Mean-Spiritedness Against Religion

I read a review of Rick Gervais' movie The Invention of Lying in which Gervais was accused of being “mean spirited” for the way in which he portrayed religion as, perhaps, the biggest lie of all.

Ironically, it is a movie set in a world where people are incapable of lying. It is a world in which people are incapable of committing even the 'white lies' such as denying that those shoes "make you look foot" or that a person’s beliefs springing from holy scripture are utter nonsense.

(See, The New York Post, Rick Gervais: Holy Terror)

This happens far too often. When somebody presents this particular perspective on religion we are told that they must shut up because it is unkind or 'mean-spirited'. We have an obligation to lie about religion – or at least to hide the facts – in order to keep others from feeling bad.

Yet, a large portion of those whose sensitive feelings must be spared from having their feelings hurt in this way have absolutely no problem using their beliefs to justify the harsh treatment of others – treatment that goes far beyond mean-spirited.

If we are going to discuss mean-spiritedness, then let us also discuss the mean-spiritedness of Proposition 8 in California and similar measures that aim to prevent homosexuals from getting married. Let us add the lies that this somehow represents a threat to heterosexual marriage, and the lie that permitting homosexuality is morally identical to permitting child rape.

Weigh the meanness of telling a Christian that his religious beliefs are absurd against the meanness of promoting hate-filled lies about homosexuals for the purpose of denying them through law something that, for many, would be of great personal value and harmful to nobody.

If we are going to discuss mean-spiritedness, then let us also discuss the mean-spiritedness of insisting that children be indoctrinated with the message that atheism is not compatible with patriotism. Let us discuss the mean spiritedness of insisting that the nation's money and its public buildings – including its schools – be adorned with the message, "If you do not trust in God then you are not one of us." Let us talk about a Pledge of Allegiance that equates atheism with rebellion, tyranny, and injustice as one of the four great anti-Americanisms.

And let us talk about the mean-spiritedness of beginning sessions of civil government where all citizens have a right to be seen as equal before that government with a ceremony that says that Christian citizens are superior to all the rest. When government sessions start with a prayer "in Jesus' name" this is nothing less than an example of the government officially beginning its session with a declaration that, "The Christian religion is the one true religion, and all of the rest of you are idiots and fools."

If we are going to discuss mean-spiritedness, then let us discuss all of this manufactured hate, based on lies that we have seen at Town Meetings across the country. It is one thing to have honest concerns about a policy. It is quite another to eagerly embrace fictions and to react to them with hostility and, in some cases, guns and threats of violence. These threats take "mean-spiritedness" to a whole new level.

Here, we come to the willingness to believe those lies. The type of person who is receptive to hate-mongering lies is the type of person who has already embraced hate, and who is merely looking for an excuse to give it the illusion of legitimacy. The willingness of the religious right to accept lies about Obama or his policies or homosexuals or atheists shows that these people already embrace hate – they hunger for it – and leap on any lie that might be offered to them as a way of adding fuel to their hate and then basking in the warm feeling it gives them.

If we are going to discuss mean-spiritedness, then let us discuss the emails sent around that contain vicious attacks against the neighbors and co-workers of those who are reading it. Some of them attack people sacrificed their lives and well-being for this country to leave.

For example, when my father – a career member of the United States Air Force until he was discharged with total disability due to injuries sustained in the crash of an Air Force transport plane – attended a government-run ceremony honoring American’s veterans. At the ceremony, a speaker read one of these emails that the religious right likes to circulate in which those who do not believe in God were told to exercise their right to leave the country.

And the crowd cheered.

A crowd whose mean-spiritedness was far and away worse than that which can be found in The Invention of Lying.

If we are going to discuss mean-spiritedness, then let us discuss the mean-spiritedness of distributing books on campus, giving public sermons, and creating movies that claim that people who believe in evolution are the cause of the Holocaust. Let us ignore the fact that the Nazis did not practice natural selection at all (which leaves it up to nature to decide who lives and who dies), but instead practiced artificial selection – the art of farmers and herders for thousands of years.

And let us discuss the mean-spiritedness of politicians claiming that only somebody who believes in God is fit to run the country, and political advertisements that declare that the charge of atheism is sufficient reason not to vote for somebody.

Protesting these things is actually not mean-spirited at all. It is an act of concern for the victims of mean-spiritedness.

There is no sense in claiming that mean-spiritedness needs protection whenever it is motivated by religious beliefs, and that only non-religiously motivated mean-spiritedness deserves oru criticism.

And even the charge that the movie is mean-spirited is a lie. In the movie, the invention of religion as an act of great kindness – as the act of a loving son who wants to ease the suffering of a dying and frightened mother. That, to me, does not sound like the act of a mean-spirited individual.

Atheism as "Unfit for Political Office"

Hot on the heals of yesterday's post, in which I questioned the government's right to declare that atheism is unpatriotic, we have an example of a political candidate using the government's teachings in charging a political rival with supporting atheist (read: "unAmerican") activities.

Albuquerque City Councilor Don Harris sent out a campaign mailing that "[Barbour] is a donor to Atheist organizations and speaker at Atheist events…" prominently featured, with the word "Atheist" capitalized and in italics to indicate that this is the horrible thing he wants the reader to focus on.

(See: The New Mexico Independent: ABQ City Councilor Harris responds to NMI on “atheist” attack on challenger)

We can well imagine what the reaction would have been if Harris had made the accusation that his opponent donated to Jewish causes and spoke at Jewish events. We would know right away what types of attitudes that Harris was appealing to - and even promoting - with such an advertisement.

The moral bankruptcy of such a statement would have ended Harris' political career immediately. Even his own party would have abandoned him for making such a bigoted claim, and for the hate-mongering inherent in such a statement.

Of course, Jews are smart enough to rise in absolute (and well justified) anger whenever somebody in political office - or aspiring to political office - expresses those kinds of sentiments. They have history to teach them how foolish it is to let those types of statements go unchallenged.

While many atheists arrogantly assert that they are mentally superior to those who hold any type of religious belief, here is the case in which atheists act as fools, where the Jews would respond to such a political ploy with far greater wisdom.

(Though the Jewish population should recognize that if it is viewed as politically legitimate to make this type of involvement in atheist organizations a political campaign one year, there is less to block the use of the same type of political message targeting Jews a few years down the road.)

Of course, we are then invited to ask the question of where people get the idea that "atheist" is equivalent to "being unfit for public office." We find the answer in the Pledge of Allegiance and the national motto. The former puts atheism in with rebellion, tyranny, and injustice as the four great unAmericanisms. The latter says that all patriotic Americans (We) trust in God.

This is a part of the cost - the special burden - placed on atheists because their government has adopted the policy of writing into its pledge, printing on its money, in posting in public buildings, the message, "Those who do not believe in God are not fit for public office."

As a consequence, candidates can put in their political mailings, "My opponent speaks at atheist events and donates to atheist causes." When this is combined with the government's hate-mongering, we have an effective filter that is 99.9% effective at keeping elected offices out of the reach of those who do not trust in God, or support a nation under God.

At the same time, we are told that the Pledge and the Motto are not to be understood as violating a prohibition on government against promoting or establishing religion.

Smith on Parfit: 8 of 15: Desires as Means and Beliefs

I hate being wrong. Yet, in writing this blog, I think I have to say that I have been wrong about the relationship between desires-as-means and beliefs.

In this series of posts I am commenting on an article sent to me by a member of the studio audience. These are, in a sense, notes written in the margin as it were as I highlight passages in the article and explain my agreement or disagreement.

In that article, there is a place in which Smith attempts to, classify as procedural or substantive a range of principles that various theorists have thought qualify as principles of rationality governing the formation of desires (in what follows 'RR' = 'Reason requires that'):

He does not endorse all of these principles. Instead, he mentions them so as to classify them, and h classifies them so that he can raise questions for Parfit’s distinctions between those classifications.

From my perspective, this dispute over classifying the things that reason requires is purely academic. I do not see a reason to get involved in that dispute. However, I am interested in what these people say about what reason does and does not require.

