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Where do morals come from? Brother Jed is at it again…
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Hello all!
Brother Jed posted a transcript of his opening statement from his Monday debate with Brandon Christen on his Facebook profile. In it, he repeated, nearly verbatim, an argument he made during his debate with me last April (see the 7-minute mark or so). We went over this last year quite thoroughly (I thought), and I’m disappointed to see he’s still trotting out the same, already-refuted argument. This appears to be, it seem sto me, a textbook example of intellectual dishonesty on his part.
Here’s the relevant bit to today’s post:
If there is no God, who or what is the source and foundation of morality? Morals deal with right and wrong in our interpersonal relationships. Morals are personal; the source of morals must be connected with a personal God, who himself is a subject of moral obligation and who chooses to use his great powers morally.
Atheists affirm that all that exists is matter, energy, space and time. The problem for atheism is that these elements are not enough to support the existence of morality. Matter, energy, space and time are impersonal and non-moral. How does the personal come out of the impersonal? How does the moral come from stuff that is non-moral?
Men universally have a sense of moral obligation. “I ought; I ought not.” What is the source of moral obligation?
How, in a world which is ultimately the product of time, chance and material particles, did there come to be such things as moral obligations?
The existence of moral obligations makes more sense in a universe in which the ultimate reality is a moral Person than it does in a universe where persons are a late and insignificant by product of impersonal forces. The notion of morals requires a Moral Governor that Moral Governor is the God of the Bible.
I hardly know where to start with this. Here is what I have to say about it:
”Atheists affirm that all that exists is matter, energy, space and time.”
I think you’re 1) confusing atheists with metaphysical naturalists and 2) forgetting that matter=energy and space=time.
“The problem for atheism is that these elements are not enough to support the existence of morality. Matter, energy, space and time are impersonal and non-moral. How does the personal come out of the impersonal? How does the moral come from stuff that is non-moral?”
You asked this exact same question last year at Speakers’ Circle and again during our debate last April, Jed. I have already given you a sufficient scientific response. I have recommended to you books that thoroughly answer this using abundant evidence. Your question is not a mystery to scientists and hasn’t been a mystery to scientists for quite awhile now; in fact the answer to this question is the point of an entire field of science called sociobiology. Some of the bigger names in research in this field are E.O. Wilson, Frans de Waal, Robert Axelrod, and Samuel Bowles. Others you might want to read, if you actually want to know the answer to this question rather than just sound profound for continuing to raise it to people who haven’t heard it before, are Michael Shermer and Matt Ridley. Again, I have already told you all of this.
I think you just like to say the phrase “late and insignificant by product of impersonal forces.” Just because morality is a byproduct of impersonal forces does not mean that it’s insignificant. That’s a claim YOU’RE making, not a claim scientists have made.
You insist – and persist – in attempting to paint the origin of morality like it’s some huge mystery that has no possible earthly explanation, and therefore MUST have come from your god, while simultaneously completely ignoring the scientific explanation I repeatedly provide to you every time you bring this up.
Do you just not care that science has actually answered this question?
Evolution is sufficient to explain morality in cooperative animals, humans included. We have WAY more evidence than the minimum to demonstrate that this is the case. I recommend the books “The Origins of Virtue” by Matt Ridley and “A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and its Evolution” by Samuel Bowles if you are actually interested in the scientific answer to your question, “How does the moral come from the stuff that is non-moral?” This is an extremely well-documented concept in science.
Again, to be absolutely clear, how morals arise naturally from impersonal forces is NOT a mystery for scientists. Just because you don’t understand (or refuse to look at) where morality came from scientifically does not mean that, therefore, natural elements are insufficient to explain it.
What you are saying here is known in logic as an argument from incredulity. You are essentially saying, “I don’t understand how morality could have come about naturally. Therefore, morality must not have come about naturally.” This is a fallacy. We can readily show how morality comes about naturally, and in fact have done this in abundance in controlled settings. There’s LOTS of absolutely fascinating research that combines the game theory of economics with evolutionary biology to demonstrate it quite readily, in fact.
I would really love for this to be the last time we go through this dog & pony show, but I have a feeling you’re not even going to read this, let alone read the books I recommended. I like you, Jed, but you’ve been stuck on this idea that morals must have come from a god for at least several years now. Do you continue to raise the question because, after considering the evidence, you find the scientific explanation insufficient [in which case, what are your scientific objections]? Or have you just not even looked into it? The latter is my guess.
If you want to know where morals came from, read “The Origins of Virtue” by Matt Ridley, so we can finally put this to bed. Where morals came from is not a mystery to science, and it has nothing to do with your god. Science has answered this question; it’s time to put this to bed.
Until next time!
