Yet There Is Method In It

For a while now I have been working on a meta-ethical theory that revolves around the role of language as a signifier for language games/interest groups. It is by its nature a descriptive theory rather than a prescriptive one and is concerned with the way in which specific groups label and identify themselves and by definition their binary opposites using specifically value-laden coded language that signifies concepts such as them/us, right/wrong, good/evil, etc.

So I was delighted and slightly peturbed (the similarities to my own work is annoying) to find that American comedian George Carlin wrote/performed a piece on this matter.

I post an extract here from “Euphemisms: Political-Interest Groups – Choosing Sides”

It’s impossible to mention the word choice without thinking of the language that has come out of the abortion wars. Back when those battles were first being joined, the religious fanatics realized that antiabortion sounded negative and lacked emotional power. So they decided to call themselves pro-life, Pro-life not only made them appear virtuous, it had the additional advantage of suggesting their opponents were anti-life, and, therefore, pro-death. They also came up with a lovely variation designed to get you all warm inside: pro-family.
Well, the left wing didn’t want to be seen as either anti-life or pro-death, and they knew pro-abortion wasn’t what they needed, so they decided on pro-choice. That completed the name game and gave the world the now classic struggle: pro-choice vs. pro-life. The interesting part is that the words life and choice are not even opposites. But there they are, hangin’ out together, bigger than life.

George Carlin, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?

Human rights lawyers reviewed computer games with a war setting.

The group chose games, rather than films, because of their interactivity.

“Thus,” said the report, “the line between the virtual and real experience becomes blurred and the game becomes a simulation of real life situations on the battlefield.” BBC

This key assumption, that actions in games are morally equivalent to actions outside the game is laughably untrue. We don’t see people getting post traumatic stress disorder from computer games. Playing games is nothing like being in a war. Other studies show that gamers are not desensitised to actual war violence (stated later in the article). Therefore, the choices are not the same as those posed outside games. Games are more or less works of fiction and the choices posed to the player are almost forced outcome moral choices, since the player is not acting as “himself”, but as the character created by the game’s script writer.

I was recently hearing about the Australian Prime Minister apologising for the treatment of child migrants. This apology was presumably done on behalf of the institution that he represents i.e. the state. But the state does not feel “regret” since it is merely a concept. Even if the people comprising “the state” feel the actions were wrong, it is the individuals themselves that are responsible, not the state itself – which cannot act or think independently! Unless the individuals themselves were responsible, guilt does not even apply. Although it may cheer the victims of injustice, I am concerned that if we shunt the responsibility (and “guilt”) for wrong actions onto institutions, it diminishes the personal responsibility that each individual bears and transfers in onto a mere concept. In the extreme case, it may lead to the bystander effect, were everyone does nothing to correct injustice because it is “the state’s” responsibility. So I distrust all institutional apologies and think of them as political tools.

In agreement with our favourite existential thinkers, a new study has linked suffering with religiosity:

Gray and Wegner created a state-by-state “suffering index” and found a positive correlation between a state’s relative misery (compared to the rest of the country) and its population’s belief in God. Sciam

That’s all the news that’s fit to print.

Anti Citizen One

Like something from a Dostoevsky novel, a man found to have a gene linked to aggression has used that fact to get a reduced sentence for murder. This of course is justified if the primary role of criminal justice is to punish the guilty, who make evil choices using free will. But how could we know if we have free will?

On the basis of the genetic tests, Judge Reinotti docked a further year off the defendant’s sentence, arguing that the defendant’s genes “would make him particularly aggressive in stressful situations”. Giving his verdict, Reinotti said he had found the MAOA evidence particularly compelling. Nature

AC1

People are unconsciously fairer and more generous when they are in clean-smelling environments, according to a soon-to-be published study led by a Brigham Young University professor. ScienceDaily

A first reaction on CS Lewis’s Mere Christianity: he really likes inductive arguments and arguments by analogy. He attempts to use these to argue for the existence of objective morality. But, given that both these forms of argument require some subjective value judgments, how is it possible to arrive at a non-subjective conclusion? Or to put it another way, if he needs to subjectively decide on what basis an analogy is valid, the conclusion must be equally subjective. Or to put it a third way, subjective axioms lead to subjective conclusions.

And don’t get me started with his comparisons of a-priori/tautological knowledge (e.g. mathematics) and a posteriori knowledge (morality in this case).