However, since Smith went ahead and presented them, I have a chance to scribble some notes in the margins regarding each of these principles.

If someone has an intrinsic desire that p and a belief that he can bring about p by bringing about q, then he has an instrumental desire that he brings about q.

I scribble in the margins:

What is an intrinsic desire?

I would use different words – words that may or may not mean the same thing that Smith intends them to mean.

As I have already argued, there are two types of desires; desires-as-ends, and desires-as-means, where desires-as-means are bundles of desires-as-ends and beliefs.

Applying this distinction to Smith’s principle yields something like this:

If someone has a desires-as-ends that P and a belief that she can bring about P by bringing about Q, then she has a desire-as-means that she bring about Q.

I have sometimes used this formulation in the past. However, as I think about it here, I believe it is mistaken. I have said that desires-as-means are bundles of desires-as-ends and beliefs. However, at this point I am going to change my mind and say that desires-as-mans are bundles of desires-as-ends and facts that relate means to ends, independent of beliefs.

Though I would love to say that I had this right all along, I suspect that this might not be the case.

Specifically:

(1a) If a person has a desires-as-ends that P, and can bring about P by bringing about Q, then she has a desires-as-means that she bring about Q. There is nothing about beliefs in this formulation.

(1b) If a person believes she has a desires-as-ends that P, and a belief that she can bring about P by bringing about Q, then she has a belief that she has a desire-as-means that she bring about Q. However, this belief can be mistaken. To say that it is mistaken is to say that she does not have the desires-as-means that she thinks she has.

A person can have false beliefs about whether Q has value as a means by having false belief about whether Q can bring about P, which she does desire.

Where we assume that a woman who is thirsty is about to drink from a glass of water that, unknown to her, contains poison, then she thinks she wants to drink the contents of the glass. In fact, she does not want to do so.

A stranger, knowing what is in the glass, can well be imagined telling her, as she takes the glass and raises it to her lips, You do not want to drink that.. The stranger, in this case, is correct. She does not want to drink the contents of the glass. She only thinks (believes) that she wants to. And her belief is mistaken.

The Pledge: Atheism as Unpatriotic

The claim that "one nation, under God" is not meant to promote the idea of one nation under God is one of the most absurd claims that a person can utter.

It is like saying that, "one nation . . . with liberty and justice for all" is not meant to promote the idea of "one nation . . . with liberty and justice for all."

Yet, a federal judge wrote this absurdity into an opinion in which he dismissed a lawsuit against the Pledge of Allegiance in New Hampshire last week.

(See: Religion Clause: New Hampshire Federal Court Rejects Challenge To Pledge of Allegiance)

The Pledge does not thank God. It does not ask God for a blessing, or for guidance. It does not address God in any way....

Right.

And the Pledge also does not address issues of liberty or justice at all either. These types of concepts are entirely foreign to the Pledge of Allegiance which is, in fact, a purely patriotic exercise that has nothing at all to do with liberty and justice for all.

A purely patriotic exercise . . ,

Yes. It is a patriotic exercise that says that to be patriotic, you have to support "one nation under God," in the same way that a patriot has to support, "one nation . . . with liberty and justice for all." It says that anybody who does not support these things is not a patriot. It says that atheism is incompatible with patriotism, in the same way that tyranny and injustice are incompatible with patriotism.

Now, what truly surprises me is that I do not see these arguments mentioned anywhere other than this blog. I have done a fair amount of reading on this subject, and listened to recordings of oral arguments, and I have never heard anybody mention in Court that "one nation under God" aims to establish a nation under God in the same way "one nation . . . with liberty and justice for all" aims to establish one nation with liberty and justice for all.

Let some judge just try to argue the difference.

However, by tradition, judges do not argue points that the attorneys do not bring before them. The judge may think, "I believe that point over there, that nobody mentioned in their brief, is relevant in this case" However, the judge would then be bringing up points that neither team addressed in court. The teams on either side might have had good reason not to consider that issue. The judge needs to give the attorneys a chance to answer any new material brought into the case.

This is one of the very reasons for oral arguments – to give the judges an opportunity to ask the attorneys why they might not have considered an issue that the judge things is relevant.

Yet, in the briefs and the oral arguments I have read and the transcripts I have listened to, I have yet to find an instance in which it was brought up that "one nation under God" seeks to establish a nation under God in the same way that "one nation . . . with liberty and justice for all" aims to establish a nation with liberty and justice for all.

Nor do I recall ever hearing anybody challenge the claim that “the pledge is a patriotic exercise: with the challenge, "What right does the government have to insist and to teach children that atheism is incompatible with patriotism? That tyranny and injustice is incompatible with patriotism – I can see that. But isn't the government barred from saying that atheism is incompatible with patriotism?"

More importantly, I am surprised by the fact that I do not read or hear this point being made in public debates on this issue. In fact, I wonder if anybody in the nation has ever heard that argument who has not read this blog.

And it is here, in public discussion, that this point needs to be brought out more than it needs to be brought out in the courts. I wrote just two days ago about the stupidity inherent in the apparent secular strategy us using lawsuits alone to protect a secular government, while allowing the proponents of theocracy to turn the people against the very judges that secular proponents depend on. Those who wish to defend a secular government need to be making their case to the people, not just to the judges, or the people will no longer permit judges who accept a secular interpretation to the Constitution to sit on the bench.

The people need to be asked the question, "Where does the government get the right to teach children that atheism is incompatible with patriotism?" They need to be made aware that the claim that "one nation under God" does not aim to establish a nation under God is as absurd as saying "one nation . . . with liberty and justice for all" does not aim to establish a nation with liberty and justice for all.

Clearly, there are people in the world who are so intellectually disfigured by their religion that they can look at the most obvious evidence and not see the truth. That these arguments will not persuade the willfully stupid is not relevant here. Their effect on those who still have some capacity to think – and capacity to tilt the balance in judicial appointments and elections – is what matters.

So, I would really like to know why so many people are so silent on a point that, to me, at least, seems so obvious and so easy to understand and can even be expressed in terms of the simple sound bytes that dominate politics these days.

I would really like to see a case brought to court on these terms. "What right does the government have to teach children that atheism is unpatriotic? I am an atheist, and I am harmed by the governments declaration to this effect. They begin each school day by saying that atheism is unpatriotic. They print it on the money. By my rights as granted by the First Amendment, I demand that the government stop teaching that atheism is unpatriotic."

If you believe that "one nation under God" does not aim to establish one nation under God, then you must also believe that "one nation . . . with liberty and justice for all" does not aim to establish one nation with liberty and justice for all.

Or, combining the two, if you believe that atheism is compatible with "one nation under God" then you must also believe that tyrannical injustice is compatible with "liberty and justice for all".

I would like to see these points made a part of the national debate. I would like to see the contortions that the theocrats will go through in trying to answer them.

Apollo +50: Little Joe 6

I am writing this series about the start of the manned space program because it is an excellent example of how to use a system of experimentation, searching for a natural explanation for the results of one's experiements, and making modifications. It is also an excellent example of what can be accomplished and how quickly it can be accomplished if one uses this system.

50 years ago today, engineers and others working on the manned Mercury program could not have possibly known that, in less than 9 years and 10 months, the United States would land astronauts on the moon.

In fact, 50 years ago today, nobody had yet flown in space. They had hoped, "maybe next year."

They were wrong, as it turned out. Humans would not fly in space for another 18 months.

NASA was finding out how difficult this task of sending people into space really was. On August 21st, it tried to test the Mercury capsule by launching one on top of a new rocket called the Little Joe. Thirty minutes before the scheduled launch, the emergency escape tower unexpectedly fired, ripped the capsule off of the Little Joe rocket, and spashed it into the ocean a few miles off shore.

Little Joe did not even launch.

Because of this failure, NASA decided it needed to take a step back and go a little bit slower. The first thing it needed to do was to find out if this Little Joe configuration would work. It was not a simple rocket. It was, in fact, a gaggle of cheap rockets all strapped together - all of which had to work.

