Concerning Evolution and Morality

I am going to spend this week going over some of the comments made to my post last week about the relationship between evolution and morality.

Namely, I objected to the claim that we can respond intelligently to the challenge, "Evolution cannot explain morality" by saying that evolution gave us a moral sense without which we would not have survived as a species. The specific quote, in a posting on 10 myths about evolution, says:

10 Evolution Can’t Account For Morality: As a social primate species we evolved a deep sense of right and wrong in order to accentuate and reward reciprocity and cooperation, and to attenuate and punish excessive selfishness and free riding. As well, evolution created the moral emotions that tell us that lying, adultery, and stealing are wrong because they destroy trust in human relationships that depend on truth-telling, fidelity, and respect for property. It would not be possible for a social primate species to survive without some moral sense. On the constitution of human nature is built the constitutions of human societies.

I offered a number of objections to this post, including the fact the response ignores 10,000 years of human history filled with horrors beyond imagining, that evolution also invented the concepts of predator and parasite, that our evolved dispositions also contribute to such things as racism and rape, that while evolution can explain some of our altruism it cannot explain why altruism is good, and that it makes no logical sense to say "I have evolved a disposition to kill people like you and feel justified in doing so; therefore, you deserve to die", and that it makes no sense to ground moral responsibility on genetic makeup.

Ben Pace responded:

[A]n understanding of evolutionary psychology can be helpful in figuring out our desires, but if we did know our desires perfectly well, then it would not be required.

This is entirely true. Nothing I wrote should be taken to imply that evolutionary psychology is not useful. It helps us to understand the desires that we are disposed to have and how our (widely different) interactions with the environment help to shape those desires. This, in turn, gives us useful information about how to arrange the environment in which people live (society) in order to promote virtue and reduce villainy.

This is an important truth, and I will return to this at the end of this post.

However, Ben Pace also wrote:

[T]he response contained in the post above is not the most charitable reading of the quoted passage. The quotation appeared to be responding to (something like) the following argument: "Evolution does not explain why we have such incredibly powerful moral emotions/why an objective morality exists, therefore God exists and science is wrong" or something else equally confused.

Actually, I think that there is no more than a handful of people actually concerned with explaining "why we have such incredibly powerful moral emotions" - particularly given that those moral emotions also "justify" the horrors mentioned above.

The real concern with those who interested in the relationship between evolution and morality on the one hand, and god and morality on the other, is a very simple and pragmatic concern.

"How are you going to keep me, my family, and those people I care about safe?"

In the face of this question, the answer, "Evolution" can be seen as . . . well . . . jaw-droppingly stupid.

Are you saying that, thanks to evolution I do need to worry about people doing harm to me and those I care about because we evolved to be perfectly kind and altruistic creatures? Because I can think of few things so idiotic.

Seriously, this is how the quote above reads - as if to say that we have no reason to worry about evil because we are evolved to a point to have eliminated it.

Or is it your plan to do nothing and let natural selection eliminate this villainy slowly over time?

My suggestion is that we answer the question asked - not change it to a different question we can answer.

The worry behind the question is not over the evils we avoid because of our evolutionary history, but with the evils that obviously continue to exist in spite of our evolutionary history.

We see in the news a mass shooting at a school or movie theater. Parents live in fear of their children being raped or murdered - or ending up on drugs or with some deadly venereal disease. We see whole populations living in fear and poverty under a dictatorship.

The accusation that evolution cannot account for morality is the claim that evolution fails to prevent these things - an accusation that is entirely true.

At least the theist has a potential answer to this problem. It is to teach people to value the love of a god where that love is dependent on their good deeds, as well teach them that their rewards and punishments in an afterlife is determined by their behavior in this life. It is not a non-sensical response. In fact, it is a response that evolution has made possible.

We point go on from here to point out the failures and the costs of this proposed solution. We can discuss how the theistic plan stifles learning, that its lessons come from the imaginings of fallible and substantially ignorant human and are substantially wrong, and that they have been taken over and reinterpreted by self-serving individuals who have and who continue to use it as a tool of exploitation. We could continue to point out the historical fact that, rather than protect people from harm, religion has been used to justify harm.

That is to say, we can try to change the subject. However, the objection still stands - no matter how skillful we get at misdirection.

Besides, the theist can sensibly blame atheists as one of the reasons for the failure of theism. Atheists are constantly sabotaging efforts to provide for safe community by undermining the beliefs and attitudes that the theist thinks will keep them and those they care about safe. Evolution threatens public safety the same way.

This is the story behind the message that removing prayer from school and from government is a threat to society. A society in which everybody is properly concerned with pleasing God in this life and avoiding punishments in the next is a safe and secure society. Undermining those beliefs and attitudes undermines that security - or so the argument goes.

At this point, I want to return to Pace's first comment and how it gives us a real answer to the question asked.

Our plan is to use science to figure out how to organize society in such a way so as to reduce these types of threats.

We know that some desires are learned - they are acquired through an interaction between the brain and the environment. By altering the environment we can reduce the prevalence of harmful desires and promote useful desires. In doing so, we can create greater safety for you and those you care about.

Towards this end, evolutionary psychology has some useful things to say about the desires we tend to acquire and how different environmental factors influence those desires. Also, given the fact that we do not all interact with the environment in the same way, perhaps we need different environments for different people. Evolutionary psychology will help us to figure this out.

One of the best things about this method is that we can improve over time. As we learn more we can do better. This is different from religion, which keeps us locked in a primitive and substantially ignorant mindset. The difference between these two options is like the difference between modern medicine (and the information that evolution provides to this field of study) and believing that everything Hippocrates wrote on the subject more than 2000 years ago is literally true. The second option is decidedly NOT our best option.

In this, we have a positive answer to the concerns that are at the root of questions about the relationship between morality and evolution. We are not going to say that evolution has already made us virtuous and we have no reason to be concerned. We are going to say that evolutionary psychology gives us information useful in organizing society in such a way so as to promote virtue and reduce vice.

Evolution Accounts for Morality?

I get discouraged from time to time.

I would like to see the atheist community embrace reason and evidence-based conclusions. Many claim to value this as a virtue. Yet, "You know them by their deeds." By that standard, they fail.

My most recent disappointment - one that has recently caused me to throw up my hands and ask, "Why do I bother?" - is this entry concerning the top 10 myths about evolution at AtheismResources.com.

http://www.atheismresource.com/2011/top-10-myths-evolution-downloadable-pdf

10 Evolution Can’t Account For Morality: As a social primate species we evolved a deep sense of right and wrong in order to accentuate and reward reciprocity and cooperation, and to attenuate and punish excessive selfishness and free riding. As well, evolution created the moral emotions that tell us that lying, adultery, and stealing are wrong because they destroy trust in human relationships that depend on truth-telling, fidelity, and respect for property. It would not be possible for a social primate species to survive without some moral sense. On the constitution of human nature is built the constitutions of human societies.

The fact is, evolution can't account for morality.

Neither can religion, by the way. This is not an either-or question. Evolution cannot account for the size of the Earth or the existence of the moon, but this does not imply that we must turn to scripture to find the answers. There is a third alternative.

Morality requires a community of two or more individuals engaged in intentional behavior (beings acting on beliefs and desires). It requires that some desires are malleable - they can be changed through interaction with the environment.

Once you have these elements, then you have a situation where one member of the community has reason to alter the environment in such a way so as to cause others to acquire desires useful to an agent. A community engaged in using environmental factors (e,g., praise, condemnation, reward, punishment) to promote desires generally useful and inhibiting desires generally harmful is a community with a moral system.

One can say that evolution accounts for the fact that we are creatures that engage in intentional action, and the fact that some of our desires are malleable - which is everything that morality needs. But that is far different from what is claimed above.

For one thing, this "deep sense of right and wrong" is often wrong. People have - or have had - a deep sense that interracial marriage or homosexual relationships are wrong. Many Muslims have a deep sense that creating depictions of Mohammed are wrong. They kill their own daughters in "honor killings" out of a deep sense that their daughter's behavior was wrong.

These facts - and a huge list of similar facts all conveniently ignored by the "evolution accounts for morality" crowd - tell us two things about this "deep sense of right and wrong". First, that its objects are learned. Second, if it did have an evolutionary explanation, it provides us with no way to distinguish between evolved evil and evolved goodness.

Nobody can think that this is a sensible answer to the question of morality without turning a blind eye to huge portions of human history - a history in which this much-vaulted evolved "sense of right and wrong promoting reciprocity and condemning selfishness" cannot be found, and a "sense of right and wrong promoting war, slavery, rape, conquest, and genocide" can be found in its place.

Seriously . . . look at any great evil that was done in human history. Take, for example, the Holocaust. Did evolution prevent it? Answer: Obviously not. Can we count on evolution to prevent something like that from happening in the future? Answer: Of course not. If you wanted to try to prevent something like that from happening in the future, does "evolution accounts for morality" say anything useful? No. It's not even relevant.