- Dave
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
A child molester talks about gullibility & church-going folks
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A friend of mine, who is a pediatrician and a pastor at a local church, posted this article today on his Facebook wall with the comment, “Great reminder about pedophiles.” The quotation below comes from that article:
I considered church people easy to fool… they have a trust that comes from being Christians. They tend to be better folks all around and seem to want to believe in the good that exists in people. I think they want to believe in people. And because of that, you can easily convince, with or without convincing words.
These words were spoken by a convicted child molester, according to the article, which was quoting clinical psychologist Anna Salter, and author of the book Predators, Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders.
SASHA contributing writers Seth Kurtenbach and Brandon Christen have both written about gullibility on this blog before, but I think it’s worth talking about more. In his book The Believing Brain, Michael Shermer talks about our natural tendency to be obedient. There are strong evolutionary fitness advantages to this historically: If your dog wants to run & play in the street, listening to you call him back over could easily save his or her life. Dogs simply don’t understand how dangerous cars can be as well as we humans do, and it’s in their best interest to obey us when it comes to hanging out in the streets we have built.
Similarly, if as a tot, you decide you’re curious about what’s over the edge of that cliff, there’s an obvious fitness advantage to listening to your parents when they yell “No!” while they come running to stop you. Going the other way, there’s a strong fitness advantage to eating vegetables, even if you dislike the taste, and you should listen to your parents when they tell you to do it.
But, parents are not right about everything. Specifically, if your parents tell you that there’s a magical man in the sky who watches everything you do, and who will reward you for doing good or punish you for doing bad — even when your parents aren’t looking — you can, and should, question this. I’m talking, of course, about Santa Claus 
Is religious belief rooted in gullibility? Can religious belief be explained simply as a lack of skepticism, if we are naturally selected to believe, and it is easy to hijack that sense of obedience? As someone once put it, “Religion was invented when the first conman met the first fool” (Mark Twain, attributed). And if you’ve never seen the movie The Invention of Lying, you should!
Your thoughts appreciated.
Until next time!
- Dave
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
This is not an April Fool’s post: I guess I’m not an accomodationist anymore.
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I guess I’m not an accomodationist anymore.
From my Facebook wall today:
Christianity is offensive. It is offensive to reason, offensive to human welfare, and offensive to social progress. It is a willfully ignorant and deliberate abuse of logic, and a shortcoming of rational thought. All religions, Christianity included, prey on human gullibility and fear of the unknown. Christianity is dangerous. It is cruel. To quote Christopher Hitchens, “It is not moral to lie to children. It is not moral to lie to ignorant, uneducated people, and tell them that if they believe nonsense, they can be saved. It’s immoral.”
Christianity claims that 6,000 years ago, a talking snake, apparently fluent in ancient Hebrew, persuaded a woman, made from a rib, to eat a piece of fruit. Because of that, all of us are going to burn for trillions and trillions of years in a lake made out of fire and sulfur, unless we telepathically pledge our allegiance to an invisible Jewish zombie, who – by magical thinking powers – can take our consciousness (which somehow by magic survives our deaths) to an invisible place where he lives with his daddy, who is (somehow by magic) also he himself?
Do you mean to tell me that you, in all seriousness, believe this insanity? All the touchy-feely gooeyness of how being around your friends at church makes you FEEL aside, or how listening to worship music makes you FEEL, is the above paragraph really, truly what you believe is historically true and factually accurate? If so, what on Earth is wrong with you? If you believe this literal non-sense, you SHOULD be ashamed of yourself, and the satire has served its purpose. And for this, I do not apologize.
I do not believe that you are really a Christian. I believe that you identify as a Christian because your parents told you that what to believe, and your culture has reinforced it. I think you are smarter than that. I think you know that there is no difference between talking snakes and the Tooth Fairy. It’s a myth. Yahweh is just another “god” from just another ancient myth. There are thousands of gods that you don’t believe in. To quote Stephen F. Roberts, “When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”
If you want to read the full thread, here it is. It started with an April Fool’s status:
Dave Muscato:
Jesus is LORD! Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” What more do you need?? Hallelujah, Amen, Praise Be, He is Risen! (17 likes)
Trevor B:
He is risen, indeed.
