When Facts Don’t Matter

[bks]

Very glad for this discussion and this article.

vanlose kid quoted Chomsky as follows;

"So Marxism, Freudianism: any one of these things I think is an irrational cult. They're theology, so they're whatever you think of theology; I don't think much of it. In fact, in my view that's exactly the right analogy: notions like Marxism and Freudianism belong to the history of organized religion." -- Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power

But does Chomsky understand that his rationalism has religious aspects, too? This excerpt from his debate w/ Michel Foucault from 1971 gets to the crux of the matter w/r/t justice and power. Chomsky believes (without being able to 'sketch it out' precisely) that there's an 'absolute' sense of justice that can be articulated to justify (or fail to justify) revolutionary action, whereas Foucault does not think there's an objective conception of justice. For Foucault conceptions of justice are tied up with power and social position, but Chomsky disagrees:

http://www.chomsky.info/debates/1971xxxx.htm

CHOMSKY:
Again, very often when I do something which the state regards as illegal [note: an act of civil disobedience], I regard it as legal : that is, I regard the state as criminal. But in some instances that's not true. Let me be quite concrete about it and move from the area of class war to imperialist war, where the situation is somewhat clearer and easier.
Take international law, a very weak instrument as we know, but nevertheless one that incorporates some very interesting principles. Well, international law is, in many respects, the instrument of the powerful : it is a creation of states and their representatives. In developing the presently existing body of international law, there was no participation by mass movements of peasants.
The structure of international law reflects that fact; that is, international law permits much too wide a range of forceful intervention in support of existing power structures that define themselves as states against the interests of masses of people who happen to be organised in opposition to states.
Now that's a fundamental defect of international law and I think one is justified in opposing that aspect of international law as having no validity, as having no more validity than the divine right of kings. It's simply an instrument of the powerful to retain their power.
But, in fact, international law is not solely of that kind. And in fact there are interesting elements of international law, for example, embedded in the Nuremberg principles and the United Nations Charter, which permit, in fact, I believe, require the citizen to act against his own state in ways which the state will falsely regard as criminal. Nevertheless, he's acting legally, because international law also happens to prohibit the threat or use of force in international affairs, except under some very narrow circumstances, of which, for example, the war in Vietnam is not one. This means that in the particular case of the Vietnam War, which interests me most, the American state is acting in a criminal capacity. And the people have the right to stop criminals from committing murder. Just because the criminal happens to call your action illegal when you try to stop him, it doesn't mean it is illegal.
A perfectly clear case of that is the present case of the Pentagon Papers in the United States, which, I suppose, you know about.
Reduced to its essentials and forgetting legalisms, what is happening is that the state is trying to prosecute people for exposing its crimes. That's what it amounts to.
Now, obviously that's absurd, and one must pay no attention whatsoever to that distortion of any reasonable judicial process. Furthermore, I think that the existing system of law even explains why it is absurd. But if it didn't, we would then have to oppose that system of law.

FOUCAULT:
So it is in the name of a purer justice that you criticise the functioning of justice ?
There is an important question for us here. It is true that in all social struggles, there is a question of "justice". To put it more precisely, the fight against class justice, against its injustice, is always part of the social struggle : to dismiss the judges, to change the tribunals, to amnesty the condemned, to open the prisons, has always been part of social transformations as soon as they become slightly violent. At the present time in France the function of justice and the police is the target of many attacks from those whom we call the "gauchistes". But if justice is at stake in a struggle, then it is as an instrument of power; it is not in the hope that finally one day, in this or another society, people will be rewarded according to their merits, or punished according to their faults. Rather than thinking of the social struggle in terms of "justice", one has to emphasise justice in terms of the social struggle.

CHOMSKY:
Yeah, but surely you believe that your role in the war is a just role, that you are fighting a just war, to bring in a concept from another domain. And that, I think, is important. If you thought that you were fighting an unjust war, you couldn't follow that line of reasoning.
I would like to slightly reformulate what you said. It seems to me that the difference isn't between legality and ideal justice; it's rather between legality and better justice.
I would agree that we are certainly in no position to create a system of ideal justice, just as we are in no position to create an ideal society in our minds. We don't know enough and we're too limited and too biased and all sorts of other things. But we are in a position-and we must act as sensitive and responsible human beings in that position to imagine and move towards the creation of a better society and also a better system of justice. Now this better system will certainly have its defects. But if one compares the better system with the existing system, without being confused into thinking that our better system is the ideal system, we can then argue, I think, as follows :
The concept of legality and the concept of justice are not identical; they're not entirely distinct either. Insofar as legality incorporates justice in this sense of better justice, referring to a better society, then we should follow and obey the law, and force the state to obey the law and force the great corporations to obey the law, and force the police to obey the law, if we have the power to do so.
Of course, in those areas where the legal system happens to represent not better justice, but rather the techniques of oppression that have been codified in a particular autocratic system, well, then a reasonable human being should disregard and oppose them, at least in principle; he may not, for some reason, do it in fact.

FOUCAULT:
But I would merely like to reply to your first sentence, in which you said that if you didn't consider the war you make against the police to be just, you wouldn't make it.
I would like to reply to you in terms of Spinoza and say that the proletariat doesn't wage war against the ruling class because it considers such a war to be just. The proletariat makes war with the ruling class because, for the first time in history, it wants to take power. And because it will overthrow the power of the ruling class it considers such a war to be just.

CHOMSKY:
Yeah, I don't agree.

FOUCAULT:
One makes war to win, not because it is just.

CHOMSKY:
I don't, personally, agree with that.
For example, if I could convince myself that attainment of power by the proletariat would lead to a terrorist police state, in which freedom and dignity and decent human relations would be destroyed, then I wouldn't want the proletariat to take power. In fact the only reason for wanting any such thing, I believe, is because one thinks, rightly or wrongly, that some fundamental human values will be achieved by that transfer of power.


FOUCAULT:
When the proletariat takes power, it may be quite possible that the proletariat will exert towards the classes over which it has just triumphed, a violent, dictatorial and even bloody power. I can't see what objection one could make to this.
But if you ask me what would be the case if the proletariat exerted bloody, tyrannical and unjust power towards itself, then I would say that this could only occur if the proletariat hadn't really taken power, but that a class outside the proletariat, a group of people inside the proletariat, a bureaucracy or petit bourgeois elements had taken power.


CHOMSKY:
Well, I'm not at all satisfied with that theory of revolution for a lot of reasons, historical and others. But even if one were to accept it for the sake of argument, still that theory maintains that it is proper for the proletariat to take power and exercise it in a violent and bloody and unjust fashion, because it is claimed, and in my opinion falsely, that that will lead to a more just society, in which the state will wither away, in which the proletariat will be a universal class and so on and so forth. If it weren't for that future justification, the concept of a violent and bloody dictatorship of the proletariat would certainly be unjust. Now this is another issue, but I'm very sceptical about the idea of a violent and bloody dictatorship of the proletariat, especially when expressed by self-appointed representatives of a vanguard party, who, we have enough historical experience to know and might have predicted in advance, will simply be the new rulers over this society.