In its ability to ignore inconvenient facts, people tied to the view that evolution accounts for morality prove to be just as adept at any theist. They see that there are circumstances in which evolution favors altruism and cry, "evolution accounts for morality!" They utterly ignore the fact that evolution also invented the parasite and the predator - and perfected organisms for these roles as well.

Evolution accounts both for some of our altruism, and for some of our predatory and parasitic behavior. Under some conditions, predatory and parasitic behavior is just as useful or better than altruism and a highly evolved liar, rapist, or thief can have a great deal of evolutionary success.

If we are honest about the facts of the matter, this deep sense of right and wrong is easily attached to behavior that is predatory or parasitic. Rape and racism - tribal bigotries targeting people who do not look like us - the disposition to slaughter or dominate them and take their resources - or to take them and use them as resources (for sex or for forced labor) are all perfectly comfortable with the fact of human evolution. And they have all been found in certain moral codes.

Let's grant (as I think we must) that evolution accounts for some altruism. This falls far short of accounting for the fact that altruism is good. Evolution accounts for chins and male nipples, but it does not force the conclusion that they are good.

Religion - unlike "evolution accounts for morality" is actually an attempt to account for the goodness of altruism. Evolution can merely acount for a portion of its existence.

Ironically, it is also the case that the altruism that evolution does acount for is entirely amoral. If Jim's altruism can be attributed to some genetic disposition, then it makes absolutely no sense to say that Jim deserves praise or is in any way responsible for those altruistic acts. That would be as senseless as saying that Jim is responsible for and should be praised for his genetic makeup.

Furthermore, if morality is in our genes, why do we need to reward reciprocity and punish excessive selfishness? Isn't it supposed to be the case that reciprocity and selflessness are accounted for by our genes?

This, in turn, brings up a logical problem with the idea that evolution accounts for morality. If it were true that evolution accounts for morality, then, "I evolved a sense that you should be put to death" implies "you deserve to die." What actions are wrong? Well, those actions that we evolved a disposition to punish. Is homosexuality wrong? Well, to determine this we need to look at whether humans evolved a disposition to kill homosexuals and feel justified in doing so. If they have, then homosexuals deserve to die - at least according to the thesis "evolution accounts for morality."

There is much more that I could say on this issue - but this post is too long already. Yet, what I said so far should be - should have long ago been - more than enough to discredit the idea that evolution accounts for morality.

I really wish and hope that the atheist community would be one that respects reason and evidence. Yet, the fact of the matter is that the atheist community is made up of human beings, and humans (not just religious humans but all humans) are disposed to grasp onto ideas and embrace them in the complete absence of reason and evidence. Though I still hold out hope - sometimes badly shaken but always present - that, slowly, some group of people can actually adopt these attitudes.

Do you want an answer to the objection that "evolution cannot account for morality?"

Here it is:

Evolution does not have to account for morality, any more than evolution needs to account for the boiling point of water. Morality is fully and adequately accounted for by the fact that we are intentional agents with malleable desires. From this, it follows that there are dispositions that intentional agents generally have reason to promote, and have an ability to promote by altering the experiences of others (through praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment). Nothing more is required. Specifically, people have reason to promote through praise those interests that tend to help others, and to diminish through condemnation those harmful to others. Evolution accounts for the fact that we are intentional agents with malleable desires. Therefore, evolution accounts for all of the prerequisites for morality.

This view is fully compatible with the fact that there has been and continues to be a lot of evil out there that was not or is not being prevented. It tells us how we can identify moral error and make moral improvements. It does not justify punishment in terms of, "I have evolved a disposition to feel justified in killing you; therefore, you deserve to die." It answers the real-world concerns of those who look to religion to answer moral questions - to prevent the evil that continues to exist and that our evolved history fails to prevent.

Gun Control

I have not commented on the issue of gun contol in this blog mostly because I do not know what conclusion to draw.

However, even a person who does not know the answer to a question might be able to contribute something to understanding how to approach the problem, or some of the answers that have been given. One thing I do know is that many people on both sides who think that there is a clear and obvious answer and and who disagree with them are plain evil are mistaken.

It would appear that many people begin with an oversimplified understanding of the problem.

On the left, there is the simple equation of "Nothing to shoot implies no shootists." If people who want to slaughter others cannot find something to use to slaughter them with, we are all safer. One question I have is: How hard is it, really, to build a bomb or to use a vehicle as a weapon?

On the right, there's the aversion to cowering behind a file cabinet or under a bed while somebody with a gun walks down the hallway racking up a body count, all the time waiting for a hero with a gun to show up to end this menace when the hero with the gun could have been there at the start. One question: When you have your gun and step into the hallway, and you see another person with a gun, is that the shootist or another hero? Or maybe there's no gun - just a shadow mixed with a little imagination and a lot of adrenaline.

At this point, confirmation bias sets in. With every piece of supporting evidence, one points and says, "See! See! I told you do." With every piece of conflicting evidence one can tell a story that will discredit it. Do not think that this is a problem only for the weak minded. The best scientists are aware of the fact that everybody does this, so the best scientists - rather than insisting that they do not suffer from the problem - design systems to combat this tendency.

What systems have you adopted to ensure that you are not guilty of "confirmation bias" on the issue of gun control?

Then, tribalism makes its contribution. Tribes accentuate the virtues of their own tribe while vilifying competing tribes.

To those on the right, the opposing tribe is made up of people seeking to preserve childhood from cradle to grave, perpetually cared for by others and unwilling to take responsibility either for their own lives or the people around them. Instead, they prefer an infantile dependent relationship to the parent-state who will take care of them, and seek to reduce everybody else to the same condition.

To those on the left, gun advocates are testosterone-infected monsters (both male and female) with near-sexual fantasies of killing things who, if they do not become shootists themselves, provide the cultural breeding ground for shootists.

One fact we can probably add to this description is that the tribe on the right is also probably better armed. This, by itself, gives them power over the tribe on the left. "You can take my gun when you pry it from my cold dead fingers." The only way the tribe on the left can win this battle is - of course - by sending in people with guns (police or the army - depending on the type of opposition) to take the guns.

Taken from a different perspective, one of the objective of gun control is to turn otherwise law-abiding human beings into violent criminals.

We also know that guns are simply one tool of destruction among many. We will not, in fact, be safer simply by reducing access to one culturally preferred tool for doing harm. As long as there are people who want to do harm, we are at risk. If they do not have guns, they can find something else.

There are countries that have outlawed guns that have lower rates of violence then the United States. But which came first? Did outlawing guns make the people more peaceful? Perhaps it was a general culture of non-violence that both, at the same time, brought peace and made it possible to ban guns that few people wanted anyway. On this model, we should not be focused so much on access to the instruments of violence (which we cannot actually control anyway), we must ficus instead on the moral character of the people.

Guns do not kill people. People kill people.

This cliche of the right is often dismissively swatted aside. Yet, it rests at the very heart of moral institutions. The way to prevent people from killing, stealing, engaging in fraud and rape, or committing any of a long list of moral crimes is by molding their character - giving them an aversion to these types of activities. If we make the mistake of focusing on a symptom - access to guns - we leave behind people with an interest in killing looking for another tool. If we focus, instead, on the moral character of individuals, then it will not matter what tools the person averse to causing harm has access to.

However, before the tribe on the right gets too giddy over this argument, there is another point to consider. Perhaps creating "people who do not kill people" we must create a culture filled with just those types that have no interest in guns - that have an aversion to guns - that tend to support restrictions on guns. It may be the case that the people least likely to kill other people are those most likely to be positively averse to having a gun, to using a gun on another person, or to see any sense in other people having guns either.

This is speculation. It addresses the types if questions one must learn the answers to before one can claim to have a reasoned and rational opinion on gun legislation. I am not claiming, "I know the answers, so here is the correct opinion on gun laws." i am saying that I do not know the answers; therefore, I cam give no informed opinion on gun laws."

This is not a post on what attitude the virtuous and informed person would have on gun control. I do not know that answer.

Instead, it is a post on what attitude the virtuous and informed person would have on some of the ways this issue is being debated. One thing that I can say with near certainty - the person who says that they know the right answer and cannot possibly be mistaken, and who is willing to kill others on the basis of that certain knowledge (either to keep a gun or to take a gun away), is probably neither virtuous nor well informed.

The Myth of "Makers" and "Takers"

A persistent theme we have been hearing for quite some time argues that society is made up of wealthy “Makers” – those who create wealth and are to be thanked for all of the good things we have in the world, and parasitic “Takers” who are unwilling or actually do any work and, instead, live off of the wealth that the “Makers” produced.

This is the theme established in Ayn Rand’s famous book Atlas Shrugged - which then suggests how the “Takers” can be made to suffer when the “Makers” decide to quit producing food for the parasites.