Dave Muscato:
Goodness me, I forgot to capitalize Way, Truth, and Life. Capitalization makes it more factual, you know. And that’s True with a capital-T. (8 likes)
Franklin K:
Wait, does it say that in the Bible? Cause otherwise I don’t know why you’d ever believe that. (2 likes)
Dave Muscato:
It’s a little early to interrupt dinnertime, but around 6, I’m gonna go door-to-door with some tracts sharing the Good News. Who’s with me?? (3 likes)
Dave Muscato:
Franklin, it’s John 14:6. Do you have a Bible? I will give you one. Everybody should read a Bible everyday. What’s your address? IM me. (3 likes)
K.C.:
Glad you’re coming around finally, Dave. I was worried for your eternal soul there for a while…
Dave Muscato:
No need to worry about me, Keenan! I’ve got the Holy Spirit in me. I know this because I believe it. (2 likes)
Becky K:
Lol, yesterday they came by twice, completely confused when I said I wasn’t interested bc I’m Jewish… (1 like)
Dave Muscato:
That’s great, Becky; so was JC! You’re halfway there
(2 likes)
Sarah K:
Ohhhhh you fool! You April Fool! (1 like)
Becky K:
Oh, you’re so silly (1 like)
Dave Muscato:
Cynthia S:
Haha! Happy 1st of April!
Megan K:
oh yeah, april 1st! i was like wtf?? haha (1 like)
Tyler C:
Nice. Best fucking April Fools’ Day joke ever. (2 likes)
Catherine P:
I must share. (1 like)
Zach C:
It surprises me that you would try to be intentionally offensive… from talking to you in the past I would’ve expected more.
Dave Muscato:
Hey Zach! It’s April Fool’s Day, and this is satire. Like all satire, it’s designed to hold abuses, follies, or shortcomings up for ridicule – because such abuses, follies, and shortcomings are, well, ridiculous. Satire is designed to be funny, but it has a greater purpose of constructive social criticism, in order to shame individuals or societies into improving themselves.
Christianity is offensive. It is offensive to reason, offensive to human welfare, and offensive to social progress. It is a willfully ignorant and deliberate abuse of logic, and a shortcoming of rational thought. All religions, Christianity included, prey on human gullibility and fear of the unknown. Christianity is dangerous. It is cruel. To quote Christopher Hitchens, “It is not moral to lie to children. It is not moral to lie to ignorant, uneducated people, and tell them that if they believe nonsense, they can be saved. It’s immoral.”
Zach, Christianity claims that 6,000 years ago, a talking snake, apparently fluent in ancient Hebrew, persuaded a woman, made from a rib, to eat a piece of fruit. Because of that, all of us are going to burn for trillions and trillions of years in a lake made out of fire and sulfur, unless we telepathically pledge our allegiance to an invisible Jewish zombie, who – by magical thinking powers – can take our consciousness (which somehow by magic survives our deaths) to an invisible place where he lives with his daddy, who is (somehow by magic) also he himself?
Do you mean to tell me that you, in all seriousness, believe this insanity? All the touchy-feely gooeyness of how being around your friends at church makes you FEEL, or listening to worship music makes you FEEL, is the above paragraph really, truly what you believe is historically true and factually accurate? If so, what on Earth is wrong with you? If you believe this literal non-sense, you SHOULD be ashamed of yourself, and the satire has served its purpose. And for this, I do not apologize.
I do not believe that you are really a Christian. I believe that you identify as a Christian because your parents told you that what to believe, and your culture has reinforced it. I think you are smarter than that. I think you know that there is no difference between talking snakes and the Tooth Fairy. It’s a myth. Yahweh is just another “god” from just another ancient myth. There are thousands of gods that you don’t believe in. To quote Stephen F. Roberts, “When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”
Hope this helps, and I hope you’re having a great weekend! And I mean that sincerely. – Dave (6 likes)
Christian H:
Interesting perspective. i believe in Christ, as well as the garden account. And it’s not because my parents taught me to. I was both an atheist and a skeptic. And I am still quite rational. As I’ve stated before, it was the evidence (historical, prophetic, archaeology, etc.) that convinced me. Some of whlich I’ve shared with you before to no avail, and you chose to ignore, change the subject by raising another objection, or by explaining it away. And that’s fine I understand. But it’s incorrect and untrue to make such a blanket statement about all Christians.
You claim Christianity is bad for the world, but for every example of someone doing something wicked in the name of Christianity (which can be demonstrated to be someone simply using a religion as they would any other power they could get over people) and I can name ten examples of how Christianity has made the world better. (1 like)
Christian H:
If we are being satirical, then happy atheists day (Psalm 14:1). (3 likes)
Zach C:
If you truly stand by your above statements and want to help people by removing this nonsense belief from them then I would suggest you alter your approach. As a person in a position of leadership you act as an ambassador for your belief set. I have many friends that don’t prescribe to the same belief set as me and completely respect that they have received the same inputs as me over their lives and come to a different conclusion. The fact that they believe something different than me doesn’t bother me. It’s your lack of respect for your fellow man that bothers me. Your post oozes arrogance which in no way would be proactive to making me give your new truth the time of day. You’re being counteractive and it’s frustrating. Your beliefs are what they are… beliefs. If you want to have a missional attitude about promoting what you believe in order to help others by opening their minds then you should consider some serious adjustments in your means of communicating in a public forum like facebook. I cast no judgment on my friends who are atheists because they will state that it is what they “believe”, just like I “believe” in the Christian faith. That’s what it is, a belief — nothing more, nothing less. Regardless of whether God exists being arrogant is silly. You just come off looking like a dick.
