Ethics and morality without religion

Posted on August 19, 2011 by Michael

There are two tactics believers take in regard to the ability to act ethically and morally. The most common is to say that one needs God and/or religion in order to do so. It’s a weak argument that is easily defeated again and again. For instance, Japan has reported rates of atheism near 64%. Another 20% on top of that claim no religious affiliation. Yet they act far and above what we see in many other parts of the world, including the hyper-religious US:

The earthquake and tsunami that walloped Japan left much of its coastline ravaged, but left one thing intact: the Japanese reputation for honesty.

In the five months since the disaster struck, people have turned in thousands of wallets found in the debris, containing $48 million in cash.

More than 5,700 safes that washed ashore along Japan’s tsunami-ravaged coast have also been hauled to police centers by volunteers and search and rescue crews. Inside those safes officials found $30 million in cash. One safe alone, contained the equivalent of $1 million.

The other tactic is to say, why, of course people can be good without believing in God or having a religion. After all, God has instilled within all of us a seed of morality. Believers then usually cite some noise Scripture as proof. It’s a vaguely clever argument in that it gets around the issue of being proven wrong so incredibly easily, but that is the real problem: it can’t be falsified. It is based upon the Bible and is therefore necessarily a faith based claim. Since the Bible provides no internal methods for deciding if what is says is true or not, not to mention the fact that there is no evidence for a key ingredient to the argument anyway (God), this is just a random claim that carries with it exactly zero weight. It’s not even an argument.

Filed under: Philosophy, Religions | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

Renowned academics talk about God

Posted on July 27, 2011 by Michael

This is fantastic.

via PZ

Filed under: Atheism/Humanism, Philosophy, Science | Tagged: | 3 Comments »

And an abuse of philisophy

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Michael

Given my need to use a link within a recent post, I clicked over to Punching Bag Neil’s site. I found one of his traditional trolling Red Herring Theist posts where he says atheists have no grounding for atheism. Quoting another Red Herring Theist, he poses this question:

Here are some questions you can ask Richard Dawkins (and by extension any new atheist) the next time you sit next to him on a bus:…

• What makes your moral standard more than a subjective opinion or personal preference? What makes it truly binding or obligatory? Why can’t I just ignore it? Won’t our end be the same (death and the grave) either way?

I know Neil has this nasty habit of insulating himself from most outside criticism – it’s a common thing in the Christian blogosphere – but I would like to turn the question back on him and his silly little Christian brethren. What makes your moral standards more than subjective? How do you objectively know God exists? How do you objectively know anything in the Bible is true? Are you God himself? If not, then what method are you using to get outside yourself? After all, if you’re using a human brain to interpret anything, you can’t possibly be doing something which is not 100% subjective.

So why are you raising yourself to the level of God, Neil? Aren’t you being disrespectful to your particular, cultural icon?

Filed under: Philosophy | Tagged: , , , | 7 Comments »

Jack Kevorkian is dead

Posted on June 3, 2011 by Michael

It’s the end of a tremendously ethical man:

Jack Kevorkian built his suicide machine using parts gathered from flea markets and stashed it in a rusty Volkswagen van.

But it was Kevorkian’s audacious attitude that set him apart in the debate over whether gravely ill people could seek help ending their lives. The retired pathologist who said he oversaw the deaths of 130 people burned state orders against him, showed up at court in costume and dared authorities to stop him or make his actions legal. He didn’t give up until he was sent to prison.

Kevorkian, who died Friday at a Michigan hospital at 83, insisted suicide with the help of a medical professional was a civil right.

The justifications for assisted suicide hold up – and they’re consistent. The justification for harvesting the organs of the brain dead, or for allowing those in comas to die with dignity, or even for administering morphine, is fundamentally the same across the board. It is not quantity of life that matters, but rather quality. Kevorkian recognized that where so many were so stubbornly blind and ignorant. He will be missed.

“You’ll hear people say, `Well, [physician assisted suicide] in the news again, it’s time for discussing this further.’ No, it isn’t. It’s been discussed to death,” he told The Associated Press. “There’s nothing new to say about it. It’s a legitimate, ethical medical practice as it was in ancient Rome and Greece.”

Filed under: News, Philosophy, Politics and Social | Tagged: | 15 Comments »

The poverty of Christian arguments

Posted on May 15, 2011 by Michael

In a recent thought of the day, I said this:

I have yet to see a good argument for God in the 21st century. There were arguments that worked when we didn’t have the same facts we have now, but ever since the Enlightenment every argument for God has been a radical failure.

