August 5th, 2007
The Problem of Normativity
In my post on Human Origins and the Rise of Religion, I said that, with respect to a theistic theory of evolution,
The rise of religious consciousness in humans is part of God’s purpose in bringing them into person-to-person relationship with himself. What’s more, this end point provides a reference from which theistic evolutionists can justifiably call the rise of humankind an advance. Atheistic evolutionists can’t do that since there is no goal, no teleology, no purpose. The most they can do is say that it’s an advance from our (human) perspective, which lands them in a whole ‘nother morass: why should that be our perspective? “Should” is such an important word. The inescapable reality of normativity is the most serious problem atheists face. They can’t explain it and don’t know what to do with it. They can’t find a reliable source for it, but they can’t live without it.
Jewish Atheist asks me to explain what I mean by the normativity problem.
What I am referring to is the dichotomy between the positive and the normative, between the empirical and the ethical, between what “is” the case and what “ought” to be the case. To give an example, “Herbert is a drug addict” is a positive statement, a statement of what is the case (presumably), while “Herbert ought not to be a drug addict” is a normative statement, a statement about the way things should be.
The reason normativity is a problem for atheists is that norms do not exist in nature. They aren’t “out there” to be observed. You can’t look under a rock and find an insect that somehow signifies that it is wrong to murder. Norms only come from persons and yet–and this is the tricky part for atheists–we believe our norms say something about the world and not just something about ourselves. When I say that Herbert ought not to be a drug addict, I am not just projecting my own personal likes or dislikes onto Herbert. At least I don’t like to think that’s what I’m doing. When I say that Hitler ought not to have killed so many people (or indeed any people), I’m saying he did something wrong, not just something I don’t like. His actions are wrong by reference to universal norms, which are a lot bigger than me and my personal opinion.
But, if my expression of a norm is to go beyond mere personal sentiment, it must have reference to something outside of me. The rules of any game govern the players. If one player passes Go and takes $1,000 out of the bank, another player can cry foul and point to the rules to prove it. In a game like baseball, the rules are written, but the umpire is the living embodiment and interpreter of the rules, the one who judges how they apply to the concrete situation of a particular baseball game.
If nature is all there is, where do we find the rulebook? Who is the umpire who can settle a dispute?
How can I rightly say that Hitler ought not to have killed anybody? I can’t find a way to move past the positive observation that Hitler just did kill lots and lots of people. It’s a fact, but how can I move past the fact to a norm? You see, I can’t get a norm just by looking at the facts. Norms have to come from someone. All I can say is that I wish he hadn’t killed all those people, which is another way of saying I don’t like that he did. In a world without God, norms are merely sentiments. Perhaps they’re sentiments that can be enforced (with a gun, with blackmail, or even with a persuasive argument), but they have no foundation beyond the personal likes and dislikes of the person who expresses them.
In my post on the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I pointed out that the place atheists most commonly try to ground their own moral and ethical norms is in the concept of utility. The reason you or I ought to do this or that is that doing so will be advantageous to us. You shouldn’t be a drug addict because it will ultimately decrease your utility, or happiness. Don’t get me wrong, it might also be advantageous to lots of other people for you to avoid being drug addicted, but even that idea (that we ought to do what is advantageous for others) is an expression of a norm that will need to be grounded in something else. It all ultimately boils down to a question of what will be to your own personal advantage. Note also that the very idea that utility or, shall we say, personal happiness is a goal worth striving for is not to be found in nature. The starting point of a utilitarian approach to norms already presupposes a norm. If we tout our norms as based on a conception of maximized utility, we are really just saying that it’s our goal to make ourselves as happy as possible.
The problem is that Hitler believed he would be happier if he killed lots of people. The problem is that some people today derive enjoyment from hurting other people or animals or the environment. They’re acting to maximize their utility, to make themselves as happy as possible. One could dismiss them as sickos or psychos, but that would merely be to impose our own values onto them.
And why shouldn’t we impose our own values onto them, or they onto us, for that matter? If nature is all that exists, and we’re part of nature, then there is no rulebook and no umpire. It’s the law of the jungle. Winners and losers, certainly, but no right or wrong. The psychos try to kill the “normal” people (notice the word “norm” in there?), and the normal people lock up the psychos in prison. But who is to say what’s really normal? If there were no God, cosmic government would be like the national government described in Judges 17:6 (and again in 21:25):
In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
I have been speaking mostly about ethical norms, but there are other kinds as well, such as teleological norms. For something moving toward a goal or destination, that endpoint is a reference for measuring progress. The closer you move toward the goal, the more progress you have made. Many atheists like to think of the evolution of humankind as progress, but to describe it that way is to smuggle in the distinctively personal and human idea of a purpose, goal, or destination against which progress can be measured. If there is no transcendent being who has revealed the purpose to us, we are in no position to say what constitutes progress, if anything. In fact, we can go so far as to say that if there is no personal God, then while there may be a natural movement toward greater complexity, there is neither purpose nor goal, and so that movement is no progress. Natural processes don’t have goals. In nature, things simply happen. Humankind is itself merely the product of natural processes and in no position to dictate to nature what its goal is, let alone–ahem–what its goal should be.
