argue that 20 weeks date as about the earliest one could make a sensible argument that the fetus is a human being). There may not even be a sharp dividing line, however much some might want one. (What’s the exact nanosecond ‘day’ becomes ‘night’? Does the existence of twilight mean we can’t ever be certain that some times are ‘day’ and some are ‘night’?)
Again, a organized and interconnected brain can only be shown to be a necessary condition. That doesn’t mean that it’s sufficient. However, it does mean that, absent that organized and interconnected brain, you can be sure you don’t have a human being.
Since I didn’t argue that, this is misaimed. If you want to argue with someone who claims that, go ahead and find such a person. I’m not one.
(Again, it is truly fascinating how often people on this site seem to want to argue with what they wish I’d written, rather than what I actually wrote.)
March 29th, 2011 | 11:25 am
Of course, I’ve been putting forth an alternate ‘linchpin’, but whatever.
If you want to take things all the way back to first principles, well, we’re already working on that. (Search this page for “March 25th, 2011 | 11:01 pm”.)
If, on the other hand, you’re willing to concede – for the sake of the argument – that certain things are immoral (like murder, looting, rioting, and whatnot) then we can have a different but still interesting discussion. What’s it gonna be?
To the extent they are demonstrations or uprisings, yes. To the extent that they are ‘riots’, no.
Was it self-defense or not?
If it’s necessary to prevent a greater wrong, it can be justified.
Huh. You’ll have to let Blake know. He says “western religion is not necessary for a low crime rate.” Of course, it’s not clear that you agree murder, looting, and riots are immoral or are just ‘crimes’…
March 29th, 2011 | 2:54 pm
“A liver cell – heck, even a whole liver – is human tissue. It’s human life, in one sense of the term ‘human life’ – but a liver is not a human being.”
Precisely. It is not self-organizing in the way a fertilized egg is. The liver is not, as we say today, “emergent” because we have forgotten how to say “formal causation.” In the older formulation, the liver is not “subsistent” and can only be as a part of another, whereas a human being is subsistent and exists as itself, using its DNA to construct itself.
+ + +
See Civilization, Western, history of.
“Huh. You’ll have to let Blake know. He says ‘western religion is not necessary for a low crime rate.’”
Good for Blake. But again, you are confusing “crime rate” with morality. Why is something a crime in the first place? Why is disobeying the Fugitive Slave Act a crime, but not immoral?
I am sure one can create a fantasy world in which morality has arisen without some grounding in what we now call “religion,” but for the nonce we are stuck in this world. Hence, my reference to history. We can only say what did in fact happen, not what “necessarily” might happen in fancy.
+ + +
“Of course, it’s not clear that you agree murder, looting, and riots are immoral or are just ‘crimes’…”
Oooh. Nice try; but you might want to move on. On what basis do we decide they are “immoral”? All you have offered so far is popular opinion.
+ + +
“If you want to take things all the way back to first principles, well, we’re already working on that.”
We? Anyway, your web page was a bit of warmed-over Catholic natural law doctrine, a bit of a crib from Augustine’s “On Christian doctrine”, but spoiled ultimately by an appeal to consequentialism. Which stripped of the fancier terms is that the end justifies the means; and which begs the question. If morality is what increases the public good, how do we know what the “good” is? Is it eating more chocolate because the pleasure of the taste? Or is it abstaining from chocolate as a way of self-discipline and longer-term health? And (here is the key question) who decides which good (pleasurable taste vs. weight loss) is the higher good?
I saw that your web-page began with a reference to the “Euthyphro Problem.” But this is a “problem” only if you accept Modernist philosophy, and later in the article you reject Hume, which would seem to leave you with little beside Dennett, who is not much to speak of philosophically.
March 29th, 2011 | 5:18 pm
Of course, I’ve been putting forth an alternate ‘linchpin’, but whatever.
The problem is that your version says life may be valued.
But it doesn’t solve the core problem, which is that life does not have to be valued. Whether you value life – or value anything – is a personal decision.
