I'm tired and working too hard and haven't been sleeping too well. Anyway, term is now finally over - I handed in a not very good paper proposal for my political economy class. Still, it helped germinate some ideas which may bear fruit sooner or later. Now, for the next week, I'm going to work on migration, which will bear fruit.
Something that comes through in the debate between Andrew Sullivan and Sam Harris (see last entry) is the difference in registers. Sam Harris is overwhelmingly focused on a scientific idea of truth, and his problem with religion is that it does not meet these standards. Andrew Sullivan embraces a broader idea of truth, and talks about the emotional resources that religion provides him with. I think this is true of atheists and religious moderates more generally. It is not a criticism of atheists: the criterion of scientific truth is arguably the clearest one we have got, and abandoning it bears heavy cognitive costs. However, I do think that a challenge for the current wave of non-religious and anti-religious thinkers is to give an account of what, in a secular world-view, can replace the ethical framework provided by religion. Atheism's dirty secret is that the extant secular answers to that are not very convincing.
(But then nor are the extant religious justifications for morality. There is a notorious problem in explaining why we ought to obey God's commands unless they are independently justifiable; and if the latter, why bring God in?)
Question for today: what would a modern and unillusioned set of reasons for ethical behaviour look like? Not, I think, very much like a watertight argument that moves from premises to conclusions. I'll stop there and get back to work.
NP: Os Mutantes Le Premier Bonheur du Jour
"I do think that a challenge for the current wave of non-religious and anti-religious thinkers is to give an account of what, in a secular world-view, can replace the ethical framework provided by religion. Atheism's dirty secret is that the extant secular answers to that are not very convincing."
ReplyDeleteReligion might be able to provide a consistent and unitary "ethical framework" to guide action, and in this way be superior to "secular ethics", yet its authority is rather weak. For two reasons, at least: 1) the motivational strength of ethical commands seems to be rather weak when the reasons for these commands come fron an outside source; and much more so when they are difficult to understand, as it is often the case; 2) to supplement such weakness religion (or at least Catholicism) use as motivation for compliance the prospect of future punishment, in rather the same way as systems of law (the main difference being that systems of law might be avoidable, while the punishment of an omnipotent God who sees it all is not).
Our secular ethics might not be able to provide definite and uncontestable answers to all moral dilemmas, but at least they make us responsible for thinking about such dilemmas and making the best decision we can make.
Both fallibility and perfectibility are constant features of human nature. This is no embarrassment.
That in itself is valuable.
change the order of last two sentences... should read:
ReplyDelete"That in itself is valuable.
Both fallibility and perfectibility are constant features of human nature. This is no embarrassment."
So... even granting your thesis that...
ReplyDelete"Atheism's dirty secret is that the extant secular answers to that are not very convincing."
this can hardly serve as a reason to take religion seriously... or to accept to be guided by other fallible man... whose moral authority is rather uncertain...
religion in the end cannot be proven to be anything else than another instance of human opinion
I'm actually quite annoyed by what I take to be extremely unfair attacks on atheism and secularism and might be overreacting to what you have actually said, but I do wonder why it is that atheism has somehow to prove that it is superior to religion in every other respect and can fill the vacuum left by it with absolute elegance and magnificence in ordern to be given any credibility or even some respect and consideration...
ReplyDeleteto me a more urgent question is: who is feeling threatened by atheism and secularism and why?
Wow, this is more comments than my blog had in a month, thank you!
ReplyDeleteWho's feeling threatened by atheism and secularism? Not me. I am a secularist and, if not an atheist, at least a fairly sceptical agnostic. I was just pointing out that atheists like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins tend not to try to answer a charge laid against them by religionists (like C S Lewis) - that without religion, there is no foundation for right and wrong, so any behaviour will be legitimate. As I say in the next paragraph, it's not clear that religon is actually in a better position to found morality rationally.
Something I didn't say, but which deserves pointing out, is that e.g. Dawkins claims that the inherent evils of the natural world (wasps who lay eggs inside other insects, for example) are evidence against divine creation. But without a clear rational basis for morality, in particular one which applies beyond the sphere of human affairs, that claim fails. Currently popular "evolutionary explanations" for morality, to which Dawkins for one subscribes, definitely fail to apply beyond human sphere - if indeed they provide rational foundations at all, as opposed to a mere causal explanation.
I didn't mean to imply that you feel threatened by atheism and/or secularism... i do know you a little bit by now!
ReplyDeleteI meant to say that who is being threatened by atheism and secularism is a question worth asking and thinking about... these days.
I have noticed during the last year a very strong and fierce wave of attacks against either atheism or secularism in the media, both british and spanish, and I'm really bothered by the fallacies in such arguments, and also very concerned about the poor quality of such debates.
Many evils are attributed to atheism and secularism in those attacks, and one of the premises that might be implicit in such arguments is: "look, atheism fails to provide an alternative system ethics, therefore, atheists fail to act ethically, therefore, it's not surprise that where we get atheists, we also get ..." fill in the blank with whatever man-made evil of your choice.
So, I'm concerned that you think we can charge atheism with the accusation that it is unable to provide an alternative system of ethics, cause it seems to me that once we grant that there is only a very slippery slope towards those conclusions mentioned above.
As far as I understand, atheism is only a position about the existence of God, the position of denial. And that is all it is. It is not a claim about ethics, and is not intrinsically related to the claim that secular ethics are or will ever be superior to religious ethics.
You might think I'm overreacting, and I probably am, but surely for the right reasons. And I think if you had known the attacks I am referring to you would understand why. (I did write about this in my blog, but then I deleted it.)
I shall leave this here.
It's true that atheism doesn't imply any claims about morality. But it's not unreasonable for religious people to ask whether, without religion, we can ever have good reasons to behave well. I think you should come up with an answer, rather than bemoaning the question.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Sam Harris' latest response in the conversation is a zinger.
Your question implies that religions does provide good reasons to behave well, which I have serious trouble to understand, so that's not a question that worries me a lot.
ReplyDeleteBut perhaps you want to have a go at making that point?
I don't know if religion does provide good reasons. I mentioned that there are problems with the idea. But lots of people think it does, and they reasonably want to know what the non-religious alternative is. However, instead of setting out my thoughts on the foundations of ethics, I think I'll post a picture of a Wol.
ReplyDeletethat sounds like a good idea
ReplyDelete