Obviously, normativity is not a problem for theists. There is a God who is the objective reference point for all norms. His likes and dislikes, not ours, are the criteria by which things are judged good or bad, right or wrong. By saying this, I don’t pretend that the normativity problem somehow entails the existence of God. It is conceivable that nature is all there is and that our ideas about extra-personal norms are just an illusion. If that’s the case, then I would like to see atheists try to live that out consistently–only because I know they cannot succeed. Perhaps then they would take their new understanding of norms as the corner piece in a new attempt at fitting the jigsaw puzzle together. At bottom, the problem of normativity is an existential problem. We cannot live without them. We cannot live with them if they aren’t grounded in anything beyond ourselves. They cannot be grounded in nature, but only in a personal third party: you-know-who.
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August 6th, 2007 at 11:42 am
Wow. An excellent post. I have heard the argument many times, that ethics and morality is derived from natural selection, in that moral objections to crimes like murder comes from the evolutionary principle that “what is best for the survival of the species” is the “evolved norm.”
I think you tackle that more holistically than I have seen before. You have a very sound argument.
August 6th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
What I am referring to is the dichotomy between the positive and the normative, between the empirical and the ethical, between what “is” the case and what “ought” to be the case.
This is ironic, because the thrust of your post appears to confuse “is” and “ought.” The so-called “problem” of normativity (and thanks for explaining what you meant!) is itself an “ought.” You’re uncomfortable with the idea that there is no objective way to say that Hitler was bad. You’re uncomfortable with the idea that human evolution can’t be described objectively as progress. You write that you “don’t pretend that the normativity problem somehow entails the existence of God,” but the implication of your argument is, at most, that there ought to be a God.
Obviously, normativity is not a problem for theists. There is a God who is the objective reference point for all norms. His likes and dislikes, not ours, are the criteria by which things are judged good or bad, right or wrong.
That just brings us to Euthyphro’s dilemma: Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God? If it’s the first, God is not the source of morality, and if it’s the second “moral” becomes an arbitrary quality.
At bottom, the problem of normativity is an existential problem. We cannot live without them. We cannot live with them if they aren’t grounded in anything beyond ourselves. They cannot be grounded in nature, but only in a personal third party: you-know-who.
“We cannot live without them?” That’s obviously false, since many of us do. Personally, I ground my morality on empathy. You will no doubt find that unsatisfactory, as I can’t say Hitler was objectively wrong. But I can quite easily say, if you care about people, if you believe Jews are people too, then Hitler was wrong.
I think that empathy-based morality is not only sufficient, but superior to purportedly god-based morality. Osama bin Laden, the anti-gay movement, the anti-segregation movement, witch burning, Israelite genocide, the Crusades, etc., can and have been justified by appealing to God. None could be justified with an empathy-based morality.
August 6th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Brad, thanks for your compliments.
Jewish Atheist,
The so-called “problem” of normativity (and thanks for explaining what you meant!) is itself an “ought.” … the implication of your argument is, at most, that there ought to be a God.
No, because if there is no God there is no “ought to be” anything whatsoever. You seem to forget that I have not bought into the presupposition that there is no God, and as I said later in the post, he is the objective reference point for norms (I’ll address your comment on that point shortly). The point is that without God, there is no basis for moral judgment, whether empathy or anything else. Why should we be empathetic? Any expression of a norm is just so much sentimentalism. Without God, we cannot even say that evolution represents progress. It’s merely change. It is a curious fact that if there is no God, nature somehow gave rise to beings that invent fictionally transcendent norms, which depend on them for survival even though lesser beings don’t apparently need norms to thrive.
That just brings us to Euthyphro’s dilemma
The dilemma doesn’t apply to Christian theism because we believe that God is the sole source of all that exists. There is nothing uncreated outside of God (i.e., no abstract principle of “good” coeval with him and that he is somehow subject to or accountable to), yet the norms aren’t arbitrary because they’re grounded in his unchanging character. Your liking of one kind of music over another isn’t arbitrary; it just is how it is, and you’re not free to change your preferences at will. In other words, it’s impossible to appeal to “the good” against God. He is good, full stop.
“We cannot live without them?” That’s obviously false, since many of us do.
I’m not talking about individuals but about the human race, people living together in society. Even so, I can’t think of how any person could live without norms, can you? Even the person who is purely selfish subscribes to the belief that it is right for him to satisfy his own desires.
Osama bin Laden, the anti-gay movement, the anti-segregation movement, witch burning, Israelite genocide, the Crusades, etc., can and have been justified by appealing to God. None could be justified with an empathy-based morality.
Let’s analyze your argument here. You want to show that empathy-based norms are superior to God-based norms, and your evidence is that empathy-based norms would have prevented certain things (9/11, the anti-gay movement, etc.) that God-based norms did not prevent and actually caused. What I want you to notice is that you’re assuming already that 9/11, the anti-gay movement, etc., are bad. You are smuggling in a norm in the very argument, in other words begging the question. What I would like you to think about is, if nature is all that exists, and we people are just part of nature, why should we think of 9/11 or the anti-gay movement as wrong in the first place? Why are those things wrong? Why is empathy right and good? It’s not wrong for a lion to kill a zebra, is it? Why is it then wrong for a human to kill another human? That’s the problem of normativity atheists cannot get around.