Devin W:
Dave that was awesome, I’m going to have to repost most of that if it’s okay. (1 like)
Devin W:
I wish I could be a dick like you.
Rebecca V:
I have to agree, Dave. You made an extremely blanket statement about all Christians. I know many Christians who grew up with atheist parents or parents who were lapsed Catholics and so on who are ridiculed by their family for their new found faith. My sister, whom you met yesterday just started going to church and changing her life around after years of going her own way. Most of her friends don’t understand the radical change in her just in the last four months. We grew up not going to church and just barely understanding Christianity because my mom was a believer but not my dad. My dad finally realized his need for Jesus about 5 years ago, just before he turned 50 after my mom prayed for him for nearly 30 years. So, as I have learned to not stereotype atheists, I hope you learn not to do the same about Christians. (2 likes)
C.S.:
Dave,
I still haven’t got a reasonable explain (Euthyphro [sp?] doesn’t count, if you read the wiki you provide for that argument it also provided the solution to the false dicotomy. Saved my grey cells alot of trouble hehe) of why I should feel ashamed…If there is no God right & wrong do not exist. Therefore you can’t shame me because I’ve done nothing wrong
Devin W:
i dont want hijack dave’s post. but can you explain how the existence of right and wrong are dependent upon there being a god? (2 likes)
Renee S:
LOL. ♥ (1 like)
Christian H:
Devin, can you explain where right and wrong comes from without a creator?
Stephen A:
Devin, I’m with you. There is no valid argument for that viewpoint; however, there’s tons of observable evidence to support the argument that “right and wrong” are social constructs, witnessed in other species. Unless someone is going to go batsh*t crazy and argue that animals know right and wrong because they made the conscious decision to accept Christ into their lives, then I think the discussion is settled.
Christian H:
So it is ONLY social? And you derived this because you observed other species having a standard of right and wrong? Please enlighten me.
Christian H:
Let’s say that you are right though. Right and wrong are merely social constructs. Then right and wrong does not really exist. It is arbitrary. It is not a standard, but an agreement. It can be changed if the majority changes. If all of society agrees that it is okay to eliminate a group of people say… simply for their ethnic background, then that would be okay. Because nothing exists outside of society to dictate otherwise. Or like, in the past, when different cultures and societies deemed women inferior and treated them like servant dogs for sex, etc. then that was totally acceptable because that society said so.
Dave Muscato:
Christian, if I may, I can. Economic anthropology is what I’m in school to study (esp. the evolution of morality in cooperative species). In under 50 words, here is where right & wrong come from (it is an ongoing process), without hypothesizing a magical intelligent agent:
Natural selection favors cooperative animals over their non-cooperative competitors for resources because of economies of scale and gains-from-trade. Animals that work together are able to accomplish more, have a higher standard of living, and therefore provide for and ensure the survival of more offspring.
It’s really not that complicated. If you want to know more of the details, I recommend “The Evolution of Cooperation” by Robert Axelrod (NB it’s a little math-heavy) or one of my favorite books of all time, “The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation” by Matt Ridley:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Origins-Virtue-Instincts-Cooperation/dp/0140264450
Dave Muscato:
Stephen, right and wrong are not social constructs, unless you’re not drawing a distinction between non-human animal sociality and human sociality. There are solid biological foundations that cause them to arise in certain patterns, and we can predict those patterns by theoretical frameworks in game theory. Specific variations are culturally relative, but there are good, evolutionary-biology reasons for the universal traits we see in terms of right & wrong across all cultures.
Stephen A:
That’s what I meant by social construct. Thanks for explaining it better, Dave. (1 like)
C.S. (deleted post).
Dave Muscato:
Chantelle, it seems to me that you are trying to say that the lack of an *immutable* standard means that all standards are therefore arbitrary. This is a straw man and a non-sequitur. No one ever said that moral codes are arbitrary, just because they change over time. Quite the opposite, actually: They have a demonstrable, predictable biological basis. E.O. Wilson brought the term “sociobiology” to international attention in 1975 when he more-or-less founded the field of studying that basis, and there are thousands of scientists who have since made careers out of furthering our understanding of it. It’s not arbitrary.
C.S.:
Sorry i deleted that b/c my phone was behind the times. So why do we honor those who defend the weak or genetically inferior? Biologically speaking shouldn’t we admire those who snuff them out as that would improve the genetic code? Or rape is commonly disliked, but isn’t that just increasing the chances of the physically strong passing on genetic materials? & why do charitable deeds or try to cure chronic illnesses? Anyway you get the idea that there are many widely accepted morals that do not make sense biologically.