This theme includes the threat that if the demands of the “Makers” are not met, they will pack up and leave and everybody else – who apparently lacks the capacity to create economic wealth – will either wallow in squalor or finally get busy and do some real work, thus becoming “Makers” themselves. We are not to raise their taxes, regulate their activities, or in any way limit their ability to “Make” wealth because they provide the jobs that regular people need for income as well as the wealth of goods and services regular people buy with that income.

This description of the world is not entirely accurate.

It would be more accurate to report that many of these “Makers” do not acquire their wealth and power by producing wealth that the parasites then feed off of and providing the rest of us with jobs and economic goods. These “Makers” get their wealth by being “Takers” on an industrial scale. These “Takers” do not take a few thousand dollars that then go to pay for a college education or to survive a period of unemployment. Instead, these “Takers” rake in hundreds of millions to billions of dollars at a time, adding these takings to already acquisitions of economic, political, and social power.

This is most clearly the case with respect to the financial crisis. Hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars were transferred, not to the poor and middle-class, but to the wealthy and very-wealthy. Wouldn’t it be nice, if your personal debt started to exceed your ability to pay and the value of your assets was declining, to be able to call up the Secretary of Treasury and have them negotiate a bail-out package that would put you back on sound financial footing? Unfortunately, I expect that most of us would have trouble getting a government official to take one’s call. However, the super-rich do not have this problem.

It is important to note that I am not criticizing the bailout itself or saying that it ought not to have happened. That is a separate question. In this posting I am simply pointing out the fact that the bailout – regardless of whether it was good or bad – was also a case of very-wealth people “Taking” on a grand scale. It calls into the question the paradigm we are taught that the world is made up of wealthy “Makers” and poor and middle-class parasites that live off of them.

These types of direct payment represents only the most conspicuous way in which ultra-wealthy takers profit by using the government to obtain benefits that they can only acquire by doing harm to the well-being of others.

For example, let’s say I destroy your home in order to improve the view from my living room window. This is one form of “Taking.” I obtain a benefit – a better view, which is something that I value, by engaging in an activity that makes you worse off.

Economics tells us that where the benefit exceeds the costs, I should be able to convince you to sell me your home – in which case I can then choose to have the house destroyed and improve my view. If I cannot get you to voluntarily move, this means that you value living in the house more than I value an improved view. However, if I am willing to improve my view by an act of “Taking”, you are forced to give up your house no matter how much value you put into living there.

Advocates of free-market economics – the type of economics where wealth is kept in the hands of those who produce it unless they can be voluntarily convinced to give it up – would not allow this type of activity.

Yet, many of the very wealthy live off of this type of activity – this type of “Taking”. In fact, they routinely protest against the adoption of free-market principles precisely because it would take from them the wealth they acquire thorough this type of “Taking.” Far from being “Makers” on whom the rest of us defend, they are “Takers” who, in part, purchase a certain amount of political and social support for their “Taking” by sharing some of their ill-gotten gains with others.

Climate change denial provides an example of “Taking” on this model. In this, ultra-wealthy individuals add to their wealth by selling products that, in turn, destroy the life, health, and property of others. This is, literally, “Taking” on the scale of hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars.

These people are profiting from the “Taking” of the life, health, and property of others the same way that I would have been profiting from a better view by “Taking” from you your home in the example above.

Many of the protests we hear against environmental regulation, worker safety, product safety, and consumer protection are not arguments in defense of a free market. They are arguments in defense of a form of “Taking” whereby people are allowed to profit by activities that do harm to others.

I have often wondered how much of a safety net we would need if not for the fact that there is so much “Taking” being done whereby the poor and middle class are required to give up their life, health, and property, and their liberty in order to benefit ultra-wealthy “Takers”. Instead of taxing the ultra-wealthy to the tune of an few extra hundred billion dollars, if we could only reduce their “Takings” by a few hundred billion dollars we could reduce the deficit, reduce the size of the safety net, and cut taxes at the same time.

However, one thing we can say about ultra-wealthy “Takers” is that their taking is not a casual past-time. It is a business in itself packed full of well-funded lawyers, public relations specialists, lobbyists – each enacting well-planned programs.

A pitch, if honestly and accurately presented, would look something like this:

"We believe we can generate $500 million in profits by 'Taking' if we can get this law passed or get that regulation re-interpreted. Here is our plan for bringing about this change. As you can see, we estimate that this 'Taking' will require a budget of $50 million and it has a 50% chance of success. Applying standard probability analysis this yields the conclusion that the “Taking” that we propose is actually worth $250 million – 50% of $500 million – or $200 million in profits as an expected rate of return."

Of course, one of the messages we can expect to hear from this company is how they plan to "create jobs" with this $200 million, how this act of 'Taking' is actually making wealth, and how the rest of us will suffer if they are not allowed to succeed.

This is 'Taking' on an industrial scale. This is not at all what we hear about when we hear that the world is divided up between ultra-wealthy “Makers” who are responsible for all the good in the world, and poor and middle-class “Takers” who do nothing but live as parasites off of the wealth they produce. It is a form of taking that a poor person seeking to go to college or a retired couple seeking medical care cannot hope to match.

Moral Philosophy: Helping Bad People Feel Better About Themselves

A lot of moral philosophy appears to be geared toward helping bad people feel better about themselves.

I have written recently about motivational internalism - the doctrine that "to know the good is to do the good." Motivational internalism provides a very efficient way to discard any moral argument supporting a conclusion that a person does not like. He listens to the argument then says, "Well, I don't feel at all motivated to do what you say I ought to do. Therefore, your argument must be flawed."

In fact, people use their motivation or lack of motivation as a test of moral arguments. More to themselves than to others they think, "I don't want to do what this person says I ought to do. Therefore, his argument that I ought to do it must be flawed. Now, where is that flaw?" Finding the flaw often means accepting or rejecting "facts" or fallacies depending on whether they give an illusion of supporting the desired conclusion.

Religious ethics follow the same pattern. There is no god. The morality people find in religion is the morality that the inventors of religion and the interpreters of scripture put into it. That morality, in turn, was or is the morality favored by their sentiments. "I am disgusted by the thought of sex with another man. Therefore, God hates fags and demands that they all be put to death." In this way, a person gives an illusion of legitimacy to their own hatred and bigotry. "Hey, it's not me saying these things. It's God!"

Taking one's own likes and dislikes and assigning them to an alleged perfectly knowledgable and perfectly moral super-being . . . it is hard to imagine a greater conceit.

We are told that scripture provides an objective morality independent of the sentiments of the agent. In fact, scripture provides a vague, ambiguous, incoherent set of directives which are alternatively ignored, emphasized, and reinterpreted to suit the interests of the reader. People appeal to their own sentiments to determine what scripture says. Their interpretation is not at all independent of those sentiments.

Evolutionary ethics is no better. In this case, the agent's sentiments are not justified in virtue of being assigned to a perfectly knowledgable and perfectly moral super-being, but to evolution. "Hundreds of millions of years of evolution has disposed me to disapprove of X. Therefore, anybody who does X deserves to die - or be imprisoned - or forced to submit to my will at the barrel of a gun." Many will disavow this way of expressing their claims. They recognize that the inference is entirely invalid. However, what they reject in theory they accept in practice. " Do you want to understand morality? Then look at your evolved sentiments." Evolution is their substitute for god, their tool for assigning moral legitimacy to their own likes and dislikes.

Nothing fits this model better than common subjectivism. Common subjectivism takes off all of the pretty wrappings and pretend justifications and says, quite simply, that your moral claims are nothing more than your own likes and dislikes. You are taking your sentiments and assigning moral value to them, then seeking to push those sentiments on the rest of the world. There is no real difference between the Nazi, the bigoted racist, or the doctor without borders trying to save sick children in an impoverished country. They just happen to have different sentiments - and no sentiment is actually better than any other. This provides an efficient excuse for the Nazi and the racist bigot to carry on with business as usual. More importantly, it provides a convenient excuse for the lazy liberal to shrug his shoulders and say, "I'm too busy watching Survivor and going to fancy dinner parties with my liberal friends to worry about what is happening elsewhere. The culture that kills women for the crime of talking to a man - well, that's just their culture. Who am I to judge, if I don't want to?"

However, common subjectivism does have an important insight into what it takes to be its chief rival - intrinsic value theory. Claims of intrinsic value actually often do involve an agent taking their likes and dislikes as signs of an important property "out there" - intrinsic to what they like and dislike. I was arguing with a racist once outside of a grocery store when an interracial couple came out - holding hands and laughing. The racist pointed to them and said, "See, that's what I am talking about." I could tell by his tone and body language that he could " feel" the wrongness of this interracial mixing - a wrongness that radiated out of the relationship he condemned and which his moral senses were properly sensitive to. The common subjectivist recognizes that this individual was mistaking his own subjective likes and dislikes as perceptions of intrinsic moral properties.

