Morse and the Juneau School Board et al. v. Frederick

It has been a while since I have written on a Constitutional issue, so let me briefly go over the rules.

This is not a blog about what the law does or does not say. I am not a Constitutional lawyer and I have no special training in that area. Okay, fine, I had a strong emphasis in philosophy of law while I was studying ethics, and took a few History of the Constitution classes. I still know less about constitutional law than I do about moral theory.

This is a blog about what the law should or should not say. If there is a gap between what the law does say and what the law should say, then this gap is filled by unjust law – law that ought to be changed.

I object to the practice, which is far too common, of deciding what one wants the law to say, then turning to law to find evidence for what one desires. It is a practice that involves cherry-picking the data, giving strong emphasis to legal precedent that supports one’s desired conclusion, while ignoring as aberrations any precedent that conflicts with one’s desired results. There is simply no basis for the assumption that the law says what one wants it to say.

So, this essay has nothing to do with whether the case before us involves an instance of constitutionally protected free speech.

That case is Morse and the Juneau School Board et al. v. Frederick (06-278). It concerns a high school student, Joseph Frederick, who presented a banner saying, "bong hits 4 Jesus" at an event where the Olympic torch was moving through the city. The principal, Deborah Morse, told Frederick to remove the banner. The student refused, which lead Morse to suspend Frederick for 10 days for violating a school policy against promoting drug use.

The Right to Free Speech

In this blog, I have employed a principle that states that the only legitimate response to words are words said in response and private actions. Violence is not an appropriate response to mere words. (Note: There are, of course, exceptions – revealing military secrets, libel, slander, clear and present danger, and invasion of privacy, but none of them figure in to this case.)

If this is truly an important principle, then it is one that students should be learning in school. One useful way for students to learn this principle is to see it applied in the school setting. That is, the school itself should be a place to honor the principle to never respond to words alone with violence, just as the school honors moral prohibitions against killing, rape, theft, lying, and cheating.

Clear and Present Danger

Frederick was ultimately charged with “promoting drug use.” This is an example where the “clear and present danger” principle applies. If I am a mobster, and I say to my hit man, “Kill him,” my right to free speech cannot protect me from a charge of murder. The situation is one in which I am the proximate cause of the victim’s death. However, if I were to post on my blog, “somebody should kill that man,” where my words command nobody in specific, then I am not morally guilty of his murder.

This principle would also rule out the right to make actual threats against an individual, and defend oneself on the basis of “free speech.” If I were to point a gun at you, you would be within your rights to consider me a threat and to act accordingly. If I say, "I am going to get my gun and fill you with so many holes they can use you for a sieve," you would still be wise to take me at my word and take steps to defend yourself – or to call upon the state to defend you.

Frederick’s banner, as far as I can tell, was not a command to any group of people to take up drug use. Those who read the sign still had every freedom to accept or reject its prescription. There was no “clear and present danger”, and no reason to hold Frederick morally responsible for any drug use that might be attributed to his sign. In fact, as far as I know, no attempt was made to actually accuse Frederick of ordering any particular incidence of drug use.

Speech as Violence

There are situations where the speech itself is an act of violence, and as such can be punished. The distinguishing trait here is that the speaker is to be condemned regardless of the content of his beliefs.

Examples of this involve speech acts that are disruptive, such as an individual standing and shouting slogans in a crowded theater or in a classroom. By filling the room with noise, the speaker is engaging in an act of sonic vandalism. It does not matter what he is saying, others have reason to silence him.

In the case of the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" poster, I may be able to make the case that Frederick’s intention was to be disruptive. His act was not unlike that of a man standing and shouting in a theater or breaking out in song in the middle of a class lecture.

Such a charge would not stick if others were allowed to have banners as well. This would make it obvious that the objection to Frederick’s sign was based on content, rather than on the basis of inhibiting disruptive behavior.

Besides, as a matter of fact, Frederick was not suspended for causing a disturbance at a school event. He was suspended for “promoting drug use.” This makes it obvious that he was punished because of the content of his speech – that a different statement would have gone unpunished.

Offense

I deny that offense is a legitimate reason to censor speech. If a person is going to live in a free society, then he should be prepared to be offended from time to time. That is the cost of freedom. The only way to remove offense is to destroy freedom. And even that is offensive.

This is another important lesson that high school students should be learning. I would suggest that our society would be much better, all things considered, if more of our citizens had learned that offensive speech does not justify a violent response – that the “words for words” principle applies in this case.

For example, let us assume that a student were to wear a T-shirt that contains the first President Bush’s statement, “I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.” Naturally, I would consider this to be ‘offensive’. However, more important than my wish not to be offended is the principle of refusing to respond to words alone with violence or government censorship. A more legitimate, and more educational response would be to explain why this is a bigoted and hate-inspired sentiment that is a throw-back to the 1600s.

Some people are making the claim that the right to freedom of religion and the right to freedom of speech implies a prohibition on ever telling somebody, “You’re wrong; and your mistakes are going to get innocent people maimed and killed.” If this becomes our policy, then we are saying that those innocent people being maimed and killed have less of a right to avoid death and injury than certain religious groups have in avoiding offense.

The position is inherently contradictory. If there is a right to free speech, then there is a right to say, “Those people are wrong and their mistakes are going to cost innocent people their lives, their health, and their quality of life.” If this type of statement is banned, then free speech no longer exists.

The Teacher

I imagine myself a teacher. I have given my students an assignment to give a speech on any topic of interest to him or her. What limits are there (if any)on what a student may say?

The limits I spoke of above seem to cover the options. No student may threaten another student or be disruptive in his speech act. However, a student may defend whatever position he pleases, even if some find his position offensive. I would invite any student who wanted to respond to the speech with words to do so. I would even allow them to argue the position that, “Any who would say such a thing is a contemptible human being lacking even a trace of moral decency,” or words to that effect. I would remind the students that they are free to use this behavior to help them to determine who to befriend, who to eat lunch with, who to trade with, and the like.

However, I would make it clear that offensive speech must not be met with violence.

Setting an Example

One of the slogans that people will speak about in a case like this is that speech cannot disrupt the school’s mission or function. This is a principle that determines when an act of speech is, itself, an act of violence. However, one of those missions should clearly be to teach the students the scope and limits of a right to freedom of speech – that violence is not a legitimate response to the content of somebody’s speech. This is a mission that a school can best accomplish by not using violence against the content of somebody’s speech. Otherwise, they are setting a very poor example.

That is how free people live, and maintain their freedom, while also maintaining peace.

Bigotry and the Values Voter

In a recent blog, “President Wanted: Christians Only,” vjack at Atheist Revolution spoke about the bigotry involved in refusing to vote for an atheist candidate – something that approximately half of Americans said they would do.

Refuse, that is.

In that posting, vjack used a cliché in the political sphere, that they “simply want someone in office who shares their values.” This, he said, does not excuse their bigotry. However, he did not explain why it does not excuse their bigotry.

This statement has become such a political cliché that I often pass over it without thinking about it. This time, I thought about it.

The Values Voter

My first thought was, “Of course they want somebody in office who shares their values. Doesn’t everybody?”

That is to say, it is not bigotry to vote for a candidate that shares one’s values. Nor is it bigotry to refuse to vote for a candidate whose values conflict with one’s own. In this sense, every voter is a values voter.

Even the KKK member who only votes for those who would segregate the races is a values voter. He certainly wants somebody in office who shares his values. The Nazi who would support the modern contemporary of Hitler is a values voter is also searching for somebody to put into office to share his values.

This is part of what got Bush in trouble in the Middle East. Radical Muslims are values-voters as well. Only, the values that some of them vote for includes the destruction of Israel, execution of apostates, support for suicide bombings, and eradication of the infidels. They refuse to vote for anybody else.

It is not bigotry to vote for somebody who shares one’s values and against those whose values contradict one’s own values. Bigotry is not to be found in the fact that a person votes his values. It is to be found in the values that a person votes on.

Vjack did not say otherwise. I am not criticizing anything he wrote. In fact, this makes explicit what is implicit in vjack’s post.

The problem with the Christian right is not that they are values voters. It is that their values are the bigotries and prejudices of primitive tribesmen that causes its follows to engage in a number of actions harmful to others – in some cases imposing death and suffering on hundreds of millions of people. There is nothing wrong with being a values voter – we all are. The problem comes from the fact that some people’s values are quite poor.

Where is bigotry? If we are going to call a particular attitude towards a group of voters ‘bigoted’, what is it that we need to establish?

Bigotry involves treating the members of a group unjustly by attributing to its members some derogatory or denigrating property that, in fact, is not true of all of those members. An example of bigotry involves inferring a lower intelligence based on gender or on skin or hair color. (Yes, blonde jokes are a form of bigotry, and I do not condone them.)

So, in order to determine if refusing to vote for an atheist counts as bigotry, we need to know why a person is refusing to vote for an atheist.

Holding All Else Constant

Typically, the poll question asks something like, “Assuming a candidate is qualified in all other respects, would you be willing to vote for the candidate if the candidate were an atheist.”

This question asks the listener to assume that he has no other reason not to vote for a candidate. In other words, the candidate shares his values. The only reason for voting against the candidate is the fact that the candidate is an atheist. Is that enough of a reason to vote against him?

Half of the population says, “Yes.”

If we take this situation as described, then having a belief that no God exists (the definition of atheism as the term is actually used among native English speakers) is the sole criteria for judging an individual to be inferior to his neighbor. It says that if we take two people, make them identical twins in appearance and (most important) in disposition, and change only the fact that one believes that God exists and the other does not, even where both treat their neighbors with identical kindness, this belief alone is enough to judge the one person inferior to his twin.

This is bigotry. There is no basis for the negative evaluation. It is grounded on nothing but blind, unreasoned, unfounded, hatred.

