I recently read Naturalism Defeated?: Essays on Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism. In the beginning, Alvin Plantinga briefly explains his evolutionary argument against naturalism. Then there are a collection of essays criticizing his argument. The essays weren't necessarily addressing Plantinga's explanation found at the beginning of the book, but to other presentations Plantinga has published in books and articles on the argument. Then at the end, he responds to the essays. This was a really interesting book on epistemology, but I have to admit that I didn't understand it all. I want to talk about it anyway.
First, lemme give a brief explanation of the argument (or at least my understanding of the argument). First, I'll start with a couple of definitions:
1. Naturalism--the view that the physical cosmos is all there is. There are no ghosts, gods, or supernatural beings.
2. Evolution--the view that life (particularly human life for the purposes of this argument) developed through a process of unguided mutation and natural selection.
Plantinga thinks that if both naturalism and evolution are true, then probability that our belief-producing cognitive faculties are reliable is low or inscrutable. Or, in philoso-geek-speak:
P(R/N&E) is low or inscrutible,
where P stands for probability, R stands for the reliability of our belief-producing cognitive faculties, N stands for naturalism, and E stands for evolution.
Plantinga further thinks that, as a consequence, anybody who believes in both naturalism and evolution has a defeater for their belief in the reliability of their belief-producing cognitive faculties. And, if they can't trust their belief-producing cognitive faculties, then they can't be rational in holding to naturalism, evolution, or anything else that is the result of their belief-producing cognitive faculties. So, believing in both naturalism and evolution is self-refuting.
Plantinga further argues that this defeater of the reliability of their cognitive faculties cannot be defeated because the only way to defeat it is to rely on one's cognitive faculties to do so.
Now I want to explain why Plantinga thinks P(R/N&E) is low or inscrutable. If there were a God (i.e. if naturalism were false), but we evolved through purely natural cause and effect, then it's still possible for our belief-producing cognitive faculties to be reliable. After all, it's possible that the origin of life was like a cue ball that when hit causes all the other balls to go exactly where the pool player intends them to go through perfectly natural cause and effect. He doesn't have to intervene anymore after hitting the cue ball. Perhaps God got things going, but then things evolved in such a way that our cognitive faculties are reliable. If so, then we could trust our cognitive faculties because God would guarantee them. So naturalism is necessary to make Plantinga's argument work. Evolution alone won't do it.
But naturalism alone won't do it either. If our cognitive faculties came about through some unknown process, maybe the process would guarantee their reliability somehow even though there was no God to have a purpose in any of it. So it's the combination of naturalism and evolution that Plantinga thinks renders our cognitive faculties unreliable.
Now, given naturalism, lemme explain why he thinks evolution is not likely to produce reliable cognitive faculties. It's because natural selection chooses adaptive behavior. It only cares about our cognitive faculties insofar as our cognitive faculties have some causal influence over our behavior.
And there are different views about that among naturalists. One view is called epiphenominalism. That's the view that all of our mental states are caused by our brains, but that the causation does not go the other way around. Our mental states (e.g. our beliefs and desires) cannot cause anything in our brain. Now, if that view is true, then obviously our minds have no causal influence over our behavior. It's easy to see why, in that case, P(R/N&E) would be low or inscrutable. Since our behavior would have nothing to do with our cognitive faculties, and natural selection only cares out about behavior, then natural selection would not care about our cognitive faculties. Our cognitive faculties would be irrelevant to whether we were naturally selected or not.
In another view (don't know the name), it is possible for our minds to have causal influence over our brains. But there are two sub-views under this view. One is that our minds have causal influence over our brains because of their syntax, and the other because of their semantics. By "syntax," I mean the structure of the brain that produced the mental event or that is associated with the mental event. By "semantics," I mean the actual content of the mental event--the actual belief or desire--or the "aboutness" of the mental event.
Let me see if I can explain that a little better. The difference is like the difference in whether a book has causal influence because of the physical properties of the ink and paper or whether it has causal influence because of the meaning of the words in the book.
Now if it turns out that our minds only have syntactical influence over the brain, but not semantical, then again, it's easy to see why this would make P(R/N&E) low or inscrutable. Natural selection would only care about the physical structure of the brain associated with a mental event because that is what results in behavior. It wouldn't care about the content of the mental event. If the physical structure of the brain is all that matters, then it wouldn't matter whether your beliefs were true or false.
Only if our minds have causal influence over our brains by virtue of semantics will natural selection care about our beliefs and our desires.
By the way, I'm using "care" anthropomorphically. Don't read too much into that.