If morals are relative, then nothing can be wrong. There are only personal choices.
No right and wrong means no right and wrong. You can choose whether to view a baby as human or something else. You can construct definitions by which babies – or mentally ill people or Jews or people who wear eyeglasses – are “not human”.
Of course, it is not possible to have a society based on nothing but personal choices, because there is no way to resolve conflict. This is why atheists and humanists overwhelmingly tend to argue for whatever is in their line of vision. They will replace an ethics of categories and rules with an ethics where everything in their circle of vision is well-tended and well-cared for, while suffering is as out of sight as possible – with comforting phrases (or demonizing statements attacking the Other as scapegoats) to make it “not matter” that the people out there in the dark are being treated very badly.
March 30th, 2011 | 12:59 pm
YOS –
Such a fantasy world is not required.
Astronomy arose from astrology. Chemistry arose from alchemy. The later disciplines even still use some of the terminology of the former. That doesn’t mean that either alchemy or astrology are necessary or relevant now, nor does that offer any validation for alchemy or astrology.
Even if religion had been – at one point – necessary for the development of morals, that doesn’t imply that it’s necessary today.
Actually, this is a ‘nice try’ at shifting the burden, but it doesn’t hold up.
I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate that you are Christian. Therefore, ipso facto you already agree that murder, rioting, and looting are immoral. (C.f. the Ten Commandments.)
So, I don’t actually have to establish that. You’re already on board. Now, I pointed out a case strong suggesting that the police have a rather dramatic effect on the prevalence of this behavior. I’m not familiar with any examples of religion as such having such an effect.
Indeed, the rather striking lack of rioting and looting in Japan after the recent tsunami seems to argue that social effects have a much larger impact – ones that have little to do with “Civilization, Western, history of.”
You’re using a personal health-maintenance choice as an example of ‘public good’?
Well, in any case, do you think there’s such a thing as ‘human nature’? That it means something to say someone is ‘human’, as opposed to something else?
If that’s the case – that there can be commonalities among people based on the fact that they are human – then there can be at least some fundamental commonalities not only about what people want, but what they should want, what is actually in their best interest.
Some simple, non-obvious things, like that things don’t make people as happy as friends and shared experiences. Or something that many religions have recognized – that helping others makes us happy. I think they are wrong about the fundamental causes of that (like the alchemists were wrong) but it’s definitely a proposition with a lot of support.
Now, given desires, and fundamental rules (like, e.g., physics), then meta-rules, strategic rules arise. (As noted in the chess analogy above.) And it seems to me a lot of those strategic rules match what religions have independently rediscovered. The Golden or Silver rules, for example.
Of course, it’s not like I didn’t point that out already. Your discussion is certainly a dismissal, but I’m afraid it has neither the accidents nor the substance of a refutation.
That is definitely the first time I’ve seen Plato or Socrates called “Modernist”. Who do you consider pre-Modernist?
March 30th, 2011 | 2:48 pm
“Therefore, ipso facto you already agree that murder, rioting, and looting are immoral. (C.f. the Ten Commandments.) So, I don’t actually have to establish that.”
That is because you are a victim of Modernist conceptualism. These things are not immoral because they are in a law book like the “Ten Commandments.” At least according to Christian doctrine, people do not need to be =told= certain things are wrong. You don’t need to establish it because the Christians already established it for you and you are coasting on their fumes.
+ + +
“I pointed out a case strong suggesting that the police have a rather dramatic effect on the prevalence of this behavior. I’m not familiar with any examples of religion as such having such an effect.”
What you pointed out [if true] was that in the Late Secular Age, there are lots of people who have abandoned traditional morality. When the chance of getting caught was removed, they acted out. The more interesting question applies to the much larger mass of people who did not run wild. Why not? It cannot be the presence of the Police, since they were not present.
+ + +
“Indeed, the rather striking lack of rioting and looting in Japan after the recent tsunami seems to argue that social effects have a much larger impact – ones that have little to do with ‘Civilization, Western, history of.’”