I posted that link to my Facebook page and got a response from a Christian. He pointed out three arguments that he says he has never seen refuted. They are:

  • the Cosmological Argument
  • the Teleological Argument
  • the Moral Argument

I’ve addressed all of these arguments on FTSOS in some way or another, and I’ve gone to length at least on the Cosmological Argument. I’m going to quickly go over their obvious flaws again.

Cosmological Argument: This argument says that everything which has a beginning has a cause. It then applies this concept to a point ‘prior’ to the Big Bang and assigns God as being the first cause of everything. Also, in order to avoid an infinite regress, believers arbitrarily declare that God is eternal. First, why make God eternal? Why not do the same for Nature, at least in some form, and cut out the middle man? Second – and this is the more important point – this argument uses facts derived of the Universe and then applies those facts outside the Universe. This makes for a dismal failure of an argument, don’t you think? After all, how can anyone know that properties of the Universe existed ‘prior’ to the Universe? In fact, what we do know is that all of these properties break down if we go back far enough in time. So what believers are arguing is that these properties exist eternally outside the Universe, then when the Universe was in its very first moments of existence they stopped to exist, then they resumed existing. And they’re doing all this without even knowing anything about what existed ‘prior’ to the Big Bang.

Teleological Argument: This is the argument that says there is evidence of design in life and everything (or at least humanity) has a purpose. It is little more than an argument from ignorance that morphs into a pathetic God of the Gaps argument. There is no evidence of design anywhere outside the actions and behaviors of animals. Anyone who has seriously studied any field of hard science knows this and rejects the teleological argument for that reason.

Moral Argument: This is the argument that says the existence of objective morality is evidence for God. I find this to be one of the worst arguments out there. In most cases, it is ultimately circular. Theists have to invoke an objective source in order to maintain that objective morality exists. That is, they say God exists because objective morality exists, yet they know objective morality exists because God exists. Alternatively, they have to say that objective morality simply exists and is outside God. If that is the case, then they haven’t given any evidence for God. That is, they’ve stated in their very premise that objective morality has nothing to do with God.

So I’m still waiting for at least one good argument for God.

Filed under: Philosophy | Tagged: , , | 4 Comments »

Philosophical trolling

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Michael

I was poking around at YH&C when I read a post about bin Laden’s death. I liked that post, but within it was a Bryan Caplan article that asked what’s wrong with revenge? Expecting an interesting read, I found myself looking at a little philosophical troll:

My point: Bring up revenge, and most people get upset and speak in platitudes. I’d like to know: What’s wrong with revenge?

They do that because it would be tedious to justify every last point down to the tiniest detail. Imagine making an argument about the proper punishment for rapists when some troll swings on by and starts asking “but what’s wrong with rape?!”

To be more specific: Suppose X is the most severe morally acceptable punishment for act Y committed by person Z. Suppose that the government fails to do anything about Y. What’s wrong if a person personally affected by act Y does X to Z?

This fails to get at the heart of Caplan’s concern. He wants to know what’s wrong with revenge, but the scenario he’s proposing does not necessarily entail revenge. If imprisonment for 5 years is the most severe and morally acceptable punishment for an act someone committed and the government fails to act, it is not inherently revenge for me to put that person in my own prison (even if the act personally affected me).

I won’t accept “No one has the right to take the law into his own hands” as an answer. I want to hear some reasons why no one has this right.

Too bad. That’s the heart of the proposition. Of course, we know from the title of the article and the preceding paragraphs that Caplan didn’t mean to say what he did, but here we are.

A few possibilities:

1. “Maybe Z didn’t really do Y.” This is an argument against misguided revenge, not revenge per se.

As pointed out earlier, this assumes that taking the laws into one’s own hand is inherently revenge. It isn’t.

2. “The person might inflict more than X on Z for doing Y.” Again, this is an argument against excessive revenge, not revenge per se.

Again, assumes revenge that has not been shown. Just as with number 1, this objection gets to the heart of what Caplan actually proposed, not what he meant to propose.

3. “Revenge leads to chaos and/or multiple rounds of reprisal.” This seems unduly alarmist. Most people are cowards, and punishing heinous acts is a public good. Even if “justified revenge” were an affirmative legal defense, few people would take advantange (sic) of it. Indeed, if anything, the market under-supplies revenge.