The reason that this launch was called Little Joe 6 is because NASA had made a roadmap for its Little Joe rockets. It had designed five launches for five different tests named Little Joe 1 through 5. When it decided that it just wanted to test the Little Joe rocket itself, NASA gave it the next available number - Little Joe 6 - even though this was destined to be only the second attempted launch (and the first actual launch) of a Little Joe rocket.

NASA wanted to know what would happen to a capsule at max-Q. To test this, they did not need a rocket that would launch a capsule as high or as fast as the Redstone or Atlas rockets. They simply needed a rocket that could reach max-Q - and one that could do so without costing as much as a Mercury capsule cost.

What is max-Q?

Well, as a rocket rises, it goes faster and faster through the air. However, the air gets thinner and thinner. There is a point, called max-Q, where this combination of air density and speed put the maximum amount of stress on a spacecraft.

On one side of the launch, you have the capsule sitting on top of a rocket on the ground. The atmospheric dynamic pressure on the capsule sitting on top of the rocket is the same as the atmospheric dynamic pressure on the people working on the rocket. It's not creating that much stress.

On the other side of the launch, the spacecraft is moving at over 17.500 miles per hour. However, it is moving through the vaccum of space. So, there is no atmospheric dynamic pressure. Heck, there's no atmosphere.

Somewhere in between the capsule experiences its maximum atmospheric dynamic pressure.

This actually happens fairly close to the ground - approximately 7 to 9 miles in altitude, depending on the specific rocket.

With the Little Joe launch, NASA simply needed the rocket to reach the equivalent to what max-Q would be on the Mercury manned flights. After that, everything that happened to the rocket was because of inertia, in both the physical and the metaphorical sense. A rocket that reached max-Q still had fuel to burn. Even when it ran out of fuel, inertia would still carry it up a bit higher. This is why the Little Joe 6 test reached a height of 37 miles.

What it proved was that it could do the work it needed to do at an altitude of 7 to 9 miles.

As a result of this test, NASA knew that it had a test platform for testing the Mercury spacecraft under max-Q. The next thing it needed to do was to actually test the Mercury spacecraft under max-Q.

The Rebellian against Atheist Legal Threats

There are religious groups in California now gloating that four townships have now stood up to the evil atheists and voted unanimously to continue to start city council meetings with specifically Christian prayers. They are willing to stand up to the lawsuits that the atheists threaten them with. For this, they are heroes.

(See: Examiner, Lodi joins 3 cities ruling for prayer, against atheists' legal threat

I suspect that these have been useful fundraising efforts. People like to pay money to defeat the evil atheists. This likely represents a fruitful form of political entrepreneurship.

And what can we expect if these cases go to court and the court now prohibits these prayers?

Then these organizations and the people running them have been given an opportunity to put their copious amounts of free labor and their copious amounts of contributors to work replacing those judges, in areas where judges are elected. Where judges are appointed, they will use their resources to replace appointees who are on record as appointing those no-good judges who kicked God out of the city hall.

What is the counter to this movement?

In all of the articles I have read the defenders of secular city councils have done nothing but threaten the very lawsuits that play directly into the political strategy of the organizations supporting these prayers. I imagine playing chess with somebody where I can be perfectly confident that my opponent will make exactly those moves that will leave me in the strongest possible position. "I move my pawn, she places her queen right where I can take it, I take her queen."

I would like to suggest an alternative set of moves, if I may.

Sure, move the queen – I would certainly not argue that the best move is to simply refuse to use one’s most powerful piece. However, it is foolish to move the queen without taking measures to support her position.

That support has to come from making a moral case against what these religious groups are doing. A moral case is very easy to make since these people are, in fact, behaving immorally.

"These people are acting like they somehow have a right to demand that everybody in town attend their church before they can attend a government meting. They have no such right."

Create a video in which an atheist council begins a government session with a ceremonial rant against religion, and Christian towns people sit uncomfortably in the audience while the council explicitly states that their views must be rejected, and post it on You Tube. End the video with a simple slide: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

"History is filled with examples of what happens with countries when different religions start to compete over which one of them gets to control government. You can travel through the Middle East and Europe and see the graves and the ruins that result. Most of that death and destruction has been caused by fights breaking out among different factions of the same religion."

"The only connection between religion and morality that we witness here in this case is the arrogant and dangerous belief that if a religious person does something, it is not immoral."

"Ask them what they think their God’s opinion is of arrogant and self-righteous individuals using government to shove their religion down everybody else's throat."

File the lawsuits, by all means. Move the queen into position to check-mate the opponent. However, make sure that the queen is covered or you will lose her, and the game – making exactly those moves your opponent would want you to make.

Smith on Parfit: 7 of 15: Why Concern Ourselves with Rationality

In this series of posts I am commenting on an article sent to me by a member of the studio audience. These are, in a sense, notes written in the margin as it were as I highlight passages in the article and explain my agreement or disagreement.

In my last post I suggested that it may be useful to distinguish two different senses in which we might say that a person’s actions are irrational.

One sense comes from comparing the action to an agent's current desires. An agent acts so as to fulfill the most and strongest of his current desires, given his beliefs. If those beliefs are irrational (if no rational person would believe such a thing under those circumstances), then we may also say that the act that springs (in part) from those beliefs are irrational.

The other sense comes from comparing the action to an agent’s current and future desires. Or, more precisely, it compares an agent’s actions to those desires that an agent has reason to have (desires that tend to fulfill current and future desires), not necessarily the desires that an agent does have. An agent may be irrational, in this sense, for failure to exercise not because he does have a desire to exercise (or does have desires that would cause him to exercise), but because h should have a desire to exercise. This is because a desire to exercise would tend to fulfill the agent's other present and future desires.

The charge of irrationality, in this sense, is an act of condemnation in the same way that a charge of immorality is. The difference is that charges of immorality are used to inhibit desires that tend to thwart the other desires regardless of whose they are; whereas charges of irrationality are used to inhibit desires that tend to thwart other (current and future) desires of the agent.

Why would we invent this language? Why would we adopt a set of linguistic conventions that aim at causing people to adopt desires that tend to fulfill the agent’s other desires, and inhibit those desires that tent to thwart the agent’s other desires?

Well, we certainly have reason to promote a set of social tools that make others interested in our welfare, just as they have reason to use those same social tools to promote in us an interest in their welfare. If I am interested in another person’s welfare then I am interested in removing those things that would cause harm to a person, just as I would have them adopt an interest in removing those things that threaten me. It means that I have a reason to promote in them desires that tend to fulfill their other desires, and to inhibit in them those desires that tend to thwart their other desires. And I have reason to have them do the same for me.

We have reason, then, for social conventions that praise those who acquire desires that tend to fulfill their other desires, and to thwart those desires that tend to inhibit other desires.

I am suggesting that if we look at the way that the charge of ‘irrationality’ is used, we will find this function as one of its many uses. Claims about another agent’s rationality and irrationality are used to mold desires in the same way that claims about another agent’s morality or immorality are used to mold desires. They simply mold these desires toward different ends.

This does not deny the fact that we also have an interest in the relationships between actions and the consequences of those actions on the one hand, and our current desires on the other. We have reason to adopt linguistic conventions for discussing these relationships as well. As it turns out, we find people using the terms 'should', 'ought', 'rational', and 'irrational' here as well.

Language is an invention and, like all human inventions, we have no particular reason to believe that it is flawless – that there are no parts of it that are unnecessarily vague or ambiguous. We have no reason to believe that it must be free of terms that lend themselves to ambiguity – where that ambiguity might cause confusion, even among philosophers.

Religion and the Moral Responsibility of Belief

Yesterday, I wrote that young earth creationists are responsible for a great deal of death and suffering and will be responsible for more in the future. I also added that they are poor candidates to evaluate real-world political and social policies because they do not live in the real world.

However, I denied the claim that this is true of all religious people. Here’s why.