Anti Citizen One

PS Perhaps I should have followed Zarathustra’s advice (emphasis mine):

But Zarathustra came not to say unto all those liars and fools:
“What do ye know of virtue! What could ye know of virtue!”

I few thoughts on Christopher Hitchens’s “God is Not Great”: this book has a more current affairs focus than the other atheist blockbusters by Dawkins and Harris. His style is fairly humorous with many asides. Some of them, while probably correct and funny, are really ad hominem and are not relevant to the issue being discussed. The core of the book is similar to the early debates on this blog – score counting on how many atrocities were committed in the name of religion or atheism. Hitchens appears to conclude that both sides are capable of going good and bad. He adds that followers of religion are more evil but put that thought to one side for a moment. In a realist sense, this is damning enough for religion’s case: if religious people behave no differently to non-religious people then religion loses is claim for morally improving people.

Hitchens’s approach to arguing against the religious view is limited because Hitchens keeps his scores of good and bad acts to determine if religion is harmful – as if “good” and “bad” were real things. But from within the ancient religious point of view, having thousands die as part of a crusade is “good”. Today, we call that “bad”. The point is if the labels of “good” and “bad” are subjective, we can’t meaningfully call religion “bad” or if we do, we can only mean “religion is distasteful to me”.

This use of ethics in some ways falls into the moralizing trap that religion is also guilty. Calling something “good” is again setting up an unalterable standard imposed without choice. Admittedly there a few contemporary moral standards I agree with. But to assume any good or bad is static goes to the very core of what makes religion, well, “bad” – or at least incompatible with an evolving culture.

If I seem rather harsh, I could say some nice things: being based on current affairs, it is more original than simply rehashing the ancient arguments. Being able to say something original in this ancient debate is very difficult. Hitchens references the usual skeptical classics but does not reproduce them. That is good for a jaded reader like me!

Anti Citizen One

I have been interested in the implications of the Milgram experiment – the test involves a volunteer being orders to give electric shocks to another “volunteer” (who is really a confederate of the experimenters). The majority (65%) of subjects, when ordered, were willing to give the victim apparently painful, then lethal electric shocks. Most volunteers were very uncomfortable doing so but still followed instructions to continue. This has implications on morality: an authority figure can usually override peoples ethical views – in some cases, even to go so far as to kill.

I noticed an amusing article on if programming languages were religions, if you are into that sort of thing.

Anti Citizen One

In a refreshing break from current social norms, various artists at the Free Art Fair have been giving pieces away to members of the public for free. I applaud this because it notes that something is worth while even if it does not have a financial price tag. It also blurs line between professional and amateur – this distinction is often unhelpful when placing value on their work.

The ironic thing about altruistic acts is, if it is truly selfless, then the giver should not expect anything in return. The question that might be posed to a moralist, is if selfless action is the best action, why do we try to give gifts to people in the expectation they will be received? Isn’t receiving an unworthy action compared to altruism? This at least encourages others to act in an “unworthy” fashion.

A close relation is the action of giving (or bestowing) but without the baggage of altruism or even the baggage of expected rewards. (The action is not even its own reward, perhaps.) Perhaps the best is to give as a choice and, if a person is inclined, as necessity.

In other news, I was disturbed but unsurprised to read this:

With so many scientific papers chasing so few pages in the most prestigious journals, the winners could be the ones most likely to oversell themselves—to trumpet dramatic or important results that later turn out to be false. This would produce a distorted picture of scientific knowledge, with less dramatic (but more accurate) results either relegated to obscure journals or left unpublished. The Economist

I notice financial rewards are linked to a researcher’s publication record. Perhaps scientific journals could do with a little more of the bestowing virtue?

Anti Citizen One

PS Interesting news item on economic growth destroying the ecosystem.

I have recently finished reading The God Delusion. I have complicated feeling about the book. On one hand it is well written with interesting anecdotes. On the other hand it does appear to be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

The book could perhaps be shorter if this argument was more focused rather than attack every aspect of religion. An example is the argument “because we cannot explain X, god did it.” Dawkins first points out that this is not logically valid but then goes about explaining X with X in this case being complexity of life. This causes Dawkins’s critics to attack evolution but this distraction causes the invalid argument criticism to be forgotten.