No, it has to do with ‘Civilization, Eastern, history of.’ See Buddhism for details.
+ + +
“Well, in any case, do you think there’s such a thing as ‘human nature’?”
Dagnabbit, you keep citing Catholic dogma. You ought to be aware that the Scientific Revolution did away with all that nonsense talk about “natures.” Or is this another case of unwittingly coasting on the fumes?
+ + +
the “Euthyphro Problem”… is a “problem” only if you accept Modernist philosophy…
“That is definitely the first time I’ve seen Plato or Socrates called ‘Modernist’.
Plato of course was not talking about morality but about “the pious,” and he was writing in the context of a polytheistic nature-deity culture. This may well be a dilemma for them, but it may be a different sort of dilemma than it is for post-Cartesian Moderns. It was not particularly a problem for the medievals. Only when the Moderns tossed out the notion of natures and towardness and took a conceptualist approach to the universals, rather than a realist one, did the image of God become distorted as in a fun-house mirror, and he became the Absolute Monarch in the Sky (reflecting the Age of Absolute Monarchs).
+ + +
Regarding your Montreal police thingie, you ask what religion accomplished that was similar. Easily said. In our Western world, religion =started= with a world that was like Montreal that day. Rioting, looting, murder, cruelty, and unrestrained aggression were the norm. As the Athenians told the Melians before their attack on that neutral polis, “The strong take what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.” Little by little, over the centuries, religion tamed that world, created radical new ideas like “non-combatant,” created hospitals, orphanages, and so on. I shall not complain that they had not finished the job before the Secular Age battered them down and gave us world wars, nerve gasses, carpet bombing, death camps, and all the rest of the modern cornucopia of delights that followed the triumph of the will.
March 30th, 2011 | 3:48 pm
YOS –
How fascinating that about the only section of my reply that you ignored was the one where I addressed the point you’re attempting to make.
To reiterate:
Astronomy arose from astrology. Chemistry arose from alchemy. The later disciplines even still use some of the terminology of the former. That doesn’t mean that either alchemy or astrology are necessary or relevant now, nor does that offer any validation for alchemy or astrology.
Even if religion had been – at one point – necessary for the development of morals, that doesn’t imply that it’s necessary today.
You attempt to proceed along these lines here:
Except that ‘religion making things better’ doesn’t really make a good model – indeed, some key datapoints in your model are actually incorrect. See here: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pinker07/pinker07_index.html
Pinker points out that the murder rate in England today is one fortieth of what it was in the 1300s. Not many people argue England is more religious today than in the 14th century.
As Pinker says:
The decline of violence is a fractal phenomenon, visible at the scale of millennia, centuries, decades, and years. It applies over several orders of magnitude of violence, from genocide to war to rioting to homicide to the treatment of children and animals. And it appears to be a worldwide trend, though not a homogeneous one. The leading edge has been in Western societies, especially England and Holland, and there seems to have been a tipping point at the onset of the Age of Reason in the early seventeenth century.
March 30th, 2011 | 10:34 pm
Pinker points out that the murder rate in England today is one fortieth of what it was in the 1300s. Not many people argue England is more religious today than in the 14th century.
This omits a few relevant variables.
If you get a symbolic logic textbook – and learn how to use it – you will be able to see at a glance that Pinker’s logic consistently relies on the same few flaws. Superficiality – oversimplifying to leave out obviously relevant variables – is a consistent problem.
Find a better source. This guy is apparently a great scientist (?) but not much at constructing arguments.
March 30th, 2011 | 10:37 pm
Even if religion had been – at one point – necessary for the development of morals, that doesn’t imply that it’s necessary today.
On what basis do we decide they are “immoral”?
If there is no fixed point of reference for a shared consensus, then there will be no shared consensus.
If the fixed point of reference is arbitrary, then there’s no reason why anyone has to respect it: it has no legitimacy.
