Douglas Wilson vs Christopher Hitchens 3
Dialogs June 17th, 2007I actually disagree with some of what DW has to say, but similarly disagree with some of the interpretations given to what he says.
Major point of disagreement is about the existence of Objective morality. Of course it exists, but the problem occurs with either its incoherence because we reduce it to nonsense with metaphysical language, or simply because it is inconvenient. And as we are free-to-act moral agents we can simply choose not to register our approval or disapproval of objective moral concepts.
Relativism and Subjectivism are (as you know the old-chestnut goes) neccessarily objective anyway. To say “There is no objective truth” is as Wittgenstein would point out “language on a holiday”.
You could say “There is no objective truth, apart from this one” but then you would be committing a fallacy.
But before we descend into total disagreement I would propose that Objectivism, Subjectivism and Relativism are in fact overlapping moral codes. They all bear what Wittgenstein would call “Family Resemblance” they all attain to a certain end, they all arise out of a certain motivation, they all say something about the human condition, the list could go on.
I would propose that certain objective moral values are if you like archetypal values, taboos, which cannot be wholly destroyed as they underpin the fabric of our social existence. But they can be reinterpreted on the two above mentioned grounds; because they are incoherent to us or because they are inconvenient.
Lets take abortion as an example, anti-abortionists are usually termed ‘pro-lifers’ because they are arguing that the fetus is a living, human being with full moral rights (although fewer moral duties), they say it is wrong to kill an innocent life (a long standing social taboo borne out of parental interest and reciprocal altruism) and therefore oppose abortion as they consider it an act of murder.
Lets observe the flip side, the pro-abortionists, generally known as pro-choice, do not characterise themselves as child murderers, or even as murderers at all, because they do not attribute the same moral rights to the fetus, they do not consider fetal life to be the equal of human life, and as they point out if we attribute moral rights to them can we not also expect to exact from them moral duties?
So the original, archetypal taboo of taking the life of a fellow human, that parental interest (primarily) and then reciprocal altriusm (secondarily) would appear to me anyway to have an objective value. Those who would support abortion have either through the incoherence of metaphysical claims made on the behalf of the unborn child, or through the inconvenience of the taboo, have simply decided to transfer their allegiences to a different language game, removing concepts such as child-murder, infanticide and the objective human right to life from their analysis of the abortion debate. In critical terms you could say they were moving the goalposts to suit their game.
A pro-lifer and a pro-choicer would both (I should think) fundamentally agree that murder is an immoral act. The interpretation of the term ‘murder’ that they choose to use, is I would think identical or similar to a close degree. But when it comes to the abortion debate, they radically alter their terminological toolbox and conceptual presumptions.
You will have guessed from the above that I am not advocating the concept that objective moral truths must therefore have a supernatural basis. I’m not sure any existentialist (even a Christian one) could soundly hold that view. In fact the viewpoint we would often take is that the Divine is bound by the same objective rules we are. Just think here of the Noahs Ark story and the making of a convenant that effectively is the divines way of saying “I’m terribly sorry I won’t do that again”.
To briefly clarify another point of mine, I said that certain objective moral taboos underpinned social cohesion. I am not actually proposing that there is somewhere in the ether an actual non-physical truth that says (for example) murder is wrong. But I think there is a principle of causality that manifests itself in these archetypal moral objectives, that says “If I take as my maxim ‘Do unto others, as you would have done unto yourself’ then I must subject my actions to a principle of universalization, therefore if I kill I must expect and agree to be killed, if I do not kill I hold that this value should be held by all others”.
It is this principle that I think manifests itself in concepts such as reciprocal altruism.
Objectivism is sometimes called moral realism, I think it can actually be called ‘moral pragmatism’.
In brief answer to your questions:
1) evolution means morality is subjective, I refer to the above and put it in the context of your line “morality that does not reflect our current situation is flawed”. No it isnt, its either become incoherent (i.e. sexism when there is only one gender) or inconvenient (euthanasia debates in an age of advanced medical science, and economic related health targets). In which case it is adapted and our language about it adapts, but it is not wholly replaced. For example there will never be a sucessful moral argument for murder (like the square triangle it is nonsense).
2) Dead offspring cannot procreate, but the living parents can still (whilst fertile) procreate, to speculate that mothers ceased to eat their young because of an evolutionary imperative is pretty unsound. Because of an adaptation in their moral interpretation of archetypal objective values (i.e. the urge to procreate) then yes. In other words the pragmatic realisation of the parent that in order to continue the genetic string of their line, in order to continue the species it is inconvient to eat your offspring.
3) Jesus and ankles, the goodly theologian is presupposing that Jesus the man-God, was God-made-man. An insertion of a finite and physical being from without the finite and physical universe. I think what he is saying is God pre-exists ankles, Jesus is God, etc. Too close to intelligent design for my liking.