Value Differences

Now, this assumes that the person taking the poll understands the question as I have described it. Chances are, he will not. He will associate ‘atheism’ with a number of other traits. Chances are, he will take the assumption – that an atheist and a theist can be otherwise equally qualified – to be inherently impossible. He will reject the assumption and answer accordingly – that he will not vote for the atheist.

However, are the traits that he is attributing to the atheist fair and accurate. Is it true that atheists have those qualities. More importantly, is it true that all atheists have those qualities – that there cannot be one in which those qualities are absent and is worth voting for?

With respect to religion, it might be possible to claim that one will not vote for a member of a particular religion on the grounds that the religion advances objectionable values. If a religion says, "Kill all unbelievers," defining ‘unbeliever’ as anybody who disagrees with the interpretation of holy text provided by the religious leader, then this alone would be reason enough not to vote for a member of that religion.

However, atheism is value-neutral. Anybody who asserts that atheists must necessarily hold certain values, and that those values make the person unqualified to be President, is making an unjust attribution. Atheism has as much to say about value as heleocentrism does. It is a belief about what exists, a belief that is not inherently in conflict with any value claim.

An atheist can even believe that serving God is the ultimate value. Such an atheist will be filled with regret over the fact that this value can never be realized. He will be like the person who thinks that the ultimate value is in having a raising her own biological child, who discovers that she is sterile and will never be able to realize this value. However, this belief that a particular value will not be realized is different from holding that the state would not have value.

By way of comparison, theists and atheists may disagree on where trees come from. Yet, they need not (probably would not) disagree on the height, weight, shape, or color of a tree. Similarly, an atheist and a theist can disagree on where values come from without disagreeing on what has value.

More importantly, an atheist’s values can more closely match the values of any theist than an opposing religion whose values are fixed by their interpretation of scripture. In other words, it should be easier to imagine an atheist agreeing with the voter on matters of value than to imagine a follower of a different religion sharing the voter’s values. If the voter cannot see this – if the voter falsely (unfairly, unjustly, immorally) attributes to the atheist values that are far alien from her own, this is bigotry.

Statistical Reasons

The reason not to vote for an atheist might be based on a false belief in what atheists value. People might hold the belief that atheists value sautéing kittens on an open grill and skinning toddlers alive in a bath of salt water. Of course, these attitudes are clearly bigoted.

Even if, statistically, an atheist neighbor was more of a threat than a theist neighbor, it is the essence of bigotry to blame a person for wrongs committed by others. This would not be an excuse against holding that the best atheists are as fit for public service as the best theists. This, too, would be bigotry – like refusing to vote for a black candidate because, statistically, the per-capita crime rate for blacks is higher than it is for whites.

There is no way to account for this attitude towards atheists other than as an unfair and unjust attribution of negative value to a person merely because he does not believe in God. That is to say, there is nothing to be found in these poll results but unvarnished bigotry.

Where Bigotry Comes From

I hold that the biggest cause of anti-atheist sentiment rests in the policy of having children pledge every day to regard all who are not 'under God' or who do not trust in God that they are not true Americans. This indoctrination into a culture of hate helps most children to become bastions of hate who cannot accept an atheist as American.

I continue to hold that there can be no real progress in the status of atheists until good people demand that the government cease teaching the lesson 'atheists are evil'

Indeed, the Pledge of Allegiance and the national motto themselves are bigoted. They both make the unfair and immoral attribution to all who are not under God or trust in God as being anti-American. A national motto of 'one white nation', based on the fact that those who signed the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were all white and obviously wanted this to be a white nation, would be no less immoral.

Of course, this is hate's vicious cycle. The Pledge and the motto were modified in the 1950s as an act of hatred - an act motivated by a desire to teach all citizens, but particularly children, to hate those not under God or who do not trust in God. Ultimately, they wanted to promote hated of Marxists, but used the opportunity to teach a more general hate.

And, you know what?

It works.

Foundational Moral Principles

The impetus for this pulse is a comment to my post two days ago, “Patricia Churchland: The Biology of Morality” .

That comment hinted to me that the author was assuming that there must be some type of fundamental moral principle, and that my job was to account for them.

However, it is my position that there is no such thing as a ‘fundamental moral principle’, and nothing to account for.

Background

In Churchland’s presentation, she suggested that oxytocin levels, for example, may be used to determine if an individual should or should not be promiscuous.

I answered that if we accept Churchland’s initial assumptions, and we can affect oxytocin levels through social actions such as praise and condemnation, it is reasonable to ask whether we have reason to do so, and whether they are stronger than any reasons we have not to do so. If, for example, praise will increase oxytocin levels, and oxytocin levels make others kinder and more considerate of others, then we have reason to use praise. I further claimed that moral questions operate on this level, not at the level where Churchland placed them.

Michael, in his comment, suggested that we can raise the same question about my “kinder and more considerate of others” are moral reasons facing the same problem as Churchland’s – that they, too, are in need of justification.

I am not certain if this is what Michael had in mind. However, the context of his comment suggested that we have two options. Either we have an infinite regress of moral reasons – that is, we justify one moral principle in terms of a more basic moral principle, which we justify in terms of a more basic moral principle, and so on to infinity. Or, we must reach an end point – a basic, fundamental moral principle that needs no further justification.

If we generalize this objection we find its use all over the place. With respect to the history of the universe, we find those who argue that the universe must either be infinite, or it must have a ‘first cause’. In the area of knowledge itself, people assert that justification or ‘proof’ must either be infinite, or go back to a set of foundational premises that, themselves, must be taken on faith and can never be justified.

Coherence of Beliefs and Harmony of Desires

In some cases, philosophers have held that this dilemma between an infinite regress and self-justifying foundational propositions is a false dilemma. There are other options.

Philosophers interested in theories of knowledge have another option for justifying beliefs – coherentism. To picture this theory at work, think of a web. A belief sits at each node in the web, and is connected to other beliefs through strands of logic. Each belief is justified by its relationship to other beliefs, themselves justified in terms of connection to other beliefs, which (eventually) which are all tied together. There are no foundational beliefs – no self-justified propositions that serve as a “foundation” for all others. Everything is justified by the quality of its connections to everything else. Some beliefs are very well connected. Others are connected only by thin threads.

The desire-utilitarian view of value is the same. All value exists in the form of relationships between states of affairs and desires. Desires themselves are evaluated by their relationship to other desires, which in turn are also evaluated by their connection to other desires, and so on.

In the case of beliefs, the relationship for the web with the most and strongest connections is “coherence”. Under coherence theory, if one person believed that P, and another believed that not-P, this would be taken as a sign of incoherence. One of the two would have to be mistaken.

Desires have a place for a similar type of ‘coherence’, but it also has important differences. I can illustrate these differences with an example. When it comes to eating chicken, I have a preference for dark meat. My wife likes white meat. As a result, we never get into a disagreement about who gets which pieces of chicken. This situation allows both of our desires to be more easily fulfilled – precisely because we like different things. I call these types of relationship ‘harmony,’ to distinguish it from ‘coherence’.

With respect to beliefs, we are looking for the greatest coherence. With respect to desires, we are looking for the greatest harmony.

If we accept this model of value, we do not need to postulate anything more bizarre or strange than desires, states of affairs, and the relationships between them (whether a desire is fulfilled or thwarted in any given state of affairs). The idea of evaluating desires simply applies this models to “states of affairs” in which individuals have particular desires. Just as we can evaluate everything else (knives, movies, friends, jobs, houses, meals) by their ability to fulfill desires, we can evaluate desires by their ability to fulfill (other) desires.

There is no dark mystery here, no special powers that transcend the real world but interact with it giving things value, no ‘foundational ought’ that seem to emerge from nowhere and cannot be bound to anything in the world of ‘is’.

Nor do I need to postulate, explain, or account for some sort of foundational ‘oughts’.

Accounting for Foundational Oughts

If you think about it, a great deal of effort is spent in debate over the nature of these foundational ‘oughts’. We have people who are called ‘realists’ and ‘objectivists’ who assert that these foundational ‘oughts’ really are real-world entities. They exist. They must exist. Yet, these ‘realists’ cannot even start to answer the question of what they are, what they are made of, how they work, or how we can know about them. If they exist, they are extremely strange entities. They are not strange in the way that black holes are strange. They are strange in the way that ghosts are strange – a type of strangeness that suggests they do not exist.

On the other hand we have the ‘subjectivists’ who state that the brain can simply make up these foundational oughts. They have no independent justification, and can be whatever the agent or the assessor wants them to be. Strangely, these foundational ‘oughts’ are a lot like hallucinations. They appear only to the person who claims to be able to see them. They guide his actions. The agent takes them to be real even though they have no existence outside of his ability to perceive them. Yet, even though they have all of the qualities of subjective moral hallucinations, people can draw upon them to justify killing, imprisoning, or otherwise harming those that these hallucinations point to and call ‘guilty’.

On the ‘harmony’ model that I am defending here, I have no need to trace a line of moral reasoning back to some set of self-justifying moral ‘oughts’. In fact, I assert that they do not exist. The reason that the ‘realist/objectivist’ and the ‘subjectivist’ above have so much trouble coming up with a theory of these foundational moral ‘oughts’ that make sense is because they are both starting from a false assumption – that there must be foundational moral ‘oughts’ and we must have a theory that makes sense of them.

The most important conclusion to draw from this is that when somebody else comes to me and asks, “How do you account for foundational ‘oughts’?” I answer that their question is misplaced. My situation with respect to foundational ‘ought’ is much like the situation that 19th century astronomer Pierre-Simon Laplace when Nepoleon asked him where God fit into his theory of celestial mechanics. Laplace’s answer, “Sir, I have no need for that hypothesis,” is the same answer I give to any question of where I put foundational ‘oughts’.

Reasons and the Web of Harmonious Desires

For the sake of completeness, I want to add one more item to this account – reasons for action.