Dave Muscato:
Chantelle, read the book I linked to above. It will answer all of these kinds of questions and is a solid introduction for the layperson in beautifully readable language. You’re dipping your toe in an evolutionary subfield with a very academically-rich, 70-year history of solid research and excellent publications.
Stephen A:
Odd that you’d bring up rape as being deplorable, though, considering that the Christian moral tradition makes it clear where a woman’s place is.
Dave Muscato:
Indeed, until the 1970s, most states did not even consider spousal rape a crime. It wasn’t until 1993 that North Carolina became the last state to remove the spousal exemption. This was mostly based on the idea that married women are to be subservient to men in Abrahamic cultures, thanks to Bible verses like 1 Tim 2:13, 1 Corinthians 11:7-9, etc.
I will be expanding on some of the points raised in this thread in my next article, as well!
Regards,
Dave
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
Dave Muscato on Dr. Andrew Bernstein, Religion, and Morality
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Hello all,
I gave a talk, “Why Blasphemy Matters,” at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg on Monday (90 miles from Columbia). I look forward to giving the talk to more campus groups in the future. This was only the second time I’ve given that particular talk, and although I think it went well, I also think I can improve it. More about that another time: I found out that a philosopher named Andrew Bernstein would be in town the following evening giving a talk called “Religion vs. Morality.” I decided to stay in town an extra day so I could attend.
As it turns out, the Objectivist Club at UCM had scheduled a dinner with Dr. Bernstein before his 8 PM lecture, and I had the fortune of sitting next to him while we all ate. Dr. Bernstein, or Andy, teaches philosophy at SUNY Purchase. He is an objectivist and proponent of Ayn Rand’s work, as well as a philosopher (and novelist) in his own right. He’s written several books about capitalism, philosophy, and objectivism, lectures internationally, and he also wrote the Cliff’s Notes for Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.
Me with Andrew Bernstein (on left)
At dinner, topics ranged from the current crop of Republican candidates (he plans to vote for “whichever sorry candidate the Republicans nominate”) to how to get into grad schools (his advice: Where you studied isn’t as important as what you have to say). I told him that although one of my majors is economics, I really know relatively little about market forces, capitalism, international trade, finance, etc, compared to most econ majors. I’ve taken a few required courses in those sorts of things, but my interest is game theory. I study altruism and the evolution of morality, especially its interplay with the history of religion, using the tools from behavioral economics & economic modeling. I admitted that this was my first real exposure to what objectivism is all about. He told me that his talk is not about religion AND morality, but more specifically religion VERSUS morality: in his estimation, an either/or proposal. I thought, this should be interesting!
At 8 PM, I joined an auditorium of people on the UCM campus as Angel Munoz Gomez Andrade, the president of the Objectivist Club, introduced Bernstein. Watching Bernstein speak is a real treat: He has a thick New York accent and a raw, passionate tone. Throughout his speech, he spoke with his hands as much as with his voice. The way he rapped his fingertips on the podium, shifted his weight when weighing what to say next, and stood on his toes to emphasize his points immediately brought to mind Al Pacino’s passion and mannerisms. An audience member, during the Q&A, said that he, lacking a philosophy background himself, had trouble following Bernstein on some of the more complex philosophy, but I found myself having the opposite experience: I think Bernstein has a remarkable ability to take complex philosophical ideas and illustrate them with digestible examples in such a way that they are readily understandable [disclosure: I'm minoring in philosophy].
The purpose of Bernstein’s talk, as stated above, is to argue that religion and morality are fundamentally at odds. Religion, because it is necessarily founded upon faith, requires irrational thinking, which Bernstein argues necessarily leads humans away from our values, and results in nothing short of death. There are certainly historical examples of this — he mentioned faith healing a few times, and the abysmal life expectancy of the third-world versus the first-world today. He argued that morality is, in so many words, whatever helps living things achieve their values, which (objectivism argues) are necessarily dictated by nature. These values are neither subjective in the social-consensus sense, nor the individual “whim” sense, nor the religious sense (via sacred text or divine revelation). According to objectivism, we need only look to the facts of what nature has presented to us in order to determine our values: There is, in fact, no need for subjective disagreement on what we “should” value or strive toward, because nature has already spelled out for us what is good and what is bad, whether we consent to it or not. We are living creatures, and what is “good” is whatever promotes life, and what is “bad” is whatever does not.