If theism is right, there is an objective third-party who will judge our right and wrong actions. In other words, let’s assume that witch burning and the Crusades are wrong in God’s eyes. That being the case, it matters not at all that the perpetrators invoked God to justify their evil deeds. God will judge them. If evil deed are perpetrated against homosexuals in God’s name, God will judge those who do them. If atheism is right, those things aren’t even wrong, get it? Perhaps you don’t like them, but so what? Obviously the gay-basher doesn’t like homosexuals. It’s the law of the jungle. When there is no king, everyone does what is right in his own eyes. If there objectively is no God, we cannot but do what is right in our own eyes, because there is no right or wrong in nature.
You’re right that empathy can be a good guide to right norms, but atheism provides no basis for anyone to accept empathy as a norm, let alone all of us, and it certainly has nothing to say to the person who would reject empathy as a norm, such as the witch burner or crusader. Theism, however, does. Again, that fact doesn’t prove the existence of God, but I hope it’s an existential nudge in the direction of seeking him.
Let me make a side point about empathy, not especially germane to this argument. It is often the case that true empathy is directed not toward how a person does feel but to how a person “ought” to feel. If I were an alcoholic, I would not want my friends to pour all my booze down the drain. Does that mean that out of empathy for the alcoholic, we should let him have all the booze he wants? No, because the alcoholic ought to want us to pour his booze down the drain. He ought to want help. To empathize with the alcoholic’s actual desires would be to show un-love, not love. So, empathy is often a good guide to right behavior, but it’s not an infallible guide, and love itself requires the concept of norms.
August 6th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
The dilemma doesn’t apply to Christian theism because we believe that God is the sole source of all that exists. There is nothing uncreated outside of God (i.e., no abstract principle of “good” coeval with him and that he is somehow subject to or accountable to), yet the norms aren’t arbitrary because they’re grounded in his unchanging character.
Who says God’s unchanging character is good? It’s no more objectively correct to agree with God’s morality than it is to disagree with it. Empathy may be arbitrary, but so is God’s will.
August 6th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Think about it this way. If there is nothing whatsoever but God, and I mean nothing whatsoever–not an empty universe with God in it alone, but no universe at all, only God–then God defines all that is, because God is all that is. A Christian thinker named Francis Schaeffer used to illustrate that by drawing a big circle on a blackboard, pointing to the empty inside, and saying something like “This is not what it was like before God created, this was,” at which point he would erase the circle.
From that starting point, God creates the universe and everything in it. Remember, nothing exists apart from God’s making it, and there’s no principle of “good” outside of God that he is himself subject to. Remember, God is the judge, the highest being. If he is in turn judged by another (”good”), then he is not really God, is he? I’m talking about God.
Now then. Who can point a finger back at God and say “you’re not good” or “your goodness is in question”? Are we, who even by our own admission do evil, in a position to judge God? Do we have a better understanding of good than God? Are we righteous enough to pass judgment on God? Where do we get our knowledge of this higher principle of goodness that God himself is accountable to? How will we hold God accountable?
I hope these questions immediately strike you as absurd, but those are the very questions raised by the idea that God’s goodness is questionable.
If we, the creatures, who are finite and dependent on God for our existence and attributes (including our innate sense of norms) point the finger accusingly at God, that only shows that we are gravely broken and in need of repair. Enter Jesus Christ.
August 6th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
From that starting point, God creates the universe and everything in it. Remember, nothing exists apart from God’s making it, and there’s no principle of “good” outside of God that he is himself subject to.
Gotcha.
I hope these questions immediately strike you as absurd, but those are the very questions raised by the idea that God’s goodness is questionable.
They don’t strike me as absurd. I can understand the argument that nobody other than God can (objectively) accuse God of not being good, but it does not follow that therefore God is good. He could just as easily be bad. (Who can point a finger back at God and say “you’re not bad” or “your badness is in question”?)
August 6th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
They don’t strike me as absurd. I can understand the argument that nobody other than God can (objectively) accuse God of not being good, but it does not follow that therefore God is good.
Goodness and badness are expressions of a norm. Norms are either objective, in which case they’re grounded in a third-party, or they’re subjective, in which case it’s only person A against person B and no means of adjudicating between their competing interests except by the law of the jungle. Might truly does make “right” in that case.
In the objective case, you can appeal to the third party. If there were an objective principle of good, one could appeal to that against “God.” (In that case it wouldn’t really be God, but just a really powerful being, as in Euthyphro.)
If there’s no objective principle, then it’s just the witch-burners against the witches, and whoever wins just wins, whoever loses just loses. There’s no good or bad, right or wrong about it, just their personal preferences ranged in battle against each other. If God is not the source and very definition of good, and there is no other objective principle of good that can be appealed to, then you’re not really saying “God is bad.” You’re just saying “I don’t like God.” Remember, if norms are purely subjective, they’re just sentiments, expressions of likes and dislikes.