I have stated that desires are the only end-reasons for action (reasons for action that identify ends or goals) that exist. If an agent has a desire that P, and P is true in state of affairs S, then agent has an end-reason for action for bringing about or maintaining S.

In an agent’s quest to establish or maintain a state of affairs S in which P is true (given that agent has a desire that P), the agent has end-reason to ask what he can do to influence the desires of others. This desire that P that is his y end-reason for action gives him an end-reason to perform those acts that will promote desires in others that will help establish or maintain S. This end desire also gives the agent an end-reason to perform those acts that will make less common in others those desires that will tend to prevent or destroy S.

In this web of all desires, the more a desire comes into conflict (destroys harmony with) other desires, the more and the stronger the reasons that exist to act so as to inhibit that desire. At the same time, the more a desire tends to fulfill other desires, the more and the stronger the end-reasons are for promoting that desire.

There is no mystery as to why a person with a desire that P has an end-reason to influence the desires of others in this way. It is a part of the desire that P, where desires are the only reasons for action that exist, that it gives him an end-reason to seek harmonious desires in others.

Susan Neiman: Religion and Science

In this series on the Beyond Belief 2006 conference, I am now up to Session 6, where the first speaker was Susan Neiman.

Neiman, a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, was asked to speak about the possibility of morality without God. In doing so, she decided to take on the ‘intolerance’ of Richard Dawkins, telling Dawkins directly, “I have not said anything to offend you yet, but I am about to.”

She began her presentation by comparing and contrasting two stories of concerning Abraham; the story of Sodom and Gomorrah where Abraham attempting to convince God to spare the cities. The second was the story of Abraham bundling up his infant child and heading off to sacrifice that child to God.

In the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, Neiman focuses on the report that Abraham negotiated with God to save the city. At first God said that he would destroy the city. However, Abraham was concerned about the innocent people of Sodom, getting God to agree that it would be wrong to destroy the city if there were 50 good people in the town. Ultimately, through negotiation, Abraham gets God to agree not to destroy the city if Abraham can find 10 good people. Ultimately, however, Abraham fails and God destroys the city.

However, when God commands Abraham to take his son Isaac up into the mountains to be sacrificed, Abraham obeys without question, refusing to question God's actions. According to Immanual Kant, Abraham should have thought that whoever would have asked him to do such a thing was not God.

I have no qualms about being partisan. The Abraham who risks God’s wrath to argue for the lives of unknown innocents is the kind of man who would face down an unjust tyrant anywhere, is deeply human in the best of all senses, and neither his fear nor his frailty stands in the way of his own reason. He is reverent but not deferential for his faith is based on his moral background and not the other way around. He is, in short, what I would like to call ‘enlightenment hero’. As Kierkegaard taught us, the Abraham that takes his son to Mount Mariah left ethics and enlightenment behind.

She reports that her purpose for bringing up this story is to show that the bible is equivocal. The Bible contains stories of complete and unquestioned obedience to God. At the same time, the Bible (or, Neiman claims, all three Abrahamic faiths) contain a rationalist tradition – a tradition of biblical leaders using reason to argue against God and, sometimes, winning.

[F]ar from viewing our capacity to reason as threatening our capacity to obey God, this tradition sees thinking as its very fulfillment . . . . If reason is God’s gift, he meant for us to use it even against Him if He turns out to be wrong or hasty. On this tradition, our ability to make sense of the world whether with Science or through right moral actions is just further proof of God’s goodness.

Neiman’s point in this is that it is a mistake to divide the world along religious and secular lines. On the question of whether religion and science is compatible, Neiman wishes to give the answer, “Sometimes, it depends on the religion.”

Here, she also uses Socrates of an example of a compatibility of religion with reason. Socrates, she claims, was not put on trial for atheism, but was put on trial for holding that we need reason to determine what is good, which in turn determines what the gods love. Socrates actually did believe that the gods loved them because they are good (in themselves).

Neiman also quickly brings up a non-religious philosophy that she suggests is resoundingly anti-science; post-modernism. This is a theory that holds that there is no truth, just different interpretations of reality, with the scientific model being just another tradition no more or less valid than any other.

With this, Neiman has shown that being religious is not a sufficient condition for being anti-science (some religious traditions are pro-science and view our capacity for scientific inquiry as ‘God’s gift’). Religion is also not a necessary condition for being anti-science (there are non-religious traditions that are also anti-science).

After establishing that it is a mistake to conflate anti-science with religion, Neiman goes back to the question of whether it is possible to have morality without God. To this question, she says that the answer is a resounding yes even within some religious traditions.

There are deep sources for rejecting the question, ‘Do we need religion to maintain ethics,’ because the answer is a resounding, ‘No.’ The Abraham of Sodom and Gomorrah certainly didn’t. It was he who gave God lessons in ethics at extreme peril.

I want to stress here that Neiman was dividing religion itself into two camps. She was not denying the fact that some religious traditions would hold that Abraham could give God lessons in ethics is absurd. This would deny that God is all-knowing and deny that God is morally perfect. She has nothing favorable to say about those who act more like the Abraham who unquestioningly sets out to kill his own child over the Abraham of Sodom and Gomorrah. She only goes so far as to point out that there are religious traditions that do hold that humans can give God moral lessons.

She uses this in a criticism of unnamed critics of religion.

Some of the objections to religious thinking that I have heard during this conference really does precede on the assumption that there haven’t been religious thinkers and, honestly, there have been.

This all makes sense as far as it goes, but how far does it go?

There are others who have accused critics of theism of arguing against a “crude theism”, leaving the more complex theories untouched. Thomas Nagel raised this objection to Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion in a review published in the New Republic. In effect, these philosophers accuse Dawkins (and, I assume, Sam Harris) of creating a straw God.

On this issue, I would like to distinguish three different types of arguments, and show an important difference between two of them and the “straw man” that Dawkins and Harris are accused of.

The straw man argument takes the following form.

Person 1 asserts position P. Person 2 answers by ‘reinterpreting’ position P as position Q. He then defeats position Q, and claims that he has defeated position P. In this form of argument, position Q stands in as the “straw man” in place of position P. Q’s easy defeat generates an illusion that P has been defeated.

This is, indeed, a fallacy, and a form of argument that a person of sound reason will avoid.

However, this interpretation of events assumes that there is nobody out there asserting Position Q.

If there are position Q defenders, then we can have another situation.

Person 1 asserts position Q. Person 2 then defeats position Q. Person 3 then comes along, asserts that there is a position P that is like position Q, accuses person 2 of failing to defeat position P. Person 1 then asserts that this criticism of person 2 means that his position Q has not been defeated after all.

In this type of case, person 2 has been unfairly maligned. He has defeated the position he intended to defeat. If we take position Q as the fundamentalist, anti-science, obey God at all times position, Dawkins and Harris have had some harsh words to say against that position that stick. Neiman’s suggestion that there is a position P, a science-friendly religion where humans can use reason to question God even on matters of morality, does nothing to defeat or even criticize the position that Dawkins and Harris has taken against their intended targets.

Furthermore, we have reason to believe that the ‘theology’ that Neiman describes is far too rare to be worth more than a massing mention. Dawkins and Harris are free to dismiss them in a footnote. “Footnote: My criticisms here do not apply to position P, which also exists, but is so rare that it is of little practical importance.”

In fact, neither Dawkins nor Harris is entirely free to take this route. Both of their writings contain elements that suggest an alternative track. They can be interpreted as saying,

“Against position P; this is similar to position Q. As I have shown, position Q is not only wrong, it is dangerous. Furthermore, those who hold position Q gain moral support from those who hold position P. They claim, ‘Because there are defenders of position P about, I am justified in holding position Q, even though P does not imply Q.’ We must destroy all straws that the defenders of position Q might grab on to. Therefore, we must reject position P.”

This argument does not work. There is only one legitimate reason for rejecting position P, and that is because position P itself is flawed. There is no sense (and a great deal of injustice) in asserting the argument:

• P does not imply Q, but some misguided people think that P implies Q.

• Not-Q.

• Therefore, not-P

This is bad reasoning.

Patricia Churchland: The Biology of Morality

Since I started this series on the presentations of Beyond Belief 2006, I have been aching to get to this section – the section on morality. In the section on morality, I have been aching to get to Patricia Churchland’s presentation.

This is because Churchland’s position represents a massive speeding train which is heading entirely down a wrong track. Like logical positivism in philosophy, behaviorism in psychology, and communism in economics, Churchland takes a road that is fundamentally flawed.

Churchland's Relationship between Morality and Biology

Churchland is the chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of California, San Diego. In her presentation, she attempts to describe a relationship between morality and biology.

She begins with this pair of claims:

Evolution sets the brain’s style of drives and emotions. Experience in a culture shapes the style into specific habits and preferences using the reward system.

This I happen to agree with. Our aversion to pain, desire for sex, preference for certain types of food, our drive to seek out a comfortable environment avoiding excessive cold or heat, are all under evolutionary influences. We evolved as beings that will tend to have desires that have, in the past, perpetuated the species.

(Note: It is tempting to say that we desire things that will perpetuate the species. However, this is a mistake. There is no law of nature that says that the desires that have perpetuated the species in the past will continue to do so as the environment changes. Those desires that will perpetuate the species will survive into the future – that much is axiomatic. However, there is no guarantee that all or even most of us have those desires.)

From there, she went on to tell the story of two species of voles (fuzzy little mole-like mammals). From studies of the voles she concludes, “In male prairie voles, you can predict the degree of monogamy . . . as a function of the density of vasopressin receptors in certain very specific parts of the brain.” With females, behavior is related to oxytocin levels.

I found this to be just an astonishing result. Because here is something that many people have thought is really a cultural concept, that is whether you should be and monogamous whether you should be promiscuous, and it turns out that it’s importantly related to your specific biochemistry.

Whoa! Stop!

Should?