So it's this last view that has any hope of giving us reliable cognitive faculties--cognitive faculties that will produce mostly true beliefs rather than false beliefs. But the only way for evolution to produce reliable cognitive faculties is if it turns out that true beliefs are more likely to result in adaptive behavior than false beliefs. If false beliefs are just as likely to result in adaptive behavior as true beliefs, then it would be easy to see how evolution would produce unreliable cognitive faculties.
Plantinga argues that it's easy to come up with combinations of false beliefs and desires that would result in adaptive behavior. They can be silly, too, because all we're interested in is getting our body parts to the right place to ensure our survival and reproductivity. Suppose, for example, that a tiger is chasing you. You believe tigers are harmless, cuddly, fun animals who love to play chase, and such is your desire to play with said tiger that you run from it. Although the belief is false, it gets your body parts where they need to be to stay alive. Or let's take something even more silly. Let's say you believe the tiger is sweet, you want to hug it, and you believe the best way to hug it is to run from it. It's an absurd belief, but it gets you where you need to go to stay alive. And it's not hard to come up with scenarios like this. For any situation a person can bring up in which they might claim that some true belief resulted in adaptive behavior, you can come up with an absurd belief that would have the same result. So, argues, Plantinga, evolution is not likely to produce reliable cognitive faculties.
The most common objection that I half way understood was that although given evolution and natural selection alone, our cognitive faculties might be unreliable, it could be there are other factors which, when combined with naturalism and evolution, would increase the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable. In other words...
P(R/N&E) may be low or inscrutable, but P(R/N&E&C) might be high.
I don't remember what suggestions were given for C, but I remember some of the critics pointing out that we have an intuition about the reliability of our cognitive faculties that overcomes any argument to the contrary. There's a kind of Descartian clearness and distinctness about our cognitive faculties.
Plantinga didn't respond to that the way I expected him to. What I would've said was that, yeah, sure. I totally agree that our cognitive faculties are reliable. That's not my point. My point is that if our cognitive faculties were the result of naturalistic evolution, then they would not be reliable. Since they are reliable, then either naturalism is false, evolution is false, or they're both false. Here's the syllogism:
1. If N&E are true, then our cognitive faculties are unreliable.
2. Our cognitive faculties are not unreliable.
3. Therefore, either N is false, E is false, or they're both false.
But that's not how Plantinga responded. I'd tell you how he responded, but I don't remember.
Another objection I remember was that although it's easy to come up with individual cases of where a false belief might produce adaptive behavior, it doesn't follow that our beliefs could be systematically false and still result in adaptive behavior. Now this, I kind of agreed with. One of the problems I had with Plantinga's argument before I read this book is that it just seemed likely to me that, as a whole, true beliefs are more likely to produce adaptive behavior than false beliefs, even if it turns out that in some cases, false beliefs might produce adaptive behavior. Because cognitive faculties don't just produce individual beliefs. They produce kinds of beliefs.
In the past, Plantinga has responded to this kind of argument by giving an example of how a systematically false kind of belief can still result in adaptive behavior. For example, suppose you believed that everything was a witch, including inanimate objects. Your cat is a witch, your car is a witch, etc. You might believe that witch hamburger is tasty or that witch girl is a cutie and none of these beliefs would result in behavior that was any different than if you didn't have these beliefs. So almost all of your beliefs would be false, but they would still result in adaptive behavior.
One of the critics pointed out that all of these false beliefs can be broken down into true and false beliefs. For example, "That witch hamburger is tasty," can be broken down into, "That object is a witch," and "That object is a kind of hamburger," and "That object tastes good." So you've got two true beliefs and one false belief.
I want to stray away from this book a little now and share a thought I've had for a while since I first heard Plantinga's argument. I've noticed that in a lot of debates between theists and atheists over morality that atheists will explain our morality by appealing to evolution, or at least social evolution. Moral beliefs produce adaptive behavior. That's why we developed into moral creatures. There's no reason to suppose there's any divine law behind these moral instincts.
Think about that. Atheists who argue this way aren't saying that objective moral values emerged through evolution. Quite the opposite. They are denying the existence of objective moral values on the basis that our moral beliefs are the result of evolution. Essentially, they are conceding one of Plantinga's primary arguments--that if our belief-producing cognitive faculties are the result of evolution, then we cannot trust their reliability. It's because evolution produced our belief in morality that somehow calls their reliability into question. But if that's the case, then why stop at morality?
Which is more likely--that evolution would result in reliable belief-producing cognitive faculties or that it would result in unreliable belief-producing cognitive faculties? If reliable, then shouldn't we all embrace the existence objective moral values since that seems to be our most natural inclination? But if unreliable, then why not admit that our belief in naturalism and evolution are both irrational? In fact all of our beliefs are irrational?