Dr. Andrew Bernstein presenting on "Religion vs. Morality" at the University of Central Missouri
I’m reminded of Craig Palmer (Mizzou anthropologist) and Lyle Steadman’s (ASU professor emeritus) definitions concerning moral behavior for humans living in groups: Morality is roughly synonymous with pro-social behavior, and immoral behavior is roughly synonymous with antisocial behavior (see their 2010 book The Supernatural and Natural Selection: The Evolution of Religion). A human being in complete isolation is incapable of moral or immoral action, following this line of thinking: Anything s/he does is morally justifiable if it’s a means toward the end of his survival, by virtue of the very fact that lacking are any other living things to harm in the process.
Objectivism, as I understand it, has this to say about the matter: Natural selection has provided every living thing with some sort of tool (insofar as it is necessary, given its biological niche) to aid in its survival. For an elephant, that might be its massive size, thick hide, tusks, etc. For an elk, this might be its antlers and speed. For a tiger or wolf, claws & teeth. Nature has also “provided” (selected for) fur coats to protect some animals from cold climates. In the case of elephants, huge floppy ears are very important for temperature regulation: They have lots of surface area and LOTS of blood volume, such that the elephant can flap its ears to cool down the temperature of its blood, as another example.
What is “good” or “bad” when we’re talking about these animals behavior? Well, what’s “good” for a tiger or an elephant or mushroom or mosquito or bacterium is whatever aids it in its “mission” to survive and reproduce. Moral reflection or indeed consciousness at all is actually unnecessary for this. Any living thing will, quite naturally, do whatever it needs to do in order to survive and reproduce (else go extinct). What’s “good” is what leads toward this, and what’s “bad” is what leads away from this.
In the case of humans, natural selection actually took away our survival mechanisms (claws, sizable canine teeth, fur coats, etc) some time ago. Ancient primates gave up claws for nails a very long time ago (65-85 million years), and we still have a hint of canines and body hair, though nothing even close to that of our ancestors. What we do have, what nature has provided to us via selection, is something far more interesting, and far more useful, in exchange: rational, thinking brains. These are our survival tools. They allow us to innovate, to invent technologies, and to increase our efficiency. We don’t need claws; we have hand-axes (for an EXCELLENT discussion of the importance of hand-axes to human evolution, see Matt Ridley’s beautifully-written The Rational Optimist). As time went on, ancient humans further innovated to produce hafted axes (axes with handles), spears, arrowheads, and much later, metal bladed weapons, etc.
We don’t need costly (in terms of energy input/output and time invested) guts & digestive systems; we have fire. In fact, we are the only animals that cook our food: By doing so, we are basically outsourcing a large fraction of our ancestors’ digestive process. By investing fewer calories (less energy) in growing and maintaining a complex gut, natural selection was able to divert that energy into growing more complex brains, instead, and the process went ’round and ’round in a magnificent evolutionary upward spiral of exponential innovation. From controlled fire (and therefore bigger brains) came an increased ability to ward off predators and stay warm, especially at night (meaning even less need for caloric investment in muscle mass and large, powerful jaws, and less need for temperature regulation via thick body hair), which led to even more freed-up calories for investment in bigger brains, and so on and so on, until we get to anatomically modern humans some 200,000 years ago.
What’s “good” when it comes to humans specifically? According to my understanding of objectivism, it’s not determined by a god (divine command theory), nor by societal consensus (moral relativism), nor by the individual: Values are dictated to us by nature, intrinsic in the fact that we are living things. What’s “good” is whatever helps us get closer to living up to those values. Except for rare suicidal cases, humans (like all living things) naturally value survival, and except in (relatively) rare cases, humans (like all living things) naturally value reproduction. This is more-or-less a restatement of the biological imperative. According to objectivism, as I understand it, this is sufficient to resolve Hume’s is-ought problem. There are other proposed resolutions to this problem, for example, Sam Harris also claims that science [the application of reason to evidence] can answer moral questions in The Moral Landscape.
The argument for reason as the best tool for achieving human values (or any living thing’s values, for that matter), therefore, neatly falls into place. By rejecting all forms of irrationality — religion included — we are necessarily left with the path of least resistance toward the end of attaining that which [nature has determined] is of value to us. The application of reason, Bernstein argues, is the most efficient, healthiest, and most direct way to reach our goals. Since these goals are dictated by nature and emphatically not subjective, it is an open-and-shut case.
Religion, because it embraces faith (and is, by definition, irrational), is therefore directly at odds with life itself. According to Bernstein, “Religion is a philosophical system based in faith, not reason,” and it necessarily includes an unquestioning obedience to God. Religion views humans as sinful, and a failure to obey God is at the very core of what it means to be immoral, from the perspective of religion. This is so fundamental to the Abrahamic religions that it’s in fact the very basis of sin itself, illustrated by the Fall of Man.