FOUCAULT:
Yes, but I haven't been talking about the power of the proletariat, which in itself would be an unjust power; you are right in saying that this would obviously be too easy. I would like to say that the power of the proletariat could, in a certain period, imply violence and a prolonged war against a social class over which its triumph or victory was not yet totally assured.

CHOMSKY:
Well, look, I'm not saying there is an absolute.. . For example, I am not a committed pacifist. I would not hold that it is under all imaginable circumstances wrong to use violence, even though use of violence is in some sense unjust. I believe that one has to estimate relative justices.
But the use of violence and the creation of some degree of injustice can only be justified on the basis of the claim and the assessment-which always ought to be undertaken very, very seriously and with a good deal of scepticism that this violence is being exercised because a more just result is going to be achieved. If it does not have such a grounding, it is really totally immoral, in my opinion.

FOUCAULT:
I don't think that as far as the aim which the proletariat proposes for itself in leading a class struggle is concerned, it would be sufficient to say that it is in itself a greater justice. What the proletariat will achieve by expelling the class which is at present in power and by taking over power itself, is precisely the suppression of the power of class in general.

CHOMSKY:
Okay, but that's the further justification.

FOUCAULT:
That is the justification, but one doesn't speak in terms of justice but in terms of power.

CHOMSKY:
But it is in terms of justice; it's because the end that will be achieved is claimed as a just one.
No Leninist or whatever you like would dare to say "We, the proletariat, have a right to take power, and then throw everyone else into crematoria." If that were the consequence of the proletariat taking power, of course it would not be appropriate.
The idea is-and for the reasons I mentioned I'm sceptical about it-that a period of violent dictatorship, or perhaps violent and bloody dictatorship, is justified because it will mean the submergence and termination of class oppression, a proper end to achieve in human life; it is because of that final qualification that the whole enterprise might be justified. Whether it is or not is another issue.

FOUCAULT:
If you like, I will be a little bit Nietzschean about this; in other words, it seems to me that the idea of justice in itself is an idea which in effect has been invented and put to work in different types of societies as an instrument of a certain political and economic power or as a weapon against that power. But it seems to me that, in any case, the notion of justice itself functions within a society of classes as a claim made by the oppressed class and as justification for it.

CHOMSKY:
I don't agree with that.

FOUCAULT:
And in a classless society, I am not sure that we would still use this notion of justice.

CHOMSKY:
Well, here I really disagree. I think there is some sort of an absolute basis--if you press me too hard I'll be in trouble, because I can't sketch it out-ultimately residing in fundamental human qualities, in terms of which a "real" notion of justice is grounded.
I think it's too hasty to characterise our existing systems of justice as merely systems of class oppression; I don't think that they are that. I think that they embody systems of class oppression and elements of other kinds of oppression, but they also embody a kind of groping towards the true humanly, valuable concepts of justice and decency and love and kindness and sympathy, which I think are real.
And I think that in any future society, which will, of course, never be the perfect society, we'll have such concepts again, which we hope, will come closer to incorporating a defence of fundamental human needs, including such needs as those for solidarity and sympathy and whatever, but will probably still reflect in some manner the inequities and the elements of oppression of the existing society.
However, I think what you're describing only holds for a very different kind of situation.
For example, let's take a case of national conflict. Here are two societies, each trying to destroy the other. No question of justice arises. The only question that arises is which side are you on ? Are you going to defend your own society and destroy the other ?
I mean, in a certain sense, abstracting away from a lot of historical problems, that's what faced the soldiers who were massacring each other in the trenches in the First World War. They were fighting for nothing. They were fighting for the right to destroy each other. And in that kind of circumstance no questions of justice arise.
And of course there were rational people, most of them in jail, like Karl Liebknecht, for example, who pointed that out and were in jail because they did so, or Bertrand Russell, to take another example on the other side. There were people who understood that there was no point to that mutual massacre in terms of any sort of justice and that they ought to just call it off.
Now those people were regarded as madmen or lunatics and criminals or whatever, but of course they were the only sane people around.
And in such a circumstance, the kind that you describe, where there is no question of justice, just the question of who's going to win a struggle to the death, then I think the proper human reaction is : call it off, don't win either way, try to stop it-and of course if you say that, you'll immediately be thrown in jail or killed or something of that sort, the fate of a lot of rational people.
But I don't think that's the typical situation in human affairs, and I don't think that's the situation in the case of class-conflict or social revolution. There I think that one can and must give an argument, if you can't give an argument you should extract yourself from the struggle. Give an argument that the social revolution that you're trying to achieve is in the ends of justice, is in the ends of realising fundamental human needs, not merely in the ends of putting some other group into power, because they want it.

FOUCAULT:
Well, do I have time to answer ?

ELDERS:
Yes.

FOUCAULT:
How much ? Because. . .

ELDERS:
Two minutes. [Foucault laughs.

FOUCAULT:
But I would say that that is unjust. [Everybody laughs.]

CHOMSKY:
Absolutely, yes.

FOUCAULT:
No, but I don't want to answer in so little time. I would simply say this, that finally this problem of human nature, when put simply in theoretical terms, hasn't led to an argument between us; ultimately we understand each other very well on these theoretical problems.
On the other hand, when we discussed the problem of human nature and political problems, then differences arose between us. And contrary to what you think, you can't prevent me from believing that these notions of human nature, of justice, of the realisation of the essence of human beings, are all notions and concepts which have been formed within our civilisation, within our type of knowledge and our form of philosophy, and that as a result form part of our class system; and one can't, however regrettable it may be, put forward these notions to describe or justify a fight which should-and shall in principle--overthrow the very fundaments of our society. This is an extrapolation for which I can't find the historical justification. That's the point. ..

CHOMSKY:
It's clear.

I'll also post this in the violence v. nonviolence thread too, since it's relevant to both discussions.

[vanlose kid]

...

I don't know if I entirely agree that morality is a human construct....

here's a blogpost that deals with some of the problems that arise from postulating that ethics is an entirely human construct. it's pretty technical but a good read.

Essay: Ethical Facts and the Explanatory Requirement
Filed under: Essays,Ethics — Peter @ 10:08 pm
Note this essay is based on Gilbert Harman’s article “Ethics and Observation”.

In ethics we are often tempted to support or reject a theory based on how well it agrees with our intuitions. If we wanted to be more precise we might say that our observations of our intuitions were the basis of ethical theories, much like observations of nature are the basis for theories in physics. From this similarity we might conclude that there exist moral facts which are approximated by ethical theories in the same way that physical facts exist and are approximated by physical theories. Gilbert Harman argues that this method of ethical philosophy did not justify the existence of objective ethical facts in the same way that observation in physics justified physical facts, and thus that ethical facts do not exist while physical ones do. To support this claim he described a principle called the explanatory requirement, the purpose of which is to differentiate theories with a basis in facts from those without.