But that brings me back to the book and a thought I had while reading it. This is another objection I had to Plantinga's argument. If it turns out that a person who believes in both naturalism and evolution is rationally obliged to believe that the reliability of their belief-producing cognitive faculties is low or inscrutable, then shouldn't they doubt that conclusion? It seems like if Plantinga's argument is sound, then a person could never rationally come to the conclusion that they are irrational because it would require them to reason rationally. How could they trust that naturalism and evolution are incompatible with the reliability of their cognitive faculties if their cognitive faculties are being called into question? Do you know what I'm saying?
Near the end of the book, I was happy to find that Plantinga noticed this problem, too, and he addressed it. He didn't really solve the problem so far as I could tell (or that I can remember). He just discussed it. It leads to an infinite loop.
That's about all I have to say. My apologies to Alvin Plantinga and all the essay writers for that book if I've butchered any of your views. I fully admit that I didn't understand everything I read. But it was really interesting! And I will probably read it again at some point.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
To evolve or not to evolve
When I first started this blog, the purpose was to be able to post thoughts that I had but hadn't necessarily given a lot of thought to just to get feedback. That way, I could refine my thoughts. But as I began to accumulate readers, I became reluctant to post just any ole thought I had. I kind of felt obliged to be right, and to put forth some effort to make sure I was right before I posted it. I got to where I didn't want to post anything unless I was prepared to defend it. But I didn't like that feeling because it defeated the purpose for which I started this blog. I didn't start this blog to evangelize or to convince other people of my point of view, but as time went on, that's what I ended up doing.
Well, today, I want to post a random thought I had while driving home from work one day.
Supposedly, we're all the result of natural selection acting on random mutations. But as people become more compassionate, and technology improves (especially medical technology), natural selection is sort of disabled. That's one of the criticism Friedrich Nietzsche had about Christianity. Because Christian morality is concerned with the weak, it allows the weak to prosper instead of being weeded out. And that, in turn, prevents the rise of the over-man--the next step in human evolution. We are unable to evolve as a species because we are helping the weak survive and reproduce. I don't think Nietzsche was the only person to recognize the problem. That's why the Nazi's were trying to exterminate Jews, gays, and everybody they thought were inferior. It was a way of helping natural selection do its job. It was more like unnatural selection, but it did what the Nazis thought natural selection was SUPPOSED to be doing, but was being kept from doing by Christian morality. And here in America, we had eugenics. At least we weren't trying to kill people. We were just sterilizing them to prevent them from reproducing. I know the Nazi's were influenced by Nietzsche. I don't know whether the Americans were.
Compassion won out, though. The good guys won the war, and eugenics was outlawed. So, for several decades, we have done everything we can to prevent mankind from evolving. And the better our medicinal capabilities become, the more stagnant our evolution will be. In fact, I'd say we've pretty much stopped it altogether. We're as far as we can get because we keep the sick and the weak alive, and they breed.
But I think that could change with this whole genome thing. I read an article recently that was talking about how it becomes cheaper and cheaper to sequence a human genome. I think the first time they did it, it cost something like $50,000. I don't remember what it was. But now, it can be done for something like $5000. And it's going to continue to get cheaper. And we're going to understand the genome much better in the future.
So this is what I think might happen. Sequencing the genome will become so cheap and so useful that pretty much everybody will have their own genome sequenced. It will allow them to anticipate sickness and disease, which in turn will allow them to prevent it. But there's another practical use in sequencing a person's genome. If everybody is doing it, then everybody is going to have a record. And with everybody having a record of the genome, it's just a matter of time that people are going to want to know what kind of genes their significant other has before they get married. After all, if they're going to have children, they're going to want the best. And since you might be a little more reluctant to have children with somebody who has inferior genes, or to have children if your genes are inferior, people with better genes might end up procreating more than people with inferior genes do. And people with inferior genes may find it more difficult to get married than people with good genes. If that happens, it can act as natural selection. People with inferior genes will be attenuated in the gene pool.
On the other hand, we don't need our genes necessarily to make it more difficult for us to reproduce. There are plenty of other factors you might look at that are more obvious. There are pretty people, ugly people, smart people, stupid people, confident people, shy people, healthy people, unhealthy people, lazy people, and industrious people. Nobody is being weeded out of the gene pool because ugly people can find other ugly people, stupid people can find other stupid people, etc. If everybody's genome is sequenced, then people with inferior genes will find other people with inferior genes. Nobody is going to be weeded out.