In fact, divine command theory and evolutionary moral theory are merely playing variations of this same tune. The divine command theorist says, "And this sense was created in me by an all-knowing and perfectly moral super-being, so they are legitimate." the evolutionary theorist says, "And this sentiment comes to me through a long history of evolution, and that gives it legitimacy."

The common subjectivist foregoes these failed accounts of legitimacy and says, "These are your sentiments. Go with them. If they include a sentiment that fags ought to be killed, don't look for justification. Just act on it."

What all of them have in common is a way of saying, "Look to your sentiments. Do what you like and avoid what you dislike and you can think of yourself as a moral saint while doing so."

They are all convenient tools for helping bad people feel better about themselves.

Motivational Internalism: Making Moral Rationalizations Appear Legitimate

Yesterday I provided objections to the thesis of motivational internalism - the notion that to know the good is to do the good. A person can be totally convinced that something is morally obligatory and still care nothing about it.

It should be noted that, in this sense, for something to be good means that people generally have many and strong reasons to use rewards such as praise and punishments such as condemnation to promote a desire for that thing (or an aversion to that which is bad). By definition, a reward is something that agents have a motivating reason to realize and people have a motivating reason to prevent the realization of punishments.

In a sense, then, a person has a motivating reason to do good and avoid evil.

However, it would be more accurate to say that people have a motivating reason to do what people generally take to be good and avoid what people generally take to be evil. Individuals - even whole cultures - can be mistaken; praising what they have reason to condemn and condemning what they have reason to praise. The motivating reason to realize rewards and avoid punishments is tied to what people think is good or bad, not what is good or bad in fact. It is not a case that "to know the good is to the good", but "to know what people generally take to be good is to do what people generally take to be good" - to obtain the rewards or to avoid the punishments.

Convincing a person that she has a motivating reason in this sense is merely describing the sociological fact about what people generally will reward or punish.

The motivational internalist would hardly find this satisfying.

It is also probably quite rare that a person can avoid the social conditioning where they learn to desire to be a good person or an aversion to being a bad person.

Anybody with a desire to be a good person will perceive a motivating reason to do X upon being convinced that a good person would do X. This works a lot like the way that the motivational internalist says that morality works - convincing a person that something is good will see that person motivated to realize what was said to be good. This motivation, in this case, is not the motivation of seeking a reward (such as praise) or to avoid punishment (such as condemnation). The motivation, in this case, comes from a desire to do what a good person would do, and to avoid doing what a good person would not do as an end in itself.

However, this consequence is contingent on having the desire to do what a good person would do and avoid doing what a good person would not do. It does mot support the thesis that to know the good is to do the good. It takes more than knowing the good to motivate an agent to do the good.

Because of these facts, people seldom have a reason to admit - at least to others - that what they do is evil or they refrain from doing good. To say, "Yes, I know it is wrong" is to say, "Yes, I know that people generally have reason to condemn or even punish people like me." This is a difficult fact to admit - so people seldom (if ever) do so. Instead, they protest and fight and argue and assert, "You have no reason to harm people like me. You may think you do, but you do not."

This supports the observation that motivational internalists use to defend their thesis. They note that very few people do what they assert to be wrong, or admit to an obligation they do mot perform. They make up excuses. "He doesn't deserve to be repaid the money he let me borrow because he did not give me a far rate," or "A woman who dresses like that is a tease who deserves to be raped - let this be a lesson to her." They rationalize their actions to make it appear to be the case that the person who would do such a thing does not deserve to be harmed.

Motivational internalism is not, in fact, an interesting thesis about the nature of morality. It is the practice of rationalization run amuk. It wraps this rationalization in an illusion of legitimacy and, in doing so, provides aid and comfort to evil people trying to convince themselves and others that they are good.

It is also responsible for misdirecting a lot of effort and interfering with our ability to make a morally better culture. We are lead to believe that all we need to do is to present a person with the moral facts and they will do the good. Yet, this is like presenting a flat tire, jack, and crowbar with the moral facts and getting a flat tire changed. It causes us to neglect the real work that needs to be done in actually using social tools to promote desires people generally have many and strong reasons to promote and inhibiting desires people generally have many and strong reasons to inhibit.

Through these effects, the doctrine makes the world a worse place than it would otherwise have been.

Moral Superiority: To Know the Good Is to Do the Good

Last week, I talked about moral superiority and the fact that some people, as a matter of fact, are morally better than others.

Some people already have the desires people generally have reason to promote using rewards (such as praise), and do not have the desires that people generally have reason to condemn and to punish.

This invites the question, "Am I morally superior to others?"

This question relates to the philosophical position, "To know the good is to do the good," - formally known as motivational internalism. "The good", on this view, is that which, if you can convince somebody that something has it, then that person is motivated to realize that good. A person never says, "Yes, I fully agree that it is good, but I care nothing about it and do not really care whether there is more of it or less."

Since I claim to know the good - the mere fact that I am writing this blog says that I have something to say on the issue that others would benefit from learning, if it is the case that to know the good is to do the good, it follows that I claim to be a morally remarkable person - morally superior to a great many others and able to provide them with moral instruction so they can be more like me.

Well, it would follow if motivational internalism was true. But it is not.

Desirism holds that a right act is the act that a person with good desires would choose to perform. To know that people have an obligation to do X is to know that people generally have many and strong reasons to promote those desires that would motivate a person to do X, and to inhibit those desire that would motivate an agent to do something else.

However, it does not follow from the proposition, "I believe that the desire that D is a desire that people generally have reason to promote" that "I have a desire that D:" A person can conceivably find a huge gap between the desires he has and the desires that people have many and strong reasons to promote or inhibit.

For example, I waste a huge amount of time on computer games. When I am engaged in these activities, I accomplish very little of value. I do little that fulfills the desires of others, and becaue of this others have little or no reason to praise the desires that contribute to such a waste of time.

At least I am not motivated to perform actions that cause others harm. In this, what can be said about my time spent on these activities is that, in doing them, I am dead to the world. I provide the world with as little good as I would provide if I did not exist.

I often imagine what the situation would have become if the hours that I have spent manipulating states on a computer - the real-world effect of playing a computer game - had been spent instead in efforts to manipulate states in the world. There are fields of knowledge where advancement would do a lot of people a lot of good. People generally have many and strong reasons to praise those who have those interests. A person with those interests, rather than those that I have, are morally superior (at least in that aspect of their lives).

Yet, knowing the good itself provides little motivation to doing the good. At least, it has not prevented me from sitting down for a session of manipulating the states in a computer in ways that I find satisfying - creating a state that, in the fiction created in the context of the game, counts as an "advancement" or "winning".

Desires are not subject to reason. Provide a person with all of the evidence that exists that a desire is one that people generally have reason to promote. Hypothetically, you can get that person to agree that it is, in fact, a desire people generally have many and strong reasons to promote, it does not follow as any type of causal necessity that he will acquire that desire. Desires are not created or destroyed through reason.

Actually, to be more precise, "desires-as-ends" are not vulnerable to reason. "Desires-as-means" can be modified by a reasoned discovery of the correct relationship between means and ends.

Changing desires does not require reason, it requires the application of rewards on the reward system of the brain - the use of social tools (such as praise and condemnation) to provide those rewards and punishments. Even then, there is little immediate effect.

This is true in the same sense that reason will tell you how to change a flat tire on your car. However, the application of pure reason alone will not change the tire. You will need to get out the jack and the tire iron and the spare tire and get your hands dirty.

Similarly, reason will tell us which desires people generally have reason to promote or inhibit. However, reason alone will not automatically change desires for the better. That requires getting out the moral tools - rewards such as praise and punishments such as condemnation - and getting one's hands dirty.

So, it is not the case that to know the good is to do the good. Nor is it the case that a person who claims to know the good also claims, in doing so, to have some sort of moral superiority. This simply does not follow from the premises.

Moral Superiority: Atheists versus Theists

In yesterday's post I wrote about judging oneself or members of one's group as being morally superior to another as if it was intrinsically wrong. I wrote as if it was simply evil (or not-good) for members of one group (theists, atheists) to see themselves as morally superior to those in another group.

Yet, I wrote of this as if to say that those who do not consider themselves morally superior to others are morally superior to those who consider themselves morally superior to others - a view that would be entirely incoherent.

How can one make sense of this?

As one who holds that there are moral facts, it follows that some people are, as a matter of fact, morally superior to others. The kind and helpful are morally superior to the cruel. Just people are morally superior to the unjust. Honest and fair people are morally superior to the dishonest and unfair.

In the absence of special arguments to the contrary, it is acceptable to believe and to report that some people are morally superior to others.

From this, it follows that it could be true and proper to say, "Theists are morally superior to atheists" or "atheists are morally superior to theists" - not as a matter of accident but as something that is inherent in being a theist or atheist. It is not automatically wrong or intrinsically wrong. However, it is wrong as a matter of fact.

It could be true, but it is not true. It could be true in the same sense that "The earth is no more than 10,000 years old" could be true. It could be true, but it is not true.