The explanatory requirement states that an observation only justifies a theory about facts when the theory itself explains why we made the observation. Thus our observations that objects fall toward the ground justify the existence gravity because the theory of gravity in question predicts that they would in fact fall. On the other hand, we cannot likewise claim that an observation of our intuition that some action is right can support an ethical theory, because the best explanation as to why we have our intuitions is purely psychological, and has nothing to do with the ethical theory in question. Our ethical observations may seem to guide us to a given theory, but because such a theory does not predict that we will have ethical intuitions it does not meet the explanatory requirement.

Although physics may meet the explanatory requirement it may not seem as clear that the other sciences do. Consider psychology, for example. If we have a psychological theory concerning the behavior of people, we may take their observed behavior as evidence for or against that theory. However, it might not seem like the theory entails our observations, because behavior is caused by the electrical activity of neurons, and our psychological theory does not predict such activity. Thus the theory is not needed to account for our observation, only physical theories regarding the activity would seem to make the required prediction. The best response to this observation is not to drop psychology but to re-define what a theory in psychology is about. To defend psychology from the explanatory requirement, we must argue then that theories about behavior are really theories about neural activity that result in such behavior. Thus modified, our new theory predicts certain neural activity, the subject of our observations, and thus meets the explanatory requirement. Ethics, unfortunately, does not have this defense open to it, because to take such a view with respect to ethics would require us to equate ethical statements with physical statements, and such an equivalence seems impossible.

Physics, and the other natural sciences, may seem to meet the explanatory requirement, but we now may have doubts about the existence of mathematical facts under this criterion. Like ethics, mathematics is not backed by the direct observations that support the natural sciences, so we might feel that mathematical facts may be judged to be as unfounded as ethical facts. Harman argues that mathematical facts are backed indirectly by the natural sciences, but there are some branches of mathematics which are not used in the natural sciences, such as number theory and advanced higher dimensional topological theory, and the validity of these branches might still be in question. Consider a theorem, say Fermat’s last theorem. This theorem is not justified by observations of numbers in nature, nor by the intuitions of mathematicians, but by a proof. It is true that before it was proved, mathematicians did have intuitions concerning whether it was valid or not, but these intuitions were not considered to justify the theorem. What backs a theorem then is its proof, which is itself justified by axioms.

So far so good, but we still have not justified the axioms themselves. Let us assume we are working with mathematics in its purest form, where the axioms are simply definitions that set up the structure within which theorems are proved. For example the parallel postulate can be rationally denied, and is in non-Euclidean geometry, but despite this we still consider Euclidean geometry a valid structure to prove theorems in, even though no real space is Euclidean. What this investigation reveals then is that theories in mathematics are not like theories in physics. A theory in mathematics admits its dependence on certain assumptions. In contrast, the “axioms” of physics might be observations made that confirm or deny theories. Just as we might reject a mathematical theory if one of its premises were shown to be invalid, so we might reject a physical theory if empirical observations conflicted with it. However, an important difference is as follows: the goal of physics is to figure out the laws of nature, i.e. physical facts, even though physical theories are often wrong, there is some ultimate truth that we attempt to approximate with them. Mathematics, on the other hand, is not trying to uncover some ultimate truth about numbers, instead all its truths are conditional within whatever system one is working with, defined by the axioms. We freely admit that mathematical facts are conditional on the system we are working in, and thus are not like the absolutely true facts that physics works towards. The question becomes: can we avoid the explanatory requirement by constructing our ethics to be more like mathematics than like physics, yielding ethical facts that are like the facts of mathematics?

We might be tempted to construct an ethical system based, like mathematics, on just a few fundamental axioms, and perhaps admit that our ethical systems only applied to those who accepted or lived by our axioms. In fact, one might be tempted to view constructivist systems in just this way. For example, utilitarianism could all be seen as stemming from the axiom that the maximization of total happiness is good. However, the ethical facts we were looking for were supposed to be universal, and independent of what people believe, or at least these are the kind of ethical facts that Harman is looking for. An axiom based system however would only be able to draw valid conclusions for people who accepted its axioms, but since people may not all accept the same axioms, the conclusions would not in fact be universal. We could argue that such a theory about human behavior is not ethics at all, but really some branch of psychology, simply telling us how we could expect various individuals to behave, but not how they should behave.

Up to this point I have been assuming that ethics does not meet the explanatory requirement, but there are in fact at least two kinds of ethical theories that might indeed meet Gilbert’s requirement. One type of theory would be to equate ethical judgments with some aspect of physical reality, much like the defense of psychology against the explanatory requirement. Another type of theory might be a mental-ethical theory, which at the same time explains ethics and the workings of some aspects of our mind. Our ethical intuitions, the subject of our observations, can then be predicted the theory, and thus it would pass the explanatory requirement. Here I will simply dismiss ethical theories that equate ethical statements to physical properties. This is not to say that I have an air-tight rebuttal of such theories, but because I have yet to see a successful theory of this kind, and because of Moore’s objections, I will simply assume it cannot be done. On the other hand, there seem to be several ethical theories that would explain our intuitions and ethics at the same time. For example, one might argue that good is defined by a social consensus, and that our intuitions result from our awareness of this consensus. Or we could argue that good is merely a persuasive tool, and that our intuitions reflect our preferences for or against certain activities. These theories do pass the explanatory requirement because if we asked them “why do I have a particular ethical intuition,” they can provide an answer.

To get rid of such theories we might propose the following modification of the explanatory requirement: that the only explanation for the observation is the theory in question. Then the ethical theories mentioned above would indeed fail, because our intuitions can always be explained psychologically. Unfortunately modern physics would also fail this version of the explanatory requirement, for while it is true that one explanation for why things fall is gravitational theory, there exists another explanation, namely that earth attracts earth, and thus gravity could not be said to pass this version of the explanatory requirement.

So even though the explanatory requirement does not throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak, and we are able to retain mathematics under it, it now seems to have failed to demonstrate the non-existence of ethical facts since we have been able to construct ethical theories that meet its demands. The explanatory requirement however seems to be based on a verificationist view of science, but currently it is not the ability to make confirming observations but the ability to find falsifying observations that is considered to make a theory scientific, and perhaps this is why the explanatory requirement fails. We might attempt to improve it by transforming it into its equivalent under a falsificationist mode of thought, yielding the principle that a theory is only justified by the lack of falsifying observations, where a falsifying observation is defined as any observation that would require the denial of the theory. Like the explanatory requirement, this allows the natural sciences such as physics and psychology to pass the test. Similarly we can also defend mathematics by appealing to its status as true as conditional on various axioms. The mental-ethical theories do not meet our new requirement, because an intuition that is at odds with our ethical conclusion does not falsify the theory; instead we could conclude that our intuitions had become distorted. For example, if we considered the good to be defined by social norms, then perhaps our contrary intuition reflects our poor understanding of these norms. Therefore because these ethical theories cannot be falsified by observations, they are not theories in the same way as theories in the natural sciences and thus ethical facts do not exist in the sense that physical facts do.

http://onphilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/ ... quirement/

for purposes of contrast that brings out other aspects of the discussion, here's another dealing with the same problems (questions) from a different perspective (based mainly on the writing of C. S. Lewis): i.e. that there are ethical facts.