'Is' and 'Should'

The research that Churchland has described says nothing about 'should'. What this research shows is that whether a vole is monogamous or promiscuous is importantly related to specific biochemistry. They have not discovered anything about should.

Here’s the rub. Unless you believe in some type of magical power, all behavior is going to be linked in some way to brain chemistry or brain structure. What else is there that controls behavior?

One of these days, we may well discover a specific brain structure associated with rape, murder, theft, whatever. When we do so, this brain structure will indeed be importantly related to whether a person does or does not commit rape. Yet, it will not at all be related to whether the person should or should not commit rape.

Churchland provides her own counter-example. In the discussion that followed her session, she spoke about a tendency among chimpanzee males, when all is comfortable within the group, to wander to the edge of their territory, find a lone chimpanzee from a different tribe, and to kill it in a horribly brutal way. She wants to know the brain chemistry of this type of behavior so that it can be stopped. Yet, if we accept her analysis above, then this brain chemistry determines if the chimpanzees should go seek out a chimpanzee from a neighboring tribe and kill it.

Churchland's Answer to 'Is'/'Should'

Churchland, of course, is aware of the claim that one cannot derive an 'ought' (or 'should') from an 'is'.

She acknowledges that the inference from ‘is’ to ‘ought’ is formally invalid. However, she says, there are a number of ways in which people draw inferences other than through formal logic. She mentions how we take in a set of observations and draw an “inference to the best explanation.” She uses as an example a mother knowing that her daughter has been playing outside in the brush on a warm spring day coming home with a rash on her arms. She infers “my daughter has been in poison ivy,” without this being a formal deduction from true premises.

She claims that we do the same thing with morality. You are hiking. You see a bear and you retreat back up the trail from which you came. There, you see other hikers. It is not a deductive inference from ‘is’ to ‘ought’ but an informal inductive argument that leads you to the conclusion that you ‘ought’ to tell the hikers that there is a bear up ahead.

While in the process of illustrating how this type of inference works, Churchland in fact provides the proof against her original claims. She puts up a slide of an optical illusion where two squares that are in fact the same color (or shade) appear to be different – because of their context. The mind looks at the image and draws an inference of a difference where, in fact, no difference exists. Now, she should ask, "What is to keep the mind from looking at a situation, drawing an inference of an ‘ought’, where in fact no ‘ought’ exists?"

Worse, she does not address the possibility that the mind might infer an ‘ought’ where there is, in fact, an ‘ought not’ or vica versa.

In the case of the child with the poison ivy and the two squares on the optical illusion, we look at the evidence and draw a hypothesis. We know what it means to say that the daughter has been in poison ivy or that the two squares are of different color, from this we make further inferences, we can then test those inferences to verify or falsify our earlier hypothesis.

But when we infer that one should be monogamous, or should tell the hikers about the bear, or should go to the edge of our territory and brutally kill any lone individual from the next tribe that we might find there, how do we test that hypothesis? How do we determine whether our ‘inference to the best explanation’ is an inference to the right explanation as opposed to an inference into error?

Another problem with Churchland’s view is that it makes morality extremely easy. How do I determine whether I should be monogamous? Churchland seems to suggest that I go to my doctor and have my oxytocin and oxytocin receptors checked. One result would tell me that I should be monogamous, another result that I should be promiscuous. This, as I said, is an extremely convenient morality because the first result also says that I do not wish to have an affair and the second result will suggest that I do wish to have an affair. So, conveniently, morality will tell me that I should do exactly what I wish to do.

As I said, Churchland is not consistent on this. Though she seems to speak about deriving the should of monogamy or promiscuity directly from brain science, she does not speak about deriving the should of ripping apart a lone individual from another tribe in this way.

An Alternative to Churchland

Now, I am going to offer a solution to some of these problems. To do that, let me introduce some hypotheticals. Please note, I am analyzing concepts here, not the actual moral value of monogamy and promiscuity. I am going to suggest how this can be determined. It will be different than Churchland’s suggestion, but more consistent with her overall remarks.

Let us assume for the sake of argument that a disposition towards monogamy is related to oxytocin levels. This is a simplifying assumption. However, as I said, I am analyzing concepts here.

Let us further assume that evolution sets a base level (or range) of oxytocin levels, thus setting the base disposition towards monogamy.

So far, monogamy has the same moral status as height and weight. We have not said anything that suggests whether an individual should be monogamous.

However, let us further assume that social forces can affect oxytocin levels. Specifically, let us assume that social praise of monogamous individuals tend to increase oxytocin levels in individuals who witness that praise. Churchland herself discussed research that shows that oxytocin levels can be influenced by a simple massage. So, perhaps the prospect of an ego massage for monogamous individuals can cause higher oxytocin levels, which increases the strength of the disposition towards monogamy. On the other hand, condemnation of monogamous individuals will decrease oxytocin levels and, thereby, promote adultery and promiscuity.

Now, we have a question to ask: Should we be using praise to increase or decrease oxytocin levels? In other words, do we have reason to promote higher oxytocin levels in individuals (through praise of monogamy), or to decrease it (through condemnation of monogamy) – or does it really matter?

Let us further assume that higher oxytocin levels make individuals kinder and more considerate of others. Certainly, we have reason to make others in our community kinder and more considerate of others. This would make them kinder and more considerate of us. It will also make them kinder and more considerate of those we care about – our children, other family members, friends.

We also must consider the fact that others have reason to increase our oxytocin levels. To the degree that they do so, we have even more and stronger reasons to make people kinder and more considerate of our children, other family members, and friends. Because, now, we care more about their well-being.

Now, I have introduced a ‘should’ into the equation. What is the nature of this ‘should’? Is it subject to the same problems as Churchland’s ‘should’?

This ‘should’ simply means ‘has more reason to than reason not to’. The ‘should’ of increasing oxytocin levels in others is merely asking whether I ‘have more reason to than reason not to’ increase oxytocin levels in others. This is not a mysterious form of ‘should’ that cannot be derived from ‘is’. This is an ordinary form of ‘should’ that translates into ‘is the case that I have more reason to than reason not to’.

Applications

When we apply this to the examples we discussed so far, we get the following results:

Is it the case that we generally have reason to promote the desire to kill lone members of a neighboring tribe, or to inhibit such a desire? Let us say that we have the option of talking to members of the other tribe and, through dialogue, create an inhibition in them from attacking our lone members. At the same time, they create in us an inhibition to attack their lone members. Under these conditions, our members will have more liberty to travel alone in safety – and so would theirs. The members of our two tribes have a great many reasons to inhibit this desire to attack lone members of other tribes.

These ‘reasons to inhibit a desire’ are the reasons that Churchland quite naturally (but unconsciously) called upon when she said that she wanted to know the biochemistry of this behavior so that we can put an end to it.

On the issue of monogamy versus promiscuity, Churchland said that oxytocin levels determined whether one should be monogamous – a claim she does not make about killing lone individuals from a neighboring tribe.

Assessing Churchland's Claims

I suspect that Churchland began with the assumption that monogamy or promiscuity were permissible – or, at least, their morality were ambiguous. If she had truly approached the question with the idea that promiscuity were wrong, the way rape and killing a lone individual from another tribe is wrong, she would have seen this discovery as a way to eradicate a disposition towards acts – the way she would view a similar discovery about the biochemistry of rape or killing a lone individual from a neighboring tribe.

In other words, she assumed, unconsciously that there are no reasons to act so as to promote or inhibit desires relating to marital fidelity. As such, individuals were permitted to act in whatever way their natural oxytocin levels dictated. This absence of reasons for promoting or inhibiting desires explains and predicts why the monogamy case was handled differently from the killing case.

Even though Churchland explicitly says that she is looking to brain states to determine if something is right or wrong, her judgments suggest that she is, in fact, looking to something else outside of the brain state to judge the brain state good or bad. I would further argue that this ‘something else’ is whether the brain state itself tends to fulfill or thwart other desires.

Please note, I have not refuted or even doubted any of the brain science. I am not saying the brain science is wrong. Nor am I bringing in any bizarre properties – no supernatural (or non-natural) ‘oughts’ to clutter our ontology. My claim is not that biology fails to tell us anything useful about morality. My claim is that biology plays a different role than Churchland (sometimes – though not consistently) says that it plays.

Break

Greetings, readers

I am taking the evening off to spend it with my wife. I haven't had a day off since Thanksgiving, and I think that one is due.

I invite you to look around a bit, browse, and . . . if you find something that you like . . . take it with you. I have a fair collection of anti-Gonzales articles on the shelves that might be of current interest. Of these, I favor. "The Capture and Internment of Former President Bush."

However, I now have nearly 550 postings sitting on the shelves on a number of topics. I am certain that you would find something that interests you.

Or, you can check out my book, listed over there on the right.

I wish for you a pleasant day, and I will see you here again tomorrow.

Alonzo Fyfe

Bigotry: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Today’s post was adapted from an article that appeared in the Chicago Tribune: “Don't drop `don't ask, don't tell,' Pace says” By Aamer Madhani, Tribune national correspondent, March 13, 2007.

I’ve rewritten the article a little bit. The first few paragraphs of what I have written below are almost word for word out of the original article.

Almost word for word.

I made a few minor changes.

The Article

Gen. Alonzo Fyfe, fictional chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday that he supports the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" ban on bigots serving in the military because bigoted acts "are immoral," akin to a member of the armed forces accusing another of a crime for reasons of hate or vindictiveness.

Responding to a question about a policy that is coming under renewed scrutiny amid fears of future U.S. troop shortages, Fyfe said the Pentagon should not "condone" immoral behavior by allowing bigoted soldiers to serve openly. He said his views were based on his personal "upbringing," in which he was taught that certain types of conduct are immoral.

"I believe bigoted acts are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts," Fyfe said in a wide-ranging discussion with Tribune editors and reporters in Chicago. "I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way.