As a student of anthropology, I strongly disagree with this definition of religion, although admittedly “religion” is notoriously difficult to define, and Bernstein was upfront about this being a purely working definition. Some religions (e.g. theistic Satanism) place zero emphasis on obedience to God or indeed encourage disobedience as permissible behavior. Note: I’m not talking about LaVey Satanism here; LaVey explicitly denounced “devil worship” or the idea of praying to Satan, and LaVey Satanists are generally atheists. In fact, atheistic Satanism can, I think, rightly be called “ethical egoism with ritual.” Other examples of religions lacking a necessity of obedience to “God” are Buddhism, Taoism, and many American Indian religions. In the case of Buddhism, the Eightfold Path is a rough stand-in for a revealed text from a god, and in the case of Taoism, the idea is to live in harmony with reality through compassion, moderation, and humility. Although supernatural elements are present in each system, a rule-giving god is conspicuously absent, and disobedience is not immoral per se.
Bernstein’s working definition of religion is sufficient for the Abrahamic religions in this context, but I don’t think he adequately makes the case against all religion, just religions that require obedience to a god (which, admittedly, is most of the ones we’re worried about in practice).
During the Q&A, an audience member asked if there was room for faith in any of this. He said that he is a farmer and gave the example of having faith that it will rain within a certain window of time when choosing exactly when to plant his crops. He cited weather patterns over the last few decades as informing his choice of when to plant. Bernstein rightly pointed out that the farmer, then, is not depending on faith — there is no supernatural element present there. I wanted to add to this that perhaps a better way to word it might be that the farmer doesn’t have faith that it will rain: He has confidence that it will, in the scientific sense (evidence informing probability). This is very, very different from trust (an emotion) and faith (non-evidence-based belief), and we should take care to correct people who use the word “faith” when they mean “confidence.” If evidence is leading to your belief, you are, by definition, confident. There’s a big difference, and I applaud Bernstein on pointing this out.
My other main objection is that Bernstein, while simultaneously praising Scandinavia’s rational, secular approach to the rejection of irrationality, doesn’t seem to give credit where credit is due with regard to the success they have had in the application of liberal-leaning public policy. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, etc has some of the healthiest people on the planet in terms of nutrition, lifespan, and other factors for which he earlier criticized the Dark Ages for lacking . Phil Zuckerman, in Society Without God: What The Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment, makes strong arguments for why life in Scandinavia is downright heavenly (har har) for rational people, and atheists especially: Aside from long lifespans, they have some of the lowest abortion rates, divorce rates, murder rates, illiteracy rates, corruption rates, etc. Yes, they have very high tax rates, but health care and college is accessible to anyone who wants it (as I understand it). Looking at GDP per capita, a favored metric by Bernstein (who quoted these figures several times throughout his talk), is not necessarily an optimal way to compare the living conditions in one country versus another. While after-tax income of course measures “lower” in countries with high tax rates (and I of course admit the obvious role Pigovian taxes play on disincentivizing innovation), if tax-funded services are provided in lieu of direct income, if this is not accounted for in one’s metric, an individual’s actual standard of living may be more-or-less unaffected, even as the GDP per capita falls. This is why other metrics have come into favor over GDP per capita, which is easier to calculate but provides less information about the overall picture. More informative metrics are, for example, the Gini coefficient (based on the Lorenz curve), the Human Poverty Index (a composite index which accounts for literacy, unemployment, probability of falling below the poverty line, and the probability, at birth, of surviving to age 60), among others. GDP per capita as a metric, perhaps most importantly, only very weakly accounts for life satisfaction and experienced utility (see my previous article on welfare economics here).
I strongly agree with Bernstein’s overall message that religion and morality cannot peaceably coexist. In the words of Sam Harris, “The problem of faith is that it is a conversation-stopper. As long as you don’t have to give reasons for what you believe, you have effectively immunized yourself against the power of human conversation. You hear religious people say things like, ‘There’s nothing that can be said that will change my mind.’ Just imagine that said in medicine. If there’s nothing that can be said that will change your mind, if there’s no evidence or argument that can be educed, that proves that you are not any state of the world into account in your beliefs. The problem with this is that when the stakes are high, we have a choice between conversation and violence.” Bernstein made essentially the same point in his talk, that giving credibility to faith necessarily results in an irreconciliable struggle for (theoretically!) rational animals like us.
Bernstein is a strong public speaker, a good conversationalist, and extremely knowledgable in his field. I recommend him to any campus group interested in guest lectures about objectivism, reason/rationality, or why religion is harmful to societies.
Until next time!
- Dave
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Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
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Review: “What Darwin Got Wrong,” part 2
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The first chapter of WDGW lays out the structure of the so-called ‘modern synthesis,’ which construes natural selection as a two part, single dimensional process: First, genetic mutations arise randomly; second, external environmental factors ‘select’ phenotypes. The authors bring evidence from genetics to bear on this model. They argue that the internal elements of the process are hardly random, and that much of the evolutionary process rides on non-random internal constraints at the genetic level.