I don't know why shyness doesn't get weeded out of the gene pool. Shy people and confident people are like cat people and dog people. Dog people can go to the park with their dog and meet other dog people. Cat people can't do that. So it's easier for dog people to connect than it is for cat people to connect. In the same way, it's easier for confident people to connect than it is for shy people to connect. So you'd think shyness would get weeded out of the gene pool.
Of course shyness isn't necessarily the result of genes. To an extent, it can be the result of your environment. It's both, although with some people it has more to do with their genes and with other people it has more to do with their environment. But at least genetic shyness ought to be weeded out.
Another thing to think about is the fact that everybody has good traits and bad traits. A person may be ugly but make up for it with a charismatic personality. A person may be shy but make up for it by being a genius. Inferior traits ride piggy bag on superior traits. Since a person with inferior traits may be sought after because of their superior traits, those inferior traits will stay in the gene pool.
Well, today, I want to post a random thought I had while driving home from work one day.
Supposedly, we're all the result of natural selection acting on random mutations. But as people become more compassionate, and technology improves (especially medical technology), natural selection is sort of disabled. That's one of the criticism Friedrich Nietzsche had about Christianity. Because Christian morality is concerned with the weak, it allows the weak to prosper instead of being weeded out. And that, in turn, prevents the rise of the over-man--the next step in human evolution. We are unable to evolve as a species because we are helping the weak survive and reproduce. I don't think Nietzsche was the only person to recognize the problem. That's why the Nazi's were trying to exterminate Jews, gays, and everybody they thought were inferior. It was a way of helping natural selection do its job. It was more like unnatural selection, but it did what the Nazis thought natural selection was SUPPOSED to be doing, but was being kept from doing by Christian morality. And here in America, we had eugenics. At least we weren't trying to kill people. We were just sterilizing them to prevent them from reproducing. I know the Nazi's were influenced by Nietzsche. I don't know whether the Americans were.
Compassion won out, though. The good guys won the war, and eugenics was outlawed. So, for several decades, we have done everything we can to prevent mankind from evolving. And the better our medicinal capabilities become, the more stagnant our evolution will be. In fact, I'd say we've pretty much stopped it altogether. We're as far as we can get because we keep the sick and the weak alive, and they breed.
But I think that could change with this whole genome thing. I read an article recently that was talking about how it becomes cheaper and cheaper to sequence a human genome. I think the first time they did it, it cost something like $50,000. I don't remember what it was. But now, it can be done for something like $5000. And it's going to continue to get cheaper. And we're going to understand the genome much better in the future.
So this is what I think might happen. Sequencing the genome will become so cheap and so useful that pretty much everybody will have their own genome sequenced. It will allow them to anticipate sickness and disease, which in turn will allow them to prevent it. But there's another practical use in sequencing a person's genome. If everybody is doing it, then everybody is going to have a record. And with everybody having a record of the genome, it's just a matter of time that people are going to want to know what kind of genes their significant other has before they get married. After all, if they're going to have children, they're going to want the best. And since you might be a little more reluctant to have children with somebody who has inferior genes, or to have children if your genes are inferior, people with better genes might end up procreating more than people with inferior genes do. And people with inferior genes may find it more difficult to get married than people with good genes. If that happens, it can act as natural selection. People with inferior genes will be attenuated in the gene pool.
On the other hand, we don't need our genes necessarily to make it more difficult for us to reproduce. There are plenty of other factors you might look at that are more obvious. There are pretty people, ugly people, smart people, stupid people, confident people, shy people, healthy people, unhealthy people, lazy people, and industrious people. Nobody is being weeded out of the gene pool because ugly people can find other ugly people, stupid people can find other stupid people, etc. If everybody's genome is sequenced, then people with inferior genes will find other people with inferior genes. Nobody is going to be weeded out.
I don't know why shyness doesn't get weeded out of the gene pool. Shy people and confident people are like cat people and dog people. Dog people can go to the park with their dog and meet other dog people. Cat people can't do that. So it's easier for dog people to connect than it is for cat people to connect. In the same way, it's easier for confident people to connect than it is for shy people to connect. So you'd think shyness would get weeded out of the gene pool.
Of course shyness isn't necessarily the result of genes. To an extent, it can be the result of your environment. It's both, although with some people it has more to do with their genes and with other people it has more to do with their environment. But at least genetic shyness ought to be weeded out.
Another thing to think about is the fact that everybody has good traits and bad traits. A person may be ugly but make up for it with a charismatic personality. A person may be shy but make up for it by being a genius. Inferior traits ride piggy bag on superior traits. Since a person with inferior traits may be sought after because of their superior traits, those inferior traits will stay in the gene pool.