"As an individual, I would not want [acceptance of bigoted behavior] to be our policy, just like I would not want it to be our policy that if we were to find out that a soldier claimed that so-and-so committed a crime when the accuser simply hated the accused and made things up about him. We prosecute that kind of immoral behavior," Fyfe said.

The "don't ask, don't tell" policy for bigots caused an uproar in the military when signed into law. At the time, supporters of the policy inside and outside the military argued that it was essential for the cohesion of combat units, not a question of morality.

Under the policy, bigots may serve only if they keep their orientation private and do not engage in bigoted acts. Their commanders may not ask about their orientation.

However, General Fyfe expressed reservations about immediate dismissing any soldier on the first offense. "I support discipline, but not immediate dismissal, for a first offense.

"We have to remember who are enemy is, here. Whenever we dismiss a soldier willing to serve his country, we make ourselves weaker and the enemy stronger. This does not mean looking the other way when soldiers engage in immoral acts. Theft and carelessness are also crimes, but we discipline those we find guilty and try to make them better soldiers."

Some argue that bigots cannot be reformed and that Fyfe’s proposal is simply a waste of time. Fyfe answered that the military has long been a useful tool in fighting bigotry. “The Tuskegee Airmen, African Americans and Japanese Americans proved their value during World War II. This was a major cause of the civil rights movement that followed.”

When asked about the objection that the military is too important to use in some sort of social experiment, Fyfe answered, “The military is constantly looking for ways to do its job better. We test everything from weapons systems to tactics to unit composition to training methods. If we did not test new options we would still be using clubs and rocks."

Phreadd Pseudoscholar has argued that these bigots are simply following their religion, and that the military policy against bigots amounts to religious intolerance. "The Constitution protects the free exercise of religion. The military is violating that right."

Fyfe answered that the freedom of religion has limits. "Our enemies in this war on terror are also arguing for a right to the free exercise of religion. Unfortunately, their religion tells them to kill and maim others.

"The military certainly respects the religious practices of its members, up to the point where those practices require them to violate the rights of others. Our policy of "Don't ask, don't tell," is consistent with those principles. People can believe whatever they want, but they can't use religion as a reason to harm others."

We asked Gen. Fyfe about military members who claim that they get their morality from their religion, and that they do not see their attitudes as immoral.

Fyfe said, "Again, you have people who claim to get their morality from their religion, who think that blowing up infidels is not immoral. You have a choice. You can believe that there is a morality that transcends religious differences that tells people of all religions how to live together in peace, you can have them live together as master and subject, or you can have sectarian war.

“The military operates on the principle that there is a morality that transcends scripture that allows different sects to live and work together,” Fyfe said.

Fox News and the Nevada Democratic Debate

The Democratic Party in Nevada recently broke off plans to work with Fox News to host a Democratic presidential debate.

The proximate cause of this is a 'joke' from Fox News CEO that confused the names of Osama bin Laden and Democratic contender Senator Barack Obama. However, there is a much better reason against involvement in anything that Fox News is involved in. Its executives and major personalities display an appalling lack of intellectual integrity.

A Highway Example

Walk up to a busy highway. Close your eyes and, ignoring (or reinterpreting) all evidence to the contrary, convince yourself that there are no hazards in crossing the street. Then, start across the street. Continue to ignore anything you may hear or see.

Anybody foolish enough to follow these instructions would discover that reality will impose itself rather violently on those who choose to ignore it. Reality has no capacity for compassion or forgiveness. It does not care who lives, who dies, or the quality of that life. It will kill, maim, or otherwise harm anybody who will not take it seriously.

If enough people follow these instructions, pure chance will eventually allow somebody to get across the street. Let us then imagine a group of people who hear about this story. They grab every microphone they have available to announce to the world that somebody crossed the street. They attribute her success to something like a special relationship with God (rather than pure dumb luck) or invent some other story. The story does not matter. The only thing that matters is to get more people to try to walk blindly across the street.

If you are the type of person who can enjoy this type of work – convincing people to blindly cross the street by promoting those who were successful – then you might be the type of person that Fox News is looking for as either an executive or a broadcast personality.

Fox News and Conservatism

I want to make a point right away that my complaints have nothing to do with Fox News being conservative. It is quite possible to have an intellectually responsible conservative publication. Conservatives make a number of valid points – some of which I agree with.

For example, legislators are human. Like all humans, they act so as to fulfill the more and stronger of their desires, given their beliefs. This principle governs every intentional action, including their vote. The person who wins an election – whether for the Democrats or the Republicans – is not always somebody who desires only to serve the public good. Chances are, he desires such things as power, sex, money, to make his friends happy, and to make his opponents miserable. Resources handed over to a legislator for his control will not be used for the public good. It will be sold to the highest bidder. It will be exchanged with those who can best fulfill the more and the stronger of the legislator’s desires, whatever those desires happen to be.

Accordingly, it is absolutely foolish to think that people interested in buying influence in government are only going to try to manipulate Republican politics. People who want money and power in an era when Democrats have money and power to give are not going to ignore the possibility of manipulating liberal politicians and liberal ideas to their benefit.

So, there is a place to be had for an intellectually responsible conservative voice.

Fox news is not that voice.

Examples

Fox News is the paradigm for intellectual recklessness and deceit in the pursuit of profits. Fox News is the nesting ground for people whose moral character is very much like that of individual who convinces people to blindly cross a busy street if somebody will pay him to do so.

Some evidence?

A 2003 poll from the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy showed that Fox News viewers were the least well informed about the facts relevant to the case for war. Effectively, Fox was a significant tool in getting the American public to blindly cross the street into war, and for suffering the consequences that followed.

An example where Bill O’Reilly selectively edited an interview featuring Senator Joe Biden in order to misrepresent Biden’s views, where O’Reilly then asserted the position (as his own) that he cut from Biden’s interview.

Without doing any real research, Fox News repeated an unfounded assertion that Presidential candidate Barack Obama attended a Muslim madras as a young child.

The major fault in these last two stories is not that mistakes were made. It rests in the fact that Fox News did nothing to punish the perpetrators of these misinformation campaigns – establishing an atmosphere in which there is no concern with fiction over fact.

Which brings me to the fourth item:

Fox News terminated two employees who refused to insert false information in a report, winning a lawsuit on appeal for wrongful termination by arguing that news organizations have a constitutional right to make false and misleading claims.

Again, nobody was fired. Again, the problem is not that these events happened so much as the Fox News organization showed complete indifference or even a preference for putting provably false and misleading information on the air.

Respectable news organizations discipline employees for knowingly or recklessly making false and misleading statements - communicating its standards to all other employees. Fox News saves its pink slips for those who refuse to make false or misleading statements. It, too, is communicatings its standards to its employees.

These are just some examples.

Ad Hominem Tu Quoque

I would like to remind the reader that, even though there are clearly liberal media outlets that are guilty of the same crime, this is no defense of Fox News.

This practice of saying, “You cannot condemn me because you are just as guilty,” (spoken, in this case, by Fox News against liberal propagandists) has a name. It is called ad hominem tu quoque meaning, “Oh yeah! Back at you, buster.” The claims made in this family of arguments are irrelevant.

Imagine a murderer claiming in his defense that the reason he cannot be condemned for murder is because he knows that there are other people in the world who also commit murder – or a rapist claiming that his rape should go unpunished because he is not the only person who commits rape. This is the type of claim that Fox News is making when it says that its intellectual recklessness and deceit are morally permissible because they are not the only ones who engage in intellectual recklessness and deceit.

Of course, since fallacious arguments are the stock in trade at Fox News, we should not be surprised to see them haul out this fallacy in their own defense.

Sleeping with the Enemy

One of the arguments being offered against the Nevada Democratic Party and the Democrats in general is that they have an obligation to go to the enemy and meet the enemy on their own grounds.

This is hardly the case. The victim of immoral behavior has no obligation to show up and permit himself to be further victimized. Certainly, the victim of a robbery or rape has no obligation to walk into the house of the person who victimized her to do battle. In the case of Fox News, we are talking about an organization that cares nothing about intellectual integrity or truth. The victims of their deceptions and distortions have no obligation to walk into the den of those who would victimize them to suffer yet another round of deceptions and distortions.

Unless and until Fox News decides to do something to promote intellectual integrity – such as firing people who are clearly caught clearly lying or engaging in intellectually reckless reporting (by refusing to check important facts before broadcasting them), nobody who cares about truth and intellectual honesty has any reason to deal with that organization. Indeed, all decent people have good reason to avoid such an organization. People who are so clearly willing to urge people to blindly cross a street, getting many of them maimed and killed, do not have a right to any form of social interaction with more morally concerned and sensitive individuals.

Evangelicals Against Global Warming

Today’s post is an example of the value of forming an “alliance of the best 51 percent” – including some who believe in God – against the worst 49 percent.

In yesterday’s post, “Priorities and the Bottom 49%,” I wrote that if a person insists on working only with those who agree with him on every issue, then he insists on working alone. Each person must be willing to work with those who disagree with him on some issues, to form an alliance of the best 51 percent against the worst 49 percent – to make the world better than it would otherwise be.

Forming an alliance of the best 49 percent against the worst 51 percent is just foolish. Prudence suggests drawing that middle 2 percent - the most marginal of the best 51 percent – the 2 percent that one least wants to be a part of the team – into the team.

[Note: I am well aware that, technically, we are not dealing with “51 percent” but “50 percent plus 1” to get a simple majority. However, I trust that the reader can translate this posting into more precise terms. Besides, there is value in having a margin of safety.]

The news recent has reported on a schism among evangelicals on the issue of global warming.

Note that, yesterday, I listed four general areas of concern that are more important than belief in God; (1) survival of the species, (2) global catastrophes, (3) health/medicine, and (4) the intellectual virtues of honesty, intellectual responsibility, and curiosity.

The issue of global warming fits within the second category.