It is simply not possible for any of us to adopt all of our beliefs by reason alone. Our first beliefs are given to us when we are too young to evaluate them. It is even possible that we acquire some beliefs as a matter of genetic fiat, because a particular belief gene gave those who have it evolutionary fitness. To say that we are somehow morally responsible for those beliefs would be absurd.

As we get older, we gain the capacity to question what people tell us and to form our own ideas about how the world works. This is when we begin to be able to hold our beliefs up to the light of reason. However, a part of holding those beliefs up to the light of reason is to evaluate their consistency with the beliefs acquired during the first stage above. When a potential new belief comes into conflict already planted, we cannot tell by this fact alone which of the two beliefs to keep and which to abandon.

By the time we are sufficiently well developed to be counted as moral agents, capable of being held responsible for our actions, we have a huge amount of baggage that we have brought with us from our younger (and irresponsible) years.

This is the time where responsible people would start to evaluate what they believe. However, they cannot start over from scratch. They cannot abandon each belief at once. They must choose thos that they will question and those that they will let slide until they have more time, if possible.

In living up to his moral obligations, the morally responsible person will look at the most dangerous ideas first. His attention should begin looking at beliefs where lives are at stake, and save the casual and irrelevant beliefs for times of rest and relaxation.

The proposition, "At least one God probably exists" has no implications on how we treat each other, so the proposition itself has no moral implications. It's the stuff that one adds to this that has the moral implications. When that stuff starts to make a difference in what we do to and for others, we have reason to put it to the forefront of beliefs that need our careful review.

If a belief added on to the proposition that a god exists is also of little or no consequence, thn we still have little reason to demand that people hold it up to the light of reason. If a belief is of good consequence, we still have little or no reason to have those who believe it hold it up to the light of reason.

However, when the added belief is tied to behavior that puts the quality of life of others at risk – if it makes a person a threat to the well-being of others – the harm that is caused by those errant beliefs touch reasons to demand that the people performing those actions give their beliefs a careful review.

Bigotry against homosexuals and atheists, claims about the age of the earth, the use of healing practices that do not heal, the diverting of resources away from activities that do real-world good and into activities that are grounded on fiction and myth, all provide examples of beliefs that agents have a moral obligation to hold up to the light of reason. They have an obligation to drop those beliefs that they cannot justify.

This is exactly the same as the obligation not to do harms that they cannot justify.

Comparable to this, there is no obligation to respect beliefs of any kind. There is a case to be made that, It is absurd for atheists to get worked up over beliefs that cannot directly be linked to harm or that are actually linked to good. In just the same way that an obligation to hold a belief up to the light of reason is determined by the risks posed by that belief, the moral condemnation of those who hold irresponsible beliefs should also be measured by the degree of risk posed by that belief.

On this measure, a belief that at least one God probably exists is not a belief that warrants a great amount of criticism.

As I argued yesterday, the belief that the Earth is 6,000 years old warrants such criticism and condemnation that any person with a conscience would loathe to adopt it – for precisely the reasons that I listed in yesterday’s post.

I am not saying that we should be nice to those who hold absurd beliefs because it is politically useful. I am holding that we have reason to criticize those who hold absurd beliefs. However, that criticism should be focused first and loudest on the most dangerous beliefs – such as beliefs that threaten the right to freedom of speech, beliefs that keep atheists out of public office,

Smith on Parfit: 6 of 15: Two Types of Rationality

In this series of posts I am commenting on an article sent to me by a member of the studio audience. These are, in a sense, notes written in the margin as it were as I highlight passages in the article and explain my agreement or disagreement.

As a general thought that came up in reading this article – one not linked to any specific passage from the article, I want to ask:

Would it not make more sense to simply distinguish two different senses of practical rationality?

Value consists of relationships between objects of evaluation and desires. We have the ability to describe many such relationships – and all of then are true.

When it comes to evaluating actions, we can evaluate an action's relationship to the desires that the agent has at the moment. We can also evaluate an action relative to all of the desires that an agnt has and will have. We can evaluate an action relative to the desires that an agent would have if he had 'good desires' relative to the other desires he has or will have. We can evaluate an action relative to the desires of an agent relative to those malleable desires that people generally have the most and strongest reason to promote in others.

There is no need to artificially restrict our language to one relationship and ignore all others.

We can see the same with respect to location. I can make all sorts of statements about the location of letter 'e' on the keyboard of my laptop at this specific time. For starters, it is on my laptop. The letter is between 'w' and 'r'. It is in Germany. It is on the third planet from the sun, it is under the middle finger of my left hand whenever I am typing the letter 'e'. All of these statements would be true. It would be senseless to demand that limit ourselves to one description of the location of the letter 'e' and refuse to talk about any other relationship.

Of the relationships I mentioned above, the relationship between an action and a combination of desires that people generally have reason to promote and the absence of desires that people generally have reason to inhibit is what I have called moral value. I have tended to equate practical value to the relationship between an action and the desires an individual has at the moment.

This means that it is possible for an agent to be in a situation where what the agent practically-ought to do is different from what an agent morally-ought to do. Even if fully informed, an agent does not necessary have sufficient practical-ought reason to do what she morally ought to do.

Another relationship that exists is between an action and all of the desires an agent has and will have – and not just the desires of the moment. People still have reason to be concerned with and to talk about this relationship. People still only do that act that fulfills the most and strongest of their current desires given his beliefs. However, those current desires almost certainly contains some interest in the fulfillment of future desires. As a result, they will almost certainly contain some interest in the relationship between actions and desires that will exist.

I'm going to stop here for now. In the near future, I will explain how an interest in the fulfillment of current desires can generate an interest in the relationships between actions and all of an agent's desires that exist. In the course of doing so, I am going to argue that the accusation of being irrational works like the accusation of being immoral in molding desires so as to fulfill other desires. The difference between the two is that the former is concerned with molding desires so that they fulfill other desires regardless of whose they are. The latter is concerned with molding desires so as to better fulfill other desires of the agent that do not yet exist.

Immorality and Young Earth Creationism

Electing a young-earth creationist to make laws is as foolish as getting into a car driven by a drunk.

A member of the studio audience said, in response to an earlier posting:

[Y]our original post seems to imply that believing what young earth creationists believe contributes to death and maiming. Is this what you meant to say? That post was not a post in which I implied that what young earth creationists believe contributes to death and maiming.

This will be the post in which I make that claim.

In that post, explicitly argued that a character trait that defines young-earth creationists is a character trait that people generally have reason to discourage through condemnation because that trait leads to death and maiming. I was not talking about the belief. I was talking about the trait.

The character trait I looked at is a willingness to blind oneself to evidence. The evidence for evolution and for the Earth being over 4 billion years old is so overwhelming that only a person with a morally irresponsible disposition to ignore evidence would not accept it. Assuming only that he has the mental faculties that would qualify him as a moral agent.

THIS is the post in which I say that what a young earth creationist believes itself contributes to death and maiming.

A person cannot contribute to making sound policy on a wide range of matters - some of them being matters of life and death - without an appreciation of the fact of evolution and of an earth that is over 10,000 years old.

He cannot make sound policy on environmental matters, for example, because an understanding of evolution is vital to the understanding of how living creatures interact with their environment. It is even crucial to understanding how humans interact with their environment and, to some degree, how they interact with each other.

Young earth creationists cannot be trusted to make good policy in matters of medicine or medical care. Humans are evolved beings. Our organs are the results of hundreds of millions of years of evolution. Understanding human biology - a necessary component of understanding health issues - requires an understanding an evolved system.

Earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, and other natural disasters are currently understood as the results of plate tectonics, which we understand by seeing their effects on billions of years of geologic history. Young-earth creationists blind themselves to the very scientific truths that are being used to understand these phenomena, and thus prevent the death and destruction that they cause.

Agriculture and animal husbandry also depend on an understanding of evolution. We alter the composition of our crops and our herds of animals over time using the same mechanisms that nature uses to alter species over hundreds of millions of years. A person who blinds himself to facts about how natural selection works also has to be blinding himself to facts about how artificial selection works. The only differences between the two are the criteria being used to change plants and animals over time.