Saturday, April 03, 2010
resurrection and evolution: the irony
Jim: Resurrections are highly improbable events, so it's highly unlikely that Jesus was raised from the dead.
Bob: As for the probabilities of Jesus rising from the dead, yes its highly improbable--however we know that highly improbable things do happen. What are the statistical odds that you and I would be carrying on this conversation right now? What are the odds of someone being struck by lightning twice at different times in their life? What are the odds of someone winning the powerball lottery? All of these are statistically "off the chart" yet they happen.
Bob: It is highly improbable that life would evolve naturally, so it is unlikely that humans evolved.
Jim: As for the probabilities of live evolving naturally, yes its highly improbable--however we know that highly improbable things do happen. What are the statistical odds that you and I would be carrying on this conversation right now? What are the odds of someone being struck by lightning twice at different times in their life? What are the odds of someone winning the powerball lottery? All of these are statistically "off the chart" yet they happen.
Does anybody else see the irony? I suspect some people reading this may think I'm just making it up, but I can assure you I'm not. Jim's argument against resurrections comes up all the time, and usually David Hume is invoked. Bob's answer comes up all the time, too. Here's one example.
Bob's argument against evolution comes up all the time, too, in discussions of intelligent design, the origin of life, and the fine tuning of the universe to permit life. Jim's answer came up on a blog I saw just today (which is what prompted this post). In fact, I quoted it verbatim, which you can read in the comments here.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
ID/creation vs. evolution
Once again, I'm dipping my toe in an area I ought not due to lack of education. I just wanted to respond to an argument I've heard frequently when this subject comes up.
Critics of intelligent design or creationism will often say that IDers or creationists only offer arguments against evolution. They do not provide any positive evidence for their own point of view. The critics will then say that even if evolution were false, that would not make intelligent design or creationism true.
Whether IDers/creationists do provide positive evidence for their own point of view isn't my concern right now. I just want to respond to that last statement--that disproving evolution does not prove ID or evolution.
It seems to me that there's only two possibilities--either life was engineered somehow, or life arose through purely naturalistic means with no purpose behind it. I don't see how there could be any other possibility.
If life was engineered, then some sort of intelligent design is true.
If life came about through natural unguided processes, then it either came about gradually or all of a sudden. Now I don't think anybody is going to argue that a fully formed biological entity like a cat or a human just came together naturally all of a sudden with all of its parts in place. So if cats and humans emerged through a natural process, then it happened gradually.
Maybe it is due to lack of imagination on my part, but assuming life came about gradually through a natural process, the mechanisms of evolution (mutation and natural selection) are pretty much the only game in town. So one could make the following disjunctive syllogism:
1. Either ID/creation is true, or evolution is true.
2. Evolution is not true.
3. Therefore, ID/creation is true.
If ID/creation and evolution are the only possibilities, then any argument against one is an argument for the other. The only way to escape the argument is to come up with some third possibility. If there were a third possibility, then an argument against one view would not necessarily be an argument for another view since there would be two other possibilities.
But let's suppose there is some third possibility. As I argued above, the third possibility would have to be a natural process because either life was engineered or it wasn't. That's just the law of excluded middle. So we can form this argument:
1. Either ID, evolution, or X.
2. Not evolution.
3. Therefore, either ID or X.
So an argument against evolution wouldn't necessarily be an argument for ID since X might be true instead. But it would narrow the scope, and a person could make this argument:
1. Either ID or X
2. Not X
3. Therefore, ID.
Depending on what X is, a person could still work his way around to an argument for ID. Disproving evolution would just be the first step.
But before somebody offers an X in order to disprove the ID/creation vs. evolution disjunct, he's first got to make sure that X is a viable option. I mean if it turns out that X is less likely than ID/creation, then an argument against evolution is still going to work as an argument for ID/creation. In light of arguments against evolution, X will weaken the case for ID/creation in proportion to the probability of X. If ID is far more likely than X, then an argument against evolution makes ID far more likely. If X is just as likely as ID, then an argument against evolution makes ID and X equal alternative candidates. If X is more likely than ID, then an argument against evolution makes X more likely to be true.
You don't have to subscribe to ID, creationism, evolution, or X to make the point I'm making. I'd make this same point regardless of which I thought was true. It seems pretty obvious to me.
Critics of intelligent design or creationism will often say that IDers or creationists only offer arguments against evolution. They do not provide any positive evidence for their own point of view. The critics will then say that even if evolution were false, that would not make intelligent design or creationism true.
Whether IDers/creationists do provide positive evidence for their own point of view isn't my concern right now. I just want to respond to that last statement--that disproving evolution does not prove ID or evolution.
