If there is nothing beyond the material universe, judgments of right and wrong are no more informative than pan-hoots.
says “news” at Uncommon Descent. Well, I have no idea what a pan-hoot is, but presumably it is a not-informative thing.
Denyse (I assume it is she) writes this as her very odd (to my mind) response to a piece of very old news (11 years old!) – some rather touching thoughts by David Attenborough reported in the Sydney Morning Herald (not that “news” gives a primary citation):
It might seem unusual that so many of his viewers insist on an Edenic worldview when Attenborough has spent 50 years showing them something very different indeed. Even more unusual, and not a little frustrating for Attenborough, is that viewers reject, often aggressively, his expositions on evolution in favour of Creationism.
“It is something I get frequent letters about,” he says. “They always start with sweet reasonableness, you know, ‘We love your programs, isn’t nature marvellous’, and so on. But they always go on to say, ‘We do wonder why it is that you don’t give credit to the almighty God who created each one of these species individually.’
“My response,” he says, “is that when Creationists talk about God creating every individual species as a separate act, they always instance hummingbirds, or orchids, sunflowers and beautiful things. But I tend to think instead of a parasitic worm that is boring through the eye of a boy sitting on the bank of a river in West Africa, [a worm] that’s going to make him blind. And [I ask them], ‘Are you telling me that the God you believe in, who you also say is an all-merciful God, who cares for each one of us individually, are you saying that God created this worm that can live in no other way than in an innocent child’s eyeball? Because that doesn’t seem to me to coincide with a God who’s full of mercy’.”
It’s a very good question. It’s not an argument against Design (as it is often implied to be) its a simple question:, IF we found evidence parasitic worms were designed, why would we identify their designer with an all-merciful God?
But Denyse does not attempt to answer it. Instead we have this very odd assertion that “if the boy is just an evolved primate” that there would be “nothing noteworthy about his fate” – that somehow, failing to conclude that a Designer designed the worm logically entails not finding anything noteworthy about the child whose blindness is caused by it.
Because, apparently, “judgements of right and wrong are no more informative than pan-hoots” unless there is “something beyond the material world”.
Why? If a worm can result from material causation, why can’t moral judgements? Sure, Denyse doesn’t accept the former, by why assume that someone who does, must somehow logically reject the latter? Why should a material human being not be as concerned about the fall of a sparrow – or the blinding of a boy – as a deity from “beyond the material world”?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pant-hoot_(call)
Possible Newsism there.
Well, it was a nice excuse for an owl pic.
All morality derives from the simple fact that we can experience pain.
It’s really that simple. Without the experience of pain, we would not have invented or kept the concept of evil.
The idea that we should not inflict pain on others has a rather complicated history. I personally believe that most people have an inborn ability to empathize. To feel other’s pain as our own. There are exceptions.
I saw that UD post. I thought it quite bizarre.
You chose well. That picture is David Silverman in owl form.
That’s not what the chthonic gods say.
Glen Davidson
Am I the only one who noticed that pant-hoot is misspelled?
I read this article a few minutes ago and was struck by how muddled it was, even by UD standards. Its seems to me this person has rather simplistic ideas on many topics, and clearly doesn’t know much of the science on which they write. What’s remarkable about this is that this person has been given such a prominent and important position in the ID movement. One could take this as evidence that ID in intellectually vacuous and in the process of collapsing. I take the opposite view. I think it shows that ID is gaining strength. How else could they afford to employ people whose qualification is quantity not quality of output? There are other bits of evidence: ID proponents have been less cautious about hiding their religious motivations in recent years.
I think it’s evidence that they lost the battle to hide the religion connection, and are now consolidating their position, focusing on fund-raising. I don’t think the political situation has changed much. Creationists still run successfully in certain locations, but it is a loser on the national ticket.
That’s pretty much the way it’s been for a long time.
I think I’ve mentioned that my 1960 Biology textbook makes no mention of evolution, that’s the way it was before Sputnik. This coincides with the rise of political creationism. Before 1960 they did not need to be political, because they had already won.