June 18th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
I follow most of the details of your post but I don’t understand your overall intention. I have asked some questions for your consideration.
As you said “I am not advocating the concept that objective moral truths must therefore have a supernatural basis.” I understand this but what are you arguing for?
When I questioned the existance for objective morality, you mentioned “Of course [objective morality] exists”. (I can’t resist phrasing this as “Question:why A? Response: A”!). Admittedly you were not obligated to answer my question to DW. Is it worth addressing?
“morality that does not reflect our current situation is flawed”.
Considering slavery was considered good in Roman times, I don’t consider Roman morality to be “inconvenient”. I consider it flawed. Granted if we have a moral law saying “killing dodos is evil”, it would be incoherent.
“No it isnt, its either become incoherent” … “or inconvenient”.
Both of these attributes I consider to be a flaw. Just in case, I quote: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said,… “it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.”
“evolution means morality is subjective” – strangely I just want to argue, if there is a God then morality can be objective if he wants. Is that in any way logical? (I don’t often have thoughts like this).
Regarding “to speculate that mothers ceased to eat their young because of an evolutionary imperative is pretty unsound”. I just want to add in a few most details if we are going for close examination… “When behaviour is entirely genetically determined, in successive generations, mothers ceased to eat their young because of an evolutionary pressure not to (and visa virsa).” Why is this unsound? Admittedly my rephrased version now does not apply to humans…
“certain objective moral taboos underpinned social cohesion” – would you agree society is pretty sick?
Also, social cohesion is a fairly dynamic thing I would say (in terms of its mechanisms during different ages). (I was recently thinking about this in the context of the implementation of the “transvaluation of all values” – this probably would cause the collapse of our current society.) Should philosophers be concerned with social cohesion when talking about the basis for morality? – my pseudonym might give you a clue on my current thinking.
And in one comment you stated “And some arguments against CH stick, certainly the ‘ought’ ‘is’ one.” I asked does this argument apply to both CH and DW’s positions. Any thoughts?
AC1
June 18th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
I am arguing for the existence of Objectivity, it is a logical certainty (consider analytic/synthetic truths). I am not stating that this Objectivity is the result of a divine lawmaker. It is if you like a natural/logical law, the same type that prevents square-triangles.
When I declared it obvious that Objectivity exists, I was not intending to be read as “Question:why A? Response: A” Objectivity is obvious through the conceptual nonsense that passes for subjectivity and reletavism. To ask a question in response, how does one satisfactorily define ethical subjectivism in relation to ethical absolutism? The answer to that question is: the former is moral-relativism and the latter is moral-absolutism. But for the former to have any coherent meaning it must take on (at least) the appearance of the latter. In other words a subjectivist can state “There is no moral objectivism”.
This is stated because they reject that there can be objectivism. But it becomes a logical fallacy that is irreducible in the end, for if subjectivism is to have any value as a truth it must be objective (as is evident in the objectivist statement of objectivism denial). The only escape from this fallacy is to then state that truth is in the eye of the beholder, that we are the verifiers and falsifiers of our own truth. But that is to descend into utter nonsense, an analytical truth such as “All Bachelors Are Unmarried Men” remains true whether you choose to believe in it or not. Similarly so the foundations of mathematics and its relative disciplines.
The Humpty Dumpty quote is a good one to use, and in some regards it is true. But I reject that incoherence and inconvenience are flaws. What I was attempting to say is that Objective moral values are often reinterpreted (by those who would be subjectivist or reletavists) when those objective values become incoherent or inconvenient to them. In other words it is their personal interpretation of archetypal and objective values.
My example with the abortion debate is particularly valid on grounds of incoherence and inconvenience; those who are pro-choice have adopted a position by making the words mean what they want them to mean, by redefining when life begins, what constitutes full human life, when a right to life becomes applicable, and what constitutes murder and wrongful killing. They have done this because they feel the moral objection to killing the child in the womb (particularly on grounds of lifestyle choice) is inconvenient to them, and the varying human attributes that pro-lifers extend to the fetus (i.e. living, human, in potential and in fact etc) become incoherent to them.
Your example with regards slavery ought to be more clarified. Why is it flawed? Why is slavery flawed? This is sounding like a pretty objective moral statement to me.
My interpretation would be to agree with you in principle slavery is wrong. So why was it justified in Rome? It must have become justified when the ‘strong’ decided to take into slavery the ‘weak’. A slavery that they justified by redefining objective values because they were inconvenient or incoherent to their wishes and demands. So the slave became sub-human. In Roman law the slave had ‘rights’ only as far as the slave-master/owner granted them, but a slave could be freed, they could even eventually become Roman citizens, but in Roman thinking this is not because all humans are equal, it is because these are status and classes that are bestowed upon them. A slave could not by Roman law free themselves, an escaped slave was just that, but a freed slave was a man no longer a slave.