This is a non-sequitur in reference to the original scenario given by Caplan, but it does get back to what he meant to address. Yet he still misses the mark. Let’s grant that this objection is too alarmist. Is it entirely false, though? Does revenge lead to unnecessary secondary effects, even if they are not wide-spread? And are we willing to accept those consequences? Caplan assumes we are so long as they are for a greater public good. This, however, does not necessarily address the morality of incurring those effects. That is, take the issue of spanking. One argument in favor of spanking one’s own children is that it keeps them in line and teaches them discipline. Yet as frequent readers of FTSOS I know, I detest that argument. The issue is not over effectiveness, but right and wrong. As I said in a previous post, shooting a baby in the face will be effective to get it to stop crying, but that is wholly irrelevant to whether or not that is an okay act.

4. “X, the most severe morally acceptable punishment, is zero.” Besides being crazy, this is an argument against any system of criminal justice, not just revenge. Ever seen the bumper sticker “Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing is wrong?” You could just as easily have a bumper sticker saying “Why do we imprison people who imprison people to show that imprisoning is wrong?”

The first part of this is a pure strawman. The second part – which is apparently an effort to keep up the non-sequiturs – is two arguments which are not parallel. Both are actually good questions and require individual justifications. The first question has two main justifications. First, if one does not value life at all times, murder away. Second, it is better to destroy one life for the good of the whole. I don’t think many people really want to glom onto the first option, and the second option loses its gusto once one sees the complete lack of need to murder a shackled guy who is behind bars. The second question can use the same two justifications, substituting “liberty” for “life”. If one does not value liberty at all times, imprison away. Or, if it is better to limit the liberty of one for good of the whole, then there is a justification. We tend to use that last one (and it doesn’t lose its gusto).

There are other anti-revenge arguments, but I doubt they’ll fare much better. (Feel free to disagree in the comments…) What’s interesting to me is that while most people officially condemn all acts of revenge, 80% of all action movies depict revenge as not only morally acceptable, but morally required. Sin City is an extreme case, but its stance is mainstream. In the latest Die Hard sequel (thumbs down, BTW), for example, Bruce Willis keeps saying that he’s going to find the bad guys and “Kill them” – not “Kill them if I must do so in self-defense.”

It’s poetic justice. That is not synonymous with unqualified justice.

The reason why there is something wrong with revenge is that it is a purely emotional response. In a system of law, or for those who simply value rationality, reasoning is necessary to form our responses. Indeed, the very idea of “justice” necessarily relies upon the notion that what is right and wrong has a rational basis. That rational basis extends to how we respond to wrongs; if we do away with our reasoning, we are inherently operating outside the bounds of justice – even if our actions happen to agree with it anyway.

Filed under: Philosophy | Tagged: , , , , | 10 Comments »

It’s all subjective

Posted on April 10, 2011 by Michael

I find it frustrating when theists repeat over and over that atheists have no basis for morality. It’s an immature view that misunderstands both atheism and morality. The argument goes something like this:

Morality must be grounded. The only way it can be grounded is if it comes from somewhere outside humanity (at a minimum). Only a higher power can provide for such objectivity. Thus, atheism provides for no objective morality.

There are several problems here. First, I worded the summary specifically, so take note: It starts out talking about morality but then makes a switch to objective morality. This characterizes the number one mistake theists make, and it isn’t goal post moving. What they’re doing is assuming morality must be objective when talking about it in the first place. It’s classic Question Begging. (Goal post moving entails knowing where the goal posts are in the first place.) Second, so what if they’re right? If we follow the argument, it’s going to end in God. But did God tell them what argument to follow? How do they know their argument is right? Even if they can be highly certain, apply scientific standards to their process, and not a single person can find a flaw in their steps, they are still making an argument that necessarily lacks 100% certainty (just like every argument ever made). In other words, they have come to their conclusion via their own perspectives, via their own values, via their own reasoning, via their own abilities. At every point they have been arguing subjectively. Even if they are right, no one can objectively confirm as much.

So where does this leave us? Well, on a pretty level playing field. Once my argument is understood, a theist can no longer say he has an objective grounding for morality. He doesn’t. No one does. The best we can do is argue from our common needs and values. Fortunately, thanks to evolution, we have a lot of overlap there. That gives us a basis for talking about morality; indeed, it has been the basis of morality since the beginning of humanity and before.