It seems to me that there's only two possibilities--either life was engineered somehow, or life arose through purely naturalistic means with no purpose behind it. I don't see how there could be any other possibility.
If life was engineered, then some sort of intelligent design is true.
If life came about through natural unguided processes, then it either came about gradually or all of a sudden. Now I don't think anybody is going to argue that a fully formed biological entity like a cat or a human just came together naturally all of a sudden with all of its parts in place. So if cats and humans emerged through a natural process, then it happened gradually.
Maybe it is due to lack of imagination on my part, but assuming life came about gradually through a natural process, the mechanisms of evolution (mutation and natural selection) are pretty much the only game in town. So one could make the following disjunctive syllogism:
1. Either ID/creation is true, or evolution is true.
2. Evolution is not true.
3. Therefore, ID/creation is true.
If ID/creation and evolution are the only possibilities, then any argument against one is an argument for the other. The only way to escape the argument is to come up with some third possibility. If there were a third possibility, then an argument against one view would not necessarily be an argument for another view since there would be two other possibilities.
But let's suppose there is some third possibility. As I argued above, the third possibility would have to be a natural process because either life was engineered or it wasn't. That's just the law of excluded middle. So we can form this argument:
1. Either ID, evolution, or X.
2. Not evolution.
3. Therefore, either ID or X.
So an argument against evolution wouldn't necessarily be an argument for ID since X might be true instead. But it would narrow the scope, and a person could make this argument:
1. Either ID or X
2. Not X
3. Therefore, ID.
Depending on what X is, a person could still work his way around to an argument for ID. Disproving evolution would just be the first step.
But before somebody offers an X in order to disprove the ID/creation vs. evolution disjunct, he's first got to make sure that X is a viable option. I mean if it turns out that X is less likely than ID/creation, then an argument against evolution is still going to work as an argument for ID/creation. In light of arguments against evolution, X will weaken the case for ID/creation in proportion to the probability of X. If ID is far more likely than X, then an argument against evolution makes ID far more likely. If X is just as likely as ID, then an argument against evolution makes ID and X equal alternative candidates. If X is more likely than ID, then an argument against evolution makes X more likely to be true.
You don't have to subscribe to ID, creationism, evolution, or X to make the point I'm making. I'd make this same point regardless of which I thought was true. It seems pretty obvious to me.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Emotivist objection to arguments for morality
Emotivism is the view that moral statements are subjective statements about a person's own attitudes toward behaviors. "Murder is wrong," is just another way of saying, "I hate murder."
One way moral objectivists try to persuade others of their point of view is by conjuring up the most heinous scenarios they can think of in hopes that the other person's moral intuitions will rise to the surface and they will realize that they already believe in objective morality. For example, they'll say things like, "If there are no objective moral values, then there's nothing really wrong with mother stabbing and father raping. It's just a matter of personal preference or social convention." Few people are willing to bite the bullet and say there's nothing really wrong with mother stabbing and father raping, so they are expected to admit that there really are objective morals. That is a tactic Greg Koukl advocates in Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air.
Some people object to this tactic on the basis that it makes a false appeal to emotions. All it does is manipulate people by stirring up their emotions. It doesn't follow that because you have very negative feelings about something that it's therefore wrong. So it's unfair to use people's emotions, bypassing their rationality, in order to convince them of objective morality. My friend, Angie, made a similar point in Conversations with Angie after reading Relativism.
When I reflect about my own moral intuitions and the emotions that are sometimes associated with them, it seems obvious to me that they are not the same thing. It could be that my emotions are causing me to think things are right or wrong, or it could be that my sense of right and wrong is causing me to be emotional about something, but my emotions and my moral intuitions seem obviously distinct.
For one thing, emotions do not have propositional content, but moral imperatives do. My sense that "People should not be mean to each other," is different than the emotion I feel when people are mean to each other. I don't just feel bad about certain actions. I think they're wrong. There's a difference.
It's not perfectly clear to me which is the cause and which is the effect, though. I can imagine that even if I didn't think something was wrong, I might still get emotional about it. I may think there's nothing wrong with being mean to people, but still not want people to do it just because I care about people. If so, then I'd get emotional about it even if I didn't think it was wrong. On the other hand, I may have an intellectual conviction that it's wrong for people to be mean to each other, but not really care whether they are because I don't care about people.
Greg Koukl thinks people already know certain things are wrong, but maybe they don't realize it because they haven't thought about it or been confronted with it. Getting their emotions riled up is a way of getting them to notice their moral intuitions. So in his view, your emotions don't cause you to think things are wrong. They just make you notice that you already think they are wrong.
They awaken your moral intuitions. Thinking that something wrong is what causes you to get emotional about it.