Secularists' explanations on some ethical facts
Posted Sun, 05/30/2010 - 11:09 by admin


AT LEAST THREE PHILOSOPHICAL CAMPS that reject “God-based morality” ([1] the non-theists, [2] those who say that there may be God but morality does not at all come from a Supernatural being, and [3] those who hold that “Godless morality” is better than “God-based morality” regardless of whether or not there is God) offer various explanations for some facts about morality. Let us check if their explanations that do away with the idea of God could really explain the ethical facts they wish to explicate.

1. Sense of moral obligation is just the effect of social conditioning

As regards moral consciousness or the feeling that we are obliged to act morally, some atheists like Richard Robinson maintain that it is nothing but the effect of social conditioning. In An Atheist’s Values he wrote, “The original conscience of an individual in any given society is a historical accident, the result of the influences to which he has been subject. It is a set of taboos and compulsions, acquired from his associates in the same unreflecting way as all his other taboos and compulsions” (1964, p. 110).

This view further explains that the demands of conscience are due to society because society expresses disapproval of certain actions. Children are said to become aware of the pressure of this denunciation and gradually (or immediately) begin to exercise their disapproval of such acts. This feeling of disapproval, secularists say, develops into a habit that functions as the conscience when one considers performing such an action.

Analysis

It must be noted that our ‘intellect’ plays a role in Ethics especially in determining whether an action is moral or otherwise. It is this intellect which can be molded or conditioned. This explains how social conditioning indeed affects one’s concept of morality.

There’s another aspect in morality nonetheless, which includes the “sense of moral obligation,” that cannot be explained sufficiently by social conditioning. In fact, when one says that a particular action ‘ought’/ ‘ought not’ to be done, he is not just echoing social approval or disapproval—for there are innumerable situations where a person, although feeling a desire from society to adopt a certain course, feels the moral obligation to assume a course altogether different. This decision is made in relation to something not itself due to social conditioning—some sort of law that presses down on every person.

2. Moral Law as Herd instinct

There are those who suppose that the Moral Law is nothing but our herd instinct and therefore has been naturally developed just like all our other instincts.

Indeed, it is hard to refute the presence in us of herd instinct. As C.S. Lewis concedes in The Case for Christianity, thus, “We all know what it feels like to be prompted by instinct--by mother love, or sexual instinct, or the instinct for food. It means you feel a strong want or desire to act in a certain way. And, of course, we sometimes do feel just that sort of desire to help another person: and no doubt that desire is due to the herd instinct.”

Analysis:

Nevertheless, we can prove that herd instinct is not what we mean by the Moral Law. We have at least three ways of showing that moral law is not a herd instinct.

A) Lewis has this beautiful explanation that deserves to be quoted at length:

“….You will probably feel two desires--one a desire to give help (due to your herd instinct), the other a desire to keep out of danger (due to the instinct for self-preservation). But you will find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away. Now this thing that judges between two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, can't itself be either of them...” (The Case for Christianity, p. 8)

Indeed, it must be noted that feeling a desire to help is quite different from feeling that we ought to help someone who is in danger. For Lewis, to insist that Moral law is just one of our instincts is like to “…say that the sheet of music which tells you, at a given moment, to play one note on the piano and not another, is itself one of the notes on the keyboard” (The Case for Christianity, p. 8). Hence, for Lewis, “the Moral Law is, so to speak, the tune we've got to play: our instincts are merely the keys” (The Case for Christianity, p. 8).

B) Lewis offers another way of seeing that the Moral Law is not simply one of our instincts. He explains that if two instincts are in conflict, and there is nothing in one’s mind except those two instincts, obviously the stronger of the two must win. But at those moments when we are most conscious of the Moral Law, there are incidents that it appears to be telling us to side with the weaker of the two impulses.

Lewis explains that a person probably wants to be safe much more than he wants to help someone who is drowning (because self preservation, they say, is one of the “most basic” instincts) but the Moral Law tells him to help the one who needs help all the same. This goes to show of course that moral law is not one of the instincts, but that which directs a person what to choose between the two instincts active.

It is also the Moral Law, Lewis explains, that often tells us to try to make the right impulse stronger than it naturally is, to stimulate the herd instinct, by waking up our imaginations for instance, arousing our pity, and so on, so as to get up enough “steam” for doing the right thing. And when we set about making an instinct stronger than it is, surely we are not acting from instinct. Lewis justifies his proposition, thus: “What it is that says to you, ‘Your herd instinct is asleep. Wake it up’ can not itself be the herd instinct. What it is that tells you which note on the piano needs to be played louder can not itself be that note!” (The Case for Christianity, p. 9)

C) If the Moral Law is one of our instincts, then we ought to be able to point to some of our urges within us that we could always consider as good, that is, those that are always in agreement with the rule of right behavior. But it appears that we cannot, for there is not one among our impulses that the Moral Law would not sometimes tell us to suppress, and none which it would not sometimes tell us to encourage.

Lewis believes that it is a mistake to think that some of our impulses—say, mother love or patriotism—are automatically good, and others, like sex or the fighting instinct, are necessarily bad. At most, we could just say that some impulses are “preferable”. And when we say that some impulses are “preferable”, all we mean is that the occasions on which some instincts such as the fighting instinct or the sexual desire for instance are needed to be restrained are rather more frequent than those for restraining mother love or patriotism. But there are indeed situations in which it is the duty of a married man for example to encourage his sexual impulse and of a soldier to encourage the fighting instinct. There are also occasions on which a mother's love for her own children or a man's love for his own country has to be suppressed, else they would be led to being unjust or unfair. Using analogy, Lewis concludes, thus:

“Think once again of a piano. It does not have two kinds of keys on it that may be regarded as the “right” keys and the “wrong” keys. Every single key tapped to strike a note is right at one time and wrong at another. The Moral Law is not any one instinct or any set of instincts: it is something which makes a kind of tune (the tune we call goodness or right conduct) by directing the instincts.” (The Case for Christianity, p. 10)

3. Moral Law is just a Social convention

Some secularists purport that what we regard as the Moral Law is nothing but just a social convention. Basically, the reason for holding such view is the fact that Moral Law is undeniably something that is put into us primarily by education, either through parents and elders at home or through teachers in academic institutions. Adherents of such stance thus believe that like those other things which we learned from parents and teachers, what we consider as moral law is merely a human invention too.

Analysis

Of course, that is not necessarily true. To explain his point, Lewis used the case of the multiplication table which is something we learned in school or at home through the instructions of parents, older siblings, or private tutors.

Unmistakably, a child who grew up alone on a deserted island for example would not be able to know the multiplication table, its functions, and how it works. But surely, it does not follow that the multiplication table is simply a human convention, that is, something that human beings have made up for themselves and might have made different if they had liked.