The writing style is aimed at a general reader which necessarily involves some simplification of the arguments. I don’t think much is lost in the simplification but it does annoy philosophers. Most of the arguments are taken from Hume, Epicurus, etc so there is nothing new. What Dawkins brings to the debate is to contemporise them. Interestingly, there is very little overlap between Dawkins and Nietzsche although they have similar goals. Nietzsche would have blasted Dawkins’s humanism.

Dawkins has become infamous for his views on the non-existence of God. I feel I should mention the common criticism and note that they are wide of the mark. For those who criticize Dawkins for simply expressing his opinion, this hardly seems compatible with modern (free speech) or biblical (turn the other cheek) ethical standards. Others assume criticism of religion is the same as calling for its eradication. Dawkins does not calls for this in the book. Those that call Dawkins’s position a “religion”, a faith or an indoctrination method are usually committing ad hominem tu quoque. And finally a common criticism against Dawkins is agnosticism causes evil actions. I have not heard any valid causal connection between the two and it is a non sequitur as it stands. I suggest anyone trying to read the book to ignore previous views, either for or against.

He makes a good point on the source of morality in religion and almost taken from the pages of modern philosophy. Most religious people interpret religious texts to find a moral system. The literalists have an untenable position due to inconsistencies in the text. But what do we use to guide interpretation? Dawkins argues this interpretation must necessarily come from outside scripture. This undermines any claim that morality comes from holy books and puts religious morality on the same level as secular morality.

He also cites studies that different cultures have an instinctive grasp of a common morality. Reading between the lines, it is almost like calling for that to be the basis of morality. This reminds me of Hume’s attempt at founding morality on empirical observation. This approach to morality is incomplete since it only addresses morality when everyone is in agreement with moral law. For novel moral questions, our instinct is often silent.

Dawkins has no time for agnosticism. He distinguishes between two types of agnosticism. For the first type (which he calls Permanent Agnosticism in Principle) is a deistic God beyond the reach of evidence. He seems dismissive of this position and treats it as similar to ignosticism (the concept of God is meaningless). It is difficult to fathom Dawkin’s argument on this point. This brand of agnosticism is perhaps a distant relative of a postmodern God (in that the significance of God comes from the believer rather than from an objective source). The second type of agnosticism (Temporary Agnosticism in Practice) treats God as being inside and part of nature (an empirical hypothesis). Dawkins dismisses TAP because, in his view, the empirical evidence implies that there is no God. Before the postmodernists object to this argument, remember that most religious people believe God is very real and capable of physical manifestation. Dawkins’s book explicitly does not address Deism, Pantheonism, Buddhism or any similar world view. His argument is against the mainstream God of Abraham.

The aim of the book takes a controversial stance in today’s “tolerant” society. Dawkins sets out to deconvert believers whose belief is wavering. He recognises that it is impossible to deconvert a firm believer using rational argument and this is not his aim. The second and perhaps more difficult point is he equates religious instruction of children to child abuse. He argues that children never had a chance to make a free and informed decision to belong to religion. Children should therefore be protected from their parents. Liberals should note that an outside agency disrupting a family has a certain precedence; we allow the state to interfere with family affairs. But Dawkins assumes that free choice in belief is possible and I am not sure if that is true! When I child is part of a family, the teaching of some moral system is unavoidable. Independent thought can be encouraged but at some point this is oxymoronic – a young adult is told to have original thought and freedom. To obey this instruction is then not free or original! I find it difficult to imagine a society in which children are protected from the religion of their parents. The alternative is for parents to voluntarily not teach religion until early adulthood. I doubt many religions would agree to that constraint.

A final note: attaching the labels “militant”, “religious” or “fundamentalist” to Dawkins is ad hominem. If an argument is to be made against his religious position, please people, address his argument directly and don’t go after the man. It annoys me when implicit atheists (”the absence of theistic belief without a conscious rejection of it”) are grouped with other variants of atheism. The absence of belief is obviously not a type of religion or fundamentalism.

Anti Citizen One

An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume

After reading his work “Concerning Human Understanding”, I was eager to see if Hume had any insight into morality. He previously pointed out the is-ought problem and I did wonder how Hume could overcome this limitation to say anything useful on morality. His primary argument is to avoid the question of the basis of morality and describe everyday morality and how might might have arisen. Hume argues people judge morality based on public utility (utilitarianism as far as I can tell) and sentiment.