Filed under: Philosophy | Tagged: , , | 5 Comments »

Rhetoric

Posted on February 22, 2011 by Michael

When most people hear the word rhetoric, they think it’s all just empty baloney. It isn’t. Most of the rhetoric we experience of which we are aware comes from our politics, and sure, it isn’t always the best, but there’s some good stuff out there. I could literally offer millions of examples, but I want to focus on two that I think are especially good (in terms of being good rhetoric).

The first is the “Is Obama a U.S. citizen?” question out there. The number of Republicans who don’t think he is fluctuates between 30-55%. That’s amazing for such a stupid question, but there’s good reason for it. Pay attention to what the Republicans keep saying. Even when they agree that President Obama is from Hawaii, they sneak in a little bit of doubt. “Yeah, I take the President at his word.” Sure, you do. And even when they don’t fiddle with weasel words and phrases, it’s still great rhetoric. By simply bringing the issue up again and again they convey that there is doubt out there; by denying the point they actually bolster it.

Another great example is with Dubya. I know, I know. He wasn’t exactly known for eloquent speech, but that’s part of his rhetoric, purposeful or not. He would routinely repeat phrases about safety and strength and courage, even when he wasn’t making any grammatical sense. All that mattered was that people heard a few key words; I did something similar when I kept repeating “boy-rape” in a recent post (though my sentence structure stands up). Or when Dubya spoke to Evangelicals, he would begin most of his sentences with “and”, reflecting Biblical writings (“And the Lord said it was good”). He knew his audience. His rhetoric there was no accident.

But there’s bad rhetoric out there, too. And lo, not just the political variety. (Okay, maybe appealing to a religious audience isn’t going to be useful on this blog.) This classic is one we’ve all heard:

Junior: But Billy and everyone else is doing it!

Mom: If Billy and everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you? You aren’t going.

Now, the proper logical response would be to point out that this is a reductio ad absurdum. Just because Junior wants to do some of the same things as his friends does not mean he would also want to jump off a bridge. Mom has committed a logical fallacy. Junior might appeal to emotion and point out how left out he’s going to be when he goes to school Monday morning and everyone is talking about what they did Saturday afternoon. He probably won’t win, but it’s his best shot using rhetoric. He could also try pointing out the logical fallacy, but that might be a bit over his head, methinks. Besides, superior logic from children isn’t usually received well. Junior needs to know his audience: Mom.

I think the fairest way to frame my relationship with rhetoric is that it’s love-hate. I love to see its effective use, even if it sometimes ends up in people believing dumb things. But at the same time, what makes rhetoric effective isn’t whether or not it’s true; what matters is if it convinces one’s audience. That means something like this blog or The God Delusion will probably fail to change the hearts and minds of any hardcore theist, but the people out there on the fence who value logos might find one or both persuasive, or the atheists who feel religion deserves a gentle hand may become uncomfortable with continuing with any undue respect. It is those people who are the primary audience and so it is by them that the rhetoric here or in The God Delusion must be measured.

What I find especially unfortunate about rhetoric (this is the big hate part of the relationship) is that people just aren’t very good at using it. Take a look at the comment Nate deleted from his blog.

Hey nate,

By reading your blog I have learned that Kirk Cameron is not the dumbest Christian on earth.
Congratulations. Sorry there’s no prize money.

This is simply bad. This person is making a comment on a blog that will be viewed by an audience that will likely agree with Nate more than disagree. There is no appeal in issuing an insult, especially when it is devoid of any substance around it. Okay, great, some guy on the Internet thinks someone else is dumb. Does that knowledge get us anywhere? It’s this sort of garbage that makes people think negative things when they even hear the word “rhetoric”; it rises to the level of “Yo Mama” jokes. Anyone offended by those jokes is an idiot. Anyone impressed with that rhetoric is a mook.

Rhetoric is an art form. It is there to persuade a particular audience to think one way (or at least not think the other way). When it’s empty, it’s ugly. When it’s abused, it’s offensive. When it’s noticed, it’s appreciated.

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Greed and libertarianism

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Michael

Charles and David Koch are two of the wealthiest men in the world. They’ve funded a vast number of projects, especially in New York, and it would be hard to say boo to a lot of what they’ve done: they’ve restored theaters, supported museums, and even funded cancer centers. This has all been at whopping costs, ranging into the hundreds of millions of dollars. But this is just the stuff that’s going to be mentioned in their eulogies.