When a person holds a false and poorly grounded belief, we have reason to ask, "Why does she hold that particular false and poorly grounded belief, as opposed to one of the infinite equally false and poorly gounded beliefs that she could have adopted?

In answering this question, we may find the answer in some character trait that is not particularly admirable - that, in fact, is quite contemptible.

When we trace the belief that theists are inherently morally superior to atheists, or atheists are inherently morall superior to theists, we find our answer to the question, "Why have these people adopted this false and poorly grounded belef and not some other?" in tribal tendencies. Humans have a psychological disposition to form tribes and, as a member of a tribe, are prone to false and poorly founded beliefs about the moral superiority of tribe members over non-tribe members. They irrationally charge members of other tribes with wrongs that they ignore or explain away when committed by members of their own tribe.

Though this is a natural disposition, it is also one that we have reason to fight against. It leads to unjust accusations and actions. They often escalate into violence, sometimes on a global sacale. Some atheists want to blame "religion" for these wrongs. However, this is just an example of tribal bigotry at work. People who do not believe in a god still form tribes, and those tribes battle against each other. There is no reason to believe that tribal conflict would be resolved by the elimination of religion. It would almost certainly continue - perhaps among political, economic, geographical, or philosophical tribes.

We would be (tribal) fools to ignore the fact that athests are human beings prone to tribal thinking.

Certainly, the kind and helpful theist can honestly claim to be morally superior to the selfish and cruel atheist. However, it is in virtue of being kind and helpful rather than being a theist. The responsible atheist can consider herself superior to the irresponsible theist - but on the grounds of being responsible, not on the grounds of being an atheist.

Prejudice, discrimination, and other forms of injustice often leading to violence arises when one considers non-moral tribal factors - race, gender, national origin, social class, belief that there is a god - as grounds for discrimination.

At this point, one usually encounters claims such as, "Belief in a god makes one kinder, more helpful, and more honest - morally superior to those who do not believe in a god."

This is an assumption, often eagerly grasped because of tribal bigotry. Without the slightest bit of evidence - and even in the face of strong evidence to the contrary - tribalists clutch this belief with both hands precisely because tribal prejudice motivates them to do so.

Even if there was a relationship, each of us belongs to countless different groups. There are countless ways of identifying each of us an, in doing so, putting us into groups with others who share that quality. In each case, there is a percentage of that group that, for example, has been convicted of a violent crime. There is a group that I belong to where the percentage of others who share that quality have been convicted of a violent crime is the highest of any of the other groups. There is a group that I belong to where the percentage is lowest. This is a matter of mathematical necessity. Taking any group measurement and the percentage of its population convicted of a violent crime says almost nothing about the person, and a great deal about the bigotries of the people attaching significance to that relationship.

Perhaps it is the case that teaching people to believe in a particular type of god is the best way to promote the strongest dispositions towards kindness and helpfulness. However, it would take a great deal of specialized knowledge to make this claim - knowledge that none of us currently has. Furthermore, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, and given the strong association with violence and other forms of injustice linked to tribal dispositions we know humans to have, we have an obligation to give others the benefit of the doubt. There is a reason to presume that the conclusions one graspes have more to do with tribal bigotries than with solid evidence and sound reasoning.

The moral and just person would make this assumption.

This is why it makes sense to condemn the atheist who assumes moral superiority over the theist, and to condemn the theist who assumes moral superiority over the atheist. In themselves, these are not moral qualities. Like gender, race, and national origin they are, instead, tribal distinctions. Where tribal distinctions are used, people have a strong disposition to grasp claims of moral superiority that evidence and reason cannot support - a disposition that deserves our condemnation.

The Relationship Between Scripture and Morality

At the end of last year I wrote about the relationship between morality and god - the claim that without a god there would be no objective morality.

I compared this to the statement that some believe that without God there would be no trees - no life. The former is as irrelevant to the objective wrongness of something like rape as the latter is to the objective height, mass, and age of a tree. That is to say, it is not important at all to the answers to those questions.

Yet, many theists, wanting to see themselves as morally superior to atheists, cast this disagreement in a way that allows them to see atheists as morally blind if they do not have a religious morality to appeal to. Again, this is as absurd as thinking that an atheist cannot see a tree without referencing a passage in scripture telling them about trees. Not only does it feel good, but by casting atheists as morally inferior and unfit to lead, this sentiment comes with social, political, and economic benefits as well. With an interest in harvesting these benefits, these people adopt and promote these prejudices and injustices - an ironic counter to their thought that they presumed moral superiority.

This leads to another relationship worth discussing - the relationship between scripture and morality. It is one thing to say that there is an objective right and wrong and that it could not exist without a god. It is another to say that these objective truths are recorded in scripture. This is true in the same sense that there is an objective age of the earth and the earth could not have come into existence without a god, and that scripture accurately records the origin of earth. In both cases the first part can be true while the latter part is totally false.

In fact, the relationship between scripture and objective morality is exactly the same as the relationship that exists in general between the writings of primitive cultures and what is objectively true. Scripture records the beliefs of prehistoric tribes, substantially ignorant of the world around them, handed down through an oral tradition and recorded (with a strong regard to what the writers find useful) after the invention of writing. Many of those ancient beliefs are false. Many of the things that they report as being being true are false, and some of what they say is false is actually true. Similarly, many of the things that scripture identifies as evil are, in fact, good or permissible. Some of what it identifies as permissible or obligatory are, in fact, evil.

Taking scripture as recording the absolute truth with respect to morality is as much a mistake as taking the writings of Hippocrates as recording the absolute truth with respect to medicine. It is not only an absurd belief - it is a belief that comes with tragic consequences.

Imagine if the medical profession took Hippocrates' writings as divinely inspired - as literally true in every word - and set up the institution of medicine such that anybody who would doubt or question the writings of Hippocrates would be threatened with execution or torture or other social and economic punishments. Nobody was permitted to practice medicine except exactly as prescribed by Hippocrates, and nobody could be elected to public office who did accept the writings of Hippocrates in all matters related to medicine.

The results would have been tragic.

Yet, this describes the attitude that many have for the relationship between morality and scripture. Their claim that scripture contains the last word in all questions of morality is as absurd as the belief that Hippocretes wrote the last word on all matters of medicine. The consequences, in some areas, have been equally tragic. Whole cultures are practicing primitive morality to the detriment of their populations in the same way as practicing a primitive medicine would be to the detriment of those populations.

There are some differences in the ways that cultures draw this relationship between morality and scripture.

We can describe two fundamentally different ways of thinking, for example, that everything that Hippocrates wrote on matters of medicine was literally true, and all truth is contained in the writings of Hippocrates.

The most tragic way is to take a body of writing as true as it was originally written. This method allows for no advance - no improvement. Its practitioners are locked in a primitive mindset that they cannot escape.

The second way is to constantly reinterpret what is written in the sacred texts of Hippocrates to accommodate new understandings. In the realm of medicine, this would be represented by a person pointing to passages attributed to Hippocrates and saying, "Here is where Hippocrates wrote about the germ theory of disease. Here is his passage on penicillin. Over here he discusses radiation treatment for certain types of cancer, and in these passages he describes all of the parts of a cell and their legitimate functions."

This type of person would likely claim that everything Hippocrates wrote was true and all truth is contained in Hippocrates. However, he wrote in metaphors and symbols rather than by reporting literal truths.

These types of people, though their interpretations of Hippocrates abandon all reason, would still be able to practice modern medicine and provide their patients with its benefits. We may still have reason to worry about their ability to link symptoms to causes where their minds and their thoughts imagine passages in the writings of a primitive writers to cover these truths, but they can still effectively treat illnesses and injuries.

Similarly, those who constantly reinterpret scripture - finding within it an opposition to slavery, equal rights to women, an opposition to rape (except insofar as adultery is wrong and rape is adultery - and a spouse cannot be raped), acceptance of homosexuality and the eating of shellfish, democracy as opposed to the divine right of kings, the right to trial by jury, freedom of speech that includes a freedom to criticize religion, are just as imaginative as the hypothetical doctor who thinks that the writings of Hippocrates include passages on gene replacement therapy and the causes and treatments of Alzheimer's Disease. Yet, they can still oppose slavery, promote equal rights for women, condemn rape as something worse than adultery and accept that a spouse can be raped, accept homosexuality and the eating of shellfish, promote democracy, defend the right to trial by jury and freedom of speech.

This is not to say that atheists are morally superior to theists. Taking primitive fictions as true is not the only source of error. Atheists make moral mistakes as well. This includes falling victim to the psychology of tribalism and adopting absurdities that allow them to see members of their tribe as morally superior. Certain brands of Marxism, Ayn Rand Objectivism, social darwinism, the notion of an evolved moral sense (which excuses taking personal likes and dislikes and misinterpreting them as moral prescriptions), common subjectivism, are all examples of atheist mistakes. Another possible mistake is my claim that one of these atheistic philosophies is a mistake.