There are two more reasons I have a problem with emotivism--equating our emotions with our moral intuitions. First, if they were the same thing, then there should be a correlation between the strength of the emotion and the gravity of the sin. The stronger you felt about something, the more wrong you would think it was, and vice versa. But that is clearly not the case. You would probably feel far more anger and hurt if somebody murdered your own child than you would if you read about some child being murdered in some other country who you've never met. But you would think both murders were equally wrong.
Second, it's possible to think something is wrong and not be emotional about it. And, it's possible to be emotional about something and not think it's wrong. A person on death row may feel quite a bit of anger and sorrow about his fate, and yet not think anything wrong was being done to him. In fact, he may feel resentment and still think he is getting what he deserves. A person may think premarital sex is wrong, but feel really good about it and even be happy for people who are engaging in it. And if somebody's immoral activity benefits us in some way, we may think the other person did something wrong but still be quite thankful that they did it.
One way moral objectivists try to persuade others of their point of view is by conjuring up the most heinous scenarios they can think of in hopes that the other person's moral intuitions will rise to the surface and they will realize that they already believe in objective morality. For example, they'll say things like, "If there are no objective moral values, then there's nothing really wrong with mother stabbing and father raping. It's just a matter of personal preference or social convention." Few people are willing to bite the bullet and say there's nothing really wrong with mother stabbing and father raping, so they are expected to admit that there really are objective morals. That is a tactic Greg Koukl advocates in Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air.
Some people object to this tactic on the basis that it makes a false appeal to emotions. All it does is manipulate people by stirring up their emotions. It doesn't follow that because you have very negative feelings about something that it's therefore wrong. So it's unfair to use people's emotions, bypassing their rationality, in order to convince them of objective morality. My friend, Angie, made a similar point in Conversations with Angie after reading Relativism.
When I reflect about my own moral intuitions and the emotions that are sometimes associated with them, it seems obvious to me that they are not the same thing. It could be that my emotions are causing me to think things are right or wrong, or it could be that my sense of right and wrong is causing me to be emotional about something, but my emotions and my moral intuitions seem obviously distinct.
For one thing, emotions do not have propositional content, but moral imperatives do. My sense that "People should not be mean to each other," is different than the emotion I feel when people are mean to each other. I don't just feel bad about certain actions. I think they're wrong. There's a difference.
It's not perfectly clear to me which is the cause and which is the effect, though. I can imagine that even if I didn't think something was wrong, I might still get emotional about it. I may think there's nothing wrong with being mean to people, but still not want people to do it just because I care about people. If so, then I'd get emotional about it even if I didn't think it was wrong. On the other hand, I may have an intellectual conviction that it's wrong for people to be mean to each other, but not really care whether they are because I don't care about people.
Greg Koukl thinks people already know certain things are wrong, but maybe they don't realize it because they haven't thought about it or been confronted with it. Getting their emotions riled up is a way of getting them to notice their moral intuitions. So in his view, your emotions don't cause you to think things are wrong. They just make you notice that you already think they are wrong.
They awaken your moral intuitions. Thinking that something wrong is what causes you to get emotional about it.
There are two more reasons I have a problem with emotivism--equating our emotions with our moral intuitions. First, if they were the same thing, then there should be a correlation between the strength of the emotion and the gravity of the sin. The stronger you felt about something, the more wrong you would think it was, and vice versa. But that is clearly not the case. You would probably feel far more anger and hurt if somebody murdered your own child than you would if you read about some child being murdered in some other country who you've never met. But you would think both murders were equally wrong.
Second, it's possible to think something is wrong and not be emotional about it. And, it's possible to be emotional about something and not think it's wrong. A person on death row may feel quite a bit of anger and sorrow about his fate, and yet not think anything wrong was being done to him. In fact, he may feel resentment and still think he is getting what he deserves. A person may think premarital sex is wrong, but feel really good about it and even be happy for people who are engaging in it. And if somebody's immoral activity benefits us in some way, we may think the other person did something wrong but still be quite thankful that they did it.
Monday, March 15, 2010
What's wrong with replacement theology?
I don't know if "replacement theology" is a technical term or if it's just a term of derision. I've only heard it used by people who don't approve of it. I've heard people describe replacement theology who seem to agree with it, but they don't call it "replacement theology." I don't know what they call it. I'm not very well read on covenant theology and all those different theological options.
Anywho, I tend to lean toward replacement theology as I understand it. I'm not going to explain why in this blog. I just wanted to share a thought I had the other day.