The Koch brothers have also channeled millions and millions of dollars into efforts to deny reality. They’ve fought many Democratic policies tooth and nail, giving sly support (i.e., funding) to the Tea Party movement, and it’s all been done in the guise of libertarianism. The reality is much different.

In a study released this spring, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a “kingpin of climate science denial.” The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies—from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program—that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus.

They have even gone so far as to fund an exhibit on evolution (good) in an effort to deny the significance of global warming (bad).

Underlying the libertarian ideology of the Koch brothers is greed. Given the massive revenues of Koch Industries ($100 billion annually), it ought to be surprising, but it really isn’t. Libertarianism has its root in the positive ideals of liberty and freedom, but it almost always is taken too far, taken to a point where it causes obvious harm. In this case, the Koch brothers are using their ideology to motivate a sizable portion of the country to do their biding, including: reducing government help for the needy, polluting the planet, and harming our infrastructure. No one wants these things. No one wants people to be needy, no one wants pollution, no one wants bad roads and bridges. The pragmatic (i.e., reasonable) position is to find a middle ground which allows us to afford all these good things while making sure we aren’t harming jobs and other necessities. Given the $100 billion in annual revenue, I would say Koch Industries doesn’t particularly need any more “liberty”; it has been thriving just fine within our current system. (And I suspect it would continue to thrive even if it didn’t skirt laws and undermine reality.) Pragmatism, in this case, tells us there is no need to further enrich the Koch brothers; if anything, they ought to be taxed more.

Of course, this all is somewhat a misrepresentation of libertarianism. The reality is that very few people actually adhere to such an abhorrent ideology because, like with all ideologies, it quickly reaches a point of ridiculousness and harm. Who can name an actual libertarian politician in America, after all? Rand Paul is the closest, but when he maintained his ideology and said people ought to be able to deny black people service, there was an uproar – even among Teabaggers. Unfortunately for all the so-called libertarians, Paul was perfectly in line with the ideology. It wasn’t that he said black people ought to be denied service. In fact, it’s unfathomable that he believes that. What he said was that people ought to have the right to deny others service. That is libertarianism. Sorry if facts rub you the wrong way, Teabaggers.

Besides that, most so-called libertarian Teabaggers are really just far right-wing conservatives who only favor economic libertarianism. Don’t believe me? Go to the nearest rally on April 15th and start asking how many Teabaggers think gay marriage ought to be legal. Or go far enough south and see how many still favor anti-sodomy laws. I doubt the spirit of libertarianism will be so buoyant at that point. And the reason is simple: libertarianism is a convenient excuse for greed. That is why it is so selectively applied to economic issues. People aren’t adhering to a bad ideology because they think it’s good. They’re adhering to a bad ideology because they think it’s good for their wallets.

There isn’t anything inherently bad about wanting personal wealth and success. You want it? You can get it? Go nuts. But if it’s done at the expense of the poor, of the middle class, even of other wealthy people (that last one is a stretch), then tough. Too bad. Back off. There is something inherently bad about wanting personal wealth and success when it makes the poor poorer, when it increases the income gap, when it makes workers weaker, when it harms the overall economy, when it’s done in an unfair way. We all want to see poor people rise up, we all want to see the middle class increase, we all want to see workers have control over their well being, we all want to see a strong economy, we all want to see a fundamental fairness in our system. Following a sloppy, or even worse, a stringent, libertarian ideology gets us further and further away from all that.

Filed under: Philosophy, Politics and Social | Tagged: , , , , , | 8 Comments »

Hey, look at that

Posted on October 11, 2010 by Michael

I’ve said in the past that one of the most powerful tools in philosophy is the thought experiment. As it so happens, even the U.S. military seems to agree with me, specifically teaching the classic trolley problem to West Point students.

These cadets are being taught to make moral decisions for themselves, not to follow rules blindly. There are risks in creating a generation of philosopher-­soldiers. One instructor I spoke to, Major Danny Cazier, acknowledged this but told me that “the pay-off is too high to pass on.” He says it is vital that when soldiers are in a terrifying battlefield situation, they don’t lose sight of “the fundamental principles that a person believes in, and which guide his actions. And those principles need to have been conditioned by considerations like the trolley problem.” The cadets agree. They’ll soon head off to perform their duty—the trolley problem is heading to Kandahar.

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