What that means is this. If a person really does believe that there is no other principle of goodness outside of God, but yet doesn’t like God (”God is bad”), then that person is a fool in the truest sense of the word, because he will be punished by God, and for what? He won’t be a martyr, because there’s no other principle of good that he has been loyal to at the cost of his life. He’ll just be someone who picked a fight with God out of personal enmity and lost. If a person prefers the law of the jungle, the person will be judged by the law of the jungle–judged and punished by the God who is not only good but also just and mighty.
August 6th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
I understand the notion of obeying God because if you don’t he’ll punish you, but that doesn’t make his commands good necessarily, any more than an Earthly father commanding a child to, say, hit another child is necessarily good. If there is no objective good outside of God, then we cannot judge whether God is objectively good or bad and are therefore no better off than if God does not exist.
August 6th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
If there is no objective good outside of God, then we cannot judge whether God is objectively good or bad and are therefore no better off than if God does not exist.
We’re no better off in what sense? No better off with respect to what? In our quest to make God answer to us rather than we answer to God?
If there is no objective principle of good outside of God, and a human being chooses to rebel against God–and it is rebellion since it is God’s world, after all–then it is just that person ranged in battle against God. God says “I am good, just, loving, and merciful,” and the person says, “You’re bad for reasons x, y, and z.” Now, since we have established that there is no objective principle of good outside of God, those reasons x, y, and z, are really just expressions of personal likes and dislikes, and let me tell you what that amounts to: God says “I am the source of goodness,” and the person says “No you’re not, I am.” He’s appealing to his own preferences against God! He can’t appeal to anything outside of himself because there are no norms there.
Do you see that it’s absurd to claim to be God against God? “I’ll do it my way, you be damned!” Oh really?
To come into relationship with God, a person has to submit to God as God’s creature. We in the west really hate that, don’t we? We’re so egalitarian and democratic. We can’t stand the idea of a human monarch, let alone an absolute divine one. We can’t swallow the fact that God isn’t our peer and that he’s not subject to our judgment or to assessment against some independent principle.
The wonderful fact is that God is not a tyrant. He is the source of good, get it?, good, which includes truth, love, beauty, and so forth. What an easy person to submit to!
August 6th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
Are you arguing that morality is just God’s likes and dislikes?
August 7th, 2007 at 7:11 am
Technically no–we would need to add nuances–but for our purposes that’s close enough. Norms aren’t in nature. They come from a person, which means we either accept God’s norms (acknowledge God as God) or reject God’s norms in favor of our own (set ourselves up as gods of the universe instead of him). “You shall have no other gods before me,” which includes ourselves.
August 7th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Isn’t that the same as admitting norms aren’t objective?
August 7th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
No and yes. Since there are no norms outside of God, he as a personal subject establishes the norms that are, from our perspective, objective. In other words, since God himself is ultimate reality, the source of all being, subjective and objective converge in him.
When you and I talk about subjective and objective, we are peers, and even more than that, we occupy the same “level of being” (for want of a better term) as the things we talk about (except when we’re talking about God himself, of course). If you and I talk about some third thing, say an apple, neither one of us knows the apple objectively. That’s because we are both knowing subjects, and the apple is the object of our inquiry. We can’t become the apple to somehow know the object as it is in itself. We only know the apple from our individual personal perspective as a knowing subject. Nevertheless, the apple exists and has properties in reality; it just is however it is, regardless of what you or I think about it. So, what we know or believe about the apple is more or less true, to the extent that it matches up to how the apple really is independently of us, but we can only ever know it subjectively. Subjectivity and objectivity are matters of perspective, and you and I have equally subjective views on the apple, and there is parity between our two subjective perspectives.
Now to come back to God and norms.
Since God is himself the source of norms, it’s not the same as two people looking together at a third thing such as an apple.
Since God is himself the source of the norms, there is no parity between our view of the norms and his.
He is the ultimate reference point. From our perspective, those are objective norms but yet not separate from God himself. Like the apple, which has objective reality and properties but about which people can disagree, two people may come to different conclusions about what the norms are that God establishes. Their disagreeing doesn’t change the objective reality that God’s norms just are whatever they are, and he will be the final arbiter of right and wrong according to his own unchanging character.
August 7th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Since God is himself the source of the norms, there is no parity between our view of the norms and his.
How is this different from saying that what you are calling objective good is simply what God likes? If God likes the Holocaust, the Holocaust is good. If not, it’s bad. That strikes me as absurd.
August 7th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
What is objectively good is identical with what God likes.
If God likes the Holocaust, the Holocaust is good. If not, it’s bad.
No and yes again. No because God is not fickle like we are so that his likes and dislikes change from day to day. They flow out of his unchanging character. “If I buy lunch at the deli, I’ll have a roast beef sandwich; if I buy lunch at a restaurant, I’ll eat pasta.” Both of those conditions seem to be equally likely, and the outcome a matter of some uncertainty. If we interpret the “if” statements in your proposition as representing real possibilities like my lunch options, then it’s not true.