Let's suppose, hypothetically, that a whole mass of gentiles all converted to Judaism. And then all the people who were Jews before came to believe that Jesus was the messiah, in which case, they're not Jews anymore. (Just about every Jew I've talked to has told me that when a Jew believes in Jesus, they are no longer a Jew.) Now the only Jews are people who were gentiles before. Wouldn't that be a kind of replacement?
Anywho, I tend to lean toward replacement theology as I understand it. I'm not going to explain why in this blog. I just wanted to share a thought I had the other day.
Let's suppose, hypothetically, that a whole mass of gentiles all converted to Judaism. And then all the people who were Jews before came to believe that Jesus was the messiah, in which case, they're not Jews anymore. (Just about every Jew I've talked to has told me that when a Jew believes in Jesus, they are no longer a Jew.) Now the only Jews are people who were gentiles before. Wouldn't that be a kind of replacement?
Can there really be alternate realities?
I think "alternate realities" is a contradiction in terms because if there are two different realities, and they are both real, well then there's not two realities. There's just one reality that has two parts. If there really were two different realities, then one of them is not real because if they're both real, then there's just one reality.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Why we talk past each other
I've noticed a bad habit that it seems nobody is immune to, and I think it explains why we talk past each other. We all have standard ways of responding to particular arguments, and we become so used to responding in a particular way that it becomes automatic. But every now and then, somebody will make an argument that is similar to the one we've got an automatic answer to. Since we've heard the argument a million times before, we don't notice the subtle difference in what is being presented to us. We don't listen carefully. We just give our pat answer. And then the other person gets frustrated because our answer doesn't really deal with the argument they gave.
I think that is probably why atheists so often misrepresent the moral argument. That is something that has baffled me for quite some time because in a lot of debates I've seen, the Christians are always very careful to nip the common misunderstanding in the bud, but they are never successful. Their atheist opponent still misconstrues the argument when they respond to it. And even when they are corrected, they continue to misconstrue it the next time they have a debate with a Christian who brings up the same argument.
I guess there probably are a lot of Christians who have said atheists can't be moral, so whenever an atheist hears anything like the moral argument for God, their knee-jerk reaction is to respond to the accusation that atheists can't be moral. They don't notice that no such accusation is made in the moral argument because when Christians argue that there can be no objective morals if there is no god, it sounds similar enough to the accusation that atheists have heard before.
That's just one example. I see it happen all the time. I'm not just saying atheists do this, either. Like I said, this is a problem I've noticed that nobody is immune to. I've heard Christian talk show hosts do it when people call in. It makes me wonder how many times I've done it. I do generally try to listen carefully to what somebody is saying before I respond to them, but that can be tedious.
Sometimes I feel a little anxious whenever I present an argument to somebody. I feel like I've got to spell the argument out as fast as I can before I'm interrupted with a response based on a misunderstanding. That's why I prefer written dialogue to spoken dialogue. Solomon said, "He who gives an answer before he hears, it is folly and shame to him" (Proverbs 18:13). Let's try to avoid the folly, shall we? Maybe we can have productive conversations if we just try a little harder to make sure we understand each other before we respond. And if we're just feeling too lazy to make sure we understand, maybe we shouldn't bother to respond.
I think that is probably why atheists so often misrepresent the moral argument. That is something that has baffled me for quite some time because in a lot of debates I've seen, the Christians are always very careful to nip the common misunderstanding in the bud, but they are never successful. Their atheist opponent still misconstrues the argument when they respond to it. And even when they are corrected, they continue to misconstrue it the next time they have a debate with a Christian who brings up the same argument.
I guess there probably are a lot of Christians who have said atheists can't be moral, so whenever an atheist hears anything like the moral argument for God, their knee-jerk reaction is to respond to the accusation that atheists can't be moral. They don't notice that no such accusation is made in the moral argument because when Christians argue that there can be no objective morals if there is no god, it sounds similar enough to the accusation that atheists have heard before.
That's just one example. I see it happen all the time. I'm not just saying atheists do this, either. Like I said, this is a problem I've noticed that nobody is immune to. I've heard Christian talk show hosts do it when people call in. It makes me wonder how many times I've done it. I do generally try to listen carefully to what somebody is saying before I respond to them, but that can be tedious.
Sometimes I feel a little anxious whenever I present an argument to somebody. I feel like I've got to spell the argument out as fast as I can before I'm interrupted with a response based on a misunderstanding. That's why I prefer written dialogue to spoken dialogue. Solomon said, "He who gives an answer before he hears, it is folly and shame to him" (Proverbs 18:13). Let's try to avoid the folly, shall we? Maybe we can have productive conversations if we just try a little harder to make sure we understand each other before we respond. And if we're just feeling too lazy to make sure we understand, maybe we shouldn't bother to respond.
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