Denyse is News, and ever since the demise of Dembsky has taken on the role of ‘cretin in chief’. She describes Darwin as a ‘toff’ or’English toff’ or flavours there of. She is a fabulous experiment in the totally unhinged Catholic; that is she is fervantly Catholic yet unable to get beyond Galileo. The fact that her church accepts evolution causes her deep insecurity and she expresses this insecurity, not by logically coming to the conclusion that her beliefs are wrong, but by more agressively burying herself in childish denial, kind of like Dembsky, and all the other cretins at that most blind of websites.
” Why should a material human being not be as concerned about the fall of a sparrow – or the blinding of a boy – as a deity from “beyond the material world”?”
Because what evolves are populations not individuals. Then the destiny of any individual is irrelevant as far it do not affect the evolution of the population.
But we have empathy in the same way we see red or taste food or smell.
Analyzing these things does not change them.
Or are you one of those who does not experience empathy?
We experience empathy for who can help us or preserve our genes and as long as they are able to help us and preserve our genes.
We can experience empathy and we can control the empathy in order to do not experience it.
I experience empathy for cats and dogs and even a rat I had to trap.
Are you suggesting you do not? Could you hurt an animal without feeling any discomfort?
Let’s cut right to the heart of the empathy issue, Blas.
If someone offered you a hundred dollars to torture a pet cat, would you do it?
A thousand dolkars? Ten thousand? Do you have a price? And if you accepted the job, could you do it without feeling bad?
Hey…I experience empathy for members of the cast of Dowton Abbey. It’s completely irrational when you think about it; those folks don’t even exist. Yet I’ve become sensitive to other people’s emotional states, even when those states have nothing to do with me directly. That’s an example of how ingrained empathy can become.
You are conflating the reasons we evolved the capacity for moral reasoning , for the reasoning itself.
To take a parallel example: we evolved to enjoy sex because animals who enjoy sex are more likely to leave offspring. But that doesn’t mean that people have sex because they want to leave offspring. So much so that we’ve invented ways of having sex without leaving offspring.
Similarly: we care about children being blinded by parasites because we know that being pain hurts, because we know how much we enjoy and benefit from being able to see, and which the child will not benefit from, and because we know that the child will have much more difficulty in life than if he were sighted.
The fact that we are able to reason like this is because the capacities that enable us to do improved our chances of leaving viable offspring is orthogonal is only contingently related to the reasoning itself.
I thought I was stretching a bit to have empathy for a trapped rat, but you have topped me with empathy for the characters of Downton Abbey. Maybe for the first season, but after that, flush.
ETA:
I find it interesting that the very best and most convincing actors, the people who are best at eliciting emotional responses in others, appear to have none themselves, at least no empathy.
If they also lack fear of retribution, they can become master criminals. I suppose that is the phenomenon in question. What of people who are born without social inhibitions. How do you explain morality to them.
Lizzie,
All mammals and most birds have some capacity for affection. It’s built in, by whatever cause. It isn’t reasoned.
Mothers care for children, sometimes even children not their own. Sometimes children not even of the same species.
Social affection is a fuzzy thing, not at all focused on the best and most logical object.
This is what makes the character Spock in Star Trek so amusing. He attempts to reason things out that most of us just feel.
I get the impression that a lot of theists who commit the fallacy of consequence are a bit like Spock. They cannot derive moral rules from their feelings, and cannot understand those who do.
“Similarly: we care about children being blinded by parasites because we know that being pain hurts, because we know how much we enjoy and benefit from being able to see, and which the child will not benefit from, and because we know that the child will have much more difficulty in life than if he were sighted.
The fact that we are able to reason like this is because the capacities that enable us to do improved our chances of leaving viable offspring is orthogonal is only contingently related to the reasoning itself.”
That is illusory or fake sentimentalism. The real reason to experience empaty is because that led us to leave more offsprings. Any other implication of empathy are worthless and will be lost because NS.
Taste food or smell, perhaps. See red? Not so much. You can train yourself to, or acquire an appreciation for foods and even smells you normally dislike. I’m not sure “seeing” red is something you can train yourself to see differently.
Empathy is something we can certainly desensitize ourselves to if we wish to.