Regarding moral law, it is not denied that we learn this Rule of Decent Behavior from parents and/or teachers. And indeed, some of the things we learn from them are mere convention, which might have been different. We learn to keep to the right of the road, for example, but it might have been the rule to keep to the left just as well. However, some of the things we learn from home and school, like mathematics, are real truths and not just conventions. So the question now is, to which class does the Law of Human Nature or Moral Law belong?

There are at least two reasons for saying that it belongs to the same class as mathematics:

A) Although there are differences between the moral ideas of one time or country and those of another, the differences are not really very big. As explained in the article, “What moral theory are you following?”, nations or cultures have only had “slightly different” moralities. Essentially, we can recognize the same Law running through them all. It is not therefore among the class of mere conventions, for conventions, like the rule of the road or the kind of clothes people wear, are observed to be differing almost completely.

B) Another reason, Lewis again gives, for holding that moral law is not mere convention but “real truth” is that when we think about the differences between the moralities of two groups of people, we usually think that the morality of a particular community is better or worse than that of another. And some of the changes in their morality have been deemed as improvements; because if not, then of course, there could never be any so-called moral progress. Progress indeed means not just changing, but changing for the better. If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, then there would be no sense in preferring civilized morality to savage morality, Christian (or let’s say a secular morality) to Nazi morality. In fact, some of the people who tried to change the moral ideas of their own age for the better are called Reformers or Pioneers. We consider them as people who understood morality better than their neighbors did.

And the moment we affirm that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, are we not, in fact, measuring them both by a standard, saying that one of them conforms to that standard more nearly than the other? But the standard that measures two things is something different from either. Therefore, we are in fact comparing them both with some Real Morality, admitting that there is really such a thing as Right, independent of what people think, and that some people’s ideas are nearer to that real right than others’.

Indeed, if our moral ideas can be truer, and those of the Nazis less true, there must be something – some Real Morality – for them to be true about. The reason why our idea of Baguio City, for instance, can be truer or less true than someone’s, is that Baguio City is a real place, existing quite apart from what either of us thinks. If when each of us said “Baguio City” each meant merely “The city I am imagining in my own head”, then how could one of us have truer ideas than the other? There would be no question of truth or falsehood at all.

In the same way, if the Moral Law or Rule of decent Behavior means simply, “whatever each nation happens to approve,” that is, a mere social convention, then there would be no sense in saying that any one nation had ever been more correct in its approval than any other. There will be no sense in saying that the world could ever grow better or worse. Moral law therefore is not synonymous to mere social convention – it’s not one and the same with whatever each culture or society happens to approve.

4) “What men actually do”

The claim that Moral Law is just what we humans actually do is basically anchored on the notion that another brand of “law”, that is Laws of Nature are nothing but descriptions of what things in nature actually do. What we usually call the laws of nature (e.g. gravitational law) are indeed mere descriptions of how nature operates, and for this reason we can say, they are not really laws in the strict sense, but only in a manner of speaking.

When we say that falling stones always obey the law of gravitation, it is the same as saying that the law only means, “what stones always do” as we observe them. But we do not really think that when a stone is let go, it suddenly remembers that it is under orders to fall to the ground. We only mean that, in fact, it does fall. In other words, we cannot be sure that there is anything over and above the facts themselves, any law about what ought to happen, as distinct from what does happen. The laws of nature, as applied to stones or trees, may only mean, “what nature, in fact, does.” But, is moral law the same with natural law in this sense as some secularists submit?

Analysis

It is a different matter when we turn to the moral law. This law certainly does not mean “what human beings, in fact do,” for we know that many of us, in fact, do not obey this law at all, and perhaps none of us obey it completely.

The problem in posing that moral law is tantamount to what men actually do is what is some ethicists called the “is-ought” fallacy. Simply because someone is doing something does not mean that one ought to do so. Otherwise, racism, rape, cruelty, and murder would automatically be morally right. Also, should what people actually do be considered the basis for what they morally ought to do, then we ought to lie, cheat, and steal, since these things are done all the time. The attempt to refer moral law to men’s activities is therefore not only wrong but also would result to absurdity.

A purely “descriptive ethics” is indeed no ethics at all. Describing human behavior is not Ethics but Sociology. What morality covers is not describing but prescribing human behavior.

In summary, the law of gravity tells us what stones (in fact) do if you drop them whereas the Law of ‘Human Nature’ or moral law tells us what human beings ought to do, and don't. In other words, when we are dealing with humans, something else comes in above and beyond the actual facts. We have the facts (how men do behave) and we also have something else (how they ought to behave). In the rest of the universe, there need not be anything but the facts. Electrons and molecules behave in a certain way, and certain results follow, and that may be the whole story. But men behave in a certain way and that is not the whole story – for all the time, we know that they ought to behave differently.

5. The behavior that happens to be useful or that pays

Some secularists, to avoid the idea of a ‘law Giver’ in explaining morality, simply explain the Moral Law as the kind or set of behaviors that happen to be useful or that pay. This definition, as compared to previous “reductions” given, may be more compelling. However, evaluation of such simplistic appraisal of what Moral Law is would show that this explanation is not perfectly congruent to what Moral Law is.

Analysis

Such a view entails that when we say that a man ought not to act as he does, we only mean the same as when we state that somebody’s necktie has a disgusting color. Meaning, to say that someone is doing “immoral” would just mean that “what he is doing happens to be inconvenient to us.” To prove that such notion is erroneous, Lewis gives the following scenario:

“A man occupying the corner seat in the train because he got there first and a man who slipped into it while my back was turned and removed my bag have both equally inconvenienced me. But I am irritated by the second man and not by the first. I am not angry—except perhaps for a moment before I came to my senses—at the man who trips me up by accident; I am angry at the man who tries to trip me up even if he did not succeed. Yet, the first had hurt me and the second had not. Sometimes the behavior which I call bad is not inconvenient to me at all, but the very opposite. In war, each side may find a traitor on the other side very useful. But though they use him and pay him, they regard him as human vermin. So, you cannot say that what we call decent behavior in others is simply the behavior that happens to be useful to us. And as for decent behavior in ourselves, it is supposed to be pretty obvious that it does not mean the behavior that pays. It means things like being content with fifty centavos when you might have gotten three pesos, leaving a girl alone when you would like to make love to her, staying in dangerous places when you could go somewhere else safer, keeping promises you'd rather not keep, and telling the truth even when it makes you look like a fool.” (The Case for Christianity, pp.15-16)

Others might maintain that moral behavior of course does not mean what pays each particular person at a particular moment, but that which pays the human race as a whole.

