From: posting-system@google.com Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 12:54 PM To: brian@holtz.org Subject: Re: evidence for the existence of god (LONG!) -- A Follow Up Flag: Follow up Flag Status: Completed From: brian@holtz.org (Brian Holtz) Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated Subject: Re: evidence for the existence of god (LONG!) -- A References: <15726-3C3676A0-95@storefull-247.iap.bryant.webtv.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.236.1.8 Message-ID: <29c16047.0201161253.60e064aa@posting.google.com> "Elizabeth Hubbell" has posted a lengthy analysis purporting to show that the ethical originality of various historical thinkers substantiates their belief in god(s). In the first part of this posting I will address this claim. In the second part I will discuss specific flaws in the original thinking of Elizabeth's ethical pioneers. In the third part I will question Elizabeth's apparent assumptions about the ethics of ecology. > How can science help in explaining > A) the pathological cases of those steering us to ruin and > B) the altruists who affirm human interdependency? Just as you should not count on the moral policies or pronouncements of any "altruist" to be infallible just because of his alleged status as such, you should also not count on "science" to generate such wisdom. Morality is the domain of philosophy, not science. And in philosophy there is no substitute for making one's own reasoned value judgements. > Moses, Wen Wang, Hesiod, > Homer, Solon, Zarathustra, Lao-tzu, Buddha, Confucius, > Aeschylus, Vyasa, Socrates, Jesus, Mohammed, Piyeda no Are, > Sterluson, Velasco, Galileo, Locke, Jefferson, Madison, Marx, > Gandhi, King and Mandela. I am interested in all these 25 > because of the tantalizing possibility that both scientific research > and rigorous doctrinal scholarship can determine the nature of > the instinctive brain "circuitry" behind altruistic urges for social > progress You seek a scientific discovery of what leads to so-called altruistic breakthroughs, but you seem not to be examining your prior *philosophical* value judgement that altruism is itself the highest good. I argue in section 1.3 (Philosophy / Axiology) of my book that it is not, if only because it fails the test of maximality: it is possible for there to be too much altruism. Axiology is the philosophical study of values. As opposed to exploring values longitudinally, through the thought of all these influential but inevitably flawed thinkers, why not instead explore values analytically and systematically, through the space of all possible values? > criteria: > A) introduced something entirely original, > B) didn't just introduce something new but specifically ethically > new in distinctive, idiosyncratic, pathbreaking words exhorting > us to show sensitivity toward all, Why is originality important? Do you think the best and most valid form of an idea is necessarily given in its first expression? > C) showed a consistently "communal, reciprocal, cooperative" > moral barometer through a genuine > "Get-Along-By-Getting-Along" ethic, Again, what thinking led you to value *this* ethic over others? > D) brought many others along, successfully stimulating the > cooperative evolutionary "circuitry" in all of us, > E) could boast extant and sufficient biographical information to > bolster the historical and ethical context of their creed, > F) could boast biographical information from sources other than > mere advocates/followers, including the utterly indifferent, showing that > they lived out their creed rigorously in their own personal lives. Is a thought really only valid if it was fully and unswervingly put into action by its original thinker? If the original thinker fails to do so, is the thought condemned to eternal invalidity? Do you really think it is inevitable for any valid ethical principle that a) its original expression could never be improved upon and b) its original expresser could never fail to live up to it? > [Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, and Jesus] > share a visceral conviction that their sense of right and > wrong is shared with deity. Why shouldn't they? They were no doubt raised to believe that from birth. > the most original ethical concepts > throughout time come from the context of an engagement with or an > acknowledgement of [deities] Such concepts no doubt correlate even better with coming from men instead of women. Would you then conclude that both maleness and theism are causes of ethical originality, or would you instead conclude that history is overly populated with males and theists? > if that predisposition [of selflessness] > however genuinely selfless and still non-divine in > origin, isn't expressed in utterly original, independent tenets, > then such atheists are not of any scientific use 1. You again presume without argument that selflessness is the highest good. What ethicist is responsible for *this* alleged breakthrough insight? 2. Your again presume without argument that originality is somehow crucial for ethical validity. It's not. > They don't offer a > usefully independent matrix that can peg the brain "circuitry" > tendencies of pioneering, peer-bucking atheists What is your evidence that there must be "brain circuitry" for original ethical thought? And why on earth would you presume that any thoughts produced by such circuitry (itself a product of evolution) should be given any special exemption from skeptical reasoning? All ideas are created equal, and only their objective merits determine their validity. > other genuinely altruistic atheists who are also > truly pathbreaking atheists in addition adopt (however selflessly > and eagerly) some impeccable code from others, not from a > self-generated matrix. Are you saying that if the first person to pronounce a valid ethical principle (such as the Golden Rule) happens to be a theist (or right-handed or male or European), then no atheist (or lefty or woman or non-European) can be credited as authentically incorporating that principle into her worldview? > It's just that peerbucking, trend-setting, > innovative, pioneering-and altruistic-ethics are not ever tied > to similarly pathbreaking atheists-and how surprising (and > consistent) that is! It's hardly surprising when you