So if I want to enjoy life without the penalty of bad feelings due to empathy, I can devise a means of desensitizing my empathetic reactions – or getting rid of it altogether – so that I can enjoy life more, and it is “no different” than, say, getting vasectomy. Correct?
Therefore, if I harm others, steal from them, torture children or whatever, then because I have no empathy (because I have gotten rid of it), then it is not wrong – because “what is wrong” is solely an empathetic issue, just as “what is wrong with sex” (producing children when all one wants is the enjoyment) can be removed by having a vasectomy.
So a moral vasectomy (getting rid of empathy) is exactly like a vasectomy; you get rid the unwanted repercussions of engaging in the activity you want to engage in. So, is there a reason one “shouldn’t” get an empathy vasectomy if they wish so they do not feel burdened or limited by “feeling bad” for others?
And this is one of the big problems with grounding morality in “empathy” and as an evolutionary/materialistic product; there is no concept of a higher purpose or of what may be the greater value for humanity of a difficult or painful or even disabled life. Such lives, as history demonstrates, often provide the basis for some of the greatest examples of human triumph, invention, success, and worth.
Many times, the moral and ethically correct thing to do is to ignore empathy and make hard choices and exhibit “tough love”.
There are people that are suffering by their own hand and if you try to help, all they will do is drag you into suffering and misery with them. There are people that, as long as there are those willing to help, they will never change. They must hit rock-bottom and realize that unless they change themselves, they are doomed, take responsibility for their own lives and then work to make their life better.
When Jane experiences empathy, Jane not experiencing what the other person actually experiences (unless Jane is psychic); Jane is only experiencing her own emotional reaction to her imagining being in the same situation. But, the other person is not Jane. If Jane acts on empathy alone, then Jane is simply being selfish because Jane is not considering the fact that the other person is not Jane and may not be experiencing what Jane is experiencing. Acting on empathy alone, Jane’s actions are only a golden-rule reaction; Jane is doing to the other person what Jane wishes the other person would do for her if she was in the same situation.
This is why the golden rule is not a good basis for morality; it is essentially selfish. It puts self at the center of how we “should” treat others.
However, the problem is this: under Darwinism (materialistic evolution), I have no more reason to listen to empathy than I have reason to not get a vasectomy; if I think I will enjoy life more without it, then I can desensitize myself and get to the business of doing whatever I want without empathetic restraint. If I wish to kill people or torture children without negative emotional constraints, there is no significant reason not to under Darwinism.
That is demonstrably not true. Take a look at any website that has animal pictures and you will fine numerous cute pictures of cross species friends. Even animals that are normally predator and prey.
Empathy and affection are faculties like language that can be expressed in many different ways depending on childhood experience. We are not born knowing any specific language, but we are born with the capacity to learn any language.
And we do so without being taught and without having to learn formal rules of grammar.
Similarly, we are born with the capacity to learn moral rules without being taught being formally taught.
It is true that most societies have formal rules and laws, but they only cover extreme situations. We make hundreds of moral decisions every day without thinking or reasoning about it. We do it the same way we speak. The rules are picked up from subtle cues and become ingrained. It’s the way we are built.
For most of us, we only need to be told that a certain action will hurt someone — say littering — and we understand the implied rule. Most of our moral training focuses on the not-so-obvious consequences of actions. We already understand the general case that hurting others is wrong.
Then why, when you were an atheist, did you not do those things?
William Murray and Blas:
Would you torture a cat for money? A simple yes or no will suffice.
Yes, it is. Any student of Interior Design will tell you that you can train to see extremely subtle and almost infinite gradations of red, round the hue circle, along the saturation dimension, and up and down the light-dark dimension. Eventually you cease to see “red” at all – the category ceases to have meaningful boundaries.
And that’s before we even start on lighting conditions, and contrasts with background, and all kinds of other factors that affect our perception of “red”.
If I were darwinist I would no doubt. Maybe also being a religious I can make it, just specify what do you mean by torture.
Why do you assume that the only “reasonable” valuation the outcome of any action is the direct benefit to the actor?
Why would it be more “reasonable” for me to do something that improves my own welfare than something that improves the welfare of someone else?
The assumption that it would be seems to lie at the heart of your view of morality “under Darwinism”.