Morality, God, and Knowing What to Do

So, here you are. You believe that a god exists. You believe that objective morality is not possible without god.

How do you determine what is objectively right and wrong?

Yesterday, I wrote two stories. In one story, I wrote of a god who says "Love is love" and views homosexual love as equal to heterosexual love. The other was of a god that views reason as his greatest gift to humanity and faith as the rejecting that risk and in doing so, rejecting God.

Other people tell stories of a god that commands killing any young woman who is caught talking to a man, the slaughter of apostates, the slaughter of anybody who questions their claims about what God wants. Some say that god demands the execution of certain wrongdoers, and some say that god prohibits all killing. Some say blood transfusions are evil, others condemn cloning. Some say life begins at conception, others say the fetus as no soul until quickening.

All of these stories - in fact all similar stories that one can imagine - are consistent with, "There is a god, and objective morality would not exist without a god."

Even desirism, the moral theory I apply in these blog postings, is consistent with that view. There is a god. God is required for objective morality. Desirism accurately describes the objective morality the this god built into the world.

Now, how are you going to determine what is objectively right and wrong? How are you going to determine if your own actions are consistent with the objective morality god created, or a violation of that morality?

You could appeal to scripture.

Which scripture? There are a lot of scriptures out there. How do you know that yours is the right one.

Which interpretation of scripture? Even people who point to the same scripture disagree over what it says - what it commands. Does your interpretation capture what is really right or wrong? Or are you seeing a commandment to do that which objective morality forbids or to refrain from doing what objective morality requires?

It is the very essence of objectivity that where two people disagree, one must be wrong. There is no sense to the claim, "A person's religion gives them an objective morality." The only sensible claim to be made is, "A person's religion give them THE objective morality." However, where those "objective" moralities say different things, at least some of them must be mistaken.

We must also add the complication that, at some level of specificity, everybody's interpretation of scripture is unique. Nobody on the planet has exactly the same interpretation as anybody else.

This implies that at most one person in all of human history - at most one and almost certainly not even that - has the correct interpretation of scripture. And even this ignores the fact that a person's interpretation will change over time.

It seems quite arrogant for any person to claim, "At most one person in all of human history will have the correct interpretation of scripture, and that one person is me."

Is it objectively good to be that arrogant? Isn't a little humility a good thing?

So, where is your objective god-given morality and how do you know when you have found it?

Chances are, you have been warned about me - about the person who may temp you to question and to doubt. You have been told to ignore questions and doubt.

Are these truly virtues? Or are these vices you have been convinced to adopt by people who want your unquestioning economic, political, and social support. These religious leaders have a lot to lose if people go astray - if people quit contributing money and political and social power to them. It is only natural for them to fear the possibility of you questioning their word - questioning the claims that always end in a call to contribute money or power to them. But are they giving you a virtue? Or are they giving you a useful vice - useful to them?

Belief that there is a god, and that god is necessary for objective morality to exist, does not help a person one bit in determining what to do. It does not answer any real-world moral questions. When it comes to answering the question of what to do, the theist and the atheist are on equal ground.

The Emptiness of Morality Dependent on God

"God is necessary for objective morality to exist" tells us nothing about what is objectively moral or immoral.

Many who defend the proposition of a god's necessity often jump jump from it to some desired conclusion such as, "Therefore, all homosexuals must be put to death," or "It is obligatory to kill any young woman caught talking to a man" or "The government may force the people to support - directly and indirectly - any church (and, in this way, any priest) that has the government's favor."

Yet, there is no moral conclusion that actually follows straight from the premises that a god exists and that without god there can be no objective morality.

In this, theism and atheism stand on equal grounds. The one difference is that most atheists are aware of the fact that "The proposition that a god exists is certainly or almost certainly false" says nothing about what (if anything) is objectively right or wrong. Whereas many theists make the entirely unjustified leap from, "God exists and a makes objective morality possible" to conclusions like "it is objectively obligatory to do X and objectively prohibited to do Y."

Let me illustrate this point with a story.

Let's pretend there is a god. His name is "God". God created humans, and God makes objective morality possible. In making humans he created our reproductive system. He knew that the system was one that would cause some males to acquire an attraction for other males and some females to love other females. However, God shrugged his shoulders and said, "Love is love. I don't need to fix this - it is not broken."

Yet, some humans did not share in God's unconditional love. They viewed "different" as "evil". When they encountered those who were different from themselves, they found themselves filled with hate and loathing. Driven by this passion, they sought to rid the world of those they hated. To give the devil's policy an appearance of legitimacy, they began to preach that God was on their side - that God viewed homosexuality as an abomination - and that they served God by ridding the world of this evil. It is not that they lied - they believed these things themselves. They held, "That which I loathe and hate, God must loathe and hate, because my hate certainly comes from God."

God could have corrected them. However, God said unto himself, "I have given them brains with which to reason and free will with which to decide who and what to believe. If they choose to believe that I would hate those who love, and love those who hate, then they truly sin against me. Their attitudes are not only wrong but objectively wrong, for I have made them so. I will not overrule their freedom to choose. However, when the day of judgment comes, I will give them what they deserve for what they have freely chosen to believe."

I hold that this is just a story. However, this story illustrates a point. One can believe that a god exists. One can believe that without a god there can be no objective morality. However, one still has to figure out what is objectively moral.

And how is one going to do that?

Let me add another story.

When God created humans, God gave to us the gift of reason. He considered this his greatest gift.

However, soon after creation, sin entered the world. False prophets started to mock reason and evidence. These false prophets told their followers to abandon such things - to turn their back on God's gift and hold those gifts in contempt. In its place, they elevated unreasoned faith as a virtue - belief without evidence, thought without reason. By promoting faith over reason, they found that they could claim to speak for God and to toss aside all questions. They found that they could get people to serve them, while still thinking they serve a god, because they have abandoned reason and evidence.

False beliefs flooded the world. People paid for their sins by suffering floods and famines and disease that reason could have prevented - that are prevented in those areas where reason does rule.

God could have told them of their error. However, God said to himself, "I have given them reason and the ability to figure these things out for themselves. If I tell them the answer, rather than having them reason it out for themselves, then I will be dishonoring my most valuable gift."

Now, when the faith monger dies and stands at the gates of heaven, he looks inside and sees the likes of Albert Einstein, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawkins, Carl Sagan. Yet, he is told he may not enter. "These people put my greatest gift to work understanding the world I created. They unlocked its secrets and taught their understanding to others. And though they may have gotten some answers wrong - as mere mortals are prone to do - they always spoke honestly about the possibility of error. They spoke about how future evidence may prove them wrong - something that those who abandon evidence can never say. They honored and respected my greatest gift. Whereas you spent you life holding my greatest gift in contempt, and spreading this evil around the world with you preaching. And with it you spread disease, famine, and war. You were right to say that objective morality comes from God. But you failed to realize that promoting faith over reason is - objectively - the greatest sin."

Go ahead and believe that a god exists. Go ahead and believe that without a god there can be no objective morality. That will tell you nothing - not one solitary thing - about what is and what is not objectively right or wrong.

Morality and God: The Effect of Tribal Chauvinism

On the relationship between god and morality, I described two views consistent with the proposition that there can be no morality without god.

One could adopt the view that this is like saying, "There can be no trees without god." While somebody can believe this, the belief is consistent with the view that a person does not need to believe in a god to know the height, mass, and age of a tree. These properties are truly objective - available to anyone regardless of their beliefs about what is necessary for their existence.

However, many theists do not adopt this view. They adopt an alterntive view that holds that a belief in and acceptance of god is necessary to be properly aware of moral properties. While they do not argue about the need to convert people in order to make them aware of the height, mass, and age of trees, it is supposedly necessary to convert people to make them properly aware of the moral properties of rape, murder, and theft.

Why is there this difference?

This difference is made more questionable by the fact that it is not the case that an atheist views all arrangements of matter and energy as qualitatively identical. Atheists can feal pain. The experience of pain does not require a belief in god - just like the experience of height, mass, and age. This shows beyond any reasonable doubt that it is not the case that whatever "value" is, it is not knowable only by those who believe in a god.

Yet, in spite of these obvious facts, we are still hold that a person must be converted to a particular religion to be properly aware of moral properties - even though, at the same time, we are told that they are objective and real.

Again, what motivates people to adopt this view rather than its alternatives?

The widespread acceptance of this view is easy to explain by appeal to a common human phenomenon of tribal chauvinism - a human disposition to want to see members of one's own tribe (including oneself) as morally superior to others. It feels good to think that "we" are better than "them". What feels good is mistaken for what feels right or feels true. Logic and evidence are cast aside in favor of the feel-good belief in tribal superiority.