Usefulness is agreeable, and engages our approbation. This is a matter of fact, confirmed by daily observation. But, USEFUL? For what? For somebody’s interest, surely. Whose interest then? Not our own only: For our approbation frequently extends farther. It must, therefore, be the interest of those, who are served by the character or action approved of… (Par 177)

This descriptive ethical approach is partly true but also partly false. To some extent, people held in high regard have provided some service to the public. Typical is the award of titles to those providing public service. But other public figures are rewarded for being a social parasite – this applies to celebrity culture. Also not all people who make moral judgments fit into Hume’s model. One man is called a freedom fighter and also a terrorist. Hume does not seem to address diversity of opinion.

Hume observes the praise given to acts of public benefit, both for their intended outcome and also for their actual outcome.

For a like reason, the tendencies of actions and characters, not their real accidental consequences, are alone regarded in our more determinations or general judgements; though in our real feeling or sentiment, we cannot help paying greater regard to one whose station, joined to virtue, renders him really useful to society [...] In morals too, is not the tree known by the fruit? (Par 185 Footnote)

But any great enterprise requires a degree of risk. It is said “the distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success”. So an unsuccessful pioneer is bad, a successful pioneer is good? It seems so arbitrary – but Hume is attempting to describe how morality works in the majority of people.

This point on the majority of people’s morality is not far from the truth. Epicurus claimed the purpose of life was the pursuit of happiness. Nietzsche also claimed most people made moral judgments by condemning threatening forces (ressentiment).

Hume repeatedly claims his argument is true because it is a “reasonable presumption”. His assumptions and over-generalisations did begin to wear me down. A key example is this:

All men, it is allowed, are equally desirous of happiness; but few are successful in the pursuit… (Par 196)

How can he, of all people, claim that all a group have a particular property without observing them ALL? The statement is also untrue. Many humans seem to want unhappiness by their choices that will tend to bring them pain and misery.

All men are equally liable to pain and disease and sickness; and may again recover health and ease. (Par 200 Footnote 3)

Again, we only have to look around us to see not all men are equally liable to sickness. Someone who is at death’s door cannot be said to be equally liable to recover than someone who merely stubs his toe!

Although Hume resists making statements on what ought to be good and evil, he finally succumbs in the conclusion.

And though the philosophical truth of any proposition by no means depends on its tendency to promote the interests of society; yet a man has but a bad grace, who delivers a theory, however true, which, he must confess, leads to a practice dangerous and pernicious. Why rake into those corners of nature which spread a nuisance all around? Why dig up the pestilence from the pit in which it is buried? (Par 228)

He admits himself that a theory – even a “true” theory – should be disregarded if it is “dangerous and pernicious”! And, even though he denies it on the first line, he implies that a theory is good if it promotes the interests of society…

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. But at least Hume is direct in his arguments.

It is trivial to observe that to condemn an act because it is “pernicious”, he is saying either “you should do X because Y is true” (and violate his own is-ought principle) or even the tautological “you should not do X because X is evil (i.e. X is something you should not do)”!

Amusingly, he goes on to say anyone who disagrees with him is obviously a bit weird.

I must confess that, if a man think that this reasoning much requires an answer, it would be a little difficult to find any which will to him appear satisfactory and convincing. If his heart rebel not against such pernicious maxims, if he feel no reluctance to the thoughts of villainy or baseness, he has indeed lost a considerable motive to virtue; and we may expect that this practice will be answerable to his speculation. (Par 233)

He here condemns someone’s disagreement because it is “villainy or baseness” BUT what “villainy” and “baseness” are is currently the subject under discussion!

This book predates existentialism by about a century. I think Hume would have been a great existential philosopher but he did not make the conceptual leap. To that branch of philosophy, this book does not qualify as philosophy at all. I think it is more a work of anthropology since, as a description, it has some merits.

I can think of several more objections but it is almost too depressing for me to attack Hume. I will just leave it to the debunker-king Nietzsche to spell out his objection:

The most general formula on which every religion and morality is founded is: “Do this and that, refrain from this and that — and then you will be happy! And if you don’t…” Every morality, every religion, is based on this imperative; I call it the original sin of reason, the immortal unreason. In my mouth, this formula is changed into its opposite — the first example of my “revaluation of all values.” An admirable human being, a “happy one,” instinctively must perform certain actions and avoid other actions… (Twilight of the Idols)

I needed this as an antidote after that book!

Anti Citizen One