Young earth creationists will also ultimately be responsible for the widespread destruction of dozens of coastal cities due to sea-level rise. Their blindness to science made them perfect victims to the propaganda of oil companies who felt that feeding a few more dollars into their bank accounts was more important than preserving coastal cities from destruction. There is a strong correspondence between blinding oneself to the science of evolution and blinding oneself to the science of climate change.

Besides, the science of climate change is a science of what has happened to the Earth's climate over the past 500,000 years in specific, and more generally over the billions of years that the Earth has existed. If somebody has already blinded himself to the facts of an earth that is over 10,000 years old, then he has blinded himself to the facts relevant to climate policy extracted from ice core samples and other evidence laid down hundreds of thousands to hundreds of millions of years ago.

These failures will lead to policies that will get some people killed and others maimed. They will contribute to the widespread destruction of whole cities in the centuries to come and they will promote sickness over health.

People who do not understand the real world in which we live cannot be trusted to make policy that actually works in the real world.

Trusting a young-earth creationist with the power to make policy is as foolish as getting into a car driven by a drunk. You might get lucky. You might get to your destination unscathed. But you're taking a big risk. It is better to get into a car driven by a clean and (intellectually) sober driver. You still might get into a wreck, but your odds of getting safely to your destination go up significantly.

I am not saying that religious people are unfit for government office. Not only does this not imply that conclusion, that statement is not even true. I will have something to say about that tomorrow.

Smith on Parfit 5 of15: The Rationality of Desires

In this series of posts I am commenting on an article sent to me by a member of the studio audience. These are, in a sense, notes written in the margin as it were as I highlight passages in the article and explain my agreement or disagreement.

The next phrase that I highlight for comments is this one:

For example, it isn't relevant to what reasons an agent has that (say) he is so constituted that he will acquire an intrinsic aversion to spiders the very first time he ever sees one. Evolutionary considerations might well afford an explanation of why all agents are so constituted, but, even if they did, that wouldn't suffice to show that it is rational for agents to respond to the perception of spiders by acquiring such an intrinsic aversion.

My scribbling here asks:

How do we answer the question of whether it is rational for agents to have a fear of spiders?

You cannot look at the fear of spiders alone and answer any question as to whether or not it is rational to have such a fear. What would make the fear of spiders good or bad? Perhaps the fear gives you reason to avoid where spiders are found, which helps to keep you alive given that many spiders are poisonous. Perhaps, instead, it is a far that keeps you frantically searching your house for signs of a spider and going into convulsive fits when finding one.

You can only ask whether the fear of spiders tends to fulfill or thwart other desires. If the fear of spiders tends to fulfill other desires (e.g., by preventing us from getting poisoned), then we have reason to promote such a fear. If it tends to thwart other desires (by deterring us from actions that would fulfill other desires), then we have reason to be rid of or at least weaken such a desire.

Which brings up the question of whether we can do so.

We tend not to evaluate the desires of an agent as being rational or irrational unless they are desires over which a person has some amount of choice. If somebody where to cut into us to remove an inflamed appendix, we do not ask about the rationality of an aversion to the sensations generated by that act. It would be better for the patient if she did not have that aversion. Yet, it is not irrational pain. It is, instead, merely a brute fact.

It might be useful to imagine a new hospital that has decided to employ Parfitian anasthtics. Parfitian anesthetics involves giving a patient all of the relevant facts explaining why the patient has reason to be indifferent to the sensations generated by the medical procedure she is about to undergo. Realizing that she has no reason to react to those sensations with aversion, and many and strong reasons not to, means that it would be irrational for her to respond to those sensations negatively. Those aversions do not account as legitimate reasons for action. Do they, then, not count as legitimate reasons to ask for chemical anesthetics?

Ultimately, question of the rationality of desires do not seem to be about the rationality of desires at all, but the rationality of actions that have the capacity to change our desires. Where we have reason to believe that an agent has some measure of choice over whether to be afraid of flying, or of closed spaces, or of public speaking, we call a fear irrational if a rational agent would act so as to rid himself of that fear.

Smith on Parfit 4 of 15: Classification of Desire-Based Theories

In this series of posts I am commenting on an article sent to me by a member of the studio audience. These are, in a sense, notes written in the margin as it were as I highlight passages in the article and explain my agreement or disagreement.

The next phrase that I highlight for comments is this one, in which Smith is quoting Parfit.

According to one group of theories, all . . . reasons [for action] are provided by facts about what might fulfill or achieve our present telic desires or aims. Some of these theories appeal to our actual present desires or aims. Others appeal to the desires or aims that we would now have, or would want ourselves to have, if we had carefully considered all of the relevant facts. I shall call this group of theories desire-based. (On What Matters, §3)

And

[W]e should classify desire-based theories of reasons for action more directly in terms of the principles of rationality that they take to govern desire formation . . . . This is because all such theories agree that what we have reason to do is what we would desire that we do after informed and rational deliberation.

I scribble in the margins as follows:

Well, I do not agree. We have reason to do that which will fulfill our desires. We may have more and stronger reasons to do some things compared to others based on having more and stronger desires that would be fulfilled by each alternative.

That's it. Informed and rational deliberation plays no role.

This idea of desires or aims that we would now have, or would want ourselves to have, if we had carefully considered all of the relevant facts is a red herring.

There are two types of desires – desires as means and desires as ends.

Desires as means are actually packages made up of desires-as-ends and beliefs. Beliefs are subject to change through informed and rational deliberation. However, beliefs are not the component that realizes value or reasons for action in a desires-as-means.

The only part of a desires-as-means that is relevant to value are the desires-as-ends that are a part of their composition. And desires-as-ends are not subject to modification by reason or information. The desires as ends (or telic desires) that an agent would have if fully informed are precisely the same desires as ends the agent would have while wallowing in ignorance.

So, I reject Parfit's second characterization of a desire-based theory. Am I then committed to Parfit's first characterization of a desire-based theory?

This one says, [R]easons [for action] are provided by facts about what might fulfill or achieve our present telic desires or aims. Some of these theories appeal to our actual present desires or aims.

Again, I would need to qualify it that I would accept this only insofar as it is clear that we are talking only about telic desires or desires-as-ends. The extent of reasons for action that exist is limited to the set of desires-as-ends that exist.

All of the relevance of desires-as-means is fully captured by the desires-as-ends that are contained within them. An agent's reports about what he desires-as-means can well be corrupted by false or incomplete beliefs. Being fully informed can help to correct the desires-as-means. However, this has little to do with the work we are doing on actual (as opposed to merely believed-in) reasons for action - which are desires-as-ends.

Young Earth Creationism and "Being Nice"

In my readings today I came across a couple of articles that speaking to different subjects that should be brought together.

In a review of Richard Dawkins' new book, The Greatest Show on Earth, reviewer NAME wrote:

Regrettably and ironically, however, one cannot help but worry that Dawkins is preaching to the choir, that those who most need to hear his message are plugging their ears and singing 'blah blah blah blah'.

(See, Winnipeg Free Press, From Darwin to Dawkins: Evolutionary evidence may be falling on undeveloped ears)

Something about Richard Dawkins preaching to the choir while those who need to listen plug their ears and go 'blah blah blah blah'.

Earlier, I had read a posting by PZ Myers on Pharyngula criticizing an article that was written suggesting ways that atheists can seem nice. (See, Pharyngula, Advice for Atheists)

Of course, I begin with a couple of standard moral claims. The first is that criticism must remain focused on those who are actually guilty. To expand the set of accused from those who are guilty to a larger group that one wants others to hate is to commit the moral crime of hate-mongering.

The second is that a right to freedom of speech is a right to immunity from violence, regardless of how detestable the speech is. Nothing in what follows legitimizes violence or even the threat of violence.