On the other hand, if we can alter your statement into a counterfactual form, I can affirm it: if God were to have liked the Holocaust, the Holocaust would then have been good. That is true, but nevertheless it is not the case that God liked the Holocaust, and it could never be the case that God liked the Holocaust simply because it is contrary to his character.
With theism, there are unchanging norms that are objective from the standpoint of any human being. But take your empathy ethic. “Empathy” isn’t out there in the universe to be observed. One person’s idea of what is empathetic isn’t another person’s idea. Furthermore, we ourselves are just part of nature and so there’s no compelling reason for anyone to do anything other than what he wants to do, what his own animals instincts drive him toward. There is no third party to appeal to, and both empathetic people and brutal murderers end up dead and decomposing, never to return. There is no justice, just an endless, unstoppable, unintelligent, impersonal process. With atheism, you can’t get a foot on the ground to be able to say that anything is right or wrong, good or bad, progressive or retrogressive whatsoever.
You say it strikes you as absurd that God could decide to like or dislike the Holocaust and it would thus be made good or bad according to his whim. I’m glad it strikes you as absurd. I think it strikes you that way because, as someone made in his image, with some connection to him, and living in his world, you have an innate and necessary sense that some things really are good and other things really are bad, and not just because one or two or a bunch of us humans say so. My hope is that you will take your own personal experience of such as a datum, realize that atheism cannot do justice to it, reject the possibility that it’s a mere biochemical illusion, and use that as the starting point for a sustained effort to know God.
August 7th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
That is true, but nevertheless it is not the case that God liked the Holocaust, and it could never be the case that God liked the Holocaust simply because it is contrary to his character.
But this is the crux of our debate. How do you know God did not like the Holocaust? I’d bet you believe that because you believe a priori that the Holocaust was bad, therefore God couldn’t have liked it. But that just begs the question.
I think it strikes you that way because, as someone made in his image, with some connection to him, and living in his world, you have an innate and necessary sense that some things really are good and other things really are bad, and not just because one or two or a bunch of us humans say so.
Are you arguing that Hitler thought that the Holocaust really was bad? If not, how can morality be objective?
August 7th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
But this is the crux of our debate. How do you know God did not like the Holocaust? I’d bet you believe that because you believe a priori that the Holocaust was bad, therefore God couldn’t have liked it. But that just begs the question.
Are you arguing that Hitler thought that the Holocaust really was bad? If not, how can morality be objective?
In both of these paragraphs, you have wandered over from ontology into epistemology. The question of what exactly the norms are and how we can know them is secondary to the question of whether norms even exist. I’ve been arguing that theism provides a basis for objective norms, whereas objective norms aren’t even theoretically possible under atheism (at least not the naturalistic variety).
Let’s re-look at the example of the two of us talking about the apple. The apple just is whatever it is (ontologically). That’s a different matter than how we can know what it is or what its properties are (epistemologically). So, the question of why I believe the Holocaust was bad and that God thinks it was bad is a good one, and one that I’m willing to discuss, but it’s secondary to the question of whether theism and/or atheism allows us to speak meaningfully about norms.
I don’t know a lot about Hitler, but I expect that he thought he was doing good. That’s a problem for atheism because there’s no third-party to adjudicate whether he really was doing good or bad, and nature is silent on the matter. It was just the Axis versus the Allies, and the Allies won, end of story. It’s not a problem for theism because regardless of what Hitler thought, God is the objective reference point for goodness and badness, not Hitler, and not you and I.
Hitler was severely damaged. He was very far from how God intended humans to be. You and I are also far from how God intended humans to be, which is why redemption is necessary, but we are apparently less damaged than he was, at least with respect to our sense of right and wrong. Hitler was also made in God’s image, but sin had severely distorted that image into something grotesque. The image of God is distorted in us, too, but thankfully less so. My source for understanding what God’s norms are is the testimony of the people he selected to speak through, whose testimony are the books collected in the Bible.
August 7th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
In both of these paragraphs, you have wandered over from ontology into epistemology.
This is true, but I’m not sure you can separate them. If we can’t tell that God is good, God’s likes and dislikes are irrelevant. It’s perfectly conceivable that a sadistic or apathetic God exists, after all. If God is sadistic and we redefine “good” to mean “what God likes,” then we have declared that sadism is good. This is clearly absurd.
August 8th, 2007 at 1:59 am
Morality is a question of consistency.
We even see it this way. To be moral is to be consistent with an idealized order. Morality is simply an attempt to approach a perfect order we haven’t completely figured out.
Now either this order is laid by God or it is a figment of our brain chemistry.
If it is a figment of our brain chemistry than all discussions basically amount to “What can I get away with” or “What can I live with”.
Moral outrage would die as the morality would be recognized as no more compelling than someone’s favorite food. Both would simply be varied preferences informed by biology.
However from a theistic view the order that morality strives towards is simply the order created out of God’s nature. To be moral is simply to be consistent with the essence of existence, with the fount of all purpose.