Details

This schism in the evangelical movement pits Reverend Richard Cizik, vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals, against conservative evangelicals such as James Dobson, Gary Bauer, Tony Perkins, and Paul Weyrich.

Cizik has been an outspoken advocate of what his branch of the evangelical movement calls ‘creation care’. Cizik and others like him take their inspiration from the Biblical claims that humans are the stewards of this Earth who are to take care of it for God. I suppose this would be like parents buying a pet for their child, and telling the child that it is her responsibility to take care of it.

Opponents to this stewardship philosophy say that the fate of the Earth is in God’s hands. Some cite Genises 8:22, “While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, And cold and heat, And summer and winter, And day and night Shall not cease.”

If I were at all interested in the subject, I would ask somebody to explain what this has to do with global warming, since global warming will not cause any of these things to cease. This strikes me as a clear example of somebody deciding what they want to believe then looking for quotes that they can twist and bend to fit their own opinion, rather than drawing their opinion from the source.

News reports also state that many of these evangelicals doubt that global warming has a human cause. Yet, this is just another piece of what is already an overabundance of evidence that these people have lost touch with reality. This is what follows from rejecting the form of study where success is measured by a proven ability to explain and predict empirical results, and adopting instead a philosophy that says that says that flights of the imagination and make-believe can pass for reality. The unfortunate consequence of that attitude is that reality proves to be tremendously unforgiving when we do not respect its laws.

Fundamentalism Threatens Humanity

Sam Harris has argued that religious fundamentalism is not only factually incorrect, it is a threat to human well-being. This branch of the evangelical community provides a case in point in support of Harris’ claim. They have lost touch with reality to such a degree that they are unable to understand, predict, and prepare for the future. The best that they can do is to comfort the victims. They price themselves on this ability. Yet, many of these victims exist precisely because these evangelicals stand in the way of those who would have been able to predict and prepare for these dangers.

It is common for fundamentalists to protest that they are persecuted by those who do not respect their beliefs. There is a limit to which one can respect the beliefs of another. Beliefs that threaten such widespread harm are not beliefs that any decent, moral person can respect. In fact, they deserve the full force of our contempt (subject to the limitation on the use of violence I have mentioned elsewhere in this blog).

We could, of course, ‘respect’ the beliefs of those whose faith leads only to their own suffering. We might say, “Go ahead. Kill yourself. It's your life.” Yet, even this represents a callousness that could not easily be justified as something a good person (a person with desires that tend to fulfill the desires of others) would feel.

However, the situation is quite different when a person’s beliefs threaten to kill, maim, or otherwise deprive others of a quality of life they would have otherwise enjoyed.

The Fishing Expedition

Imagine that you are on a fishing boat with four other people. The boat is taking on water, and the radio is out. It takes four people to man the pumps. Unfortunately, when Friday evening arrives, one of the four says, “This is the Sabbath. Scripture says that this is a day of rest. I will not man the pumps. If, God willing, the boat has not sunk by tomorrow night, then I will man the pumps. The fate of this boat is in God’s hands.”

In this case, there are three other people on the boat whose lives will be lost out of ‘respecting’ this man’s belief. ‘Respect’, in this case, does not come without a cost. It kills people.

When the other three passengers morally criticize and condemn this man, calling him a fool and commanding that he take his place at the pumps, he protests that they are the ones who are evil because they lack religious tolerance. “You do not respect my religious beliefs – and you are obligated to do so.”

There is no obligation to respect foolishness and stupidity when it gets other people maimed and killed. When it maims and kills only the fool, then there is some sense in which we can throw up our hands and say, “It is neither my fault nor my responsibility.” The situation changes when the fool threatens the lives and well-being of others.

However, let us now imagine that one of the passengers asserts that nothing in the Bible prohibits working on the Sabbath if it is to save a life. He can get the fool to the pumps without requiring that the fool abandon his religion.

The prudent atheist should recognize that the important result here is not getting the fool to abandon his belief in God – something he will almost certainly not do before the ship sinks. The important thing is to get him to the pumps. Once he is on the pumps, there will be time to talk to him about his religious beliefs and, perhaps, convince him of his errors. However, if he does not man the pumps, then much more than an opportunity to reason with him will be lost.

The atheist who says, "I will not man the pumps with a theist," is as much of a fool as the theist who says, "I will not man the pumps on the Sabbath."

Liberal Environmental Extremists

I also want to point out that there are absurdities on the other side. Those who think that conservatives cannot point to people whose views on the environment are absurd and need to be checked are mistaken.

The worst of those on the left are those who treat nature as having intrinsic value. As such, they are willing to argue for all sorts of human want and suffering, so long as nature is not disturbed. The worst of them argue for human extinction. Others argue that the proper role of humanity is to enslave ourselves to nature itself, making its care our only value.

I would also put in this category any who would argue that humanity quarantine itself on Earth and refuse to 'contaminate' the rest of the universe with our presence. It is as if an irradiated, lifeless rock in space has more value as an irradiated lifeless rock than used as a habitat for living things, such as man. As it turns out, confining humanity to Earth is substantially the same as demanding our extinction - a noble sacrifice for the protection of all of those irradiated lifeless rocks floating around out in space.

In fact, value exists only as a relationship between states of affairs and desires, and moral value exists as relationships between desires and other desires. Nature has value only insofar as it is such as to fulfill good desires – that is, desires that tend to fulfill other desires. If a modification of nature can make it better able to fulfill good desires, then that modification is good. There are fewer reasons to refrain from making those changes than to go ahead with the action.

Nature does have a number of abilities to fulfill desires. Poisoned air and water will tend to thwart desires. Furthermore, people seem to need places of natural beauty to unwind. Arguments can be made for wilderness areas, because they add an element of environmental and ecological stability to a system that could be knocked seriously out of whack if there are no limits placed on what we may do to nature. It also preserves options that may be useful in the future – just as a savings account preserves options. So, mine is not an argument that states that nature has no value. Only, it has no intrinsic value. Those who will sacrifice humanity to nature are no less of a threat than those who will sacrifice humanity to their god.

The Best 51 Percent

So, our alliance of the best 51 percent is not an alliance of atheists against theists, or even an alliance of liberals against conservatives. It is an alliance of the 51 percent who are most rational and in touch with reality, against the worst 49 percent who have broken apart from reality and whose fantasies and delusions make them a threat to others – more of a threat than most.

Among the best 51 percent, there must be room for some who believe in God.

Priorities and the Bottom 49%.

I have spent the last couple of weeks focusing rather exclusively on the relationship between religion and ethics. I think that it is time for something of a reality check.

Near the start of my series on Beyond Belief 2006, I discussed a presentation from Michael Shermer (editor of Skeptic magazine) in my posting, “Michael Shermer: The Art of Political Compromise”. In that posting, I mentioned that if a person could only work with those that they agree with on every matter, than nobody would ever work with anybody else. Politics is the art of forming alliances among the best 51% against the worst 49%.

This suggests that if one has an interest in practical problem solving, it may be worthwhile to look at the most important problems that need addressing – things that 51% of the people can be brought together to help solve. These are the problems that the other 49% either care nothing about, or who are actively seeking to make those problems worse because it profits them (in terms of power, wealth, or personal satisfaction) to see those problems grow.

In this list of people who cause more harm than they prevent, I add those who are enthusiastic about death and destruction from disasters that are either natural or man-made, because they have been taught to view this as a sign from heaven that the end days are near. These people are to be counted as those who find personal satisfaction in events that inflict harm on others.

One thing to be said about the best 51% is that they are not all atheists, or even agnostics. Atheists do not even make up 51% of the population. So, if one is going to talk about an alliance of the best 51%, then that alliance is going to include a lot of theists.

Furthermore, not all atheists are going to make it into the alliance of the best 51%. There is nothing in atheism that entails virtue, and not all vice is motivated by religion. There have been some extremely destructive and violent belief systems that included elements that said that no God exists.

So, solving real problems requires making alliances and working with people who are not atheists – working with the best of those who believe in God. This does not mean agreeing with them. This does not even mean ‘tolerating’ them in the sense that one refuses to say, “I think you are mistaken.” It simply means getting together and saying, I think we have more important problems to worry about.”

What are those more serious problems to worry about?

I am going to have to put, at the top of the list, any problem that threatens to end the human race, and any person who obstructs policies that will reduce the odds of that destruction. In this case, it really does not matter what the threat is – whether it comes from outer space or from earth – the defense against these harms are the same. It requires spreading out – disbursing human civilization around this solar system and, eventually, to other solar systems.

The “bottom 49%” in this case are those who insist that we solve the problems of earth before we invest any money on space development. For one thing, there will always be problems on Earth as long as humans live on this planet. Consequently, this philosophy is comparable to saying, “humans should never move off of Earth.” This is absurd. Earth will, some day, become a lifeless planet. We cannot tell if it will happen within the next 100 years or the next 1 billion. However, it will happen. At that time, this race with its problems will cease to exist. I guess, this, at least, will solve all of our problems – which apparently is what these people are after.

A corollary to this concern is the need to collect data and to figure out how the earth works, and what our biggest threats really are. Defending ourselves from a threat is best accomplished by understanding the threat – how it works – and how to protect ourselves from it. This means an investment in data collection and interpretation, by the best minds in the field of science. This also means a willingness to listen to what they have to say. It would do no good for the scientists to identify a threat, only to have the politicians ignore them because their campaign contributors find it more profitable (in the short run) to ignore the threat than to take it seriously.

After the survival of the human race (or some descendent of the human race), the next issue is to make sure that we live well. This means identifying those risks that can do damage on a global scale, even if they do not wipe out humanity. This includes a range of options from a major asteroid or comet strike (not one so large that it kills all the humans), to a global pandemic, to a global natural disaster such as a super volcano. The worst scenarios of global warming, that have sea levels eventually rising in excess of 200 feet. Yes, this will take time. However, driving a growing population of humans onto less and less land will be extremely harmful at any speed.