Much of the support for their claims comes in the form of quotes from contemporary geneticists, to the effect that much of the ‘filtering’ occurs internally, rather than externally through the organism’s environment. They likewise criticize the idea that variations in one trait are independent from heritable variations in other traits, arguing instead that the packaging of traits within the chromosome is messily interconnected (this is my poor attempt at a summary).
The authors spend much time discussing evolutionary development, or evo-devo. I found some of this discussion fascinating, particularly regarding the idea that entire life cycles are the the objects of evolutionary forces, not merely the adult forms. Rather than the organism’s adult form being the primary phenotype that undergoes selective pressures, evo-devo regards each developmental step as part of the filtering process, from the fertilized egg to the adult.
Much of the material in chapter one is technical, and I found it rather difficult to follow. I’ve re-read it several times, but I still do not grasp all of the arguments.
Chapter two zooms out, so to speak, from gene complexes to entire genomes and more complex systems. The authors continue to emphasize the role internal constraints play in the evolutionary process. They point to the robustness of ‘master genes’ and gene networks, which offer alternative explanations for evolutionary change. Rather than the random phenotype generation plus external filter model, they push a model of shifting internal networks and structures not easily influenced by the environment to any great degree. They take the primary targets of their criticism to be gradualism and adaptationism, of which I know Dawkins and Dennett are champions. I’ll say more about chapters two and three in the next post.
Review – “What Darwin Got Wrong”, Part 1
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Skepticism can be a painful disposition to maintain. A skeptic’s normal relationship with Darwin, evolution, and natural selection, is one of endorsement, and of defense against the creationist masses. However, in order to truly maintain a consistently skeptical disposition, one must be willing to entertain rational challenges to any belief, even those in which one is most confident. That is why I decided to read “What Darwin Got Wrong“, by Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini (not to be confused with Massimo Pigliucci, of Rationally Speaking !)
My formal education in biology extends only through high school, the one ichthyology course I (mistakenly) took my freshman year of college, and the physical anthropology course I took Junior year. My understanding of the necessary concepts is amateur at best. I am capable of defending the theory from creationist attacks, and of explaining the basics throughout. Despite this relative ignorance of the fine details, I endorse the theory of evolution by natural selection with a great degree of confidence. I decided to challenge my confidence in the theory by reading Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini’s book. I’ll begin this review with some background about the authors.
Jerry Fodor is a great and powerful analytic philosopher at Rutgers. He has contributed immensely to the fields of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. If you’ve heard of the modularity of mind, or the language of thought hypothesis, then you have encountered his work. He is known for his audacious challenges to commonly assumed positions. When I read his work, I begin with a resolve to find his errors, but I end by begrudgingly admitting, “this shit makes a lot of sense, actually.”
I have never heard of Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini before. If he had written this book by himself, I would not have given it a second thought. I’m sure the publishers felt the same way. Piattelli-Palmarini (this last name is a pain to type) is a professor of cognitive science at the University of Arizona. I know what you’re thinking. “Neither of these guys is a biologist! Who are they to challenge a biological theory?” P-P was originally a biophysicist and molecular biologist, or so says the book’s front cover.
This book presents a challenge to the mechanism, natural selection, Darwin proposed in his theory of evolution. The challenge is two-pronged. In the first prong, Part 1 of the book, contemporary science from molecular biology and genetics is used to evaluate the explanatory power of natural selection. The second prong, Part 2 of the book, is slated to be an analysis of the very concepts involved in natural selection; it is an examination of the logical basis of the theory, and a challenge to its rational coherence. By my lights, Part 1 is mostly P-P, and Part 2 is Fodor’s gig.
Not having a vibrant understanding of genetics and molecular biology, my review of these parts (‘Part 1: What Darwin Got Wrong’) will be weak, and mostly summary. I hope that by presenting the material, some of you who are familiar with molecular biology and genetics may assist me in evaluating it.
However, I am looking forward to reviewing Part 2, ‘The Conceptual Situation,’ because I do have some skill when it comes to analytic philosophy, and I should like to both practice those skills, and perhaps share the methods of analytic philosophy with my fellow skeptics.
Over the next few weeks, perhaps with some irregularity due to paper deadlines and the grading of exams, I hope to proceed through the book and share my progress with you guys. The book is a philosophical and scientific challenge to a position of which I am rarely skeptical. To me, skepticism is all about honest and relentless inquiry, and the willingness to put any belief, or set of beliefs, to the test. It may sting a little.
Here is a philosophy battle between Fodor and Elliott Sober concerning Fodor’s book.
P.S. – Fodor and P-P are both hardass atheists who don’t take any shit when it comes to woo-woo, so you can forget about dismissing them on grounds of religious-bias.
-Seth Kurtenbach