It’s hard to understand how we could view the originator of reason, order, reality and the rules of logic as tiny God whose attributes aren’t important. These attributes are greater than what they created.
If reason, logic, order and reality are creations reflecting God’s attributes then we face situation where we must use our weak understanding of reflections of God’s attributes (reason, logic, reality) to attack the attributes themselves.
It’s is sillier by far than attacking Marxism on Marxist terms.
August 8th, 2007 at 8:09 am
Atheist:
This is true, but I’m not sure you can separate them.
That’s a good point.
If God is sadistic and we redefine “good” to mean “what God likes,” then we have declared that sadism is good. This is clearly absurd.
God grants people the freedom to find him repugnant and to treat him as such–at least for a time. But it still boils down to us against him, and it is his world that we’re living in, and he is the source of our life. There is nothing we can appeal to against him outside of ourselves. Apart from him, our self-established norms are purely subjective, and moreover very weak because we cannot enforce them against him. This would be true even if God’s norms were somehow radically opposite ours, which they are not since we are made in his image.
I think the reason that it is absurd to you that “sadism is good” could (counterfactually) be true is because it is (factually) false. The reason it is factually false is that God is not sadistic. God is objectively loving and does not delight even in punishing the wicked. You’re quite right to point out that this leads us straight to epistemology and to the content of faith, which I find in the books of the Bible.
Econ:
If reason, logic, order and reality are creations reflecting God’s attributes then we face situation where we must use our weak understanding of reflections of God’s attributes (reason, logic, reality) to attack the attributes themselves.
Well said.
August 8th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
I think we’ve reached the point where we can’t make any more progress.
August 8th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
I think you’re right. It’s always good to talk with you.
August 8th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
You too.
August 16th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
I can’t add your feed to Feedburner. How I do this?
August 16th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
The feed address is http://www.agkyra.com/?feed=rss2. You should be able to click on the orange icon you will find near the top of the page, at the very bottom, or various other places, and that will take you to the feed and give you the option to subscribe using several readers. You can also click on any of the chicklets on the left side of the page to subscribe using that reader.
Thanks for your interest!
August 21st, 2007 at 6:46 pm
[...] consider that many people who come across it won’t have followed earlier discussions about atheism and normativity, among other things. Even if they have, it’s not obvious what I’m getting at. So let me [...]
September 21st, 2007 at 8:31 am
This argument presented states that “theistic evolutionists can justifiably call the rise of humankind an advance,” and that “atheistic evolutionists can’t…”
“Justifiably” brings many issues to the table. Much of this seems, to me, to center around the “isness” problem and, more traditionally, cultural relativism. I don’t feel the need to call the rise of humankind an advance in any respect except the previous “step.” I disagree that the lack of an ability to provide an “end point” or goal provides any proof that one, in fact, exists. An isness problem, in my opinion, exists within my past sentence.
Oddly enough, the following post was from an alignment argument in a D&D yahoo group. I tried to sum up the “nuts and bolts” so much is very, very easy to dispute. For more reading, look up Robert Anton Wilson’s Quantum Psychology.
“The communications model shows us how information is
passed from person A to B. Our only ability to
process reality is through our set of senses - or
umwelt. A snake as a different unwelt, as does a
blind person, as the data coming into the conscious to
process are different.
We cannot make statements based on reality that are
not influenced, and therefore altered, by our
perception set (color blindness?), socialization (my
parents/culture were jews/nazis/pagans/etc.), and
individual personality (another huge argument).
The problem, most of the time, is with the word IS.
This tiny word assumes a level of knowledge past our
senses: a “correct” or “actual” thing that exists
past what we can detect. This is (like that?) where
most miscommunications and religious texts begin.
Sciene has the same issue. We have attempted to make
statements about reality that have been refuted by
later testing - so we change the scientific theory.
Quantum theory, in particular, shows how we cannot
remove the observer of the event from the event
itself. For more on this, look up the copenhagen
interpretation (which is also argued for and against
by people whose math I couldn’t understand
completely - check out M theory and Brane theory -
uses about 11 dimensions to balance the equations).
I find the same principle holds for all abstract
communication. We can easily show that all language
is abstract, but we also have - within a certain
language - what we call concrete and abstract terms.
Concrete - rock = I can directly sense and test it.
Abstract - love = how do I really test/define it?
Abstract, but testable - mach 1 = something like 761.2
mph at sea level at 59 degrees F?
However, if one simply goes around stating “my reality
is mine and I will not change my actions as your set
of morality is not superior to mine” then you could have
chaos.
Now we enter the delicate “balance” of how groups of
people - which evolution or at least history shows us
we used to survive - ended up with guidelines of how
to act. Usually this turns in to “might makes right” -
it still pretty much does.
The only difference we have is a slow incorporation of
reason to attempt to find out what really “is” best
for the group. Later philosphers/ethicists also tried
to find ways to balance individual rights with that of
the whole group. Utilitariasm is what is good for the
largest number of people. Individual rights try to
say everyone deserves some modicum of unvariable
allowances. These two theories are still used today
and have never been resolved because then cannot be -
they can only be considered based on an individual’s
perception set as experienced through other biases
(socialization, etc. as mentioned supra).