This point is not denied because morality or proper observance of decency does benefit the human race as a whole. In fact, we cannot have any real safety or happiness except in a world where fair play is truly practiced by everyone. Genuine security and joy can only come from individuals, classes, and nations being honest, fair, and kind—in other words, moral—to each other. However, to reduce and equate morality to “the behavior that happens to be useful or that pays” simply because moral actions promote and positively affect the well being of a society is to miss the point. Lewis offers the following explanation for this point, thus:

“If we ask, ‘Why ought I to be unselfish?’ and you reply, ‘Because it is good for society.’ We may then ask, ‘Why should I care what's good for society except when it happens to repay me personally?’ And then you will have to say, ‘Because you ought to be unselfish’—which simply brings us back to where we started. You are saying what is true, but you are not getting any further. If a man asked what was that point in playing football, it would not be much good saying, ‘in order to score goals,’ for trying to score goals is the game itself, not the reason for the game, and you would really only be saying that football was football--which is true, but not worth saying. In the same way, if a man asks what is the point of behaving decently, it's no good replying, ‘in order to benefit society,’ for trying to benefit other people, in other words, being unselfish is one of the things decent behavior consists of; all you are really saying is that decent behavior is decent behavior. You would have said just as much if you would have stopped at the statement, ‘Men ought to be unselfish.’ (The Case for Christianity, pp. 16-17)

Conclusion: Theists’ Explanation

Theists, on the other hand, have simple explanation for the “binding force” and “overriding character” of the moral obligation. These are attributed to God or Supernatural Being who is believed to be man’s creator and thus also the cause of man’s moral dimension.

Religionists believe that all men have this moral experience of feeling obligated in a certain way and that this sense of moral obligation is connected with God. This idea is consistent with the meaning of religion itself (the word “religion” being a compound of the Latin re and ligare meaning “to bind back”). Thus, for the religionists there is a bond that exists between man and God, between the Creator and the creatures. This bond is the feeling of being morally obligated to live up to some moral law or standard that is the expression of the commands of God and that presses down on everyone.

Morality is believed to be “something above and beyond the ordinary facts of men's behavior, and yet quite definitely real—a real law, which none of us made, but which we find pressing on us” (The Case for Christianity, p.17). Since it would be absurd to suggest that this moral thing just popped into existence, let alone that this moral law just assembled itself, it is held that when we admit a moral law, we also affirm a moral lawgiver. For if not, it looks impossible to think of a moral law that has a moral force on our behavior.

Theists thus believe that Someone made that moral law so that moral rule is a rule of Somebody, and it is not just a disembodied principle. That is held to explain the moral force of the moral law on our behavior. Believing that Someone higher than us made such law, when we break the moral rule, we offend that Someone who Himself made the rule. It is that something or Someone who appears in us as something urging us to do right and making us feel responsible and uncomfortable when we do wrong.

http://ourhappyschool.com/philosophy/se ... ical-facts

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as i said earlier in the thread, i'm of the view that there are no ethical facts (on a par with scientific facts), that doesn't mean that i deny the importance or existence of ethics.

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[Canadian_watcher]

vanlose kid - they were good reads, thanks. Especially liked the second piece. I'd like to riff on a lot of it, but I'll stick to this bit:

Religionists believe that all men have this moral experience of feeling obligated in a certain way and that this sense of moral obligation is connecte with God. This idea is consistent with the meaning of religion itself (the word “religion” being a compound of the Latin re and ligare meaning “to bind back”). Thus, for the religionists there is a bond that exists between man and God, between the Creator and the creatures. This bond is the feeling of being morally obligated to live up to some moral law or standard that is the expression of the commands of God and that presses down on everyone

Theists thus believe that Someone made that moral law so that moral rule is a rule of Somebody, and it is not just a disembodied principle. ...

If you take the idea of a personified Creator out of the above, this is my understanding of morality at this point in my life. (I'm always learning and maybe I'll know better at a later stage). Instead of a god-being, which admittedly is difficult to identify with or believe in, we can believe in a guiding force, whether that is outside of us or a part of each of us. That force not only gives us the miraculous mechanics of our human bodies but also the intangibles that make us build the world we will live in. Morality included.

I draw a distinction between morality and ethics thus: morality is our innate desire to do right and avoid wrong, ethics is the attempt to codify right and wrong behaviour.

People can be born missing body parts or missing one or more of their senses, and they can be born missing that sense of morality. Whatever parts/abilities were might have been born without, though, no one will avoid the effect on their lives of ethics, for ethics is imposed by those around us. (Oftentimes, I think, by people who were born without empathy)

[Canadian_watcher]

I seriously think that every single atheist thinks that there is nothing greater 'out there' than him/herself, yes. Isn't that the point? There is no God, therefore the things in this observable world are all there is, and since man is at the top of the food chain, then it follows that atheists believe themselves to be the universe's greatest manifestation.

In the immortal words of Peter Boyles' Frank Barone- "Holy Crap!".

and

I sincerely think you can't seriously think this, since it is more a sequence of unrelated prejudices than serious thought; and that you should spare us the effort and deconstruct your faulty logic yourself.

I do not think that atheists are narcissists, which is how my previous posts might have come off. But doesn't it go without saying that atheists believe that there is not another form of intelligence other than those of the living creatures we can observe and that that intelligence dies along with those living creatures?

Perhaps there are those who believe that 'all of humanity' is the organism with the highest worth. That doesn't change the assertion that atheists believe that their experience of this life is the greatest manifestation the universe has achieved and that after they die that experience will be gone and therefore downgraded to a status of 'past greatest achievement.'

Legacies of this generation are carried by the next generation, but the next generation will also die, and perhaps die right out. What does that mean to an atheist? I assert that, for atheists, the extinction of all living things would mean the extinction of intelligence and direction.

right? how is this wrong?

[23]

"I assert that, for atheists, the extinction of all living things would mean the extinction of intelligence and direction."

This is an interesting thread for me; at least this juncture of it. Thanks to all who are participating in it.

I'm a little confused, however, about how the term 'atheist" is being applied in some quarters here. A clarification would be appreciated.

Atheism, to me, is the antithesis of theism. Theists subscribe to the existence of at least one deity or god. Conversely, atheists don't subscribe to any.

What distinguishes the two is the subscription or non subscription to the existence of a god/deity or gods/deities.

You can be an atheist, however, and still believe that there is an intelligence innate to the universe. It's just not a god- or deity-centered one.

Unless, of course, you are someone who believes that intelligence is strictly a theistic attribute.

Which is where you'd part company with many atheists.

[DevilYouKnow]

I do not think that atheists are narcissists, which is how my previous posts might have come off. But doesn't it go without saying that atheists believe that there is not another form of intelligence other than those of the living creatures we can observe and that that intelligence dies along with those living creatures?

Perhaps there are those who believe that 'all of humanity' is the organism with the highest worth. That doesn't change the assertion that atheists believe that their experience of this life is the greatest manifestation the universe has achieved and that after they die that experience will be gone and therefore downgraded to a status of 'past greatest achievement.'

Legacies of this generation are carried by the next generation, but the next generation will also die, and perhaps die right out. What does that mean to an atheist? I assert that, for atheists, the extinction of all living things would mean the extinction of intelligence and direction.

right? how is this wrong?

Atheist here. Yes to all of the above.