People who plug one's ears and refuse to engage the evidence, like young-earth creationists, are engaging in immoral behavior. The world would be better off if we were rid of them, just as we would be better off if the world were rid of hate-mongering bigots, drunk drivers, liars, and thieves. They cost the lives of countless people every year and cause countless more to be maimed. Whole cities have been or will be laid to waste because of their refusal to consider evidence, and the institutions of liberty are made less secure.

This is not nice, but niceness is not deserved. What possible reason can there be to be nice to people who display such a destructive quality?

I would like to repeat that this applies to those who blind themselves to evidence. I also assert that the evidence for evolution and an old earth are so overwhelming that a young earth creationist must be blinding himself to evidence to continue with his beliefs. This is not a case of expanding a group beyond those who are actually guilty. In this case, all young-earth creationists are actually guilty.

To make the moral argument, I will start with these facts:

Plugging one's ears and refusing to engage the evidence is not a proposition. It is an action. It is, in fact, an intentional action in that it is derived from the beliefs and desires of agents. As such, it is the type of action that is subject to moral scrutiny, and is found wanting.

Because refusing to engage evidence is not a proposition, you cannot argue against it. It would like arguing against a person who is swimming by claiming that the act of swimming itself is false. The act of swimming is not a proposition, so it cannot be true or false. Those concepts do not apply. The same is true of the act of lying or of raping a child. The claim that one should respond to an act with a reasoned presentation of the evidence is absurd.

We can still say that an act is wrong. However, it is not wrong in the sense that a belief can be wrong. It is wrong in the sense that a desire can be wrong – that the agent is not motivated to behave the way a good person would behave. A good person cares to make sure that he actually does good in the world. This means that a good person cares to look at the evidence and to come to the conclusion that the evidence supports. He does not want to make a mistake.

On the other hand, the person who does not care to examine the evidence does not care if he makes mistakes. So, we may assume, he does not care of the harm he has the potential to do when he is wrong.

That people who blind themselves to evidence and reason are a threat to the well-being of others is easy to demonstrate.

If you ignore the evidence about what kills people and what keeps people alive, people die. If you ignore evidence about what maims people or keeps them safe, people get maimed. You can ignore evidence about what keeps levees standing around a town or the condition of an airplane, but your reward will be failed levees and crashed airplanes.

Most importantly, if you cannot reason as to what protects valuable institutions such as freedom of the press and freedom of speech, the right to a trial by jury, and the right to liberty itself, then you cannot recognize threats to those institutions.

Over the years of the Bush Administration we found a huge degree of correspondence between those who blind themselves to evidence and those who supported the policies of the Bush Administration. It was an administration that felt that whenever the evidence did not support a desired policy, that it had the right and the power to change the evidence. As a result, people died and were maimed, whole cities were destroyed, and the Constitution itself became a rag that they were able to 'reason' somehow justified a President who had the power to do as he pleased without legislative or judicial restraint.

We have not yet counted the toll in terms of lost lives and property and the challenge to institutions of freedom and liberty that global warming will bring to future generations because that administration sought to change the evidence of its threat rather than deal with the facts..

Now, the proper way to respond to a bad desire, such as a lack of interest or affection for results supported by reason, is through condemnation. It is by pointing out how people with those values (such as a lack of interest in what best keeps us safe and alive) are a threat to all of us, and to those we care about, and to bring the force of social condemnation against them as a result.

A society that does not properly condemn those who are a threat to its well-being will inevitably suffer the costs.

Within this society, there are many and strong reasons to bring the force of social condemnation against those who refuse to engage the evidence regarding evolution – because if they will blind themselves to evidence here, they have a disposition to blind themselves to evidence elsewhere.

The evidence is there. It is not a matter of reasoning with those who do not accept it. All of the reasoning that can be done, has been done. What we have left is a moral failing. To 'be nice' to those who are guilty of a moral failing – particularly one as destructive of this – requires that one share their lack of interest in the well-being of those who are killed, maimed, or otherwise harmed by those who can’t be bothered with evidence. That is not a wise recommendation.

Smith on Parfit 3 of 15: Agony

In this series of posts I am commenting on an article sent to me by a member of the studio audience. These are, in a sense, notes written in the margin as it were as I highlight passages in the article and explain my agreement or disagreement.

I have highlighted the following phrase:

Parfit consider(s) two practical claims in the early chapters. One is a claim that he takes to be a datum, namely, that we all have reasons to want to avoid future agony and thus to try to avoid it if we can.

In Part 1 I scribbled in the margin that desires must be reasons to realize states that are the consequence of one’s intentional actions. In Part 2 I scribbled that a person can lack a current desire that P and still be motivated by a current aversion to agony to act towards the fulfillment of a future desire that P.

In these scribbling, I ask:

Is it even possible for a being with desires to have an aversion to agony?

I ask this because agony seems to be defined as sensations towards which a person has particularly strong aversions. As such, the lack of an aversion to agony would be a lack of an aversion to sensations to which one has a strong aversion.

We can sensibly ask whether a person likes or does not like cranberry juice. It is quite reasonable to ask whether or not somebody likes cranberry juice. Some will say that they do like it, while others do not.

Yet, it is not as sensible to ask whether a person likes agony. If he likes a particular sensation, it is not agony. While it is not the case that if he likes a particular taste, then it is not cranberry juice

On this account, imaging that a person has no reason to avoid future agony is much like imagining that a person has no aversion to agony, which is like imaging a person has no strong aversion to those sensations for which he has a particularly strong aversion.

The question itself does not make a great deal of sense, and perhaps does not even require an answer.

On Love and Hunger

I have been asked by a member of th studio audience whether I consider love to be something special that transcends the physical universe, or whether I consider it a mere natural appetite like hunger.

You use the word love in your blog, but what do you mean by it? Is it just the effect of some chemical reaction in your brain whenever you think about or see your wife? If so then I do not think that this has any higher meaning than hunger does.

Of course may answer is 'neither'.

There is a sexual appetite, but this is called 'lust', not 'love'. Like other appetites such as hunger and thirst, lust manifests itself as a desire that, once fulfilled, diminishes in strength, at least for a while. A person's desire for sex builds, they have sex, and then they are satisfied for a while, until the desire builds again.

Also, like hunger, people sometimes have a desire for sex that is not good for them, or eat food that is good for them to excess The sexual appetite as well is different in different people, causing people to consume sex when it is not good for them.

But this is not love. Love is something different.

Perhaps the defining characteristic of love is a desire that the desires of another person be fulfilled. This characteristic appears to apply to all forms of love, whether it be a love for one's spouse, a love for one's child, a love for one’s friends, and even a love for one’s pet. In all cases, the person who is ‘in love’ has such a desire that the desires of the person loved be fulfilled that he puts a great deal of energy into that end.

Furthermore, whenever the desires of the one who is loved are fulfilled, the desires of both are fulfilled. "I am so happy for you," the true friend says upon hearing of her friend's acceptance into school, even if the school is far away and they will be separated.

One important difference between the value of this desire and hunger is the value of the desire itself. One of the questions for us to ask or to answer is whether we have many and strong reason to promote this desire, or to inhibit it.

In the case of hunger, the current situation is that we have reason to inhibit this desire. Our desire for food – our hunger – evolved in an environment of much greater scarcity than we have today. We have a disposition to eat when it is not good for us eat. Obesity is a serious problem in the United States. This, in turn, is driving up medical costs for all of us, and thwarting a great many other desires by reducing our ability to act (due to poor health) and making us less attractive to others, and to ourselves. Appetite suppressants sell well for a reason.

Love, however, is a desire that we have reason to promote and to encourage. People in love tend to seek to fulfill, rather than thwart, the desires of others. They are likely to protect the people that they love from harm and to help to ensure that the people they love get what they need in order to reach their desired end.

To the degree that others love us, to that degree they are willing to work to fulfill our desires, and we certainly have many and strong reasons to encourage that. To the degree that we love others, then to that degree their successes are our own. To that degree we work to fulfill their desires and, when our effort brings us to the successful completion of a quest, we both win.