We cannot test anything beyond our ability to sense it
- be it through organic or inorganic tools with which
to test (eyes, satellites) - so making statements without
including the observer (do I make people very
irritable by using “in my opinion/experience” too
much? - probably) just as has been found in quantum
theory and communications.
The application of this principle brings us to a
language of “E prime” - I don’t remember who first
suggested it - it was sometime in the 70’s.
This means we take the IS out of speech and speak
directly from experience and observation: this
changes “Barbed Oracle is a sarcastic prick” into “in my opinion,
based off the communications I have seen from BO, as
well as how they have been filtered by my perceptual
sets and other biases, BO is a sarcastic prick.”
See the differnce? The same can be said for morality.
Simply apply like situation to good/evil/right/wrong.
What do I think? If you are still reading (and yes, I
still think I’ve been to brief to properly pose this
point of view), I think all actions are tools to
accomplish something. I can choose to label it good
or bad, but that doesn’t help me get through life.
What does help me is doing things that I think will
tend to cause the kind of world in which I want to
live and to discuss my reasons for doing so in the
hopes that I can learn new information that may let me
do this even better, or relate the point of view to
others who might then take a more self-responsible
point of view in their moral choices and maybe we’ll
get along through discussion instead of arguing what
IS right or wrong.
If I choose to react to a given situation, then I
have chosen to implement a tool. That will either not
be known, or if it is known then it may:
1 promote the kind of world in which I want to live
or
2 not promote the kind of world in which I want to
live.
This “is” why I have my own reasons for liking or not
liking certain moral stances and the actions to which
they may be associated at any given point - all of
which can exist in complex situations of endless
varieties and perceptual sets of myself and others
about which we can choose to communicate in more
meaningful words by including the observer to the
moral dilemma.
All of the above is yet another reason I don’t want to
discuss alignment in my stupid, little games - I just
want to have fun being my guy for little bit = which,
oddly enough, often does things I certainly wouldn’t
in real life.”
Whew! That foundation being laid, I don’t suffer (in my opinion, stated as “IMO” hereafter) from a problem of normativity. I see “should” as a result of human decisions and expectations. The ability to test “should” when divinity is invoked is still beyond our ability with respect to the scientific process. I do believe that should we ever find a scientific process for testing this, you would see a mass emigration from secular societies into religious ones. I do not see many going the other way around. Those who do not believe in a god are given a problem like normativity to solve although the premise requires the existence of a scientifically untestable phenomenon.
I agree that norms do not exist in nature as it currently exists apart from other animals. Evolution allowed us to process information in new ways that were previously unavailable. This brought norms. All this proves is that a more complex, more evolved brain in needed to come up with such a concept.
I agree that the problem of happiness as used in traditional ethical arguments is in itself a problem. I think happiness became an easy “end point” for philosophers when they were trying to formulate basic premises on which to found principles of ethics – and who doesn’t want to be “happy?”
Sure Hitler may be happy killing lots of people, but the employment of a divine being to “justify” why your norms are better presents only another level of subjective proof – not objective proof. As stated above, I cannot offer any objective proof myself. All I can do is:
”to implement a tool. That will either not
be known, or if it is known then it may:
1 promote the kind of world in which I want to live
or
2 not promote the kind of world in which I want to
live.”
I do not know about the national government in Judges 17:6, and I hope I don’t forget to look it up at the end of the year when I finish my last semester.
As for evolution, I disagree that we cannot define progress without the “end point.” As you state, we move toward greater complexity – this movement does not need to be denied as a form of progress simply because an end point does not exist.
I do see norms as an extra-personal illusion. The way I live this out consistently is to implement tools “yadda yadda yadda” as stated above. We can live without norms, but I happen to like the idea of not living without the consideration of others – even if my only ethical reason for doing so is that I get the same consideration in return.
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:48 am
Neil, thanks for your comments on this. There are lots of interesting ideas in here, many of which I completely agree with.
You say “We cannot make statements based on reality that are not influenced, and therefore altered, by our perception set.” That’s a Kantian approach to metaphysics if I’ve ever heard one — and I think you’re exactly right: we don’t have access to the world-in-itself but only to the world as it appears to us, the phenomena of the world. After that, metaphysics goes by the wayside and everything becomes a question of epistemology as people stop talking about how the world is and occupy themselves only with talking about how we can know anything or another.
When you say that we ought to “take the IS out of speech and speak directly from experience and observation,” you might be interested to know that another philosopher (whom I highly recommend that you read) made a similar suggestion. Michael Polanyi, in his book Personal Knowledge proposes on page 27 that people use what he calls “the signpost symbol,” a vertical bar with a horizontal bar coming out of the middle right — like a capital “F” without the top horizontal bar. The signpost symbol represents a personal act of sincerely asserting something rather than, as we usually focus on with the word “is,” a pseudo-objective statement of what is the case. I agree with all this in principle and try to avoid using impersonal, objective-sounding language whenever I notice that I am. I’m not too insistent on it for others, though, because I know that no matter how objective or certain a person sounds, he’s only giving me his own culturally- and historically-shaped perspective on things.