[brainpanhandler]

Very glad for this discussion and this article.

vanlose kid quoted Chomsky as follows;

"So Marxism, Freudianism: any one of these things I think is an irrational cult. They're theology, so they're whatever you think of theology; I don't think much of it. In fact, in my view that's exactly the right analogy: notions like Marxism and Freudianism belong to the history of organized religion." -- Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power

But does Chomsky understand that his rationalism has religious aspects, too?

My guess is that it's the ism-ness of Marxism and Freudianism that Chomsky is referring to when he makes the theological analogy. It is precisely the ism-ness that turns these living bodies of thought into irrational (inflexible) cults. It's the inflexibility that is irrational. Hence it seems unlikely that you are correct when you assert that Chomsky "believes (without being able to 'sketch it out' precisely) that there's an 'absolute' sense of justice that can be articulated to justify (or fail to justify) revolutionary action", revolutionary action being inclusive of violence, since he states, "I'm not saying there is an absolute.. . For example, I am not a committed pacifist. I would not hold that it is under all imaginable circumstances wrong to use violence, even though use of violence is in some sense unjust. I believe that one has to estimate relative justices."

In other words violence will always have some element of injustice (wrongness) to it, but whether or not it is justified is contextual, the ends justifying the means.

Foucault contends that the notion of "justice" is a proletarian construct intended as a weapon to oppress the oppressors. Ridiculous. I think Chomsky misunderstood Foucault, but Chomsky does not simply occupy the opposite of an either/or concept of justice in response, as you suggest, and claim that there is some absolute sense of justice that exists apart from imperfect human beings.

I think it's too hasty to characterise our existing systems of justice as merely systems of class oppression; I don't think that they are that. I think that they embody systems of class oppression and elements of other kinds of oppression, but they also embody a kind of groping towards the true humanly, valuable concepts of justice and decency and love and kindness and sympathy, which I think are real.And I think that in any future society, which will, of course, never be the perfect society, we'll have such concepts again, which we hope, will come closer to incorporating a defence of fundamental human needs, including such needs as those for solidarity and sympathy and whatever, but will probably still reflect in some manner the inequities and the elements of oppression of the existing society.

Chomsky is a pragmatist and a realist. Not an absolutist. I understand how you might make the argument that there are "religious aspects" to Chomksy's sense of what Justice is, but only if you use language as vague as "religious aspects".

This excerpt from his debate w/ Michel Foucault from 1971 gets to the crux of the matter w/r/t justice and power. Chomsky believes (without being able to 'sketch it out' precisely) that there's an 'absolute' sense of justice that can be articulated to justify (or fail to justify) revolutionary action, whereas Foucault does not think there's an objective conception of justice. For Foucault conceptions of justice are tied up with power and social position, but Chomsky disagrees:

[vanlose kid]

^ ^ good take bph. think you're right. will add something to it later if i can get it into words.

just a note here: though Chomsky is not an absolutist does not mean that he is a relativist.

it's not a dualist dichotomy but a Spannungsbogen, a range of gradations between extremes. anarchy is poised between "absolute" order and "absolute" chaos. it's the middle path, as buddha would say. the mean. very aristotelian in a way.

hanging ten.

edit: added video (hanging ten at 00:44).




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[23]

The concept of justice can certainly be dogmatized.

Either in a religious or secular arena.

Dogmatic tress don't just grow in the soil of religion.

Secular soil would do just fine.

[vanlose kid]

The concept of justice can certainly be dogmatized.

Either in a religious or secular arena.

Dogmatic tress don't just grow in the soil of religion.

Secular soil would do just fine.

yep.

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[Canadian_watcher]

"I assert that, for atheists, the extinction of all living things would mean the extinction of intelligence and direction."

This is an interesting thread for me; at least this juncture of it. Thanks to all who are participating in it.

I'm a little confused, however, about how the term 'atheist" is being applied in some quarters here. A clarification would be appreciated.

Atheism, to me, is the antithesis of theism. Theists subscribe to the existence of at least one deity or god. Conversely, atheists don't subscribe to any.

What distinguishes the two is the subscription or non subscription to the existence of a god/deity or gods/deities.

You can be an atheist, however, and still believe that there is an intelligence innate to the universe. It's just not a god- or deity-centered one.

Unless, of course, you are someone who believes that intelligence is strictly a theistic attribute.

Which is where you'd part company with many atheists.

I was thinking about this last night, actually - the problem lies in my own idea of 'atheist' I think. I am coming to realize that perhaps I am atheist after all, but I'm not really sure, since I do believe that there is an intelligence and order to the spirit realm (for lack of a better term) ... as such I feel I'm automatically disqualified to call myself atheist.

I admit freely that my take on all of this is all based on belief - non empirical evidence - faith. I'm comfortable with that. I have come to believe that perhaps the ability to have faith is a gift along the lines of mathematical genius or a killer tenor voice.. some people have it and others don't .. some people work on it and develop it and others don't even have the seeds of it to practice with. Some people fake it. Just like anything else.

[vanlose kid]

^ ^ it ain't easy

ps: will respond to your post. still thinking on it.

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[23]

In your continued consideration of whether you are an atheist or not, you may want to juxtapose atheism with pantheism.

The latter includes a healthy respect for a non-deity-originated intelligence.

"I assert that, for atheists, the extinction of all living things would mean the extinction of intelligence and direction."

This is an interesting thread for me; at least this juncture of it. Thanks to all who are participating in it.

I'm a little confused, however, about how the term 'atheist" is being applied in some quarters here. A clarification would be appreciated.

Atheism, to me, is the antithesis of theism. Theists subscribe to the existence of at least one deity or god. Conversely, atheists don't subscribe to any.

What distinguishes the two is the subscription or non subscription to the existence of a god/deity or gods/deities.

You can be an atheist, however, and still believe that there is an intelligence innate to the universe. It's just not a god- or deity-centered one.

Unless, of course, you are someone who believes that intelligence is strictly a theistic attribute.

Which is where you'd part company with many atheists.

I was thinking about this last night, actually - the problem lies in my own idea of 'atheist' I think. I am coming to realize that perhaps I am atheist after all, but I'm not really sure, since I do believe that there is an intelligence and order to the spirit realm (for lack of a better term) ... as such I feel I'm automatically disqualified to call myself atheist.

I admit freely that my take on all of this is all based on belief - non empirical evidence - faith. I'm comfortable with that. I have come to believe that perhaps the ability to have faith is a gift along the lines of mathematical genius or a killer tenor voice.. some people have it and others don't .. some people work on it and develop it and others don't even have the seeds of it to practice with. Some people fake it. Just like anything else.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Some people reckon jainism is an atheist religion... it recognises everything as having a soul, but recognises no hierarchy of souls leading to an omnipotent God.

Buddhism and Taoism seem similar too, tho they don't necessarily recognise a soul. (Or asouls.)

[JackRiddler]

.

Interesting developments... I see that some of the following may be more relevant to yesterday's tenor than today's...

But doesn't it go without saying that atheists believe that there is not another form of intelligence other than those of the living creatures we can observe and that that intelligence dies along with those living creatures?