One of the drawbacks of love is when nature (or other people) thwart the desires of those that we love – killing or maiming them or depriving them of that which they very strongly desired. In this case, their heartache is our heartache as well. Sometimes, when a person loves somebody who is going through a very hard time, or who is killed, the thwarting of the desires of those who loved her are very painful. The pain itself is sometimes enough to drive a person to think, "Maybe it is better if I had never loved at all."

However, the successes should outnumber the failures – and successes are a lot easier when you are working with somebody (which love helps to bring about).

There is little wonder why we hold love in such high esteem – far more esteem than hunger, at last as it is currently found, deserves from us.

The very fact that we have many and strong reasons to promote love, and many and strong reasons to inhibit hunger, is enough reason to hold that love ‘has a higher meaning’ than hunger.

Kirk Cameron and Preaching Hate on Campus

Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort are continuing to build on their legacy of hate-mongering and bigotry. Their next act, which they are bragging in interviews by groups and individuals who share their bigotry, is the moral equivalent of a Neo-Nazi group going onto campus and handing out copies of the Old Testament with a 50-page Neo-Nazi introduction. Or the equivalent to a KKK organization handing out copies of Uncle Tom's Cabin with an introduction promoting their racist agenda.

See, MSNBC, Kirk Cameron defends anti-Darwin stance

Specifically, Cameron and Comfort have decided to invest their time and their labor to handing out copies of Darwin's "Origin of Species" on college campuses with a 50 page introduction. This introduction will tell students the alleged weaknesses of evolution – namely the way that evolution says that nothing can create something, and how evolution is the intellectual ancestor of the Holocaust.

However, I have argued in this blog that you can tell a lot about what is in a man’s heart by the mistakes that he makes. With each mistake, we can ask, "Why did he make that mistake and not some other?" If their beliefs cannot be explained by an appeal to reason and evidence, then the next most likely explanation is to be found in the desires of the person making the mistake.

I do not need to tell any reader with a smidge of intelligence that evolution is not a theory about how something can come from nothing. It is a theory that explains how one type of biological entity can change into another type of biological entity over time by natural selection acting on random mutations.

I also do not need to tell any reader with a smidge of intelligence that theories of natural selection are not the intellectual foundation of the holocaust. The holocaust was wholly grounded on the long-standing practice of artificial selection. It does not take much intelligence to grasp the fact that the holocaust was not natural at all – it was clearly man-made.

In fact, this practice of artificial selection is precisely what inspired Darwin to come up with his theory of natural selection. He looked, for example, at the way that animal breeders selected for specific traits and came up with the idea that, in times of stress, nature can do exactly what the breeders are doing. In times of stress, nature will select for those qualities that will make it easier for animals to find food and, over time, the whole population will have that trait.

There are a lot of people who do not understand these facts, in spite of how simple they are to understand. These are people for whom hatred and bigotry has such a blinding effect that they cannot even see what is most obvious.

If you want to preach hatred, there are few methods more popular today than to make false accusations that those you hate and want others to hate are responsible for the most despicable acts of the 20th century.

Cameron and Comfort feel no particular need to hate farmers, ranchers, and others who have practiced the art of artificial selection for millennia. They want to hate atheists – and they want others to hate atheists as they do. So, they want to believe a lie – that the Holocaust can be blamed on a theory of natural selection instead of a theory of artificial selection. And they are desperate to spread their lies and their hate as far as they are able.

And, in fact, even if Hitler had drawn his ideas from a theory of natural selection, blaming those who developed the theory for the Holocaust would still be as absurd as blaming the true originators of the ideas of the Holocaust – farmers, ranchers, and the like.

Cameron and Comfort are into feeding a persisting form of the same type of hatred. While their actions should be treated just like the analogous actions described above – they should be seen in the same light as Neo-Nazis handing out hate-mongering propaganda appended to the Old Testament, unfortunately we live in a society where the public attitude towards atheists is more like the attitude towards Jews in the 1920s, then the attitude towards blacks today.

These are truly two despicable human beings.

As are any who praise their work.

As are any who will not respond to their efforts the way they would respond to any other hate-group coming onto campus to spread their hatred, bigotry, and lies among the student population.

Imaginary Beings and Imaginary Meaning

In my morning browsings of the internet this morning, Planet Atheism pointed me to an article from Daniel Fincke, And They Say Atheists Are Angry, about a Richard Dawkins interviewer in which:

The mixture of incredulity and contempt with which [the interviewer] keeps asking questions that are to the effect of, "Seriously, you want to say that the God that gives all these people meaning isn’t there??? How can you dare say that???"

Which represents a common sentiment, against which I give a frustrated sigh and silently respond:

Religion has never given anybody's life meaning. Religion has only given people the illusion of meaning, but real meaning can never come from an imaginary God.

In response to this one might say, But there is no meaning without God. If God is imaginary, and the meaning that comes from God is imaginary, then meaning itself does not exist.

Really?

Have you ever been in love? I have. The happiness and well-being of my spouse has a great deal of meaning to me.

Writing this blog, and all that goes in it, has meaning, I hope. I can only hope because the meaning to be found in writing this blog is in its contribution to making the world a better place than it would have otherwise been. I must acknowledge the possibility that my claims are wrong and my writings do more harm than good. However, there is a difference between the possibility of real meaning and the near certainty of imaginary meaning that religion provides.

We do not have children. However, to say that, to the parent of a child that the welfare of the child has no meaning is an absurdity.

Now, imagine, if you will, a set of parents devoted to raising an imaginary child. They shout for the child to get out of bed first thing in the morning and they set breakfast on the table. They clean the child’s bedroom – though this is such a well-behaved child that he keeps his own room very clean. They do his laundry, though they have not been able to figure out why the child must be folding his dirty laundry back up and putting it in the drawer. They meet with their child’s teachers. The child, of course, goes to a special school – a school whose administrators have found is profit in 'teaching' these imaginary children.

One of the things about these parents is that they do an amazingly good job of covering up for the fact that this child is not real.

They come up with excuses for everything.

Why is it that the child does not eat breakfast? Well, he must be eating at school.

Why is it that you have never seen this child? Come now. Of course I have seen my child. I feel his presence right now. Just this afternoon I caught a glimpse of him as he ran in the back door and up to his room. In fact, I heard him up there just a few minutes ago.

And if you take the parent up to the room, open the door, and see that the child is not there and the room is exactly as it was left that morning, then, He must have gone out again when I wasn't looking, and he has always been a very neat little boy.

What amazes many atheists who are not caught up in this delusion is that talking to a person who insists on the presence of God is just like talking to the parent of the imaginary child above.

Of course, part of the reason for this is that the imaginary child has been made the most important thing in the world to these parents. There is nothing that these parents will not do – no sacrifice that is too great – for their imaginary child. This is why they cannot give up the idea that their child exists, and this is why they grab so tenaciously to the rationalizations and excuses to get around the evidence that there is no child.

The ultimate argument being, of course, that, "You cannot prove that my child does not exist."

Which is true. All I can provide is that there is no evidence to show that the child does exist.

Then, when the author of a book called, The Child Delusion goes on the air to talk about his new book (a different book), the interviewer asks with a mixture of incredulity and contempt, "Seriously, you want to say that the children that gives all these people meaning aren't there??? How can you dare say that???"

Not only is it the case that the children in this example do not exist, the meaning and purpose are just as imaginary as the children. Insofar as these parents are finding meaning and purpose in their imaginary children, they are not finding any real meaning or purpose at all.

Some of them may also have real children or other real-world concerns. Many have real spouses in which they have really fallen in love, and real friends and family with which they have shared their real lives. Some have real-world concerns to feel real people who are really hungry, and to provide real medical care to people who are really sick or injured.

In these cases, the time and effort they devote to their imaginary children are even more of a waste, because that is time and effort that they could otherwise spend doing something of real importance.

However, all the real meaning and purpose is to be found in the real-world. Nothing ever done for the sake of an imaginary child or an imaginary God has ever provided anything but imaginary meaning and imaginary purpose.