This is a common phenomenon. We routinely see tribes adopting beliefs in the absence of reason or evidence whereby they hold members of a competing tribe as beneath them. Slavery was justified on the cherished beliefs that blacks were a child-like species better off in the household of a paternal slave master who exchanged his care and provision for their needs for a few hours of labor in the field. It can be found in the examples of "separate but equal" where provisions for "whites" and "negroes" sat side by side - separate and definitely not equal. Women were denied the right to vote and treated as property in part by the widespread belief that they were too emotional to make rational decisions. They, too, required the care of paternalistic figures who looked after their welfare and had a right to command absolute obedience, as if they were young children.

These were not simple mistakes. They were mistakes that served a political and social end. The lack of evidence or reason to support them was ignored because they "felt true" - and they "felt true" because they supported the conclusion that the members of the tribe that adopted them were superior to the others they imposed their will upon.

It would be a mistake to think that atheists are immune to tribal chauvinism. It is a part of our human nature.

As an example, there is a popular quote among atheists from Stephen Weinberg that says:

Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

It ignores the very conspicuous observation that an atheist can adopt a secular philosophy - such as Ayn Rand objectivism, Marxism, or Social Darwinism - that is just as prone to cause "good people" to do bad things as any religion. It ignores the fact that nothing that we find in religion was put there by God. Everything we find in religion was put their by humans with no divine guidance at all. It represents what people are inclined to believe in the absence of evidence. There is no evil that can be put into a religion that cannot be put into a secular philosophy that makes no reference to a god, if people want to see it there.

The tribal chauvinist is not after truth supported by reason and evidence. He is after a belief that allows him to claim the moral superiority of his tribe - regardless of reason or evidence. The atheist tribe is no different.

However, the fact that this is a human problem and not a "religion" problem does not change the fact that it is a problem. It may be a part of our nature - but it is a part of our nature that is responsible for great injustices and harm. It is a part of our nature that we are well advised to battle against when it appears in the atheist community as much as when it appears in religious doctrine. That a certain type of behavior can be explained does not imply that it is behavior that can be excused.

We have here, in the widely expressed version of the view that morality requires a god, a view motivated by tribal chauvinism that allows one tribe to view itself as morally superior to - "above" - another, and thus holding greater entitlement to the opportunities and benefits of civilized society. The view is not supported by any type of reason or evidence. It's supported by the "good feeling" of prejudice and bigotry - and as such it justifies nothing.

Morality and God: The Unimportant Question - An Alternative Perspective

In this post, I am going to shine another light on the question of how morality is grounded on god is an unimportant question from another direction.

I have received comments from a few Christians who have suggested that Desirism (the moral theory I advance in this blog) is simply a statement of Christian ethics.

Desirism holds that the right act is the act that a person with good desires would perform - and good desires are those that tend to result in the fulfillment of other desires.

These Christian commentators have reported that they find this similar to the Christian slogan for a right act - by asking "What would Jesus do?" Here too, they say, the right act is the act that a person with good desires would have performed, and good desires are those that help to fulfill the desires of others. It means providing food, clothing, and medical care, and refraining from doing harm.

When we get into details, there are a lot of potentials for problems with this analogy. What happens if desirism turns out to support a moral conclusion that scripture does not support? Are we going to conclude that scripture on this matter was wrong? Will this disprove the claim that desirism and "What would Jesus do?" are two ways of saying the same thing? Or are we going to begin with the assumption that this is impossible and bend the evidence or bend the interpretation of scripture as far as is needed to get the two to be the same?

Yet, these details are not relevant to the main point. There is no necessary incoherence in principle between the claim that God created a universe with objective morality in it, and that objective morality takes the form of relationships between malleable desires that can be altered through praise and condemnation and other desires.

This type of relationship has been asserted not only for desirism, but for other moral theories as well.

Some have argued that Jesus was a Utilitarian, and that Christianity demands that one act so as to promote the greatest good for the greatest number.

There have been those who have equated Christianity with Kantian deontology - the principle that one should act in all things so as to treat others as an end, and not always as a means. Yet, Kant's defense of his theory does not require that a person be Christian to agree with it. One can be an atheist and still hold that this Kantian theory is true.

In each of these cases, the theist and the Christian (in these cases) can agree on the details of morality and on the conclusions these theories defend, while they disagree on whether these properties emerged through natural process or were built into the world as it is by a creator.

The answer to the question, "Did these properties emerge naturally or were they put into the universe by a creator" becomes the unimportant question - because "these properties" are the same properties regardless of how this question is answered. This is true in the same way that the height, mass, and age of the tree remains the same, regardless of whether the tree came about through a process of evolution or designed by a god.

When a person says, "Objective morality (e.g., the objective wrongness of rape) could not exist without God," my reaction is to shrug and say, "Fine. You also agree that trees could not exist without God. I think you're wrong. Either way, the objective wrongness of rape is as real as the height, mass, and age of a gree, and we can go from there."

The mistake is in thinking that "Objective morality could not exist without God" says something important.

However, it is a mistake with significant bad consequences - and that deserves some of our attention.

Morality and God: Phrasing the Relationship

I am altering my agenda slightly to handle a pair of alternative phrasings to the relationship between god and morality mentioned by members of the studio audience.

They concern the claim I defended that the question of whether morality is founded on God is not an important question - at least when it comes to questions of what is actually right or wrong.

I compared the question of the foundation of morality to the question of the origin of life when handling questions about the properties or a tree. The person who believes that life evolved and the person who believes that life was created can continue to disagree, but their disagreement has no relevance to the height, mass, and chemical composition of the tree. Similarly, the person who believes that morality is an emergent property of matter and the person who believes that moral value was assigned to things by a deity can continue to disagree, but their disagreement has no relevance to the wrongness of rape.

One of the two alternative phrasings brought up in discussion holds that the relationship between god and morality is important because, without God morality is subjective. Without god, one person's opinion is no better than any other. God is the only way for moral value to be objective.

There are actually two claims embedded in this assertion.

The first of these claims says that without a god, moral claims must be subjective - merely a matter of opinion.

However, this is no more true then the claim that, without a god, statements about the height, mass, and age of the tree must be subjective - that one opinion is as good as any other.

Note that to raise this objection I do not need to actually demonstrate that morality is, in fact, objective in the same way that statements about the height, mass, and age of trees are objective. I only need to demonstrate the possibility of a type of claim that can be objective even while denying the existence of a god. If somebody were to claim, "Either the sky is clear, or it is snowing," I do not need to prove that it is actually raining to prove that it their claim is false. I only need to demonstrate that there is an option other than, "clear skies" and "snow". There is the option other than "objective from god" or "subjective". Claims about the height, mass, and age of a tree are examples of this class of statements.

At this point, one might say that the relationship between god and trees/morality is important because without god there would be no trees/morality. However, this is precisely the claim we do not need to agree on to share knowledge about the height, mass, and age of a tree or the wrongness of rape.

This leads to the claim that moral statements are a different type of claim than claims about the height, mass, and age of a tree. With this claim, it is granted that we can know the height, mass, and age of the tree without referencing a god. However, we cannot know about the wrongness of rape without reference to a god.

Here is where I apply the question, "Can a person experience pain without reference to a god?" When I talk about the experience of pain I am including in this the idea that it is something awful - something the person has reason to avoid - something that directs him to act so as to avoid pain.

Clearly, it is the case that a person making no reference to god can hold that certain arrangements of matter and energy are to be avoided, and be motivated to act in ways to avoid those arrangements, without making any reference to god. In avoiding those particular arrangements of matter, they have reason to set up social institutions that will make those arrangements worth avoiding less likely. This not only includes arrangements of matter identified as "being in pain", but those that would be identified as "being murdered", "being raped", "being ripped off", "being lied to", "being enslaved", "being hungry", "being sick". It also includes having reason to prevent these things from happening to those one has an emotional attachment to, and creating a social culture filled with people who are not only adverse to doing these things, but are willing to act so as to prevent these things from happening to themselves and others.

None of this requires a reference to any type of deity.

One can believe that, without a god pain would not exist - that the horribleness of pain (or rape) was put in it be a god. However, that horribleness is there. To the person in pain, it does not really matter if its horribleness was put there by a loving deity or it is an emergent property of nature. None of that changes how badly it hurts or the motivating reasons the agent has to avoid it - and to set up institutions that will make "being in pain" less likely.

These alternative phrasings ultimately reduce to the types of phrases I have already examined. "God is necessary for trees/morality to exist" is the "unimportant question" - the claim we need not accept or reject to know the height of a tree or the wrongness of rape.

"A reference to god is necessary in order to recognize a qualitative difference between different arrangements of matter and energy" is simply false - as the capacity to feel pain - and the capacity to know which social institutions will make the experience of pain less likely - proves to be false.

Morality and God: The Importance of BELIEF in God

On this series, I am attempting to put various ideas on the relationship between morality and god in one convenient location.