And I suggest it is a quite unreasonable assumption.
If we are a population of selfreplicants, what can be the criteria of valuation of the outcome of any action?
Only reproductive success. And that is to be demostrate to, because as evolution has no finality, also reproductive succes for un selfreplicant is an accident.
I’m not asking you to think like a Darwinist. I’m asking Blas and William Murray. As you are.
Would you poke out the eyes of a pet cat with hot needles in front of a child? Say for $100,000? This is not a trick question. People have done all kinds of things for money, and people have offered money for lots of things.
So let’s have an answer.
Can you cite a relevant scriptural admonition?
I’m not trying to trick anyone. I want to know if you think people have any built in inhibitions against causing pain. Aside from formal teaching and religious laws.
That’s not even wrong.
The first mistake lies in treating “Darwinism” and “materialistic evolution” as synonyms, but if we let “materialistic” mean “unguided” or “unplanned”, it’s almost acceptable. More precisely, Darwinian evolution is unplanned or unguided in the following sense: there is no physical mechanism (either inside organisms or outside them) that detects which mutations would be beneficial and causes those mutations to occur. (And of course, even theistic evolutionists believe that evolution is unplanned in that sense!)
Thus corrected, we see at once that Darwinian evolution is at best an empirically well-confirmed explanation of the causal mechanisms underpinning adaptation and specification. It cannot tell us anything what we ought to do or ought not to do. It tells us nothing about whether we have reasons to retrain ourselves to feel less (or more) empathy — not because of a deficiency in Darwinism, but because no scientific theory could do that.
No, Probably I´m going to reject that offer, more because has to be done in front of childs than for the cats.
My doubt come because there is no direct scriptural admonition, just moral elaboration of scripturals admonitions.
You missed the point. It is not if evilution is tru or not, it is if a material human being can be as concerned about the fall of a sparrow – or the blinding of a boy – as a deity from “beyond the material world”?
What puzzles me is this: here we have some people saying (apparently) that if one accepts the usefulness of the term “selfish” as metaphorically applied to genes, then one has no reasons to not be selfish in one’s own conduct.
I don’t understand why this gigantic non sequitur — in fact, nothing more than an associative play of imagination, without any grounding in argument or evidence — strikes anyone as the “implication” of Darwinism.
(Even more provocatively put: anyone who thinks that Darwinism implies that we have no reason to not be selfish, doesn’t understand what the term “implies” means.)
Blas,
I appreciate a straight answer.
Why would the presence of a child make a difference?
I’m not going to hide my motives. I suspect you think it would cause pain to the child.
But why do you think it would upset the child?
bias, would you show/demonstrate to a child how to break the neck of a soft furry bunny that the child had raised as if a pet, for money or for free? Similarly, would you advocate for providing demonstrations to children of how to cut the heads off of birds?
This is going to much OT, but I will give an answer. No I do not think about the pain or the upset for the childs but on the contrary to the fact that I will make them used to inflict pain.
I have no idea what you, WJM, Arrington, or anyone else invested in design discourse means by “material”. So far as I can tell, It functions as a dummy word that basically means “whatever we don’t like”.
But let’s play this game anyway. The question here is this: suppose someone doesn’t believe in (a) the existence of a personal and loving God or (b) the persistence of the soul (mind, consciousness) after death. What reasons would this person have for caring about what happens to others?
Now, if this is the question being posed, it looks hopelessly confused. We don’t care for others on the basis of reasons. No one does. The very question, “but why should I care about y?” rests on a category-mistake. It’s not the case that we can be reasoned into caring. If we don’t care about x, reasoning well about x isn’t going to generate the care that is lacking. The most we can do is say something like, “if x is intrinsically valuable, then we ought to be the kinds of beings that value x”, and that requires a kind of training in caring rather than a persuasive argument.
We aren’t reasoned into care; we just care, and we care well or badly, and that care and concern can motivate us to do what we ought to do — or not. Our care and concern is not grounded in reasons at all, period. Rather, what we do care about can motivate us to do what is justified by reasons, and if the care isn’t there, then we don’t do what we know we ought to do (example: political inaction on climate-change).