The bottom 49% - the worst of the worst in this case – are those who are willing to risk this destruction because it is personally profitable for them to do so. The people of Exxon-Mobile and other companies who are content to see whole countries destroyed so long as it is profitable for them to do so clearly fall into the category of the worst of the worst. The level of destruction they are willing to allow, and the reasons that they are willing to allow it, make Hitler and Stalin look like boy scouts.

Both of these first two topics identify another group to add to the “bottom 49%”. These are people who think that we can avoid these problems by making human sacrifices to their God, rather than by a study of science and the development of theories that explain and predict how the real world works. There are still those who think that we can ward off hurricanes and terrorist strikes if only we make the proper human sacrifices on their religious altar. Their so-called morals legislation ultimately has the effect of adding misery and suffering to the real world, while diverting attention from real problems, and getting in the way of real-world solutions.

Make no mistake about it. These are the actions of people causing real world suffering and death for no good real-world reason.

The alliance of the best 51% against the worst 49% must be an alliance of those capable of respecting and understanding how the real world works, recognizing real-world risks, and coming up with real-world solutions.

In addition to the concerns of space development and earth science, I must add the field of medical science as one that demands our attention. In this area, the best 51% are those who advocate promoting our understanding of biology and medicine. The bottom 49% are those who get in the way of advances in this area. This bottom 49% are the defenders of disease, suffering, and death, who have likely ruined far more lives than all of the worst dictators that have ever existed.

The fourth category that I want to present for distinguishing the best 51% from the worst 49% is defined by those who lie, engineer false beliefs, market confusion, and engage in intellectually reckless, and intellectually lazy behavior. Again, we need a real-world understanding of what is around us if we are going to avoid the worst pitfalls in store for us. Those who market in deception – who make their money lying to others or engineering false beliefs and confusion – are only working to blind people from the pitfalls that await them.

The moral character of such a person is no different than that of somebody who will blindfold children and set them out into a field full of traps, waiting for an explosion or a blade to deprive that child of limb or life. They blind the child with ignorance and confusion. In the fog that these deceivers create, they hope to manipulate the victim into action (or inaction) that profits themselves or their client. For such a person, it does not matter much what happens to the victim. All that matters is that the client profit – at whatever cost (to others).

In all four of these concerns – human survival, earth-monitoring, health research, and crimes against truth – there are degrees of guilt or innocence. Some are better than others. Many do well in each of these categories to some degree, but fail only in limited areas. In all of these, there is a best 51% that can be united against the worst 49%.

The trick is to know where to find that line, and how to draw those on the near side of it into an alliance. It means looking around and determining if one is in too small of an alliance, and finding others who may join – finding out what qualities are to be found in an alliance of the best 51%.

In this quest, belief in God (or not) simply is not the most important issue on the planet. It does not even rank near the top. There are more important things to worry about. It would be tragic to be sitting here debating exclusively belief in God, while some threatening harm cuts a wide swath of damage through human civilization – perhaps even ending it entirely.

Stephen Nadler: Spinoza

When discussing the relationship between science and religion, Albert Einstein and Carl Sagan both expressed a preference for what they called “Spinoza’s God” – the understanding of God created by the 18th century philosopher Baruch Spinoza.

Stephen Nadler, Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, went to the Beyond Belief 2006 conference to present Spinoza’s views on science, god, and morality.

Spinoza’s God

Nadler began his presentation by saying that Spinoza should be considered a hero of everybody in the room and that he was surprised that his name had come up only once so far.

Among the claims that Nadler attributes to Spinoza, that many modern atheists would embrace, are these:

The Bible is a work of literature – a collection of essays written by different people and brought together by a group of editors, who went through a list of submissions deciding which to accept and which to reject, and publishing the result. The bible has no more of a connection to the truth than Pride and Prejudice.

Nothing exists by nature. Spinoza considers and rejects the idea that God exists as a supernatural entity within nature (like water can reside in a sponge), because Spinoza rejects the supernatural (nothing exists but the sponge).

Spinoza also rejects the idea that it makes sense to stand in worshipful awe of nature itself (that God is the material universe, or God is the sponge). This is akin to standing like a fool with one’s mouth open before nature. Nature is to be examined and understood, not worshipped.

Spinoza's Ethics

Entering into the realm of morality, Nadler addresses two related issues: (1) Weakness of will, and (2) The motivation to do that which is right.

The difference between these two questions is that the first (weakness of will) asks, “Given that I know what is right, and that I am motivated to do it, how is it that I can fail to do the right thing.”

The second (motivation to do the right thing) asks, “Given that I know what the right thing to do is, why should I do it?”

On these issues, Nadler represents Spinoza as holding the view that people are always motivated to do that which is in their rational self-interest. He equates rational self-interest both with what a (rational) person does, and with what a rational person should do, such that the real question is not, “Why should I be moral?” but “How could I ever be immoral?”

The Possibility of Evil

In fact, what Nadler describes above the reductio ad absurdum of this view that Nadler attributes to Spinoza. The view that everybody does, in fact, promote their own self-interest as a matter of physical necessity, and that everybody should act in their own self-interests, means that everybody does that which is right, and nobody ever does anything immoral. Immorality does not exist, and all people are at all times perfectly virtuous.

Any meaningful answer to the question, “Why should I be moral?” must make sense of at least the possibility that an agent may have reason to do something immoral.

Self Interest

I agree with Spinoza, as Nadler describes him, that everybody acts so as to fulfill the more and the stronger of their desires, given their beliefs; and that they seek to act so as to fulfill their desires.

For the sake of space, I want to assume that everybody has true beliefs. Under this assumption, I will illustrate how it is possible for a person to do something that is immoral – to be evil – even if he necessarily acts so as to fulfill his desires given his beliefs, and even though all of his beliefs are true. This means that you cannot cause a person to be moral simply by correcting his beliefs. In order to get somebody to do that which is moral, you have to manipulate his desires.

According to Nadler, Spinoza asserts that everybody acts in their own ‘self-interest’. This is a popular slogan, even today. Unfortunately, it is ambiguous, and this ambiguity creates a great many problems.

This ambiguity centers on the difference between self-interest in the sense of interests (desires) of the self versus interests (desires) in the self. This subtle difference is extremely important.

Of course, the desires that I act so as to fulfill are my own. They are desires (interests) of the self. In fact, it is as inconceivable that an action motivated by a desire that is not my own can be my action. An action belongs to the person whose desires motivated it – such that if somebody else had remote control over my body, the actions my body would be performing would be her actions, not mine. If this body were to be used to commit murder, she would be the murderer, not me.

Even though every action is motivated by desires of the self these are not necessarily (and often not in fact) desires in the self. Just because I always do what I most want to do does not imply that I only want to do that which benefits me. It is quite possible (and, in fact, quite common) for an agent to have a desire of the self that is a desire in the well-being of other people.

So, given that everybody acts to fulfill the more and the stronger of their own desires, can we make sense of the idea that some people sometimes do that which is evil? And can we answer the question “Why be moral?”

Weakness of Will

Let’s first look at the question of weakness of will. Recall, this is a person who knows that X is the right thing to do, wants to do the right thing, but does not do it. What is going on here?

Well, if we take the formula that people act so as to fulfill the more and stronger of his desires, ‘weakness of will’ suggests that X does not, in fact, fulfill the more and stronger of his desires. The agent can still have a desire to do the right thing. However, this desire is always only one desire among many. It need not be strong enough to override other desires. A rapist’s may know that rape is wrong and know that rape is evil. He even might have a desire to be a good person and an aversion to doing harm to others. However, the desire to rape might still be so strong that rape is still the act that actually fulfills the more and the stronger of his desires.

“Weakness of will” is a very appropriate term here, because the problem is that the desires that would prevent rape are too weak to override the desires that motivate rape.

Why Be Moral?

So, now, let us look at a person who has no desire to do the right thing, no aversion to harming others, but who has a desire to commit rape. Let him ask, “What reason do I have not to commit rape?”

The answer would be, “None.” If, ex hypothesi we give an agent no desires that are necessarily false in a state of affairs in which (or that results from a state of affairs in which) he commits rape then, by definition that person has no reason not to commit rape.

However, even in this instance, others in the community have many strong reasons to give the agent a reason not to commit rape.

There are two ways of doing this.

The first method of giving somebody a reason is to take the agent’s desires of the agent as a given and say, “If you commit rape, we will create for you a state of affairs that you have reason to avoid.” This could include a loss of freedom, property, or even life. This involves giving the agent a reason not to commit rape by making it the case that a state of affairs that he has reason to avoid will follow upon his committing rape. However, this method has an important weakness. A person who can avoid getting caught performing an action has not, in fact, been given a reason not to perform it. So, if this was the only reason that a person has not to perform an action, he will perform it, when he can get away with it.

A second method of giving somebody a reason avoids this problem. This is to give the agent an aversion to performing the action, or an aversion to some state of affairs that is an integral and necessary part of performing the action. If a person has an aversion to taking money that does not belong to him, then he will not do so, even if there is no risk of punishment. This is true in the same way that a person who has an aversion to eating liver and onions will not do so, even if he has an opportunity to eat liver and onions without getting caught, or where those who would catch him have no intention of punishing him. He still would not do it.

Using both of these methods, people generally have reason to give others strong reasons not to engage in rape. Even the rapist has reasons to give others reasons to not engage in rape – if the rapist does not wish to be raped or has an affection for others that he wishes not to have raped, or an affection for others who have an affection for others that they would not like to have raped.

So, I want to reject the idea that “rape is immoral” means “the agent has strong reasons not to commit rape” – because this might not be true, and rape remains wrong even if this is not true. Let us take it instead to mean, “the agent should have good and strong reasons not to commit rape” or, more specifically, “people generally have reason to cause the agent to have strong reasons not to commit rape.”