I am writing this series in the backdrop of the article, The Plausibility of Grounding Moral VAlues In God

Yesterday, I wrote that, at a basic level, the relationship between morality and god does not matter. If moral properties are real - like trees and atoms are real - then the atheist and the theist can equally recognize the wrongness of rape just as they can discuss recognize and discuss the properties of trees and atoms.

However, a lot of people who hold that morality is dependent on god do not view moral properties as real in the way trees and atoms are real. One of us can believe that trees could not have come into existence without a designer and that matter could not come into existence without a first cause - while the other denies these claims - yet we can agree on the height of the tree and the chemical composition of its bark. In contrast, the view being examined here holds that one cannot be properly aware of the wrongness of rape - or have a reason to avoid any particular arrangement of matter - without a belief in god.

This is absurd.

The absurdity of holding that a belief in god is necessary to perceive that a state is worth avoiding is demonstrated by the absurdity of holding that a belief in god is necessary to feel pain.

One would think, in listening to those who hold this view, that an atheist can put his hand in a bed of hot coals without feeling any discomfort. After all, the only thing that happens when a person sticks his hand in a bed of hot coals is that the atoms in one's hand change their arrangement. Some molecular bonds are broken and new ones are formed. Some chemicals escape from the end of one neuron and attach themselves to the end of a nearby neuron. There is nothing in this for the atheist to perceive as bad or worth avoiding.

In the article cited above, this attitude is captured in:

2) Everything in the universe is fundamentally the same stuff (quarks & waves)

3) Therefore, nothing in the universe is qualitatively different from something else, and therefore does not lay claim to valuing anything more than anything else.

Everything involved in the burning of one's hand is "fundamentally the same stuff" - various arrangements of quarks and waves. Therefore, according to this argument, there is no reason for the atheist to favor the state in which his hand is not being burned in a bed of hot coals over a state in which it is being burned. The atheist should be indifferent among these two states.

Please recall that I am writing this in the context of contrasting two views of the relationship between value and a deity. There is the "it really does not matter" view where two people disagree on the origins of something but agree on its current real-world properties. This is contrasted with, "It matters because a belief in a diety is necessary to know of the badness of things" view.

The person holding the first view can say, "Yes, atheists can feel pain and recognize an interest in avoiding it - though a god is necessary to have assigned this badness to pain." This view holds that the reason to avoid pain could not have emerged in nature - but acknowledges that it is as real as trees and atoms.

It's the person who holds the second view of the relationship between value and morality - who holds that an awareness of a deity is necessary to feel pain and to have a reason to avoid putting one's hand in a bed of hot coals - who crashes into this absurdity.

Where we allow that an atheist has the capacity to feel pain and sees a reason to avoid pain, we see that atheist also has reason to organize his environment in ways that reduce the odds of being burned. Or, more generally, he has reason to arrange his environment in ways in which he is less likely to put in a state of experience pain.

For example, he has reason to see to it that his house is wired in such a way that it will not catch fire and trap him inside and he has reason - with the other members of his community who also wish to avoid being burned - to support a fire department of skilled professionals who can and will respond quickly to a report if a fire and rescue those at risk.

He also has a reason to join with his neighbors to support a culture - to support institutions and practices - that will cause people (himself and others) to be reluctant to do things that would cause pain.

Furthermore, the standards for a good electrician, a good firefighter, and a good neighbor, and good institutions and practices are not arbitrary.

It is not a matter of opinion that the electrician willing to pass a heavy current through a thin wire, or who refuses to hook up circuit breakers, is just as good as the electrician who uses thicker gauge wires and circuit breakers.

Similarly, the neighbor who enjoys setting houses on fire, or who is careless with fire on his own property such that the fire may spread, or who is careless with fire while visiting - tossing a lit cigarette behind the couch, for example - is as good a neighbor as the responsible neighbor who makes the possibility of fire less likely.

Finally, you cannot draw any odd set of institutions out of a hat and claim that they are just as good as any other. They may not, in fact, be just as good at creating an environment that reduces the chance that one avoids pain or other unpleasantries - hunger, thirst, enslavement.

Everything said here about good neighbors and institutions and the interest in avoiding pain also applies to good neighbors and the interests in avoiding murder, rape, theft, lying, fraud, enslavement. It also applies to the relationship between neighbors and institutions and the practice of charity, civil defense, community education, and the creation of a clean and healthy environment.

All of this follows from the atheist's ability to recognize that a state in which one's hand is being burned - and similar kinds of states (hunter, depravation, enslavement) - is one that the agent has a reason to avoid.

I will draw the connection between these basic interests and moral institutions more clearly in future posts. For the moment, everything I need to say is sufficiently grounded on the fact that atheists can experience pain. This demonstrates that it is possible to hold that different arrangements of atoms can be qualitatively different without believing in a god. We can disagree how this is is possible - just as we can disagree as to the origin of matter and of life. However, that these qualitative differences exist is a fact that the atheist has no trouble recognizing.

Any view that holds that atheists would be incapable of perceiving or responding to qualitative differences among the arrangement of atoms is patently false.

Yet, this easily disproved view is held by a great many people. Why is this the case?

Whenever people hold to a view that is easily demonstrated to be false, we have reason to ask what it is that blinds them to the problems with this view and makes the falsehood attractive to them. The answer to this question has a lot to say about the perceived relationship between morality and god. I will address this question tomorrow.

Morality and God: Is This an Important Question?

A member of the studio audience asked me to discuss the relationship between god and morality - specifically in the context of this article:

The Plausibility of Grounding Morality on God

There are a lot of different facets to this question. I have answers discussing many of those facets scattered through this blog. Here, I wish to bring those facets together into a more complete set (and then transfer that answer to the Desirism wiki).

The first question to ask is: "Does it matter?" There is reason to believe that whether moral value is grounded on God or not just does not matter - and we can move on to discuss what does matter.

Let me explain how the grounding of morality might not matter.

In the front lawn of my yard, there is a tree. My neighbor and I might have a fundamental disagreement about the source of trees.

On my understanding, about 3,900,000,000 years ago a bunch of atoms came together in a way that was self replicating. The molecular structure was one that attracted other atoms that bonded to it in a way that created a replica of itself that, then, disconnected and floated away.

However, this method did not create perfect copies. In almost all cases when an error occurred the new strand was unstable and broke apart. However, every once in a while, a new strand was stable enough to replicate its new structure. Some new structures were stable at higher temperatures or in saltier water, some replicated better in sunlight. Some were able to disassemble other strands it encountered and used their materials to make more copies of itself. After 4 billion years of progressively more complex strands coming into existence, a tree sits in my front yard.

My neighbor thinks that this story is utterly improbable. He holds that the complex replicating strands that make up the tree in my yard could not have emerged through natural processes. It takes the effort of a powerful intelligence to manufacture these DNA threads - knowing in advance that a particular number and ordering when planted in nature would result in trees and aiming for that result as he worked.

At one level, it does not matter which story is correct. In spite of this disagreement, we are both capable of standing in my yard and seeing the same tree. We can agree as to its height and the circumference of its trunk, how much it would weigh if it were cut down, the shape of its leaves, its chemical composition, and the effect of chopping it into pieces and puts them in a fireplace on a bed of hot coals.

Nobody - at least so far as I know - is willing to argue, Trees come from God. You do not believe in God. Therefore, you must not be able to perceive of any trees. You cannot say anything about trees unless you admit that a god exists. In fact, we cannot even trust you to drive - because you at risk of running into trees whose existence you cannot acknowledge. (This, of course, is comparable to the bigotry that holds that one cannot be trusted to hold public office unless one believes in God.)

This is an absurdity, of course.

What is true of trees can also be true of the wrongness of rape (for example). My neighbor and I can agree that the wrongness of rape is just as real as the tree in my front yard. I hold that the wrongness of rape comes from the reasons for action that exist for people generally to use the social tools of reward (including praise) and punishment (including condemnation) to promote in others an aversion to rape and a hostility to those who commit rape. My neighbor holds that its wrongness must come from God because nothing of the type can emerge in nature without the help of an intelligence. Yet, our disagreement as to the origins of rape does not imply that we must disagree about its properties or the very real reasons that people have to condemn it and punish those who commit rape.

There certainly is no justification for the conclusion, "If you do not believe in God you cannot be trusted to do the right thing," any more than "If you do not believe in God then you cannot be trusted to drive a car without running into a tree."

We see that, at this level, the question of whether morality is grounded on God or emerges as a property of natural elements organizing themselves into certain forms simply is not important. We can set it aside for casual discussion when we have nothing better to do and spend our productive time solving real problems instead.

Unfortunately, people do not leave the question at this level. They stick a bunch of other stuff to this claim that yield, in some cases, tragic results. They draw inferences that, "Because it is impossible for morality to exist without God, all homosexuals must be killed" or "Because morality depends on God those who do not believe in God must be barred from public office."

Consequently, there is more that is to be said on this issue.

In my next posting, I will address the tendency to view lack of a belief in God with immorality.