Smith on Parfit 2 of 15: Current Aversions and Future Desires

In this series of posts I am commenting on an article sent to me by a member of the studio audience. These are, in a sense, notes written in the margin as it were as I highlight passages in the article and explain my agreement or disagreement.

I have highlighted the following phrase:

Parfit consider(s) two practical claims in the early chapters. One is a claim that he takes to be a datum, namely, that we all have reasons to want to avoid future agony and thus to try to avoid it if we can.

In Part 1 I argued that if desires are to play a role in motivating intentional action then they must necessarily be desires that can be fulfilled (or thwarted) by future states of affairs.

However, there is still a possible situation where Parfit might be able to apply his objection.

A scenario for applying Parfit’s objection might still exist in a situation where an agent will acquire a very strong desire that P sometime in the future and then, at a time beyond that, suffer a state in which P is false. Or the agent acquires a very strong desire that not-P and a future state beyond that in which P is true. Parfit might want to suggest that future desires provide us with current reasons for action.

First, note that lacking a current desire that P is not the same as lacking a current aversion to agony that might result from a state where a person has such a desire and P is false.

Perhaps I can know that I will acquire a future craving for cranberry juice so intense that I will suffer greatly without it. However, today, I have no such craving. I only have the knowledge that I will have this craving, and that I will suffer if the craving is not fulfilled.

The absence of a current desire for cranberry juice is not the same thing as a lack of a current aversion to future agony. If I lack a current desire for cranberry juice then that is not a current reason for me to act so as to see to it that the future desire will be fulfilled. However, if, even in the absence of a current desire for cranberry juice, I have a current aversion to agony, I still have this as a reason to act to see that the future desire will be fulfilled.

For this example to fit Parfit’s mold, we must postulate not that I lack a current desire for cranberry juice, but that I lack a current aversion to agony. If I have a current aversion to agony, then I have a current reason to avoid future agony. In this case, it means that I have a current reason to see to the fulfillment of a future desire for cranberry juice – a desire that does not exist yet and will have no power to reach back through time if it did exist.

Desirism and Job Hunting: Part 4

I am spending some time applying the general ideas I have been working on in this blog to the mundane but significantly important task of finding a (better) job.

I have described the task in terms of getting a hiring agent to perform an intentional act, which means that the act must fulfill the most and strongest of the hiring-agent’s desires, given her beliefs. At the same time, we are faced with moral constraints against lying, and many and strong reasons to promote an aversion to (as well as institutional safeguards against) certain desires influencing the hiring process.

I have so far left out what is perhaps the most significant factor in causing a hiring agent to perform the intentional action of offering you a job. This is going to be a lot easier if you do some research and try to find hiring agents whose desires are those that you are best able to fulfill.

Finding a (better) job is not a matter of opening up a newspaper and circling those jobs being advertised by people who may be seeking skills similar to your own. It is a matter of letting those people who are in a position to hire know that they can do a better job of fulfilling the more and stronger of their desires by hiring you.

It means doing research and sending letters to people who have those desires that you may be able to fulfill – complete with preliminary evidence that shows the hiring agent that you understand what it is she wants from an employee, and evidence that you have an ability and an interest in fulfilling those desires.

For example, you want to be a writer (nonfiction, novels, screenplays, poetry, a blog, etc.).

What are the desires of your hiring agents?

The hiring agents in this case are, first, publishers and, second, readers and viewers.

They are going to provide you with money to write only insofar as giving you money fulfills the most and the strongest of their desires. Not your desires, but theirs.

Perhaps you will get lucky, and what you desire to produce is that which actually does fulfill the most and the strongest desires of enough people willing to give you money to produce it. Thus, you will be able to do what you like and get paid for it.

However, for the most part, you are going to have to tailor your writing to what your audience’s desires.

Publishers and production companies are experts at this. They can take material and determine, with a reasonable degree of accuracy, what it will take to make it into something that will cause customers to perform the intentional act of purchasing the product. Even here, they do not guess. They collect stacks of data on what agents are willing to pay for. They use focus groups, surveys, buying patterns, past successes, past failures, all with the aim of determining what type of product would fulfill the most and the strongest desires of potential customers.

The same applies if the product one is selling is one's own labor. One has to do research on what potential hiring agents want to purchase, and then actually put the effort into changing the product that one is offering into something that others are willing to pay for.

Smith on Parfit 1 of 15: Having a Reason

For some time, Luke Muehihauser has been sending me articles in moral philosophy that are relevant to the desire utilitarian theory I defend in this blog in the hopes that I would address their points. I loaded those articles onto my laptop to read during my vacation.

In the context of a blog, I do not have the ability to write up full-fledged philosophical articles on any topic. However, I do have the opportunity to write some notes in the margins as it were. That is to say, I have the ability to underline a few passages in the text and comment on them.

The first of the articles I seek to comment on was: "Desires, Values, Reasons, And The Dualism Of Practical Reason," Michael Smith (© 2009 The Author; Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Ratio (new series) XXII 1 March 2009.

In this article, Smith wrote a criticism of Derek Parfit's views on reasons for action. Specifically, Smith seeks to show that Parfit's arguments suggest that there are two or perhaps three different types of goodness that either (1) cannot be compared with each other, or (2) require that Parfit do additional work to explain how they can be compared to each other. In the course of making this argument, Smith makes several statements on the nature of practical reason, and presents some of the views of Parfit and Henry Sidgwick as well.

In the next several evening posts, I wish to highlight some of those statements and scribble some comments about them.

The first sentence I wish to highlight is:

Parfit consider(s) two practical claims in the early chapters. One is a claim that he takes to be a datum, namely, that we all have reasons to want to avoid future agony and thus to try to avoid it if we can.

Smith wrote in a footnote, All quotes in the text from On What Matters are taken from the 7 November 2007 version of the manuscript which was at that point called Climbing the Mountain.

Parfit eventually attempts to use this datum to reject all desire-based theories of value. Whereas I defend a desire-based theory of value (all value exists in the form of relationships between states of affairs and desires), this is relevant to the theory I defend in this blog.

My scribbled notes in the margins would say:

False, I think, depending on what the statement actually says.

Note that Parfit is not quoted as saying that an agent has a reason to avoid future agony. He is quoted as saying that an agent has a reason to want to avoid future agony. That is to say, the agent (or all of us, actually) has a current reason to acquire a current aversion to future agony, according to Parfit.

Parfit tells us that this is datum. This is a raw observed fact that, allegedly, desire-based theories of value cannot explain, but which Parfit’s value-based theory supposedly can handle.

This means that Parfit sees an apparent problem with the desire-based theory of value that I use and defend in this blog.

The desire-based theory that I favor says that a person has a reason to create a state S if and only if a person has a desire that P and P is true in S. Correspondingly, a person has a reason to avoid a state R only if a person has a desire that not-P and P is true in R.

This is allegedly a theory that has trouble handling reasons to avoid future agony.

Let me look at the aversion to pain (or, in other words, desire that I not be in pain) for a moment. This current aversion to pain is not an aversion only to pain that is occurring at this specific moment in time. It is an aversion to any state in which the entity referred to as I is in a state of pain. This includes current states and future states. It is my current aversion to the entity I feeling pain that makes me take steps today that make it less likely that I will be severely burned in the near future, and I is an entity that persists over time.

On this account, we evolved desires as a way of motivating intentional action. The aversion to pain work to motivate intentional action that aims to avoid states in which the proposition, I am in pain is true. However, intentional action can only avoid future pain. It cannot avoid current pain. So, having a desire play a role in intentional actions requires that the desire can be fulfilled in a future state.

In fact, if my aversion to pain is only an aversion to current pain then it provides no reason for me not to put my hand on the hot stove. Even after I put my hand on the hot stove and feel the pain, a Parfit-style aversion to current pain would not even motivate me to remove my hand, since removing my hand is only a means for avoiding the continuation of that pain – not a means for avoiding current pain.

So, it seems that Parfit has failed to see an essential link between desires and future states that is necessary for desires to play a role in motivating intentional action. This, then, motivates him to add additional complexities to fill a gap that does not actually exist.