realize that a naive altruism is rather obvious, while a truly robust atheism could not exist before Darwin. By then, the obvious (and flawed) doctrine of naive altruism had already been thoroughly enunciated. > In fact, the history of the > greatest leaps in ethical constructs strongly suggests now that a > visceral engagement with deity/the metaphysical is indeed > intrinsic to this "evolutionary" process. No, it just suggests that most thinkers in history have believed in deities. Many of them also believed the world was flat. > This is merely an inferential conclusion pointing > to the probability of deity A far more justifiable conclusion is that humans tend to assume intentionality when they see patterns. In modern psychology this tendency is called the Fundamental Attribution Error. > is subject to the uncovering of some hitherto > unknown pioneering atheist who was equally fearless and entirely > original--and altruistic--in her/his ethical concepts So whoever is first to enunciate an admirable ethical principle is automatically correct in hypothesizing the existence of the inspiration of that principle, and that existence claim is not subject to independent inquiry and verification? > I should add that I remain skeptical as to an afterlife, since > Buddha, Confucius, Socrates and Jesus aren't unanimous on > this. This sentence distills what is wrong with your methodology far more clearly than I could ever hope to. SPECIFIC ETHICAL "BREAKTHROUGHS" > personal insights > such as the groundbreaking "Love your enemies" from Jesus "Love your enemies" may have been original, but if your enemies are enemies for valid reasons, then this advice hardly seems wise. And note that the Golden Rule predated Jesus, appearing in the Old Testament (Leviticus 19:18 c. 700BCE), Jainism (Sutrakritanga 1.11.33, c. 500BCE), Confucius (Analects 15:23, c. 500BCE), and Plato (c. 400BCE). > only four of the 25 appeared to > qualify entirely on each of these six criteria: Buddha, Confucius, > Socrates and Jesus. While each was an important and influential ethicist, none of them had any monopoly on wisdom. Buddha was wrong to assume that no value can be maximal -- that any value can be desired too much. This is not true for values like extropy, intelligence, and justice. (Buddhism is also wrong in its belief that existence is cyclical.) Jesus was wrong to promote belief in the evil and sadistic mythical Hebrew god El/Yahweh, and was in particular wrong to promises sinners not a thousand years' torture, nor a million or a billion, but an eternity of excruciating torture by fire [Mt 18:8]. He was also wrong in his communitarianism and asceticism. Socrates was wrong to believe in an immortal soul, and presumably did not speak out against slavery or the subjugation of women. Confucius was wrong to model the ideal society as a family with an emperor-father and citizen-children, rather than as a community of persons with equal rights. > those selflessly steering us to > an interconnected world grounded on our inherent interdependency? > The latter would be the Kings, the Sadats, the Rabins Just because someone does more good than harm does not make them a font of unquestioned wisdom. King was a great man but nevertheless a hypocrite: a Southern Baptist preacher who repeatedly and avidly violated the Southern Baptist prohibition against adultery. Sadat was a dictator who pragmatically recognized he could not destroy Israel. Rabin (as far as I know) never recognized the right of West Bank Palestinians to sovereign self-determination. > that altruistic "circuitry" so > seemingly neglected by people like Gingrich(?), The freedom and prosperity that any true altruist should desire would in fact be promoted by Gingrich's vision of technological progress created by free markets under democratic limited government. You are probably not even aware of the arguments for such a contention, and are simply parroting the eco-leftist conventional wisdom -- much as your original ethicists parroted the then-conventional wisdom of theism. ECOLOGY > There are, let's suppose, two goals tethered to the drive for > Survival: Personal stability and species stability. It's more accurate to say: personal survival and, more importantly, inclusive reproductive fitness. > Our species (and perhaps not just our species alone) may have a collective > sense of survival after all This is a common misunderstanding. Natural selection operates at the individual level, not at the species. > what are the practical > civilizing consequences of evolution, if any? Evolution has been responsible for producing sociality and intelligence, which together produce civilization. > inculcating true responsibility > towards one's great-great-grandchildren via rigorous ecological > self-discipline Not-yet-existing future persons have no rights. The result you seek can be effected by protecting the rights of present persons to be free from negative externalities. From section 5.1.2.2 (Social Science / Economics / Microeconomics / Market Imperfections) of my book: Externality is a cost imposed or benefit bestowed on a person other than those who agreed to the transaction that created the cost or benefit. Negative externalities are costs such as pollution or overconsumption of natural resources. Positive externalities are benefits such as scientific discoveries and incremental technical advances. Public goods are non-rival non-excludable positive externalities, such as national defense and other duties of the state, that benefit every person in a society. The pricing system cannot force consumers to reveal their demand for non-excludable goods, and so cannot force producers to meet that demand. From 1.3.1. (Philosophy / Axiology / Ethics): Actors have no right to inflict negative externalites, and no right to demand compensation for positive externalities. A resource is any physical or logical supply or space which exists without intelligent sustenance and is easy to use in part but hard to control as a whole, such as air, land, water, pollution sinks, sunlight, wind, views, fish, game, minerals, meteorites, space, orbits, bandwidth, public namespaces, etc. Polluting or monopolizing a resource is aggression against the persons who have been exercising continuing access to it. -- brian@holtz.org http://humanknowledge.net