If nothing is sacred, then there can be no morality. There can only be what you want and what I want, and the strongest wins.
This is why the New Atheists are adopting religious language and starting to enforce “articles of faith” – even at the expense of the critical thinking and rationality they say they prize so much.
March 31st, 2011 | 8:51 am
Blake –
Your comment omits any examples of said variables.
March 31st, 2011 | 9:04 am
But there are fixed points. Things like like the nature of humanity, the nature of the universe we inhabit, and mathematical truths such as what can be found in game theory.
Let’s say you want to raise children. That means you want a stable, prosperous society with little violence.
Let’s say you want to just enjoy yourself and don’t feel like having kids. You still want a stable, prosperous society with little violence.
There are some fundamental strategic rules of chess that all strategies have in common. Different schools of chess theory focus on things like control of the center, or a focus on material… but all of them contain elements like “don’t sacrifice your queen early in the game except for massive advantage”.
Similarly, there are ‘forced moves’ in the way humans relate to each other. At least the Silver Rule, and even better the Golden Rule, for example. Chess strategy has developed over the centuries, and so has ‘moral engineering’. Slavery was an improvement over wholesale slaughter of conquered peoples. The Geneva accords – and even more, the Marshall Plan – were improvements over slavery.
Pinker shows that we’ve gotten better and better at living together and not killing each other, or even being as cruel to each other, over time.
On what basis do you rule out cooperation as a possibility?
March 31st, 2011 | 12:41 pm
On what basis do you rule out cooperation as a possibility?
If you reject the sacred, there’s nothing that holds you to any moral code.
As it happens, nobody really rejects the sacred. Everyone holds something to be sacred.
But atheists can’t afford to be honest about just what it is they genuinely hold to be sacred. Not even with themselves. Especially not with themselves.
So they cherry-pick. But the thing is, there’s no reason for them not to. There’s no logical reason why they shouldn’t just change the definition of what is or isn’t moral based on whatever suits them.
As I said earlier: the abortion debate really sums it up. If you’ll justify killing babies – especially in the way these babies are killed, and for the reasons these babies are killed – you’re capable of anything.
March 31st, 2011 | 2:03 pm
If you don’t want to win the chess game, there’s no reason not to sacrifice your queen at the beginning of the game, either.
But my point is that, for a very broad range of human desires – certainly the ones that actually promote one’s own happiness – there are fundamental strategies that emerge. And lo and behold, they match what we see in the ‘natural law’ and the fundamentals of practically all cultures.
Heck, even sociopaths find it necessary to cooperate most of the time. And when they don’t… well, you could have read this if you’d gone to any effort, but apparently the mountain needs to come to Mohammed:
How about a Stalin, someone who can take over and dominate an entire country for decades? One who can ‘get away with’ riding roughshod over anyone, or any group, who dares oppose them? What, if anything, constrains them? Why should they care about the kind of morality that the vast majority are concerned with?
I’d like to relay a story I first read during the 2003 invasion of Iraq:
Saddam, of course, deserves no pity. But this is the kind of life he led – literally jumping at shadows, because there was no one he could fully trust. Stalin became so suspicious of doctors that later in life he refused their treatment and consulted with veterinarians instead. These dictators had plenty of purely material comforts, but in the process of acquiring them they’d given up any chance of enjoying them untroubled by fears of assassination, let alone the pleasures of sharing them with loved ones. They could literally never afford to fully relax. Perhaps there are a few individuals for whom that would be worth the trade, but I wonder if they ever regretted the situations they’d locked themselves into.
This is an example of why morality is so fundamental: there are inevitable costs for violating it, particularly on a massive and regular basis. People are a diverse bunch, and there do exist sociopaths that might not mind (or even notice) those costs, but that doesn’t mean the costs aren’t there.
I’ve seen no evidence you actually grasp my position on abortion yet – quite the opposite, in fact, as I’ve pointed out before. I’m really not sure who you’re arguing with here, but it’s not me.