I take it that at least some theists here believe either
(1) if one holds that God does not exist and the soul is not immortal, then adopting those metaphysical commitments causes one to stop caring about the well-being or suffering of others
(2) if one holds that God does not exist and the soul is not immortal, then one no longer has reasons to care about the well-being or suffering of others.
I think that the relation between the give and take in the space of reasons and the structure of our motivations, care, and concerns is far too intricate and complex to make either (1) or (2) even remotely plausible.
Very interesting Kantian. First is interesting that you said “care” it is no matter of reasons you feel care or you do nt feel. Is a property of your chemistry. Then when Lizzie get angry with Denyse ans asks ” Why should a material human being not be as concerned about the fall of a sparrow – or the blinding of a boy – as a deity from “beyond the material world”?” Is a wrong question, as wrong as ” What reasons would this person have for caring about what happens to others? “.
Then why do you talk to WJM and not to Lizzie?
Blas,
That’s nonsense. The ‘real’ reason I go to the bathroom is because I feel uncomfortable when I leave it too long. But the ‘real real’ reason I go to the bathroom is because feeling uncomfortable is (almost certainly) an evolved response to a full bowel or bladder. Individuals who did not experience or respond to these sensations suffered diminished survivorship as a result, due to obvious complications.
Now, for any given capacity (eg empathy) it is not readily proven that the basis is genetic without some proper investigation. But the rationale would be the same – by a more complex chain of causation, the capacity for empathy in my ancestors led to them (in a social species) leaving more descendants. It’s not a calculation performed by individuals.
I no more think “must be empathetic – I might have more children” (I have plenty already!) than I think “must have a shit – otherwise I’ll die”.
Do you condemn homosexuals?
I do think that a correct understanding of the role of oxytocin would give a causal explanation of how the feeling of care is implemented in my brain, but that doesn’t mean that the feeling is itself a “property” of that neuropeptide.
I read Lizzie as saying that a “material human being” (someone who denies that any aspect of them will persist after biological death) would experience the same care and concern for the suffering and well-being of others as someone who believes that (1) he or she does have an immaterial aspect to his or her existence and (2) there exists a personal and loving deity.
I think that’s correct. What I don’t believe is either the “materialist” or the “theist” grounds his or her care on reasons.
I think that the game of giving and asking for reasons — what is entitled to assert, committed to asserting, what is a reasonable attribution of a belief to someone, what one ought to acknowledge oneself as committed to asserting, etc. — all of that good Socratic stuff! — just operates at a different level of description than either (i) first-person experiences (empathy, joy, sorrow, rage, love) or (ii) third-person causal explanations (whether neurological, ecological, paleontological, etc.).
We can reason well or badly, care well or badly, explain well or badly, and so on. These are just apples and oranges — well, apples, oranges and bananas.
Kantian Naturalist,
Dawkins has spent a deal of time ably refuting this nonsensical misunderstanding of the ‘selfish gene’ concept. In fact, the whole book is about how such intrinsically disinterested entities can nonetheless generate co-operative behaviours.
Pardon the segue, but I’ve noticed (I’m sure I’m not the only one) that Ms. O’Leary is peculiarly uninterested in accuracy. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen her acknowledge, much less correct, a substantive error.
That made me curious about “pan-hooting,” since it seems like the neologism would tickle her faux-folksy writing style and the error would be meaningless to her. Sure enough, she made the same mistake a year ago and was corrected.
It’s not a significant issue, but it struck me as interesting that her track record for accuracy and self-awareness is so poor that my first instinct was to assume this wasn’t the first time she’s made the mistake.
If empathy is an evolved behavior, what else than genetic can be? How could evolve if it is not subject of darwinian evolution?
Ok
Ok, but also Lizzie question is doing what you call a mistake. The experience of “care” it is not based on reasons so she is making th same mistake of Denyse. They are relating care with beleives.
Give me a reason to not be selfish.
Blas,
Is your own conscience not sufficient?
And what is our own conscience? Isn´t it another evolved capacity?
And what says your conscience should you be shelfish? Mine says nothing. Only my reason give my consciuness material to judge what I´m doing.