What does relative intelligence have to do with it? Are you defining "god" simply as a being who is smarter than humans? Being smarter than humans is still a few zillion light-years away from an eternal, all-powerful, witting creator of the currently observable universe, no?

How do you define "intelligence"? Isn't it inherent in the order of things? An order obviously exists, whether we understand it or not. Generally, we don't, so we might not be very intelligent.

Do you prefer to define intelligence as limited to the conscious thought of a living mind? Even in that case, there could be more intelligent consciousnesses than those of the smartest homo sapiens. However, I don't see that their existence must indicate the existence of "god."

Maybe some animals on this planet for which we don't show enough respect are smarter than us, with cetaceans as the obvious candidates. Maybe there are living energy fields surrounding us that we have yet to see, or may never see. We can consider extraterrestrials, hidden beings or demons on this planet. None of these would consitute the all-seeing all-knowing all-powerful single necessary first cause and sentient creator and mover of the universe, which is how "God" is conventionally understood.

But of course the conventional Big-G concept is indefensible from observation, so your argument for God, or "god," or (as you say at one point) "god/gods" seems to depend on failing to define. I think you also say "higher order" or "higher power." Others say "something out there," etc., as though any of these must be the Big-G.

There is a universe! It's big, it's awesome, and I think it explodes all human concepts of "god" to date. We don't know much about it. It may be unknowable. We may be brains in a vat or a "matrix." None of that is an argument for God unless you don't define God, except as Some Thing that can always elude definition... but belief in which (and here is the key) gives YOU a kind of specialness, a "gift" that the non-believers don't have, or even a moral sense that the non-believers lack (puh-leaze!).

But the elusively undefinable is just as much mine to define or not define. I refuse to call it god, God or gods, since the elusively undefinable no longer fits the conventional understandings of these words.

Either take a stand and clearly define your god/gods/higher power, or admit you've got no positive argument for its/their existence, since it/they is/are everything and nothing, as long as we can't see it.

All I see is the universe. That's where I start. It's awesome. I'm hushed by its awesomeness. (Well, sometimes.) As our empirical view of everything has expanded from this little pinhead of a planet to reveal galaxies and then billions of light years of vacuum and no Tyrant Jehovah anywhere you look, and as our grounded understanding of history has extended at least to the early years of this planet and the origins and evolution of life on it, the smart theists have moved God to increasingly abstract or vague definitions.

We can speculate on possibilities for a living universe or living galaxies or living n-dimensional energy lattices that develop consciousness and will and who, over millions of years, might generate astronomical events and cause smaller forms of life to evolve within them, the latter almost certainly according to the observable process of natural selection. Confronted with such concepts I, too, go from atheist to agnostic. The atheist in me rejects ideas that lack for logic or evidence, like the monotheistic tyrant gods who talk only to One Prophet and suspiciously want to get in my business with their Commandments as delivered by hierophants and charismatics and born-agains and hucksters pitching for cash and spiritual terrorists who try to beat people up with cartoon visions of hell. The agnostic in me me allows at least philosophically for possibilities that are much bigger than we could ever know, while acknowledging that, well, we don't actually see such things well enough to even give them names.

But I don't pretend to know! That's pretty fucking humble and the opposite of thinking I'm the smartest thing in the universe. Because you know what? I don't hide it: I'm pretty smart, and I think I've gotten smarter in many ways thanks to experience, reading, and writing. But the smarter I've gotten, the more obvious it becomes that I don't know very much at all, and that's a fact.

Compare that to the hubris of someone who also knows they're not very smart in the big scheme, but at the same time imagines they know .GOD.

I seriously think that every single atheist thinks that there is nothing greater 'out there' than him/herself, yes. Isn't that the point? There is no God, therefore the things in this observable world are all there is, and since man is at the top of the food chain, then it follows that atheists believe themselves to be the universe's greatest manifestation.

How could the food chain matter?

The food chain is not a hierarchy of value. It is not a normative system. To think so would be a religious view, whether it was claimed by a religionist or an atheist.

The food chain is a construct, a set of categories we map out from observations of what eats what. And looky here, the observable chain happens to be a cycle: Once I eat the things that ate the things, the things they ate get to eat me in turn. (Fuck, now I see why I want an afterlife!)

What makes you think your cardboard atheist considers the food chain in determining the existence of a god?

Or are you saying your God would be "higher" on the food chain than us? Interesting!

You know, all these things have been done before, we're not going to give new turns here to a discourse that's occupied all of the philosophers and big thinkers and pretty much all of the scientists and artists since the dawn of language. I see Canadian_watcher and in a more subtle way vanlose kid (with his ethics post) tending toward Kant's gambit, which boils down to the need for a god to establish good behavior, otherwise everything ends in riot and rapine and chaos.

Kant's argument: Seeing as you can't empirically prove or just as importantly disprove the big guy (since he's conveniently outside the realm of the observable!), it would be really irresponsible and stupid of you not to choose Him over nothing, since the result would be riot and rapine and chaos.

By implication that must be what those fucking atheists do, except, of course, they don't. But let's please stop bringing observable matters into this. Maybe the atheists don't need God to keep them from rapine and murder, but apparently the religious followers do. I'm not so sure there isn't something to that: Take God away from a Mega-Church crowd, they might erupt into a very well-armed lynch mob.

God is the great and necessary Moral Deterrent.

Of course I think this is bullshit; there would be a god or there wouldn't, independently of any need to justify human morality. And if there was a god, either we see him or we don't. We don't.

But wait! How do we know inherently what's right and wrong? And wherefrom comes our sense of the awesome? Surely THAT is "god," right?

This is a tautological trick, in which the palpable sense of right and wrong that most of us do feel without being sure where the hell it came from is defined as something that must have come from a god. But since atheists also have this sense, belief in a god based on "faith" must not be a necessary component for possessing the sense of right and wrong, and thus not much of an argument for the unbelievers to believe.

There is an inverse attempt to disprove God in what's called the "Argument from Evil" -- by demonstrating evil, you make the image of an all-powerful all-loving Creator of all things go *poof*. This I always found to be the silliest of atheist arguments. Why should there be any reason for the creator to be something that we would consider "good"? Remember, we're talking about the UNIVERSE as we now know it to be, which is to say, BIG, with this planet one of a great many, and with no doubt millions more also full of life forms we can barely imagine.

Why should the all-knowing all-powerful creator and mover and first cause of all that... also be all-loving? Or care about the outcome of our petty Earth conflicts, or pass judgement on the actions of human individuals, or listen to Mother Teresa's prayers and not to Jack the Ripper's? No reason! That's our wishful thinking at work. Any being that did care about us, or some subset of us... might be much higher on the IQ scale or the food chain than we are (so what?)... it might even be the creator of us (just for the sake of argument)... but it would still be almost infinitessimal compared to a concept of a god that actually fits the vastness of the now-observable universe as The Creator.

A god that listens to your prayers would not be big enough to be God of this universe. Sorry.

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