March 31st, 2011 | 7:21 pm
Let’s say you want to raise children. That means you want a stable, prosperous society with little violence.
The Mongols did not want to raise children?
The Athenians did not want to raise children?
The Romans did not want to raise children?
The Aztecs did not want to raise children?
The Vikings did not want to raise children?
Their societies were not especially non-violent. “The strong take what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.”
(And lest we forget: The Europeans who lined the boulevards and cheered in 1914 as their men marched off to war…)
I suppose “prosperous” could be variously defined, but consider the Digger Indians, among others. Throughout most of history, the prosperity went to the upper classes, and the rest made do.
I think you may be confusing modernist bourgeois sentiment with human “nature.”
People have children no matter how unstable, unprosperous, or violent their society is, and have often raised and praised their offspring to be the meanest SOB viking/warrior/etc. on the block. “Come back with your shield or on it!” Spartan mothers told their sons as they marched off during the annual campaigning season. Roman matrons undoubtedly said something similar when the wildly-garbed priest came dancing out of the Temple of Mars and threw the ceremonial spear in the direction the legions would march that year.
April 1st, 2011 | 12:11 am
I’ve seen no evidence you actually grasp my position on abortion yet – quite the opposite, in fact, as I’ve pointed out before. I’m really not sure who you’re arguing with here, but it’s not me.
What you choose to believe about abortion is quite irrelevant.
The word “choose” is what is relevant. You can “choose” whatever moral position you want.
If the only reason you are moral is because it is rational for you to do so, then you will stop being moral the minute it no longer seems rational to you.
The problem, of course, is that morality exists precisely because we cannot always have perfect information. Morality is what protects us during times of uncertainty. It would not be necessary if perfect information were always possible.
And atheists have already proven
April 1st, 2011 | 9:07 am
Blake –
Yup, as soon as human nature fundamentally alters and the laws of physics no longer apply, I’ll change my tune. Reed in the wind, that’s me.
Exactly.
“The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.” – Damon Runyon
That’s the nut that game theory was built to crack – multiple agents with goals, in situations with varying degrees of information. And they keep finding that strategies that are nice, non-envious, and retaliatory but forgiving do really well over the long term.
April 1st, 2011 | 9:30 am
YOS –
People want their kids to be healthy, too. And they’ve spent money on charms, made offerings to gods, and applied leeches in pursuit of those goals.
Over time, we’ve learned better ways to ensure the health of children, though.
The Vikings, Athenians, Mongols, and so forth did what they thought was necessary to protect and provide for their kids, too. They figured that involved being more violent than anybody else.
Heck, to a large extent, the people they warred with weren’t ‘anybody’ to them. The “in-group” – the set of people that really count for moral purposes – has fluctuated throughout history. In the earliest past, it may have been as limited as “the male members of my tribe”. It certainly didn’t include women as full persons in their own right – consider how recently women acquired the right to vote in the United States, and how many countries do not have full legal equality for women today. Slaves didn’t count, and people from outside one’s own tribe (and then city, and then country, and then ‘race’) didn’t make the cut either. To a large extent, the increase in general moral behavior described by Pinker and others is a record of the gradual expansion of that ‘in-group’ to encompass more and more people.
But the point remains that, however the in-group is defined, so long as it is composed of humans certain basic strategies will be necessary to manage it. And just as engineers keep finding better ways to organize materials and energy for human purposes, we keep finding better ways of organizing societies as well.
April 6th, 2011 | 11:27 pm
Governed by a rational elite, sounds great: You say it with a mocking tone, but you hit it right on the head; we are evolving, we are growing up and whereas god may have been necessary two hundred or three hundred years ago, there is a different set of challenges today, and a vastly more significant number of rational individuals.
Perhaps the two new Atheist Bibles that have just been published, from two completely different sources, may be part of such a picture.
Governed by a rational elite spoken with a mocking tone? Should we not wish all of our politicians to be the very best in the world and be influenced by the evidence of reason and of the real world?
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