But here’s where Polanyi can really help us, I think. He fully acknowledges that we don’t have privileged access to the world-in-itself and that all our knowing (he likes to use the verb “knowing” to make it more personal) is an art that we have learned, and so subjective to a very large extent. If all our knowing is subjective, then how do we move past pure subjectivity to something that may be true for everyone? Simply this: we hold our personal beliefs with universal intent. We could be wrong about a great many things. Even the things that we think of as being fact and being testable we could be wrong about. Remember Descartes’ fear that we could actually be dreaming? There’s no way around that. We could be in the Matrix. The world could actually be nothing like what our senses tell us about it. But, in fact, we don’t believe that we’re in the Matrix, we don’t live our lives as though we are, and even though that is a strictly personal and subjective believe (we cannot prove that we’re not in the Matrix), we hold that belief with universal intent — in other words, we think others should believe it too. When we see a crazy person shouting nonsense on the sidewalk (I see a lot of those here in NYC), we don’t think the person is actually in touch with reality as it is or has broken through the Matrix, we think the person has lost touch with reality as it is and gone crazy. So, our beliefs are personal and subjective, shaped by all kinds of touchy-feely things, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be substantially true and we can’t believe them to be true for everyone, whether or not someone, or even anyone, else agrees.
In my post, I’m not trying to argue that our sense of norms proves the existence of God or anything like that. I’m trying to argue that we should take the content of our norms as a datum, an axiom, a starting point, and say, “What do these norms tell us about reality?” When it comes to Hitler, are you taking the position that what Hitler did was not wrong, just not what you would have liked?
Just a brief aside about the notion of progress without an endpoint. Your idea that greater complexity is progress actually assumes an endpoint — not a particular or final endpoint necessarily, but a direction in which the “end” lies, namely greater complexity. Greater complexity can only be progress if complexity is the direction in which things ought to go: progress toward the goal of more and more complexity. Listen to this: On Monday I’m in Indianapolis. On Wednesday I’m in Kansas City. On Friday I’m in Boise. On Sunday I’m in Tacoma. On Saturday I’m in Seattle. Am I making progress? Only if the goal is to get to Seattle or somewhere near there. I’m also making progress if the goal is to get to Vancouver or even Portland. But if I want to get to Miami, I’m getting farther away from the goal — not progressing. PROgress is movement toward something, and that something is the endpoint. If we live in the world naturalists imagine, there is no endpoint, and the idea of progress is nonsense.
September 25th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Neil’s 2nd Response to Normativity argument
While I appreciate your agreement with my statement on perceptual sets’ influence on perception of reality – it was not specifically mentioned as a Kantian link. It is my current understanding that Kant was all about categorical objectiveness. My post does not affirm that stance. Perhaps I misunderstood?
Interesting note on Polanyi – I’ll have to get on that after school.
I think the relation between Decartes’ dreaming and mixing our perceptual sets with an objective reality are two very different things. It is my current opinion (remember IMO?) that the scientific process has developed the most effective method we currently have for testing ideas about reality. If I move past that to insert more subjective qualities without a basis for its ability to be tested, as in any abstract idea, I blur reality with my desire for reality. This leads to the problem of your mentioned “universal intent” to which I do not subscribe but find most do. I find a disturbing lack of linkage in the last sentences of your 3rd paragraph. Are beliefs are personal and subjective – I agree. That doesn’t mean they can’t be substantially true? – I agree to a point. The possibility must be given credit, but not to the point of denying others the freedom to explore their interpretations of reality instead of being limited by another’s. This is why I don’t think I should be forced to subscribe to your belief just as much as you shouldn’t be forced to subscribe to mine. The problem here is when we introduce this concept to sets of rules (ethics as rules and laws) which affect others.
To invest a “true” objectivity of our norms is dangerous – IMO. The norms tell us nothing except what certain cultures and subcultures have developed as guidelines for community life over the centuries – and they tell of nothing of reality.
As for Hitler, I do not agree with what he did. My basis for that disagreement lies in my ethics – my support for my moral arguments. It is my current opinion that these arguments have not been resolved much at all since Plato, et al. I don’t want to kill Jews, but to say my belief is right or wrong is a dangerous statement as it implies a superior knowledge of moral reality – which I don’t have.
I disagree that my argument on greater complexity of human evolution implies an endpoint, but I agree that it assumes greater complexity is better than not – which could also be argued. The direction is not given, just a relation from a less complex past. Here is the problem – I don’t think you need “ought.” I would love to think there is a greater reason for the change in biology – I just don’t have the proof to a level I desire to have the belief yet. I say PROgress in biology is the development to more complexity, but some organisms become more complex and die off due to inadequacy of their mutations, adaptations, or needs when compared to their current environment. I’d say that which allows be the ability to further manipulate or understand my surrounding at a level not available in the past, while not taking away any of my current abilities to do so, is progress. While I see where one can view an implication of direction, I think it simply shows the presence of a new faculty. Maybe I use the term progress incorrectly? If so, I will take my same stance while using another term.