This makes sense of some very common uses of the term. If a child hits a classmate, the teacher does not say, “You feel ashamed of yourself!” Because, after all, the child might not feel the least bit of shame, and the wrongness of hitting the other child does not depend on his actually feeling ashamed. Instead, the teacher (accurately) says, “You should be ashamed of yourself.” He does not say that the child has a reason not to hit other students, but that the child should have a sufficiently strong reason – that a good child would have a sufficiently strong reason – not to hit other students.

This allows for the possibility of an agent to do (be) evil, since the act that fulfills the more and stronger of his actual desires, might not be the act that fulfills the desires that others have reason to cause him to have.

The question, “Why should I be moral?” is actually ambiguous? The question may be asking, "Why should I, given the reasons that I have, do that which a good person would do?" The answer to this question may be, "There is no reason."

However, there is another version of the question. "Why should I have the desires that people generally have reasons to want me to have?" Or, more precisely, "What reasons do other people have to get me to behave differently?"

If being moral is having desires that tend to fulfill the desires of others, there really is no mystery as to why people have reasons to cause the agent to want to do X. Those people generally have many strong reasons to cause others to have desires that fulfill the desires of others.

Socrates

Nadler actually made this point, though not so tightly tied to the reasoning that I made above. He discussed the trial of Socrates, where Socrates was accused of corrupting the youth. Socrates, according to Nadler, answered that the charge was absurd. "What possible reason would I have to corrupt the youth, given that I would have to live amongst them?"

In fact, Socrates, like all of us, have reason to cause others to have those desires that fulfill the desires of others. It would be quite irrational for us to promote desires that tend to thwart the desires of others. The difference is that our students will tend to act so as to thwart, rather than so as to fulfill, our own desires. That is not a wise option to pursue

So, we all have reason to promote in others those desires that tend to fulfill the desires of others. An efficient way to do this is to learn to identify them - to call evidence of them 'good' and to say that 'this is the type of person we have strong reasons for everybody to become."

Moral language handles the job both of identifying positive and negative desires, and providing the praise and condemnation that promotes or inhibits those desires.

Paul Davies: Levitating Superturtles

I now enter Weekend 7 in my series on the presentations at Beyond Belief 2006.

Session 5 in this series began with a presentation from Paul Davies from Arizona State University. Davies is interested in finding the ultimate meaning and purpose in the universe. More specifically, he wanted to know why the laws of physics are what they are, and why they are friendly to the development of intelligent life.

To analyze this problem, he called forth an ancient belief that the Earth stood on the back of a giant elephant. That elephant, in turn, stood on the back of a giant turtle – at least in the version that Davies used.

What did the turtle stand on?

Davis mentioned two options: (1) "turtles all the way down" (to what?), or (2) a giant levitating turtle that did not need to stand on anything.

He then described three cosmological theories by using this levitating turtle metaphor.

(a) The universe comes from God, where God is the giant levitating superturtle that depends on nothing else for its existence. God made the universe friendly to human life because it fulfilled His desires to do so.

(b) The universe itself is the giant levitating turtle that depends on nothing else for its existence. It is just by chance that the universe is friendly to human life.

(c) The universe is a part of a multiverse. Each universe in the multiverse has its own natural laws. Of course, we would come into existence in a universe suitable for life and, of all the universes that exist, it is not surprising that at least one has laws suitable for life. However, on this model, the multiverse is the levitating superturtle. We are fortunate to live in a multiverse that allows for a wide variety of universes where some are friendly to human life.

As advocates of these different schools defend their favorite theories, Davies complains that the debate ultimately ends up being a set of assertions, “My levitating superturtle is better than your levitating superturtle.” Or, as he puts it, one person’s levitating superturtle is another person’s laughing stock.

To avoid the problem of needing a levitating superturtle, Davies proposes the option that the universe itself is the reason for its own existence. The problem, according to Davies, is that we keep looking for something outside of the universe to explain the universe, when we should be looking for something inside the universe to explain it.

The Value of Levitating Superturtles

Actually, I am not going to pretend that I have the capacity to determine what quantum physics has to say about the possibility of a self-justifying universe. I have studied some metaphysics and even some physics, but not enough to offer an intelligent opinion on the merits of Davies’ claims. Davies topic is a matter for PhD physicists to discuss, not a matter for the man on the street (or on the blog).

However, I do have some experience in value theory. This allows me to ask about the value of these particular findings. What does it matter that the universe is a levitating superturtle or obtains its reason for existence in itself rather than in something external?

One thing that I do not think that Davies has any capacity to find (because it does not exist) is any type of value other than relationships between states of affairs and desires. We may desire that the universe be a particular way. Insofar as we have desires, we are motivated to make the world a particular way (to the degree that we have the power to do so). However, we will never find meaning or purpose (or value) written into the universe independent of our desires. That type of value simply does not exist.

So, certain physicists may desire to know the answers to these questions. They may even come to desire that a particular answer be true. However, none of this disproves the thesis that value is ever anything but that which fulfills the relevant desires. The value of a God existing comes from desires that would be fulfilled in a universe where God exists.

Assuming that your average driver, secretary, and retail store clerk does not have a PhD in quantum physics, what is the value of the universe being a particular way, and where did that value come from?

Many people desire a universe with God. However, that is only because they were manipulated (through social forces) to acquire such a desire. By eliminating the desire that God exists and that one is serving God, and one eliminates the psychological dependence on serving God – a psychological dependence on a fiction. There is just as little reason to argue for a psychological dependence on any of these levitating superturtles, or on the ‘internalist’ system that Davies defends. It need not matter – except in the sense of who wins the Superbowl matters, as a private interest of no overwhelming importance.

In short, what I am talking about is adopting a set of desires such that one simply has an aversion to living in a universe that is not grounded on levitating superturtle T - when the odds are increadibly low that levitating superturtle T exists. This aversion to living in any other universe is an aversion that is learned, and learning an aversion to reality is somewhat problematic at best.

To understand the question of valuing different options, I would like to use a different metaphor. Instead of elephants standing on turtles, I would like to ask you to picture in your mind a scene in which there are a group of actors on a stage. Some objects around them are illuminated, but there is darkness heading off in all directions. There may be things out there in the darkness, but they cannot be seen.

Our agents speculate what might be out there. However, they have no evidence to draw upon. They can only guess.

Because they have no evidence, any guess they make will almost certainly be wrong.

What is wrong with peering out into the darkness and, when asked, “What’s out there?” answering, “I have no idea. It’s dark. I will describe as well as possible anything I can see, but I see no reason to describe what I cannot see.”

If we mix our metaphors – if we can see the elephant, we say that there is an elephant. If we can see the turtle, we say that there is a turtle. If asked what the turtle is standing on, and we cannot see that far, we do not postulate God or a levitating superturtle or turtles all the way down. We simply say, “I do not know.”

Agnosticism

This may be thought of as a recipe for agnosticism, but it is not.

To see that, imagine a super deck of cards. This deck has one billion suits, each with one billion and thee cards (cards numbered 1 (ace) though 1,000,000,000 plus the jack, queen, and king of each suit.

A card is drawn from the deck.

I ask you, “Can you prove that the card drawn is not the king of hearts?”

You will answer that you cannot prove that.

Okay, now, the next question. Do you believe that the drawn card is the king of hearts?

A rational person would be able to answer, “Almost certainly not.” In fact, the chance that the drawn card is the King of Hearts is less than a great many things that you gamble on every day. Its chances are low enough that it is reasonable to call oneself an atheist - to hold that the existence of a God is so unlikely (not false, but tremendously unlikely) so as to defy serious consideration.

As it turns out, those who argue that the drawn card is the King of Hearts, and defend it on faith, then go and say, “Because the drawn card is the king of hearts, we may legitimately rob the following people of life, liberty, and/or happiness.” They use a premise that is almost certainly false to justify real-world harms.

Pascal’s Wager

This discussion then leads us into Pascal’s Wager. This argument states that, if you compare the huge costs of being wrong (if God condemns to eternal suffering those who do not believe in Him) to the small costs of being right, it is rational to do what one can to believe in God.

Unfortunately, Pascal’s Wager assumes that there are only two options; (1) eternal hell for not believing in God, or (2) entrance into heaven.

With our huge deck of metaphorical cards, we must consider other options.

We must consider the possibility that there is a God. However, this God gave us a brain and wanted us to use it. The faith-based thinker hears God tell him, “I saw these religions come up and sweep the land. I could have stepped forward and say, ‘Don’t believe them.’ However, if I had done that, you would never have learned to think for yourselves. This was my ultimate test – to see if you would follow self-professed prophets uttering nonsense, or whether you will use reason to see through this religious nonsense and come to me with a thinking mind, or whether you would shut off and throw away this gift of a brain that I gave you. These people have devoted their lives to reason. They used the brain that I gave them. You, however, have not. I have no use for you.”

Now, if apply Pascal’s Wager to this interpretation of God, we get a situation where it is rational to abandon God and take up reason. Taking up reason saves the individual from eternal damnation – a fate that one gets thrown into if one commits the mortal sin of taking the existence of God on faith value.

This, then, is the problem. With an infinite number of options available when we peer into the darkness, there is no compelling reason to assert one option over any other. There is an honest answer – and that honest answer is simply to report that we cannot see that far.

The Philosopher’s Quest

This does not imply that there is anything wrong with people like Paul Davies pursuing answers to this question. There is nothing wrong with wanting to know the answer. There is, however, something wrong with fixing an emotional attachment to a particular answer, particularly when it stands such a tremendously high chance of being wrong.

First, false beliefs stand in the way of an agent fulfilling her desires (she will waste resources doing things that will not bring about the desired states of affairs).

Second, if one is wrong, then a desire that the universe be a particular way will be thwarted. We do not have the power to actually cause God to exist. We only have the power to deceive ourselves into thinking that such a desire has been fulfilled. When there are things in the universe that cannot be changed, we are better off accepting them as they are over pretending that they are different.