I wont get into the God can will objective morality debate as it is huge (beyond the scope of this commentary). In short though yes and no. Yes an objective rule could be posited, no that objective rule is not good of itself. Does God will what is good because he is good, or does he will it because it is good?
The genetics of mothers eating their offspring, a question in return, why were they eating their offspring? could they have stopped eating their offspring if they wished? The question revolves around freedom to act/choose and compulsion to act.
If I have 20 offspring and am physically incapable of producing anymore, it is compelling to argue that if I want my genetic line to continue, having eaten the first 19 of my offspring I allow the 20th to live and to possibly procreate in the future. Such a decision can be made, such a moral imperative can be reasoned without recourse purely to my genes.
I do not think society is sick. Society thrives, it is only some of its constituent members that are sick. As your psuedonym suggests, you do not buy into this notion, but I refer you again and again to a formerly stated question (rephrased here) why did your parents not eat you then at birth?
CH and DW are both subject to the ought/is problem, if DW has committed an ought/is inference then he has made a mistake. It is an unfortunate manifestation of human language that we commonly make naturalistic fallacies. Even science has been guilty of trying to derive an ought from an is. We are left with certain indefinables, which is where metaphysics come in, but these are nonsensical, so they should remain the mystical, the knowable but incommunicable.
What is to be avoided is the use of mutually reinforcing terminology. That because something is, then something ought to be. We return here to analytic/synthetic truth statements.
All Bachelors are unmarried men:- IS.
All Bachelors are Horses:- IS NOT.
All Bachelord are Happy:- (perhaps) OUGHT.
June 18th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Just to clarify.
Slavery is objectively wrong, as I value my liberty so I should not deny somebody else their liberty.
If however I decide that this is not in accordance with my ‘tastes’ and I want to take for myself a slave, I do so and at the same time justify my actions to myself and then by extension to others.
I justify my taking a slave because I am strong and the slave is week, I have greater needs than the slave, my good is greater than the slaves good, the slave is not as high/noble/important/equal a human as me, the slave is a dumb brute, the slave is an animal, the slave is subhuman.
These are the processes of reinterpretation of objective values based on either incoherence or inconvenience.
My new moral maxim (the slave is sub-human so is not subject to the same rights as me) is the birth of a moral subjectivist and relativist outlook.
Because… the slave-master does not wish to become a slave himself, he is too noble to be a slave, and for him to become a slave would be a grave deprivation of his natural stature and rights.
June 18th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Thus when the slave-master reinterprets objective laws on the grounds of incoherence or inconvenience he does so in a way that avoids the principle of universalisation and exempts himself from the maxim “do unto others as you’d have done unto yourself”.
June 19th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
“that we are the verifiers and falsifiers of our own truth. But that is to descend into utter nonsense” I am not comfortable with the term nonsense but I think I know what you mean.
“This is sounding like a pretty objective moral statement to me.” Most of my ethical statements are not meant to be objective. My natural propositions are meant to be objective but Wittgenstein might disagree with that!
“I do not think society is sick.” That’s interesting – I thought your (or our) colourful policial views are actually somewhat removed from the current state of society. At the risk of either-or-fallacy, you think society is fine and we should continue status quo? (long answers in a separate thread please!)
“I refer you again and again to a formerly stated question (rephrased here) why did your parents not eat you then at birth?” I don’t see your point in raising this here. Without that info, I refer you to my previous posts on “History of Morality (Abridged)” and “Social Morality: The De Facto Basis”. Just because we have morality, does not mean it is a totally sane morality.
“Even science has been guilty of trying to derive an ought from an is.” You could hardly said that without me asking: How? or just forget it since we won’t agree anyway!
I am not talking about natural science btw. Are you talking about natural or social science?
“Slavery is objectively wrong, as I value my liberty so I should not deny somebody else their liberty.” This has the feeling of the Golden Rule or the categorical imperitive – do either of these have an objective basis?
AC1
June 19th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
I get what you mean now about society and its sickness. I was meaning to say the concept of society is not sick, but of course its parts are and that is where we come into it in our political thoughts.
Science deriving oughts from is’s. Less likely in natural sciences of itself, more likely in social sciences. And I should broaden the definition to mean scientists who then infer ethical propositions from their observations of natural facts. i.e. Social Darwinism.
Yes I am taking a rather Kantian perspective, the categorical imperative (a reinterpretation of the Golden Rule with limitations) is closer to an objectivist principle than many other ethical theories.
June 20th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
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